President yee good afternoon and welcome to the october 20th, 2020 october 20th, 2020. Regular meeting of the San Francisco board of supervisors. Would you please call the roll. Clerk [roll call] president yee supervisor fewer will be a few minutes late and she will joining shortly. You have a quorum. President yee pleasure righe right hand over your heart for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Give me a second. I would acknowledge the staff at sfgtv and matthew two records our meetings and make the transfers available to the public online and madam clerk, lets jump into item number one Second Special order. Is. Clerk ok, the first order of business is to welcome the mayor london breed into the proceedings to discuss the questions submitted from the supervisor representing district 6 to begin the mayor may address the board for up to five minutes and discussions shall not exceed two minutes per question or answer and i will set the timer for five minutes. Well complexion are you here mayor breed . Im here, president. Thank you so much. So, welcome. Do you have any opening remarks . I do. Thank you president yee and welcome to members of the public. While this is my last appearance at the board, here, before the november election, i know we are focused on the citys business here today but i know theres a lot of passion in this city and country around what will happen on november 3rd. Im proud of the work done by john and the staff at the department of election to make sure everyone has a ballot and a place to vote. They did an incredible job and today we hit another major milestone in our covid19 response and this city is at the for the front of the pandemic and im proud the way our residents workers and publichealth officials have all come together across the country you are seeing a third wave hit a lot of places but for atly, so far, we have avoided that and we know it may come and we cannot rest until we have a vaccine. We are in a much better place than we have been for some time and today we are the first urban county in california to have hit the states yellow tier. Thats so significant and it validates the approach we are taking throughout 24 pandemic and i want to say i appreciate the people of San Francisco for your work in helping us get there and our goal is to move the city word and not about backyard. I want to tell someone they can open their business and have them go through all the challenges of opening and the city bureaucracy and tell them they have to close again and the go thing is our strategy has been working weve seen our testing increase to almost 5,000 people a day and our Positivity Rate is 0. 88 and our photographic us and investments in the latino communities, those hardist hit by this pandemic, has been delivering results we are finally seeing a steady dein the number of new cases in the latino community. We opened plat grounds, which was a major win for our families and still waiting on our Public Schools but its a longer conversation for a later time. We announced now we are in yellow, expanding our capacity for churches and gym and restaurants is possible and we will be reopening options at 25 capacity and other things in the press release that i put out im sure you got a copy of it. Thriving downtown is critical to the economic engine to this city and essential as we move forward to the road of recovery. It will make it difference for the cities and Small Businesses downtown who rely on them. We will continue to move forward carefully. With this virus, were entering a difficult time with cool weather and the flu season coming up so this is a reminder the reason we are here is because we are followed the publichealth order. Lets spread the ves age and not the virus, wear your mask, wash your hands and get your flu shot. Thank you, mayor breed is that it . Yep. Did you get your flu shot yet . I havent by i plan on getting it soon. I hope so. I hope so. Thank you very much for your comments and madam clerk. Could you please call the first topic. We have a question from the mayor from the supervisor representing district 6 supervisor haney. The topic is overdoses. Supervisor haney, would you go ahead and ask jury opening invasion. Thank you for being here and exciting update and your leadership. I want to thank you first for your leadership and partnership on Mental Health assess and the dedicated funding in the budget and for your continued leadership and safeinjection sites and i asked you how we can Work Together and to address the devastating deadly impacts of drugs, drug addiction and drug dealing on our citys residents and most urgently deaths killing our cities residents. Things have gotten much worse. In response to legislation we passed earlier this year, they released a report two weeks ago showing an estimated 450 plus deaths from Drug Overdoses through august of this year and reversals at levels never seen in our city and the report shows we on track for 700 Overdose Deaths in 2020 and its two people a day nearly doubled last years totals and last year numbers why double so within two years at this rate we may see a quadrupling of drug Overdose Deaths in our city from 20182020 and this is the most deadly epidemic in our city having killed four times more people than covid19 and times as many people as homicides and they have broader impacts on our city and in our downtown neighborhoods impacting our residents and visitors and everyone in the city and we have people to sell these drugs if in a way that is worse than ever and people suffering from the impact of these drugs are more disconnected alone and sick and i know this is a concern for