>> president walton: good afternoon. happy new year. welcome to the january 4, 2022 regular meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors please call the roll. >> clerk: thank you mr. president. [ roll call ] mr. president, you have a quorum. >> president walton: as the public can see, some of us are here in the chambers, some of us are remote and some are in city hall in our offices. the omicron variant is something we take serious. we want to make sure we're safe as we conduct the business. i would entertain a motion to excuse supervisor stefani from today' meeting. on the motion to excuse supervisor stefani from today's meeting. >> clerk: on the motion to excuse supervisor stefani from today's meeting. [roll call vote] there are 10 ayes. >> president walton: motion to excuse supervisor stefani from today's board meeting is approved. >> i just dialed in. i'm going to keep my camera off. >> president walton: perfect. i entertain a motion to rescind the vote made by supervisor stefani and seconded by supervisor ronen. on the motion to rescind the vote on the motion to excuse supervisor stefani. >> clerk: on the motion to excuse supervisor stefani who is present for today's meeting. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: thank you. the motion to rescind the vote to excuse supervisor stefani from today's meeting is approved. the san francisco board of supervisors acknowledges that we are on the unseated homeland of the ramaytush ohlone. who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land and with their tradition, the ramaytush ohlone have never seated, lost nor not forgotten the caretakers of this place. as well as for all people who reside in their traditional territory. as guests we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. colleagues, please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] on behalf of the board of supervisors, i would like to acknowledge the staff at sfgov tv, today we have jason and matthew. who record each of our meetings and make transcripts available to the public online. before we go to our communications, i want to start off today's meeting by saying, happy new year to everyone as we bring in 2022, i want to thank all of my colleagues and their legislative aids, my legislative aids, natalie, tracy, percy and abe. the entire clerk's office, sfgov tv, city attorney's office, the budget and legislative analyst office, controller office and everyone who makes our meetings run smoothly. i want to take the time to thank the mayor's office, all department heads and city staff that work hard to make this city run. much of 2021, like 2020 was unpredictable and filled with the weight of the covid pandemic. we have seen our city go from reopening to mask mandates to lifting mask mandates and back to indoor mandates. many of you have been focused on small businesses, food insecurity, keeping people housed and the safety of our residents. we will need to remain focus on addressing the needs of our constituents as we embark on this year of 2022, working together has always been recipe for success. as the last couple of years have demonstrated, there's no time like now for us to remember that we need to work together. even through disagreements and differences of opinions. we all want this amazing city to thrive and maintain its wonderful diversity that we all cherish. let's make this a better year than last year and take care of the business of this city. madam clerk, do we have any communications? >> clerk: thank you mr. president. yes, communication to the general public interested in accessing this meeting remotely. they may do so on sfgov tv award-winning channel 26 or by viewing the live stream at sfgovtv.org. the most sufficient way to provide public comment is listen from your touch phone. throughout the meeting the telephone number is streaming on your screen. it is (415)655-0001. when you hear the prompt entering the meeting i.d. which is 24993702895. press pound twice. you'll know you have joined the meeting when you hear the discussion. your line will be muted. once you're ready to get in the queue to provide your comment, that's when you should press star 3. when it is your turn, listen carefully to the prompt that you have been unmuted and begin speaking your comments. the agenda content, it is anticipated that the 3:00 p.m. special order item 9 to facilitate public hearing, item 10 which is the proclamation of local emergency for drug overdoses in the tenderloin motion. will not be called until after the approval of item 18. which will occur after general public comment. item 12 is general public comment. there are three areas that you will be permitted to speak to. the latter section of the agenda, listing matters for adoption without reference to committee. these are items 13-18. the approval of november 16, 2021 and november 30, 2021 board meeting minutes as presented and matters not on the agenda today but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board of supervisors. just a quick note, if you are speaking on item 18, that is whether or not the board of supervisors should convene in the setting as a committee of the whole to hear item 9, which is the public hearing on item 10. whether or not the board should continue the declaration of emergency. i want to point out that public comment on item 18 is not about the subject matter of item 10. it is simply whether or not the board of supervisors will convene as a committee of the whole. we ask that you save your comments for the public testimony for the proclamation itself once item number 9 is called. all other agenda content would have been reported out to the board by the appropriate committee where the public comment requirement has been fulfilled. the board of supervisors will accept your written correspondence by u.s. mail if you use the address, the san francisco board of supervisors, 1 dr. carlton b. good let place or by using the e-mail address, bosatathsfgov.org. interpretation services will be provided to assist speakers with other their public testimony or general public comment. once item 12 is called. at that time, we will have the interpreter introduce themselves and the service they are providing to the public. the interpreters will be with us until 7:00 p.m. this evening. thank you for your time. we will have for spanish, chinese and filipino. lastly, if any members of the public are experiencing trouble connecting, we have a live clerk standing by if you call and we can assist you to access this meeting remotely. that concludes my communication. >> president walton: thank you. i want to inform everyone that today's public