Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Public Safety And Neighborhood Services Committeee 20240712

Physically presentment Public Comment will be available for each item on this agenda. There a Public Comment callin number across your screenful your opportunity to speak and speak during Public Comment speder available via phone by calling 4156550001. Once youre 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 youve 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 emailing me, the clerk of the Public Safety neighbourhood and services committee. My email address is john. Carroll sfgov. Org. If you submit Public Comment via email ill include your commentary as part of the legislationive file, whichever youre 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 supervisors 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 type21 offsale 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 4156550001. 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, well go to Public Comment. Yeah, im here. We signed the conditions and we sent it out to the abc. Ok. Thank you. Lets 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 youre 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 4156550001 and then by entering the meeting i. D. Of 1469328582 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 persons 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 4156550001. 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 youve 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. Im a legislative aide and im 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, ab5050 to address this issue. We subsequently merged with 807075 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 911 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 its 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 ill 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 weve 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 cant 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 dont want them to face a higher price and that was kind of a problematic a really problematic point were addressing in this legislation. There were other really key parts in the legislation. This morning ill 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 im 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 twoyear flash point has become relevant in a few other context. Whether thats shared spaces, fee waivers. Whether thats prop s. That twoyear recovery thing is reflected in a lot of other policies and im 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, ill stop talking or at the chairs recommendation, i will walk through the amendments, or i can do that after Public Comment. Why dont 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 restaurants 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 mayors supplemental declaration and the understanding there being that 15 has actually been working for most of the restaurants that were 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, weve issued weve included a variety of options. Whether that is an individual whose name is in the written agreement with the restaurant. I think the bestcase scenario is its an easy Customer Service point of contact in the app itself. Or the agent on the california secretary of states website. I think amendments on page bottom of the page 7 are nonsubstantive, 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 were 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. Ive 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, 4156550001. When prompted, you would then enter the meeting id of 1469328582, 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 im a legislative policy advisor at a San Franciscobased 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 pickup 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 pickup, 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 restaurants 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 pickup 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 mayors 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 longerterm 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 twoyear 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 im 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 im 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. Its hard to describe how devastating the pandemic has been for our Small Businesses and for our small restaurants, and in many cases its 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 were hoping very much that you will pass this. And as a final note, you know, i just want to say, everybodys being very diplomatic and thats 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, youre in the queue. Great. I do have a question, and its based on enforcement in penalties. It looks like thats in section 53089 c , and im looking at the penalty amounts, and it looks like its 1,000 per violation, and im wondering if thats not enough and how you came up how we decided on that amount, and i ask because we know that weve had penalties in other ordinances that didnt 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 im 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 were hoping is that, you know, we can reach an agreeable point with thirdParty 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 weve really been kind of focusing on something that people can comply with. Im 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 ive heard, it really paints a deceptively rosy picture of the state of our restaurants. Like our Small Businesses, neighborhoodserving 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 dont 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 ive 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 antigouging controls in place is incredibly necessary, and i would like to be added as a cosponsor. 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 dont 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 peskins 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 frontline 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, 4156550001, enter the meeting id for todays meeting, 1469328582, 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 safais. Why dont we recess for five minutes and get supervisor safai over here. And so well, lets say well be back at 10 55. 10 55. The. We are reconvened. Item 4 has been called. This is supervisor safais 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 todays hearing is about we have been going through this crisis, as all of you know, for the past eight months, and theres been a lot of conversation at this committee and at the board of supervisors and with the department of Public Health talking about our frontline 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 hasnt been a lot of conversation really about private sector essential frontline 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 frontline workers have a story to tell, and they have questions to ask, and they would like to see what the citys response is as it pertains to private sector frontline workers. Today were joined by jim araby from local 5 that works with our retail clerks and frontline essential workers in Grocery Stores all across the city. They are joined by siu local 87, janitor. Were going to hear from vicepresident theresa rutherford. We are also joined by local 2015, daisy mccarthy, inhome health care workers, support service workers. We will hear from [indiscernible] 15, multiple sclerosis kayla samborn hums, and shes going to talk about some of the experience of workers at mcdonalds, along with we drive progress, mckayla edwards, a gig driver, talking about the treatment that she has and her experiences. Were also asked the department of Public Health to come and present, as well as the office of labor standards and enforcement. So were 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, covid19 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 nations 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 dont 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 im talking about, as ive mentioned today, are our frontline essential workers. And so we have, as i said, we have antors, Grocery Store clerks, service providers, weve asked all of them to come today, share their story and ask questions. So were going to start with mr. Pat mulligan, the director of the office of and standards. Well have him speak, and after well have the principal environmental inspector from the department of Public Health go, and then well hear from the respective folks in the different groups that ive mentioned. Before director mulligan starts, because there are so many speakers for this hearing, which is important, we have worked with supervisor safais office to agree on some time constraints, and so director mulligan, i think you should be aware that were going to ask you to keep your remarks to eight minutes or fewer and a little alarm will go off, and if youre 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 its 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 Franciscos 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 Franciscos Health Care Security ordinance, paid parental leave ordinance and retail employee rights ordinance as well as many others. Many of the laws apply citywide 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 Franciscos Health Care Accountability ordinance, San Franciscos 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 Franciscos 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 complaintbased. Typically the complaint is made to our office. There is an initial assessment and intake of those within one business day. So thats typically same day or within 24 hours, depending on weekends or public holidays. Theres additionally there is some assessment complaints come in from outside San Francisco, people trying to assert that, you know, San Franciscos paid sick leave law in alameda law or san mateo, certainly its not within our jurisdiction, and theres always special circumstances. Once weve determined that there is potential violation, well initiate a comprehensive investigation and audit that would be businesswide, and with a threeyear audit period for those periods. At that point we would make a determination for penalties and restitution. Employersupported 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 todays hearing, San Franciscos 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 Franciscos Public Health emergency leave ordinance, the employee protection ordinance, health 10 requirements for specified covid19 essential service contracts, and covidrelated employment protection ordinance, and then also as youre 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 thats my summation. Thank you, supervisors. Thank you. Mr. Mull began, director mulligan, you can just hang tight because were going to have questions. So the next person that were 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 cant hear you. Youre on mute. Oh, i hi, sorry about that. Youre going first, jessica . Present is can i share my screen . Okay. Great. And again, were 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 covid19 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 covid19 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 covid19 in workplaces. The hub has been very busy since march following up on workplace exposures, meaning when someone who tested positive for covid19 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 covid19, 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. Thats 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, returntowork 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 shelterinplace 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 selfreporting and on other local Health Jurisdictions reporting about their residents. Im 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 14day 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 Frontline 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 industryspecific 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, ill 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 theres 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 twosecond 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 thats an underreported 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 frontline 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, whats 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 didnt 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 dont 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 noncompliance 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. Were [indiscernible] jessicas 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 jessicas group is teaching or explaining to you and receive all their documentation, but unless youre actually implementing it, it doesnt 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 havent 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 havent been out of this. We are boots on the ground. We are in those same locations with all these essential workers, so theres 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 im sure well hear more of that from the frontline 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. Thats part of jessicas group. Now were not talking about someone complaining. This is a labtested, confirmed, covidpositive case. For all the reasons i mentioned earlier where you really need someone at the facility because they are not cookie cutter, the information jessicas 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, were talking about referrals from the Community Mitigation center, were 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 were the familiar people because we do their food safety, but were 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 ill 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. Youre on mute. Thank you. No, i dont have any additional presentations, but i am here to answer questions if thats helpful. Okay. Well, yes, please. We will there will be questions. Okay, so were going to start with the first speaker, the president of sciu local 87, also the secretary treasury of the San Francisco labor council, if shes