you ands i appreciate your leadership on safe infections sites and partnership on Mental Health sf and want to ask what were doing right now and how we can Work Together to safe lane and with 700 people dead and next year with 1,000 people dead from overdoses. This is all happening as we speak and n has an impact on my district and we stand ready as a board having held hearings and legislation and passed a publicHealth Emergency to work with you so the question is what we can do to Work Together to stop this massively deadly and destructive drug epidemic devastating our neighborhoods and kill more of our residents than ever before. Thank you for your question and genuine concern we know the people that are losing their lives on our streets in San Francisco everyday. You know, i go up in a community where drug use was just a natural part of what happened in our community it was embedded in the culture of what was happening in the fill more community in the Public Housing development i group up in and to lose not only friends but also and other people that i lived and cared about to drugs is really heartbreaking and so this is very personal and this is very complicated and very difficult situation to deal with and some of you might have had experience with family members who struggle with addiction its so hard you want for them. You want them to live their lives and their addiction can be challenging to overcome. Our department has expanded access to nar can to get these tools into our s. R. O. S and out on the streets. It continues to be a challenging thing to do and our Police Officers outreach workers, nonprofit partners and theyre reducing overdoses and every day and if you spend a lot of time out there its just a natural, normal occurrence that when someone is experiencing an overdose which happens frequently, an officer or someone is it out of their pock and the revising people and saving lives everyday but its not enough. Fentanyl is a deadly drug. 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and overdoses are one of the most tragic symptoms of a larger problem. We have addiction and Mental Health. We need continue to focus on expanding treatment and services for those using drugs through our reforms to our Mental Health system pushing for safeinjection sites and expanding access to programs. We need to recognize if fentanyl deaths arent just happening here, theyre all over the country and the fact is the federal government has fortunately invested a decent amount of resources into helping other with covid19 and not enough to help us deal with this crisis. Nowhere near the level of what weve done around covid19 and we need a federal partner to drop the threat of criminal penalties on our drug treatment and we can move forward with our safeinjection sites without putting our city workforce or nonprofit employees at risk and the conversation cant just be about treatment and services we see the dealers is the tenderloin and everyday. The fact that folks are coming to San Francisco to deal drugs and get away with and there are no consequences for their action is a real problem. We need more enforcement against the people bringing tent in our city so im supporting dennis plan to file civil injunctions and i want to thank supervisor peskin for supporting this approach as well. We need tools. We cant be afraid of enforcement and what it entails. We need drug dealers to be held accountable. And treatment plans accountable for those who are dealing with drugs in our community and i dont want to tell you how many times when im in the tenderloin and i see people, especially those with children or children in baby strollers who have to get off the sidewalk on to traffic to go around the large number of drug dealers in the tenderloin. Part of it is yes, there will continue to be enforcement and support for what Law Enforcement is doing and there needs to be consequences for peoples actions thats what were going to need to do. All of those will take a lot of effort and resources and we have to continue to aggressively and to make sure that we dont go down this path. Do you have a followup question . I appreciate and agree with everything you said and i appreciate you are very again you inand steadfast commitment on this issue as well and this report came out two weeks ago that shows we have twice as many people that are likely to die. Is there anything that you are doing immediately in response to that report to prevent that legal of death . Anything new or different or more expansive to prevent that level of together in our city . Go ahead and respond, mayor. I laid out some of the things were doing and weve expanded resources for those particular things. If you have another creative idea that you think could add value to helping us prevent what we know is coming in San Francisco as it relates to dover dose deaths im all ears and open to it and i wish we could open a safe injection site yesterday. I wish we can do more to get to folks and provide support treatment but lets be honest, when people suffer with addiction, theyre not going to just all of a sudden accept treatment until theyre ready for treatment so we have a kinder morgaacomplicated problet lend to a solution. Weve expanded resources and were working with a huge number of non profits to provide help support and treatment. Were stepping up on enforcement and we can definitely use a lot more help around enforcement and so, this is where we are. If theres anything else you want to offer that you think could be beneficial helping to prevent what we know is going to happen as a result of the drug use and the drug deals and scales stuff thats