online. And i think were asking the remainder of the speakers to try to keep themselves to four minutes, if they can. Yeah. Thats right. Hello . Oh, there she is. Can you guys see me . Well, what a great morning. What a great way to start the day. Im 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 couldnt speak, at least they could get behind me when im 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 its 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 were going to be doing a commemoration of ten of our members that have already passed away in the industry. Its not something that we wear the crown or something were 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 cant 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 cant tell you how challenging and difficult its been that my position as a labor president has evolved into also helping families plan for the whatifs 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. Its embarrassing that the majority of the covid19 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 its 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 wont 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. Youre 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. Its 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, weve 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 19yearold 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 40yearold man will come in and will deny the imposition of the mask and feel like were putting them like were impacting their freedom to choose to come in or not. And so thats 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, theres 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 daytoday 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 unionrepresented trust funds and statewide, 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 didnt even understand that they had the access to these laws and to these benefits, and thats only union members, and so the union, were 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 nonunion, and so they dont even have an organization for themselves to advocate, and so its really important i think for policymakers 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 its a big issue. As we think about moving ahead, i think theres 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 thats 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 noncompliant employers that dont do this. We feel like were 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 theres 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 thats lucky state part in the area. They are continuing to pay in addition to their hourly rate, and i think thats an important thing. The final thing i would say is its also the impact on the Business Models that the covid crisis has had. More and more people, its interesting to hear last agenda item, because it relates. More and more people are relying on grocery delivery because they dont 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 dont make that and dont have the benefits. Thats the other thing we have to contend with as we think about the change in behavior as it relates to this covid crisis. Thats sort of a general idea of whats 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 havent had as many, but across the country there have been a lot. Just to put that in context, theres 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. Were going to call the next speaker. The next speaker we have is vicepresident 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, its a righteous cause. Its a just cause. Essential workers, you know, whether youre 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 supermarkets, we are the workers at mcdonalds. We are the workers at uber. We are the workers who are keeping this economy going, and were the answer to reopening this economy. And so as we look at this, also lets remember that as we talk about racism and we talk about systemic disparages, lets 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 were going to bring that virus home to harm our families, and its 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 were 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 were 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. Olgas team should not have to be fighting with an employer for that. Thats just basic humanity. Lets 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 mcdonalds workers doesnt 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 dont protect the people who do the work, we are all going to go down the same path. Its 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. Lets [indiscernible] make sure that whether workers are in the private sector or the Public Sector that they are treated with dignity, with respect, and lets treat every worker with value. If we are fighting racism, lets fight [ alarm ]. Lets 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 were going to call is ms. Kayla samborn hums. Shes going to read the system of a mcdonalds 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. Ill 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 carls 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, covid19 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 fastforward 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. Carls jr. Has also created a culture of abuse and retaliation that has forced my coworkers to stay silent about having to work sick, work unpaid through breaks and being too afraid to request sick pay. While many of my coworkers 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 coworkers pull down their masks to breathe. This puts us, our families and vulnerable populations, including our homeless customers, at increased risk for covid19. 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 coworkers and i felt like we were going to pass out. I also share how throughout the pandemic carls 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 mcdonalds 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 covid19 because the companies we work for dont feel like they have to follow the rules. Together we can hold large employers, like carls jr. And mcdonalds, accountable. I hope that our work today doesnt 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. Inhome 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. Youre 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 eboard of local 2015, and also im 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 cant 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 covid19 test. There are places, but they have to work because if they dont they cant 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 highrisk client. He is 99 years old. I know other workers that are taking care of very highrisk clients. I know workers that have to go way far away to take the covid19 test. We need easy access to those tests. Im 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 Authoritys doing a great job. You have to make an appointment. We go tuesdays or fridays. Some of them cant get there on time. So im 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 inhome health care support. Okay, the next person were 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. Thats okay. My name is messed up all the time. Im sorry. Safai. Close. Please start her time now. Thank you. So my name, again, my name is Michaela Edwards and im a driver for uber. Ive been driving for over a year and a half, and im 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 theyd 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 didnt know how atrisk 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 covid19, i had a 15 chance of dying. I am now in selfisolation and unable to work. Ive 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 im 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 fulltime. 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 lets be clear about one thing, proposition 22 wasnt written for the wellbeing 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 dont 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 wouldnt 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 hardworking 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 were 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, im 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 were 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 youre a you are a complaintdriven department. That is the main function of the office of labor standards enforcement. You dont 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 ondemand Delivery Services and ride share employment and kind of redefined the nature of employment under that ordinance. Even though our enforcement is complaintbased 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 gigbased 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, theres no such requirement. No, right, im talking about we have pretty clear rules when it comes to our public employees. Even then weve had to push hard to make sure that everything is appropriately delivered and provided, and i think weve done a pretty good job of that here in San Francisco. Theres always room for improvement. But what ive heard today from janitors, from Grocery Store clerks, from gig drivers, from inhome 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. Thats 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] thats 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. Theyre not required to provide a doctors notice or formal justification. It could be used for matters of taking care of a child who cant attend or school or a Family Member affected by this in some other manner. Right. Im aware of that. I was one of the original cosponsors on that. What im 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 gigbased 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 youve done, any followup that youve 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 were constantly enforcing. And it just changes. Now its a paramount enforcement, as is the Health Care Security ordinance, access to health care. With the sick leave i will say weve 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. Ill add that 15 of our budget is dedicated to communitybased organizations, solely for the purposes of worker outreach, with a focus on nonenglishspeaking, multilingual and immigrant workers in San Francisco. With regards to the actions, i dont 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 theyre having problems with accessing some of the rights that have been afforded to them by emergency order or previous legislation that weve 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 mcdonalds . No. That was carls jr. Supervisor safai oh, got it. Okay. Thank you. Maybe we can ask d. P. H. The question about personal protective equipment then. Ill come back to you, director mulligan. Thank you, supervisor. I dont 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 whats 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 ill 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 im 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 theres a group within d. P. H. I can provide you with that their email address. I dont have it at my fingertips. If anyone in San Francisco doesnt have the resources to provide the p. P. E. , especially face coverings for their workers, i think theres a huge stockpile that the city does control, the mwere musconi center. Thats accessible to any Small Business in San Francisco. Supervisor safai heres 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 dont, you know, we need to have what the proper channel is if theyre not doing it or theyre making it a cumbersome to access or theyre not providing enough. You know, were talking about frontline janitors, were talking about frontline 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 were talking about. Has your office gotten complaints, have people contacted you from the Respective Industries . If they havent, its probably a matter of them knowing how to contact with complaints, so that you all can follow up. Sure. I think theres 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 theyre not provided the proper p. P. E. , its a violation on the agency. So in that way, the indirect way we can play a role and call that out, whatever Small Business doesnt isnt providing enough or sufficient masks for the workers. Supervisor safai i think most of the people today are not working for Small Businesses. Theyre 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. Weve had a minority of complaints with the workers. They said they werent provided p. P. E. When we show up, like i said, in every case we showed up, they had masks. But if theres a violation only that it wasnt 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, were trying to build partnerships with the people who control the business, be it big business or Small Business. Supervisor safai right. Theres 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 youre coming, that everyone will be provided with something at that point. But usually what youre responding to is something happening prior to you being there. How do you deal with that . Yeah, i dont disagree with how you depicted it. Again our role is indirect. In some ways, you know, the focus of protecting the public, thats why we need everyone in that business to wear a mask. I guess we dont bifurcate the enforcement. To us thats one entity. It is disappointing to hear that there seems to be this back and forth between employer and employee. But when were going there, were trying to uplift that whole business in terms of education and the necessary enforcement. But i guess i dont 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 thats the issue. Supervisor safai do you require them to show you, okay, in this particular building theres lets just say, for example, theres 50 janitors or this particular spot theres 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 youre like, okay, great. Everyone is wearing a mask. Im not saying thats what you do. Im asking you to go a little bit deeper. Do you ask them to prove that theyre actually able to consistently provide p. P. E. . Yeah. I think its somewhere in between the two extremes you depicted. If, for example, you see that theres 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 checkout policy . I want to be honest with you. That doesnt always theres a lot of other things were looking on the check list for covid inspection. But if, in fact, that dialogue leads to, you know, it can be a domino effect. Its 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. Were given masks, but we you know, we dont 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 weve come to work three days a week, they didnt provide us p. P. E. We dont feel safe. Theyre not giving us access to y, xand z, wouldnt 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 thats a very reasonable suggestion. I think, you know, its something that we should and probably will incorporate into an investigation of the similar nature in the future. Supervisor safai okay. You guys dont get into any of the sick leave conversations, because thats really what olsc does . Correct. Were 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 thats 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 were talking about more than just restaurants here today. Were 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 didnt 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 jessicas 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, weve always found that its 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 thats 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 theyve 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 weve done a phenomenal job in the city. We need to do better, obviously always. Weve done a good job of making testing accessible. But can you talk about the access to testing and those that again were talking about, you know, someone that has to be up to a 9 00 until 5 00, someone thats coming into the workplace, franciscan frontline essential worker. We did the mandatory 80 hours of sick leave. They have the ability. But then theyre like, well, i dont know where to get tested. How can i get tested. Is there any requirement on the employer to facilitate access to testing . Its 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 were talking about isolation or quarantine, based off science, we dont 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 were pretty comfortable that people know about the various places they can get tested. But when were there and were having the dialogue with the operator, a lot of times were talking about the time restrictions. We just dont want them to get confused, meaning theyre cleared. They have got a passing test. We want them to be informed of the safety requirements, based off time. Supervisor safai okay. I dont 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. Im 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, whats 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 were seeing cases in the city overall. So its not a shocking map to look at, because its 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 weve seen large numbers cases likely due to that being one of the primary Frontline Industries that opened up after food service workers. And i anticipate, as more Industries Open up, well 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 its been mentioned that many of the frontline 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 frontline workers from Latinx Community and other communities with higher rates of test positivity. And so i think its intersectional risk as well that we see. And it really requires an intersectional response, which i think were doing at d. P. H. , where theres a neighborhood response plan. Theres outreach to different communities. And theres outreach to the general public, because essential workers are not only working, theyre getting exposed at home and in their communities potentially as well. So hopefully that answers your question. Yeah. And i guess youre not i mean, what you didnt 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. Its one of the areas where we get more proactive reporting, even though its 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 thats a trend that, you know, as Industries Open up, employers learn more and become more proactive in their mitigation response. Thats 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 theyre fairly theyre really low. And yet were 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 dont know, i see the numbers together and you get something in the 60s, low 70s. 2 seems like were still like missing a whole lot of were not were not running everything aground and getting into contact with everybody after, you know, after transmission. I guess im wondering like how you know, whats that going to look like . Thats more problematic if our cases start surging again. I mean, now would be the moment and thats 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 were 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 doesnt seem like our numbers are vast. It seems like our numbers are we will mitigate a surge when it happens somewhat. But we arent doing tracking and tracing. Im not a doctor. You guys tell me. It doesnt seem like were doing tracking and tracing at a level where were going to be able to snuff out little fires if they pop up. Do you want to comment on that . Sure, if thats all right, supervisor mandelman, ill 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 peoples 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 were 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 theyre essential workers. It is a combination of things. As dr. Blum says, its 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 theres 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 youre 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 6550001. Then by entering the meeting i. D. Of 146, 932 8582 and pressing the pound symbol twice. Youll 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 youre doing that, ill 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 im very interested on this topic. And im 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 theyre 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 shouldnt 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 nonprofits and others to do the communication so that everybody every essential worker gets a mask. I dont 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 frontline workers saying theyre having problems in the workplace. And theyve been battling with their employers. And the other side of the coin from Public Health saying that they really havent heard that much. Theyve 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 theres 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 theyre only at 80 followup. Around the globe is higher as we said. Weve 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 didnt 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 theres 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 dont have further questions. I think it was important to have this conversation. I think that were 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 were 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 thats 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 lets see what kind of progress weve 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 6550001. Enter todays 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 cosponsor 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 dont 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, theyre putting their own lives at risk and theyre 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, its something thats bock plague many neighborhoods in San Francisco, not just the excelsior or outer mission. I believe thats why my cosponsors supervisor walton and supervisor peskin signed on so quickly. Because this is something that has seen a major increase in covid. Many people call shes sideshows. And there are some that have said potentially lets look for a way to make these safe. And im 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 its 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 weve done is weve looked at the state vehicle code. Theres some existing laws that are on the books. And weve 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. Its 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 thats safe or will be tolerated in their communities. So ill just say that. In this legislation, essentially what we do is we say that were going to, for the first offense, mandatory that a car, anyone thats 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 its 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 its in the wee hours of the night. Often times its at midnight, 1 00 and imagine being in your home and all of a sudden theres 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, im here to say that this is not something that will be tolerated. Were 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 hell 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 were going to do everything we can to stop these sideshows. Weve been having conversations with m. T. A. About trafficcalming 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 were 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 well 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 cant 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 hightraffic 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 burmans death, because its 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 isnt 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 dont 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 safais 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. Im 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 cosponsor. 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 21yearold male suffered fatal gunshot wounds to his head, while the others were transported to the hospital, local hospital with nonlifethreatening 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 well 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, weve 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. Its been said that these events are happening all over the bay area actually. Weve learned some lessons from other jurisdictions and cities that have had to deal with this. We want to incorporate those into our response. And weve done that. Weve 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. Weve done that and resulted in citations and impounds. Its also resulted in opensource social media, some of these participants saying,. Commissioner haney , San Francisco is now responded to these much more effectively and much quicker. Thats 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 ill come back to the chief then. I had a couple of things. Yeah, lets go to Public Comment. Thats 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. Youll 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 6550001. 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 im 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 Franciscos black, brown and working class communities. Stunt driving has been a part of the bay area and oaklands culture for decade. Theres 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 nextdoor app and not on how to be better nextdoor neighbors. Again im 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 arent 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, were not concerned about whether or not maybe people selling cannabis on the street might have been involved in gangrelated 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 covid19. Especially now that Public Transportation is a lot worse. These neighborhoods you mentioned, the bayview, Public Transportation there is not good. So taking somebodys car away in those neighborhoods is a major especially if its somebody who needs to go to work and they dont have a car anymore. Now what are they going to do . How is this fixing any problems . It seems like its 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. Its effectively a civil asset forfeiture. And weve 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 dont 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. Its warranted. Dangerous activities. Weve 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 5530123. I certainly hope in the future well be able to call and get prompt response. Everybody in our neighborhood im 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. Im 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 were trying to send a message, i think the message has already been sent by the call to 911. It doesnt seem very necessary. And its just another attempt to overcriminalize black and brown people in the district. I feel sorry fort person who doesnt feel comfortable Walking Around the neighborhood in district 11. I dont believe that the sideshows themselves are the issue. In the end its 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, its pushing people unnecessarily in an overreach over wanted manner and i dont think think this is reasonable whatsoever. Thank you. Next speaker. Im theodore, resident of excelsior, and im 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. Theyre 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 communitydriven. 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 theyve 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 Peoples 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. Lets keep that in mind. Lets 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 theyre a nurse coming home from a long shift and they cant get to their house for an hour because someone is doing this sideshow. When i hear someone driving their senior parent home because theyre trying to get them drugs at the drugstore or groceries and they cant get into their home or got trapped into one of these. This is not about overpolicing. 