happening in our city, but harming the tenderloin to any other community in our city, im here to work with a partner trying to address it. Mayor breed, is that your question to supervisor haney or to anybody on the board . Thank you, again, i just want to say before i close off, today i have the privilege of attending this service of jason quartez who was killed in the line of duty. He was a member of the Fire Department and it was an Incredible Service but just keep in mind that he has a wife and two Young Children who need our support. Our prayer as they deal with this challenging time and i want to express my appreciation for reaching out to the family and the Fire Department and what youve done to show support at a very difficult time for his colleagues at station 49 and station 3. He leaves behind his wife and two kids. His dad was a supervise for many years so it is heartbreaking for our city and i want to think you for the quarter taz loom. President yee with no questions, i want to thank and this concludes the mayor discussion time. Thank you for joining us today, mayor breed. Thank you, president yee. Thank you. Lets go to our agenda and you want to provide that. I want to acknowledge the presence of supervisor fewer and well make note of her attendance in the minutes. The minister will reflect that during the covid19 Health Emergency and in this meeting remotely through Video Conference to the same extent as though physically present and Public Access to City Services is essential and certainly more acute and we hope members the public take advantage 69 opportunities to be able to communicate or access this meeting and participate remotely and we will make it a part of the legislative file and if you are using the u. S. Male address, 1, dr. Carleton b. Goodlet place room 244 San Francisco, california and 94102 and if you have a communication using email send it to bos you are able to use your compute tore access the livestream by going to www. Sfgovtv. Org and watch the proceedings on your television by going to channel 26 and be aware of signal delay when you are ready to provide any public testimony you must turn down your television and listen from your mic] phone and you are able to listen from your phone and be in sink to provide your Public Comment just dial the telephone on the screen and when you hear the prompt, entering and 146 5205745 press pound twice and listener to provide a public and press star 3 and listen for the prompt and you have been unfutured and you may begin speaking your comments. Its important i say a few words about what eligible for Public Comment. There are 3 00 p. M. Special orders with their own public hearing and where some form of Public Comment will be taken. Items 2427 of the exemption from Environmental Review for 1776 green street and the appeal of the mitigations and for a proposed project at 2417 green street and item 32 is a public hearing to receive an update on the findings and recommendations and Law Enforcement and if its your desire at any one of these public hearings, please, for efficiency just call in early and place yourself in the speakers queue and Pay Attention to your item when its being called. Wait for 39 and the discussions between the mayor and supervisor haney the approval september 2020 regular Board Meeting minutes and the items jurisdiction of the board that are not on todays agenda and items 40 to 48 they are without reference to committee calender items. All other items 223 as well as 33 through 37 are not agenda content and eligible for your testimony today and they have public hearings fulfilled at committee. We have interpreters present at todays meeting. Will the interpreters to let the Community Know you are here to asset with their Public Comment. Today we only have two and we have agnes lie and arturo. [voice of interpreter] k. Thank you. [voice of interpreter] thank you, madam clerk. Clerk thank you for being here. We appreciate your support. We are working hard not to leave anyone out of the proceedings. If you are experiencing any connection issues, contact my office. We have someone standing by answering phones as we do every tuesday. And finally, mr. President , a pursuant to title two of the americans with disability act we have an individual who would like to provide Public Comment by telephone when appropriate as determined by you. That concludes by communication. Lets go ahead and call up the caller. Lets arrange for special accommodations for special accommodation. Operations, can you please unmute the caller. Caller im a Disability Community organizers and im also a journalist. Very distraught to hear what i just heard on this call. Which sounded like a Richard Nixson speech on the war on drugs and its disheartening to our officials talking this way when many of the overdoses that are happening are a result of inaccessibility to treatment and especially to Accessibility Services around covid19 care and outsing. This mayor came out adamant leo posed to 2018 prop c which supported drug row habitation programs through a ve small tax on millionaires and billionaires and that passed after prolonged years of battle and during that time absolutely people have died of Drug Overdose and poverty and homelessness and that could have been prevented by this mayor. To hear defund the police and black lives matter, and now were talking about criminalizing brown and black people on the streets and which what is means, homeless and disabled black and brown people throw them in jail and increase policing and this is not what we need and we need a humane solution in people are battling drug addiction and battling the unfai