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 ive lived in this neighborhood. We are responding and were responding with a strong message. As supervisor walton said, we want people to understand this is not okay. This is not safe. We dont want to take anybodys car. We dont want to seize anybodys car for any amount of time, but if you continue to do this by the way, people are coming from sacramento, san jose, theyre coming from all over the bay area because theyve been invited on social media as part of this organizing tool to come conduct this activity in San Francisco. So im sorry. If you do that, and you participate in that, and you endanger peoples safety and your own, if we have the evidence and preponderance of evidence, were 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 247 and has had several complaints from black people, this is not an antiblack law. This is a law that protects all. So i love when people try to call in and say theyre 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 were 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 weve 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 cant 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 247, and we dont want this in your neighborhood. I have emails, phone calls, that we need to stop this. This is one of the things that [inaudible] this pandemic and this crisis that im 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 lifethreatening. And the events that happen in my district i dont believe were anything near what is happening in supervisor walton and safais 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 thats somehow social justice, thats 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, ill move to forward this to the full board. Supervisor safai no. Thank you for your support. I dont know i just want to be respectful. I know the chief had to leave. I dont 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, youre 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 arent 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 dont 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. Its 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. Its 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 dont 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 youre 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, im 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 dont know. I would agree with that. Leaving it the way it is . Yes, and revisiting if we have to. Got it. Okay. Thats 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 dont 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 ill 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. Hell oh everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. Well, covid has changed our lives. The fact it is has changed how we go to work, how we go to restaurants, how we interact with each other but this year will change how we vote. We want to make sure here in San Francisco, we make it as simple as possible. Im excited to be here to announce that although we cant do what weve done in the past, and provide early voting in city hall, we are going to be doing early voting right outside on grove street in what looks like a Beautiful Party at the present time. I want to thank the department of elections, and he will talk about more about exactly the steps that his team has taken to ensure that we not only make voting accessible, we make it safe. We want to make sure that people feel comfortable if they need to vote early. They can come to this Voting Center and it will be opening on monday. If they want to vote on election day or drop off their ballots on election day, well have 588 locations all over the city. And, what is dont be alarmed if you dont receive your ballot you wont be able to vote. This department of elections has received everything. If you didnt receive it in the mail can you provide replacement ballots. If you are going out of town and you need a ballot mailed to a different location, theres a system in place to do just that. For whatever reason, you are not certain or uncomfortable accessing a paper ballot, theres just a lot of options. Theyve been sending things in the mail, sending things online to say our goal is to make this as easy as possible. In the last president ial election, sa san franciscans tud out in record number. It was a 80 turnout. In 2008, it was 81 . This is a city that prides ourselves on making sure our voices are heard. Were not going to covid stop us from making sure that you have access to vote in San Francisco at your convenience. Im excited and i know that theres a lot of confusion out there but this department of election has done everything it can to make sure that its easy to call the department of elections, call 311, go online if you need information for where to pick up a ballot or a replacement ballot. We thought of everything. So, theres no excuse for anyone in this city who is a registered voter not to vote. And in addition to that, if you are not registered to vote, and you would like to register to vote, you have until october 19th. So, make sure that you take the opportunity to go online and this center is open and you can come here and register to vote and you can vote on the same day. In addition to the dress up locations on election day, and this Voting Center right across the street from city hall, we will have a number of of drop off ballot locations the weekend before election day. Linda brooks Burton Library and the branch library. Because again, were trying to make it easy as possible and its ballots inperson or on election day. If you need more information, please visit the department of elections website at spelections. Org. Call 311 or call 415 5544375. So with that, i just want to again thank everyone for their cooperation, the work they do. I really want to express a special thank you so john arts and the department of elections staff because they have been working very hard to make sure that no question is unanswered. Anything or any scenario that could occur, they wanted to make sure they were prepared to support and address the public. And they work with the number Great Community organizations and to get out the vote and some of those organizations are with us today, including George Chance from the chinese Newcomer Service center, jackie flynn, the ex you director of and these are organizations who make sure that communities all over San Francisco have accessed to vote. And we appreciate the work that theyve done for many, many years. I also want to thank martha cohen, the director of special events, for taking such time and care with creating a warm and inviting space. Thank you, martha for your work. And with that, i want to turn it over to our special guest, joining us here today, you probably recognize him because the tallest person here. Our state senator, scott wiener. Thank you, madam mayor. And i also want to thank martha and also our department of elections and john arts for once again really stepping up to make sure that san franciscans can vote and vote easily. Thats one of our core values in San Francisco that we want people to vote and we want to make it easier for people to vote so i have complete confidence in our department of elections that we will run a beautiful election here and that we will it will just be a really strong showing and a really difficult period of time. This is a partnership between the state and our counties including San Francisco we took action at the state level to people being able to vote during a pandemic and we authorized global vote by mail o so everyone gets a ballot even if you are not signed up as a permanent absentee and not put barriers in order to get an absentee ballot and normally, it has to be post marked byelection day and i do want to ask people please, try not to rely on post marking on election day and sometimes you can mail it after whatever the pick up is at that particular box and there are unfortunately thousands of ballots each time where people just mail it too late in the day. It doesnt get post marked. Make sure you are going to mail it, please, troy t try to mail tractortrailer dait theday bef. Even if theres a problem with the post office, which i dont think there will be. You have plenty of time if you mail it right up to election day. It has 17 days to a arrive instead of three and that is a huge change in stay law that weve made to just make sure that every ballot can be counted. What this is really about is auctions. We want people to make choices that work for them and people can drop it off in different locations and of course, we have absolutely amazing voting facility here which will respond to our health needs in terms of allowing people to show up and vote safely. And to be able to do it efficiently. The capacity here, as you can see, is huge. Its going to start on monday and also be opening two weekends before the election. Were making it so easy for people to vote in a way that works for them and their family and their own health situation. I have a digital town hall last week with our secretary of state, alex padilla and with con on cause and a representative of the American Postal Workers Union and she was very, very clear that she has confidence that the mail is going to work well for this election. Despite some of the turbulence we were saying, theyve been able to move through that and she assured us our postal workers, who are some of our front line essential workers, who are putting themselves out there during this pandemic so we can do what we need to do as eye society theyre going to work incredibly hard and they will deliver the mail and people can have confidence in the mail. So, again, thank you, madam mayor, thank you to our department of elections and lets just run a great election as always. Thank you. And now, i want to invite up our director of elections, john arts. Thank you, senator werent. Thank you mayor breed and also for organizing this event. This is a great timing for an event like this, just before early voting begins. Early voting will begin october 5th here at the Voting Center located outside bill graham auditorium. This is an example of the mayor and the senator wiener have indicated and the department and city have take ep steps to make sure that voting is safe and healthy experience for all voters in San Francisco. The ballots we mailed actually tomorrow and voters will start receiving ballots on saturday and then theyll most will receive ballots on monday going through the election week. We have a full compliment of polling polic Police Station ple want to drop off or they dont want to mail their ballot back, just before elections day, is they are outside the voting area so voters dont have to go mud the voting area. They decrease the amount of traffic that voters would experience at election day. And everything that weve done since really the end of the march election going through the cycle for november, has been to plan in relation to conduct an election, while trying to respond to a pandemic. So everything that is happening here at bill graham auditorium, is organized so that people can maintain social distancing and theres ppes that our personnel are wearing and useing and the public has provided ppe and Hand Sanitizers and sanitizing wipes, face shields and things like that and the same for the polling places. The voters and coworkers can maintain social distancing as they go through the election process on election day. Weve had p. P. E. S available for the voters and the poll workers on election day. And the inperson voting here at the bill graham auditorium and the polling places theres a cleansing of the areas and materials and the commonly used items throughout the day so voters will go into a clean voting environment when they go to cast their ballot on election day. Also, i want to echo the comments about the post office. Weve had conversations and meetings with the post office before this election and to make sure there was no issues and with the processing and to support the conduct of this election for november. The post office of senator wiener noted, has put tremendous men does attention and focus on their abilities and their requirements to give ballots up to vote and he is get ballots to voters to elections here in San Francisco. I want to share the city and the departments of elections has put much time and thought into this and so theyre safe and secure and everyone has a good experience on election date ill turn it over to george chan. And even we call chinese and were helping everyone. So this year were happy to be receiving support from the city to continue the registered people. So, this year, we see the ballot we mailed to you and we help people register. We follow that many times they dont know if you change your address, make sure you update it, ok. So also, if you do know your status, we can help you to check it as well. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is jaclyn flynn. Im the executive director of the a phyllis randolf of San Francisco and were working with the department of the elections in the city to really get out of vote this year. So i ask you, how important is your vote . 2020 is a challenging year as a nation. We have lost over 200,000 american lives from covid19 and these fires, as you can see, continue to raise and scorch our state and homes and businesses and and the california economy and our air quality and and they leap gap in time with racial tension zoos tie that they spilled into our streets. So i asked again. How important is your vote . This year and you can help redefine our jail system you can help reform our Law Enforcement system. You can help fund our parks, you can vote for housing and healthcare and your vote is a vote for change. I ask you, what can you do to effect change and if you can, do it early. Send it in my mail. Drop it directly into a ballot box and thank you to the city for creating an accessible space for folks to do that safely. And if you must safely head to your poll, please wear your mask and vote. I encourage awful us to ask our families, our friends, our work colleagues, our neighbors to do something important, vote. This year has been hard on all of us. And as i think about why its so important, i think about my own kids. And i realize that i have the power to set a clear example that im not satisfied where were at in this nation today and im not going to sit back. I will be an element of change. The a phyllis randolf institute will be on the frontlines reaching out to our seniors and over 5,000 units of low income Family Housing across is this city. Well be facing this year of covid, hitting the streets to ensure education and access to voting. You can help us in that fight. Im inspired by San Francisco. A city that votes for change. Im inspired by inspired by a t looks like me. When i vote i celebrate my skin, my lips and my determination to be represented by someone that understanding my perspective. To all my asian brothers and sisters and to all my latino brothers and sisters, we need you. We need bilingual folks and to my caucasian allies, we are all in this together. I challenge everyone to get education and make a plan and vote. Thank you. Thank you to the press and the immediate why for getting the word out and most importantly, we want to make sure that voting is easy. If you have any questions or concerns, what is interesting this past weekend, i heard from a lot of folks that said i didnt get my ballot yet, what is going on . What is happening. So people seem to be very excited about voting. We also want to make sure that folks are able to get their ballots and theyre able to get their questions answered and we make it as simple as possible and we also keep everybody safe. When were showing up to our polling places, or our Dropoff Center or this particular center here across the street from city hall, were all using the wash center to wash our hands and were wearing our masks and complying with our Health Orders because thats how were going to be able to continue to not only get through this but adapt to the needs to make sure that we are able to not only vote but vote safely. Thats what this is all about and so thank you all so much for joining us here to the today. [applause] my name is ben bleiman and im the commissioner president. To protect Entertainment Commission members, City Employees and the public the city hall meeting rooms are closed however members and it is taken pursuant to the local state and federal orders, decorations and directives and commissioner members and employees will a continued through Video Conference and participate to the same extent if they were physically present. Public comment will be available on channel 26 and sfgovtv are streaming the number across the screen. Each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. Opportunities to speak during Public Comment are available via the zoom platform using 825 8546 336 or call 669 9006833 tollfree. Using zoom platforms, select the raised hand option when its time for Public Comment. If calling by phone, dial star 9 to be added to the speaker line. You will be unmuted when its your turn to speak. Please call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. When your item of interest comes up, dial al continu alternatie we recommend you use zoom audio or telephone for Public Comment, you may submit a written Public Comment through the chat function on zoom many of thank you sfgovtv and Media Services for sharing this meeting with the public. We can start with the roll call. Clerk [roll call] the first order of business is general Public Comment. Is there any Public Comment for items not listed on the addenda . Ill turn to senior annalist rice for this. All right, im checking right now. President bleiman, theres no hand raised and the attendees box. It looks like we dont have any Public Comment. All right. Thank you. Therefore, Public Comment is closed. Next agenda item is number 2, approval of our minutes for the september 15th, 2020 meeting. Ill ask if we have a motion to approve the minutes from september 15th, 2020. So moved. Ill second. Is there any Public Comment on the minutes . Theres no one with their hand raised and theres also no zoom chat. Right. Well close Public Comment and we can have a vote. [ roll call vote ] the minutes have been approved. The next agenda item is a report from director wilan. Thank you. This evening, i wanted to walk you through the new jam permit and and if can you bring up that presentation that would be good. Bringing it up now. Can you see if . I can. Success. You can just toggle over to slide one. Thank you for being in charge of this all right, so, just to provide a little bit of Background Information i know that ive been bringing the permit idea up to all of you, and conversations both in smaller groups and within these commissioners hearings around creating a permit to match covid times. Essentially since covid happened, we have not been issuing many permits at all and has known weve been going through a period of time in which a lot of businesses are on the brink of closure and i know that im saying to this, for all of our viewers out there its really our bars and our night clubs and live music venues, event organizers and musician thats have been some of the hardest hit in the industry and just our workforce in general during covid19. We wanted to find a way to try to bring entertainment activities back online prior to phase 4 within the given orders. Background stats, we conducted that survey back in may here here are some of those stats in the meaning behind our arguments to create this permit. The reason why we needed to create something new as opposed to using our onetime applications or our place of entertainment, Live Performance permit application was because we were very limited in constrained by where we could permit activities in our door locations that are activated right now by way of shared spaces so we would only be able to permit 12 days per calender year as one these locations on a onetime basis and they could not even achieve one through our previous processes because we would permit and regulating activities that are happening in the public realm so thats what we needed to fall for here in creating this new permit. So jam is the name of it and essentially were ak ta rate ising outdoor amplified sound and entertainment in framework of most commonly Outdoor Dining or outdoor small gatherings and we know its already happening in the community and our Entertainment Commission inspectors have been going out and they havent had a way to bring folks into compliance through conditions on permits. This was our idea and with the support of a lot of you we pushed this forward as a user friendly experience and programs that can support Small Businesses in ak ta rate ising entertainment and earlier phase. So if you could keep going. This is just our cute image that dillon worked hard with Digital Services to create as a part of our roll out. You can keep going. So, kind to give you a little bit of background so it makes more sense to you, being able to access entertainment outside right now during this pandemic is not simple and so, this is indepth and our team is working diligent leon the review. These are not pubber stamp permits so theres a lot we need to account for at the very beginning. The first thing is location. Location, location, location. Its very important. These are the types of spaces that we could activate potentially so shared spaces, permit holders and public works, cafe table and chairs and its a permit holder so these are pre covid and if theyre doing a small outdoor gatherings they can add sound and theres activities on out dor private Business Properties and some of which is actually going to be permitted in regulated already by us as you know, we had several permits come before prior to covid when they amps down to their out dor premises those folks dont need a jam permit from us but there are tises in the city that have had back patios or other outdoor privacy like a proof top that maybe theyve always had a bar or a dining area but they never added in their sound and this is their turned to do that by way of this permit free of charge. We consider parking lots so they can activate the space so the shared spaces permit, from a appreciate activity and add entertainment or sound to that and also farmers markets have a pathway as well as games and go to the next slide i can get into this a little bit more so when we have the Location Security permitted or we know its permitted, we need to check what activities are you trying to add our sounds to so these are the buckets, theres Outdoor Dining with its own guidance and rules and theyre small Outdoor Activities and theyre limited so its six people maximum with and theres a farmers and Outdoor Fitness and just for and then theres drive in gatherings and however and theres is outdoor and you can think of a band being filmed and performing and thats the example. So ill go through this quickly because you can see this online at sf. Gov slash jam before the permit application just lives. Ill point out this nuance on this page. Were asking for two weeks to process these permit application and ill get into it a little bit more. We feel these are activities we can permit and regulate with specific conditions so live music or a band a d. J. And theater, comedy or dance performances with specific roles for performers and so on and so fourth. We can keep going. Theyve got to provide that outdoor property and keep going. These are the rules the city has published that are relative to the type of activities that wore permit sewing this is why this process can be lengthy for our staff to understand the rules and the way theyre answering their questions and the proposed activity theyre providing to us as well as the types of attachments we asked for in the application and a health and safety plan specific to the too i am of activity and everyone has to submit that as part of the application. If we keep going. And it makes it a little different from normal and think about for dance it will be problem more of the interpreter tie rather than partner danceing and rules for amp sound ill get into so keep on going. I think you can go past these. This is just User Experience and this is us doing our work and if you keep going. Thank you. So, sample sound conditions here, these are pretty nuanced and we thought these throughs with our Enforcement Team by going out in the field and actually taking measurements of what is happening out there now. What is not causing disturbances and what to their experience was not to be at ambient 50 people from the Permanent Location so its across the street. They shouldnt raise it to am bee around levels and r while we feel this measurement makes sense based on what weve seen in the community. We want t. Since these are all administratively reviewed and issues, we want to offer hours per day and well make sense with neighbors and ours are limited to 9 00 a. M. To 10 00 p. M. And you can only do sound for six hours a day. So they pick the hours. Again, we have the ability to recondition permits as we see fit if mediation occurs and we can always bring a permit to the Entertainment Commission itself and present the case for you all to recondition as you see fit. That may come up and we will obviously keep you informed through our enforcement reporting. And then amplified sound equipment has to be fixed to a specific location and that is a Good Neighbor policy thing and as woman as th well as for our e beginning with number four. Its a regular condition. The first part of it, about compliance within a proved security plan so everybody that spills out the application answers about eight specific security questions about how they would manage any loitering, how they would prevent any crowding, things of that nature that are more concern now during covid19 times than pre covid and so when we review, we can actually amend their answers with them and theyve got to then comply with that submitted security plan just like our other applicants in the past we call directive they have to comply with with hosting entertainment. We have a place holder there just in case we need to add a security condition on a number of staff that need to be there and these are really for spaces where the location might be harder to maintain because its a more open space. If that makes sense. Potentially like a street closure. If we keep going, what enforcement will look like. Basically, the entertainment its manage our u. C. Results and certain were cross training our certain inspectors to call our Entertainment Commission and we did complete especially when theyre about health order compliance and so Deputy Director is working on that streamlining and processing and beyond that, i just want to call out the fact we have all of the tools in our toolbox as before its just that me as director, i can issue as before, a citation and now i can as director amend conditions if needed and i can even revoke a permit. Beyond that, i do want to note that i want to utilize this commission to take actions like that and i think thats the thinking is keeping you all involved with any enforcement cases that rise to the top that we may want to bring to a hearing to essentially just have the further back up that were on the right path for reconditioning or taking action and thats what you all are here for and experts on so ill make sure to do that if we need to. Also, just note if anyone appeals one of these permits the only folks that are allowed to appeal a decision are the permit holders themselves. If we denied a permit application or were revoking a permit, they can appeal to you all as an Entertainment Commission, however they do not have means to go to the board of appeals beyond that. Thats the change in that process here. Well continue to be essentially commoditiesbe complaint driven. If we can go on, these of our stacks to give you an update and well issue our first permit tomorrow. We should have four coming out tomorrow. We have had to deny 10 permit applications and these are the reasons. Four of them actually were occurring or proposed to be occurring on property we dont have jurisdiction over so we refer them to departments and reservations or they were a street performer wanting a permit and were not permitting individuals that are street performers. You would have to have it associated with a permissable activity like Outdoor Dining or small outdoor gatherings with a business with outdoor property. Just hoping on, it looks like were just missing some permission to use property too so we want to ensure we issue a permit for entertainment you have permission to do that and if you keep going these are some next steps and on going work those and essentially maintaining implementing new permitting and enforcement structures within our team so its a learning process right now and i think its challenging but were all growing a lot from it and so, im excited to continue to roll this out with the team. Thats all i have for you t let mtoday. Let me know if you have y questions. If you go to that last slide, i wants to have that up for just a second to show members of the public if theyre watching right now they can see our contacts on the final slide. Just one more down. So, essentially if folks have questions about the jam permit itself they contact entertainment. Commission and our Enforcement Division still handles complaints that we always encourage people to just use 311 and finally if you want to reach out about sets thats our email address. Any questions before i move on to another topic . Later on would it be amended to have singers with face shields possibly . Great question, commissioner lee. So, what is good about the jam permit is that it is very dynamic in its ability to change and so as health order rules and directives change, we can update our rules section. So that would include if singing became allowable with specific rules. Who addressed that . Is that something we address to dbh . Yeah, so i think we have received this inkawartha res and previousances from the community about the permit application because of the fact that there is Entertainment Limited including singing and horns. That is something that we encourage im to come to a hearing and i theyre those communities but this is a forum for us so if folks want to talk about that we will row lay those concerns upward. Were also hearing from larger organized groups and our San Francisco Venue Coalition and the independent Venue Alliance about some of their asks which includes that as well. Those folks have a lot of say in pressing this with the mayor and the Health Department for their review. Im just not sure how if its going to have any traction due to the issues around transmission and confirming around transmission. Right, if they come up with a data, that would help im sure, right. Agreed. And now is the time and if folks have concerns and questions and they can use this as a platform for their experience. Its a good permit and it helps a lot of people and theyve been asking so im glad its happening and i just had get the singer involved. Lets see how we can do with it. This permit does not do everything hopeful for everyone. Its our hope we can get more businesses, types of business and types of entertainment activity on board because its what we support and we know the first version of this is not going to allow everyone access because of the limits. I mean, we got to start somewhere. Lets move to the next so we can approve it. Thank you, maggie, good job. Thank you. Anyone else . Quick question for director. I want to clarify. This particular permit does not include popup drivethru threaters, correct . So, we do have drive in gatherings drick tive and so, if theres a drive in gathering that is occurring we can permit it as long as it complies with the health order right now though, drive in gatherings do not allow for entertainment our Live Performances theyre only allowing essentially screenings and emphasize those. Thank you. No problem. More questions . Thank you for getting this solution through. I know a lot of folks are excited about it and im glad to hear its eye nam i can. My question is about the 12person cap i know we discussed this a little bit related to interest in a permit from queer night life margin. That number does seem conservative in terms of the work it takes to put together a performance and it sounded like there was flexibility if maybe theres a barrier between the group and how that number came to be and where the flexibility is. I actually do know where that number came to be within the small outdoor gatherings goals. I would assume though that they have had number of six for quite some time and not an Outdoor Dining too. Limited to a group of six and even within an outdoor small gathering if you add food and drink you have to limit six so you can increase that number as folks arent taking off their masks to enjoy food and drink and even within the 12 person gathering they encourage folks to be from the same household and if theyre not separate even within their small gathering. Again, a lot of the health order rules and directives are not created with the goals to allow for more adaptive business experiences and theyre made with a goal of contain particular the virus and so, i know you all know that but i dont know beyond that commissioner thomas knows where that number came from. I do not, no. So commissioner wang, i think what is interesting about the proposal from castro merchants and queer night life is just that these folks are essentially making a proposal where they have two small outdoor gatherings which could be permissable with the way that the outdoor small gathering rules are written as long as they can separate the two groups. Thats one that we would row view with d. P. H. And just to make sure that were interpret particular this correctly. Wonderful. Thank you. I just have been getting a lot of questions about that. Thank you. No problem. Any other questions . I just have a couple. Can you just rewind us. How many people have taken language of this permit so far. 38 people have a floyd. Not a lot so you will see in Deputy Directors presentation shes reaching out specifically to quite a few businesses that we have received sound complaints about so compliance issues. After this week were ready to do a big push to be frank within the last two weeks we have been creating our processes as this permit has been rolled out. Its been good in a lot of ways that weve had a smaller pool to work with in the beginning. And how can we be helpful as a commission to spread the word and what can we do because i think that the we have a role to play here as well and we node to make sure people are a employing for this because its great. What well do after this week well probablying feeling much more on top of it and well just have dillon can circulate around some social media tool kits you can all use to just copy and paste however you see fit within your different channels, that would be good. Seems like no more questions on this and can i just jump to the neck thing. I wanted to provide you all with an annual update. At our last meeting we mentioned we put together our achievement for clients but since then we presented our annual updates more formally to city administrator kelly so i wanted to provide you all with that presentation essentially. Dillon, if you can bring that up for me. I have a cat on my lapie and im able to enjoy it while in this commission hearing. You are not alone. Amazing. I love her. Ok. All right. So he can go to the first slide there. Well keep going. Thats our agenda for this discussion. So this is a nice picture. I dont know if you all remember this. This is our Holiday Party back in december when times were just a little bit different. Theres a lot of us having a good time in there. You can keep going. So, i wanted to kind of briefly go over our numbers just annually to show you these. You might be able to notice the numbers have changed i would eight about in this last year so just for example, if you look and you will note that theres it there was a big bump in fiscal year 1819 trending across permit types and that declined in fiscal year 19 and 20 so we dont know whether the roughly 300 place of entertainment licenses renewals we saw in 2018 and 2020 was like the normal level and the bump we saw in 2019 at about 250 was abnormal or if the new normal was 350 this last year and covid19 dropped it back to 300. And i guess the ladder. If you look here you will see theyre lower and this you really see it with the actual permit permit applications for places of entertainment, for example, keep going, so one time event permits you will see a big dip. None of this is a surprise if we look at what happens with covid19 and so well be anticipating even bigger drops in this next year, unfortunately. And enforcements, so again this is information from our Impact Survey that i brought up earlier so youve all seen all of the this but a couple of the staggering points are at the bottom so 4,306 total event have been canceled in 2020 due to covid19 an and it equates into huge amounts annually this last december we were reporting 7. 2 billion annual dollars being generate sod it will be interesting to see what those numbers coming out from our Controller Office will be when we see them in terms of the change from covid19. If you keep going, so this is a cute screen shot from our summit Virtual Summit this year and it was a nice panel. If you keep going, these are some of our high level accomplishment and it was set up just before covid and so the recommendations coming out of that report did not get a lot of traction because it was completed literally days before well see if any of that can apply to the future can he convene our summit as you all know you were there and we adopted a new mission, vision and value statement at our retreat this last year and we bloated the digitization phase of our transition to a electronic permit database so were almost fully online now which is incredible and we moved our office to 49 south van ness from city hall so when you visit us again we wont be in city hall beyond that, i served as a member on the erts along with commissioner blue man and dial on and i lead to art, culture, hospitality and entertainment and we worked to vet through the policy proposals that would then put into the draft so dillon worked hard on sf. Gov and it compiles all of the best practices relevant to our industry and online and we launched and that effort and we also held Virtual Office hour and weve been doing that since the beginning with issues and pathways and resources and all of that. We worked on the jam permit so we dont need to get into that. They are the buckets where we drop our rolling basis but it was created based on buckets within the five Year Strategic Plan we were supposed to create a few years back so we just have been improving upon that document essentially and and however we can support Small Businesses we will so it will require a legislative process and we will implement within our license renewals and also deepening the connection to our other arts agencies in the city which weve had great experiences with so its a great example of that because for Small Businesses and Community Folks and i dont know that completing our online permit Database Project were nearly there thank you so much. Youve taken this on and everybody has been making it happen. Meet induce tremendous stakeholders. Were all doing that and promoting equity and equality in our industry. Right now dillon is working with the office of Racial Equity and ensuring our goals are with the over all city goals. Im serving as i a policy lead within Division Heads to discuss Racial Equity or our staff and so that we support and regulate. Strengthening the workforce through education and training. Weve been doing a lot of virtual webinars and sum its and if you have presentations you want to have happen or people come and present, to use these to engage with people theres another program that i will update you later on but essentially id love to be able to support health order monitoring so people can educate businesses about health order problems. If we keep going, ensuring Public Safety through the presentation of entertainment just developing implement and Data Tracking tools for our Enforcement Teams to use and it will be advocating for programs that can provide more support for high density activities as well as high need areas and on the front end with educational interventions and prior to any kind of progressive discipline. Working with sfp d d ph and City Attorneys office to refine guidelines and as commissioner lee brought up, just making sure that were ready for our permitting process to be flexible with the changing rules. Well work on a program that ill discuss in a moment. Theres some of us, keep going. Legislation there was an ordinance amendment and zoning and china town and this past year the bigger one was a Small Business streamlining legislation that passes september 2019 and if you keep going, well see the slides for upcoming legislation. This is not upcoming but just the jam permit had to be crayated by a supplemental mayoral declaration with the suspension of certain pieces of police codes to review, proper and condition these permits without public hearing and noticing and without high fees. So yeah on that and the second one down, this is kind of an update and you probably noticed but the house of representatives announced a new heroes act so this has key provisions that include the restaurants act and save our stages act providing sound round of ppe loans and sba grants and more and another one is proposition h the save our Small Business initiative which would simplify procedures and allow greater plex ability to be certain kinds of businesses and those are coming up and impact our work. These are all stats youve seen before so all just high level we have 2300 investigations and i would thank the Deputy Director for taking such a leadership role with our certs team and shes been doing a fantastic job in rolling out this program that was completely new as of apri april 1. And we will streamline our workflows with cert. If you keep going, deposit you tee director and i meet weekly with representatives from rec and park and the fire department, sfpd and the Sheriffs Department to ensure that there are folks supplementing park ranger staff educating individual members of the public around health order com buyance and Wearing Masks so we just led this group and make sure its supported and we provide p. P. E. That we received from the covid19 command center and so the data is crazy. This group has issued 90,000 admonishments to individuals and parks and 48,000 face coverings so that is kind of incredible dent and the program is made up of sfpd a did he tell or alert folks or nert folks and there is always uniformed officers there to ensure that they can folks arthey aresupportive. Questions. You can stop the screen share though. Thank you maggie and all the Entertainment Commission and staff its an enormous amount of work and i also so many of us have different jobs but just to say we see all the work that you are doing and thank you its a huge amount to take on. Thank you that means amount. More questions or comments . Good job. A whole year no questions . Thats great. I will end with one staff update for you all were very excited because as of this last saturday, we on boarded tony saseen o with the entertainment and you are on board and no longer parttime and position dg othehe is doingother stuff. Permit administration so he is reviewing a lot of these jam permits and supporting the Deputy Director and finally im going to on board him with our residential review work so do you want to say anything at your First Entertainment Hearing Commission ever before we pass it back to president bleiman. Of course i do. This is a great hearing. This is my first time but, im learning a lot just listening to everyone speak and the past few years has been a lot of fun. I love the live music experience and working for the Entertainment Commission and its really cool to be in the field and talking to all the different businesses and helping them bring their businesses and the city back to life and everyone is prout and grateful for what we do andism too. Its so much fun and i couldnt be happier to work for such a cool group. Its cool. The Entertainment Commission. Thank you. And well see you around. Whoa and ill just note that ton tee is in our new office right now. That is the background. I thought i recognized that ceiling. Congratulations, tony. Thank you director for everything weve done this year and thank you for the update. Ton oh welcome. Were really excited to have awe board and you have an awesome hair do. Im going to save the questions about how falzon recognizes the ceiling in that office for a later date. Im going to open this same. [laughter] open this to Public Comment now. Is there nick Public Comment on the executive directors report . Ill share the screen again. Theres no one with their hands raised and no chats in zoom. Im going to close Public Comment and we can move on. The final agenda item is number 4, report from Deputy Director acevedo. Thank you, president bleiman and good evening commissioners. If you want to pull up that powerpoint for enforcement. This water point presentation is just like a launching pad for what will be to come so, there will be a more robust. Since jam went live on the 26th this is a highlevel overview of what weve encountered over the shelter in place and since jam went live. Just for some numbers for you. Since the beginning of shelter in place, to when the jam permit went life we received 75 complaints in the Entertainment Commission 311 queue. The Entertainment Commission did respond to a few of these complaints but many of the complaints were rolled into inspection and theyre also serving as cert inspectors so many of the responses were tied into the investigation report. Since jam went live on the 25th of september, we received 31 complaints about 33 tive businesses. Four of the 22 businesses generated 13 of those complaints so we did have a handful of businesses generating quite a few complaints. Three have submitted jam applications and three of the 22 businesses do not need jam permits and thats because they already hold a permit with Outdoor Entertainment and it was a llp outdoor permit holder we received a complaint for and the complaint was unfounded anyway and and of the 31 complaints theyve responded to 30 of those and the outstanding complaint will be addressed by inspector when he is out in the field this thursday. And they were reminded the jam permit is required so we will followup with these businesses to reminds them they must apply if they wish to continue with their sound or entertainment. Next slide, please. I just want to touch on a few important notes, giving you folks some highlevel details here of challenging beer facing. Street closes are happening in the city but we have been working working diligently with internal city staff about constraints by constituents so as a recourse the director assigned him to go out two saturdays ago to just sit and watch the street closure. The street closure ends at 10 00 p. M. And the inspector was there from 9 00 to 11 30 and he was just watching and going up and down the street watching what was going on and were these businesses out of compliance . The answer is no. He witnesses zero businesses out of compliance. I would like to mention this is also on day one or the first saturday of the jam permit going live. Its something of note i want to share is there are individual name tony who has received the name tony the scooter guy. He is on a moped going up and down valencia street with a boom box strapped to his moped playing it just extremely loud. He is driving up to businesses that are closed and turning on his music and trying to start a dance party. He witnessed this happen at five different businesses on valencia street. Businesses we were receiving complaints about for having amplified sound after 10 00 p. M. So it was very important to know they didnt have a manager to secretary person to leave. There was one business that was still open and they asked security ask tony the scooter guy to move along right away. He did so and scooted along to the next business closed and turned his music on and tried to start another dance party. Not only did we hear about him the 26th but we received complaints about one of the businesses on valencia street and upon a arrival, tarik august sound measurement, they also learned that tony the scooter guy was at their business this past saturday as well when the complaints were coming in. We have reached out to the City Attorney code Enforcement Team and there is no action that they can take. I have reached out to captain of to notify him about this individual and just to put them on the radar. Deputy director, isnt it true though that the only resource we can sort of potentially identify is the fact if the closure were open, they would be able to get tony the scooter guy out because it wont allow them to scoot on in. Thats great. Thats a great point but this is after 10 00 p. M. After the street closure has ended so the street monitors are gone and at that point, he is allowed 20 scoot in. This may be an issue so i just want to bring it to your attention now. The other comments i have are to just let you know about the types of sound complaints were receiving and they can all be mitigate by our jam permit which is great. Were seeing complaints about Live Entertainment and amplified sound occurring after 10 00 p. M. And were also hearing that the live music is too loud whether its a band or a d. J. Performing and wearing hearing about and seeing unmasked performers and or folks using instruments that are not allowed under the health order so whether its singing or using read, wind or brass instruments. So all of these three points here would be counter acted by the jam permit just by following our basic rules. And the last slide here is just the picture of our jam permit which is really neat. So i am happy to answer questions that you have. The next hearing there will be more of a there will be a deeper dive into actual complaints and resource that were seeing. Thank you, does anybody have any questions . You can stop screen share, dillon, please. Thank you for the work were doing. I think this jam thing is amazing and i also just think just the tony the scooter guy, as kind of ridiculous as it is, it kind of demonstrates something great which i greatert businesses do things by the book with the rules and sometimes being pigeon holed and unfairly blamed for things that are outside of their control. And the city is crazy right now. Theres a lot going on and theres few people on the streets at night and things are quiet and ambient so i just think its an interesting example of how our role can support businesses rather than just enforce rules on them. We can prove its not them doing it and very real way. Thank you for that. Im sure more of this will come up as we go forward. Is there any Public Comment on this agenda item . Dont see any hands raised and no zoom chat. All right. Well close Public Comment and well move on to the final agenda item, questions and comments. What do we got . Mr. Perez, thank you. Just want to wish everyone a happy latino heritage month. It takes place september 15t september 15th to october 15th and this month october is also filipinoamerican History Month so im actually organizing a virtual celebration and conjunction with the Mayors Office and it will take place on wednesday october 21st at 5 30 p. M. And it will be virtually via the mayor facebook and twitter pages so i would like to invite everyone to check us out and celebrate filipinoamerican history. I think its really important for us and our community to continue to celebrations even though in a virtual platform, to kind of keep our Community Together and showcase and celebrate our diversity and our even teunity so please, check u. I got one here. If anybody is down in china town and go down to went worth alley its a half a block from ports lodge square and they just installed some new lanterns. They lit up the whole alley which is great for Public Safety. And also they dump a lot of garbage there so i hope it stops. Go down there and take a look. It kind of they had a Ribbon Cutting last week and it up lifted the community, you know, gave them something to look forward to and its been tough in chinatown for the Small Businesses. People are hanging in there. The Lighting Ceremony was great. Go down and take a look. Thank you. Commissioner lee, i like your in problem is too problem is to be solved without the right lighting solution. Exactly. You need light. Anybody else . I have some final thoughts here. So, right now, were in a situation where obviously the department of publichealth is very much focused on keeping us safe and healthy and by all standards, San Francisco has exceeded expectations and i think i read today that we have the lowest death rate of any city, major city in america which is just incredible and its a testament to the work the department of health has done. I will say that recently theres been a rule change that allows for outdoor singing for political events and religious events, up to 100 people outdoors and were still restricted in the entertainment world from having anyone singing in our events only going to up 12 people. I want to point out that discrepancy. This is not a i dont mean to take on the department of publichealth. Theres a lot of factors they have to consider for things but from the entertainment communitys standpoint, it would make sense for people to reach out and advocate for rules to be applied across sectors that are not just religion us and political in nature and i hope we can play a role in that in our commission and other people will stand up and advocate for it. I also hope its done with the understanding that the department of publichealth and leaders in city are keeping us safe. I want to point that out. That will be coming up soon for all of us as another issue to take on. With that s. There any Public Comment on the commissioner comments and questions . Im checking right now and there is no one with their hand raised and no zoom chat. Excellent. I will adjourn the meeting and its 6 40p. M. And thank you very much much, everyone, well see you again in a couple weeks. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Be safe, everybody. Bit but. We are here today to discuss a very, very important issue that has been plaguing our community, even more so under covid. Some call it sideshows. Its something that, under covid , is happening all over San Francisco. Two weeks ago, we have one of the worst incidents that we saw in the city. It went on for an hour and a half, almost two hours. At the end, three individuals were shot and one individual died. I want to be clear, this is still under investigation. It is not necessarily associated with the activities that were happening that night, but its something that certainly shows and underscores that these are dangerous events. These are events that cannot be tolerated in San Francisco. These are not professionals, these are not individuals that have professional training to do these types of stunts and tricks with their cars. I want to say clearly that we have zero tolerance for these in San Francisco. At the end of the day, i also want to extend my condolences to the family in sacramento that lost their life. This individual was about to have a child. I dont want that to be lost. I think we need to pay respect to that. Yesterday, chief scott and i, after working on this for a couple of months, along with the mirrors office, introduced a piece of legislation that would increase the ability in San Francisco to impound vehicles. I want to be very clear. If you do involve yourself in these activities and we are able to videotape and document your car and your activity, you have the penalty of being arrested and put in prison for up to six months. We have the ability to impound your vehicle and first defence is no less than two weeks. Second offences longer than that and third event, just shy of 30 days. If you get involved in these, the police chief well talk about the unit and the task force that they have assembled to put together on this. We will take your vehicle. We will impound your vehicle and there will be consequences to your actions. I want to thank all the neighbours and all the individuals that have been involved with this. I want to recognize our captain who is around here. Thank you for working with us on this. And especially thank you to chief scott and the mayor for all of her support and hard work on this. Now i would like to introduce our mayor. Thank you. Thank you, supervisor. Thank you for being here today. I really want to take this opportunity to recognize the leadership of our supervisors. Since i have been mayor and since he has been supervisor, we have been doing a lot of work for the community. We have heard from a lot of the residents and merchants on the need for this community. And what i appreciate about his work is that he is bringing the resources, he is bringing the attention, he is bringing the support to what is a neglected part of the city. And even for the first time in over 20 years, one of the first Affordable Housing developments in the city, just on the streets , he helped to save units that were almost lost to market right with low income families. The reason why i go back to that is because its so important, it is so critical to make sure that we have someone who represents the district and answers to community and answers to the needs of the residents here. In in this particular case and the slot sideshows, the supervisor answered the call. He reached out to me and reached out to the team. It was not just because of the complaint of the people who live here and work here. It was the cause and currently a dangerous situation. It is dangerous for the participants, dangerous for the spectators, dangerous from all the folks who are in range of this particular event. Let me just say, i grew up in San Francisco. I have seen sideshows. I know people want to participate in them. I know people think they are fun and they are exciting and especially during covid. People feel like theres nothing to do. They want to go out and participate and see these things , but sadly, we are putting lives at risk. We are participating in these events. Sadly they could result in someones death and that is why were here today. We dont always want to use this heavy hand of Law Enforcement to address issues, but in this particular case, because of the danger, you have left us with no choice. In San Francisco, they will not be tolerated. We will do everything we can to address them in a manner in which it is fitting of what is happening. Do not come to our city with the sideshow crap that creates the problem that we dont want to see in our neighbourhood. Do not use this as a play to congregate for that purpose. We will do everything we can to make sure it doesnt happen and this is just the first step. We hope that you comply. We hope that you will also be considerate of what happens at these particular events. We understand that people want to do this, but they are dangerous and this is no fun if someone is killed. With that, i want to take this opportunity to introduce our police chief, bill scott. Thank you. First i want to thank the mayor and supervisor for their leadership. I want to reiterate a couple of things that have been said. First and foremost, these exhibitions of the stench driving, under the law are illegal. It is reckless driving. I cant tell you how many times people put their lives at risk for these exhibits. I want to point out a couple of things and highlight some of what the legislation offers and how it can be helpful for us. Number one, this legislation sets expectations of accountability. If you participate in one of these events, if you do trick driving, if we see it online, we see it in person, it is outright dangerous. If your car is impounded, the first offences it will be impounded for two weeks. Second offence, if the car is impounded, it will be impounded for 29 days. Your car will be impounded no more than 30 days, but definitely no less then what the law allows. We want to be consistent, we want to set expectations of accountability and consequences in the city, and if we can prove that you are behind the wheel, you will be arrested. What we are doing in the Police Department Police Department, a couple months ago, as a supervisor mentioned, we trained a spot of officers to deal with this event. We cannot do this alone. Our Law Enforcement partners in the bay area, this is a regional problem. We see all across the state. We are working with partners and other jurisdictions who had similar issues and we are communicating. When he the publics help in that because when you see these things occurring, we dont want people to put themselves in harms harms way. If you have any Video Surveillance at your residence or your business or videotaping with your cell phone or video camera, please share that information with us. A lot of people will posted online and that is okay too. If you are going to posted online, give it to us as well. Part of what needs to happen for this work effectively is we need to be able to put the driver behind the wheel. Then we can do something with that case. I want to say to the incident that brought us here today, we know and i know and we have heard from the public. There is a lot of frustration when these things occur. We have to have a thoughtful plan to respond to these events because of the danger. The one that the supervisor was referring to, there were hundreds of spectators. There were 50 cars and more participating. When two officers arrive at that scene, they cant just rush in. What our experience has told us is that often times we are compensated. We see officers surrounded, cars vandalized, we see, not in this city fortunately, but we see officers run over. We have to bring the appropriate resources to deal with this situation. It takes a little time to rally the resources. The units that we train up, we want them to specialize in being able to deal with these situations. It is a resource driven need here. We understand the frustration, but we want the public to know that we are working to make the situation better. We have trained our officers and we are working with supervisors. We have the mayors support and the legislation. It will bring consistency and consequences. Lastly before i close, i want to give examples of what we are talking about. This event a couple of weeks ago , as i said, there were 300 spectators, 300 vehicles and unfortunately a man was shot to death in the immediate vicinity. We had over 100 calls. People are concerned for their safety. You cant blame them. People are tired, yelling and screaming, if anything, you are bad news. When the officers arrive and shots were fired. Now they are dealing with a life or death situation where three people were shot. They needed to get medical aid and save their lives. It complicates the matter. Often times what we have found is these events, often times turn into conflict with shots fired. A good example, august 24th of this year, there was a Motor Vehicle, a daytime event. They were stunned driving. They were burning rubber and approximately 100 spectators cheering them on. At one point, one of them lost control of the car and almost hit several spectators. We did not have anyone killed in that situation. I could repeat it over and over again. We have we had other incidences in the recent past were events of culminated with shots being fired and people being hurt. Here is the message. If you participate in these illegal and reckless events, your car, if we catch you will be impounded and it will be no less than two weeks on the first incident. No less than 29 days on the second incident thereafter. If we put you behind the wheel, if we can prove that you aided or abetted in the participation and the facilitation of these events, you will be arrested. Even if you want arrested that night, if we have the evidence and video through the evidence that we need to prove then we are coming after you. That is the message that us, the mayor, the board of supervisors and the people of the city want you to hear if you are participating in these events. Thank you for your time and thank you for your leadership. Thank you, chief. I want to underscore one last point. Lets make this clear. People that also set the perimeter, people that use their vehicles a set of these events in criminal terms called aiding and abetting, those two will have their vehicles seized. We will have the ability to go after them. Its not just the individuals that are driving the vehicles. Is the individuals that are participating in and major participants of setting up the events. That is something that chiefs got in i have spent a lot of time talking about. The mayor feels really strongly about this. We have to have accountability. It will not just be the individuals who were driving the vehicles and doing the stunts, it will be the people who are aiding and abetting and setting up these events. We also, as a result, and i want to thank the mayor as part of the budget process, will be getting over 15 cameras on this camera and Video Evidence is one of the most important factors in these crimes. This corner that has been plagued a few times, in the next few weeks we will have 15 video cameras put up. We have been working with a captain in his office to increase foot patrol. It is not just about the activity itself. It is about setting the environment to make sure people understand that we take the safety of this neighbourhood as a top priority. [ ] it did take a village. I was really lucky when i was 14 years old to get an internship. The difference that it made for me is i had a job, but there were other people who didnt have a job, who, unfortunately, needed money. And they were shown to commit illegal acts to get money. That is what i want to prevent. [ ] today we are here to officially kick off the first class of opportunities for all. [applause]. Opportunities for all is a program that mayor breed launched in october of 2018. It really was a vision of mayor breed to get to all of the young people in San Francisco, but with an intention to focus on young people that have typically not being able to access opportunities such as internships or workbased learning opportunities. Money should never be a barrier to your ability to succeed in life and that is what this program is about. Theres always these conversations about young people not being prepared and not having experience for work and if they dont get an opportunity to work, then they cannot gain the experience that they need. This is really about investing in the future talent pool and getting them the experience that they need. It is good for everyone because down the road we will need future mechanics, future pilots, future bankers, future whatever they may be in any industry. This is the pipe on we need to work with. We need to start developing talent, getting people excited about careers, opening up those pathways and frankly giving opportunities out there that would normally not be presented. [ ] the way that it is organized is there are different points of entry and different ways of engagement for the young person and potential employers. Young people can work in cohorts or in groups and thats really for people that have maybe never had job experience or who are still trying to figure out what they want to do and they can explore. And in the same way, it is open for employers to say, you know what, i dont think we are ready to host an intern yearround are all summer, but that they can open up their doors and do site visits or tours or panels or conversations. And then it runs all the way up to the opportunity for young people to have longterm employment, and work on a project and be part of the employee base. Something new, to get new experience and meet people and then you are getting paid for it you are getting paid for doing that. It is really cool. I starting next week, i will be a freshman. [cheers and applause] two of the things i appreciate about this program was the amazing mentorship in the job experience that i had. I am grateful for this opportunity. Thank you. Something i learned at airbnb is how to network and how important it is to network because it is not only what you know, but also who you know to get far in life. During this program, i learned basic coding languages, had a had to identify the main components and how to network on a corporate level. It is also helping me accumulate my skills all be going towards my College Tuition where i will pursue a major in computer science. For myself, being that i am an actual residential realtor, it was great. If anybody wants to buy a house, let me know. Whenever. [applause] it is good. I got you. It was really cool to see the commercial side and think about the process of developing property and Different Things that i can explore. Opportunities for all was a great opportunity for all. We were aiming to have 1,000 young people register and we had over 2,000 people register and we were able to place about between 50 and did. We are still getting the final numbers of that. Over several weeks, we were able to have students participate in Investment Banking they were able to work with our team, or technology team, our engineering 20 we also gave them lessons around the industry, around financial literacy. There are 32,000 young people ages 16 and 24 living in San Francisco. And imagine if we can create an opera skin it just opportunity for all program for every young person that lives in public housing, Affordable Housing, low income communities. It is all up to you to make that happen. We have had really great response from employers and they have been talking about it with other employers, so we have had a lot of interest for next year to have people sign on. We are starting to figure out how to stay connected to those young people and to get prepared to make sure we can get all 2400 or so that registered. We want to give them placement and what it looks like if they get more. Lets be honest, there is always a shortage of good talent in any industry, and so this is a real great career path. For potential sponsors who might be interested in supporting opportunities for all , there is an opportunity to make a difference in our city. This is a really thriving, booming economy, but not for everyone. This is a way to make sure that everyone gets to benefit from the great place that San Francisco is and that we are building pathways for folks to be able to stay here and that they feel like they will belong. Just do it. Sign up for it. [ ] [ ] wednesday, october 7, 2020. I cant believe its october and im still heading this into the record. On february, 25, 2020, the mayor declared a local state of emergency related to covid19. On may 29, 2020, the Mayors Office authorized all commissions to reconvene remotely. This will be our eighth remote hearing. Hearings require everyones attention and most of all, your patience. If youre not speaking, please mute your microphone and turn off your video camera. Sfgovtv is streaming this hearing life. And we will receive Public Comment for each item on the agenda. Comments are opportunities to speak during the comment period