comment will be one minute for speakers. remind everyone that we do take written ecomments and also phone calls. we also want to make sure that we accommodate translation and ensure that our interpreters are still available for public comment. i wanted to make sure that announcement was as made. just a friendly reminder to all my colleagues, please remember to mute your microphones when you're not speaking. let's go to approval of the minutes. >> clerk: approval of the november 16, 2021 and november 30, 2021 board meeting minutes. >> president walton: supervisor peskin? motion to approve made by supervisor peskin. seconded by supervisor ronen. on the motion to approve. >> clerk: on the motion to approve the minutes. [roll call vote]. there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: thank you. motion to approve the minutes will be presented or approved in the minutes will be approved after public comment. let's go to the consent agenda items 1-5. >> clerk: items 1-5. these items are considered to be routine unless member rejects a item be removed and considered separately. >> president walton: i don't see anyone on the roster wishing to sever any items. please call the roll. >> clerk: on items 1-5. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: thank you. these ordinances are finally passed unanimously. please call item number 6. >> clerk: item 6 is an ordinance to amend the administrative code to authorize the sheriff to provide supplemental law enforcement services to retail and commercial establishments. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: i want to say really quickly, i would be remised not to thank the deputy january in -- jenna clark for their tremendous work on getting this through the last few months and working together. thank you. >> president walton: thank you. madam clerk? >> clerk: on item 6. [roll call vote]. ronen is a no. walton no. preston no. there are 8 ayes and 3 nos with supervisors, ronen, walton and preston in the dissent. >> president walton: the ordinance is finally passed by vote of 8-3. please call item number 7. >> clerk: item sitch is an ordinance to appropriate approximately $3.6 million from the general reserve and approximately $5 million from other revenue to the department of elections to support additional costs from unforeseen elections in fiscal year 2020 through 2022. >> president walton: supervisor ronen? >> supervisor ronen: before we vote on the second vote for the $8.7 million, i wanted to duplicate the file and amend the duplicated file to once again give it a tray try for the $3.2 million to cover the expenses to the department of elections. the reason i'm asking for another vote is entirely practical. i think many of you who did not vote for that $3.2 million the fist time around, gave extremely good reasons, policy reasons that i absolutely agree with. the issue is that the school district is facing an unprecedented deficit and our students are suffering beyond measure. the situation, it got somewhat better with the recent appeals court refusing to overturn prop g, there continues to be crises in every school in san francisco. just to give you a tiny example of that crises. i can't get over the test scores that have recently released for elementary schools. it's something i will be bringing up over and over again. just to give you a taste. santos elementary school, 17% of the students read at grade level and 11% from proficient in math. leonard, 21% read at grade level and 12% are proficient in math. brett hart elementary school, 8% read at grade level and 10 per are proficient in math. it goes on and on. basically what these scores are saying is that 80% to 90% of our students in elementary schools on the east side of the city are failing. they are not at grade level in basic subjects. i'm going to go deep into this, s.f. rise work that we're doing together with supervisor melgar is meant to help address this. this is a crises. i know the word crisis is something we use for every situation and every moment. when 80% to 90% of the students are failing, we have to do something about this. i'm asking you, again, colleagues, i'm really frustrated with the school district in a million different ways. we need a new type of leadership over there. right now, we're just talking about dollars and cents that can't afford $3 million. we have surplus in the city. i would ask my colleagues on first reading once again to consider appropriating this additional $3.2 million and i really appreciate your consideration again. if it's not something -- if it doesn't pass today, i might reintroduce for some other person at sfusd. thank you so much. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: thank you president walton. i like to speak more to the $3.25 million appropriations for the school district that didn't garner enough support at our last board meeting. i really appreciate supervisor ronen's leadership and all of her work to support our schools and i appreciate you raphael mandelman for bringing the situation forward. didn't vote for it ben -- when this came up before because i had problems with the timing around it. i do would like to see us move forward with very much with providing support to the school district at this critical moment. as a public school parent myself and as a supervisor, that represents one of the districts with the largest number of families with children, this is pretty important to my constituents that schools are able to recover from the difficulties in the past two years and get back to thriving. i like to do it in a way that's supporting priority educational programs and would like to see us work on a budget appropriation as supervisor ronen alluded to. that's really for priority programs for our students it in our classrooms rather than for recall election, which is controversial and contentious now. i have been in conversations with leadership of the school district, the administration and also school board member including budget chair lam to come up with a budget appropriation that will be to restore and support our priority educational programs and services for our students. i wanted to share that update and that's kind of where i'm at on this issue today. thanks. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you. i want to understand what you're proposing. you're proposing to duplicate the $8.728 million appropriation item number 7. that is before us. reduce the duplicated file to the $3.24 million that we rejected on december 14th and here, the two items today? >> supervisor ronen: i did not make myself clear about this. what we would do, yes, to everything you said. we would vote on the -- item 7 on second reading. we would vote on the $3.2 million on first reading and would have to have a second reading next week if it does pass. >> supervisor peskin: i don't think we can do that because in essence, we are increasing the $8.7 million appropriation that is on the agenda to north of $11.9 million. that is not agendized. i believe that would require rereferral to committee and public comment on the duplicated file. otherwise, pursuant to the brown act, the public doesn't have the ability to comment. i defer to our city attorney. >> good evening, ann pearson. the original file which included the full $11 million was in committee and the public had the opportunity to comment on it. this would not require a referral back to committee. >> supervisor peskin: what about the notice that is before the public wherein that notice indicates that this is an $8.7 million appropriations that is coming through the duplication of the file? >> again, the amendment that proposed is just to restore the amount to the full amount that was subject to public comment in committee. >> supervisor peskin: right. that is not notice the on today's agenda. >> that's correct. the board may take action on items that are noticed that go beyond the scope of the notice, to the extent that the amendments are not substantive. >> supervisor peskin: first time i heard that in 20 years. if that is your advice, so be it. >> president walton: i want to still state from my standpoint, i don't know why we have to take this vote today. as i understand it, the process is the city would pay for the election any way and if a district was to ever come out of pocket, they would have to reimburse the city. which means there's plenty of time to have discussions about this. the district would not bury up front costs. i understand and i have known for some time. there's so much work we did on the board of education. i know how hard my colleagues are working to address the gaps. this $3.2 million does not go towards doing anything to address the gaps in achievement to address the literacy issue and math issue and injustice equities that exist in the district. i do want to be mindful, these dollars do not go toward addressing of those major concerns that we all share. >> supervisor ronen: i really do understand the arguments against this. i'm just looking at this at a practical level. the district has to right now as we speak, figure out how to balance the budget that faces a significant deficit. as you know, when you don't have definite, you have to assume that you have to cover those costs that you anticipate. if you don't pass $3.2 million today, it's just another $3.2 million on their books that they're going to have to use other sources for in order to cover all their responsibilities. they won't be able to plan for how they can use that money for other purposes like educating our students and all the services that they need. this is a purely practical trying to take this expense off the school district's mind so they can focus on balancing their budget in a way that's most effectively meet the needs of our students. it's to give them a peace of mind this expense will not come down later on in line. it won't be used to meet the horrendous academic situation that i just gave you a taste of. we will hopefully, as supervisor mar said, be doing our part to help them address those statistics. it's meant to make -- to take this burden off their mind. i'm happy to call the question and vote on it and see if we can get the votes. >> president walton: could you restate the motion for the record? >> supervisor ronen: sure. i like to duplicate the file and then amend the duplicated file as laid out in the amendment i passed out to you. which would amend back the amount from the original $8.7 million to 3.244846. the amount we took out last time around. we would hear item 7. we would vote on that item to finally pass it. then we would vote on the duplicated file on first reading today. >> president walton: thank you. do we have a second? seconded by supervisor safai. madam clerk on first vote is on item number 7. >> clerk: on the original item number 7. [roll call vote]. there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: thank you. without objection, this original item number 7 on today's agenda is finally passed unanimously. on the motion to amend the duplicated file to be reflective of the additional $3,244,846. >> clerk: this matter requires eight votes for approval. on the amended duplicate. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: motion carries. >> clerk: that was on the amended duplicate to amend the duplicate and now on the duplicate as amended. [ laughter ] >> president walton: now we're voted on duplicated amended file that reflected additional $3.2 million. >> clerk: on the duplicate as amended. [roll call vote] there are 10 ayes with one no with supervisor peskin in dissent. >> president walton: the motion amended duplicated file passes 10-1. madam clerk, please call item number 8. >> clerk: that item was passed on first reading. >> president walton: correct. thank you. >> clerk: item 8, this is an ordinance to appropriate approximately $2.5 million of general fund reserve to the fire department for increase staffing to address paramedic staffing shortages in fiscal year 2021-2022. >> president walton: thank you. seeing no one on the roster, please call the roll for item number 8. >> clerk: mr. president, just for the record, this item is also subject to an eight vote threshold. [roll call vote]. there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: this. ordinance is finally passed unanimously. we are going to come back to our 3:00 p.m. special order items 9 and 10 at the end of the meeting. please call the roll for introductions. >> clerk: first up to introduce new business is supervisor ronen. submit, thank you. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: submit. >> clerk: thank you. supervisor stefani? >> submit. >> clerk: supervisor walton? >> president walton: colleagues today i'm introducing a hearing on the residential certificate of preference program to review the data and plan for future implementation of the new certificate of preference eligibility requirements with the passage of ab1584, authored by our very own city attorney, david chu. the new certificate of preference eligibility criteria prioritizes the descendents, including children, grandchildren and other lineal descendents. i'm requesting mayor office of housing and office of community investment and infrastructure to report on the existing data and implementation of new rules. >> clerk: we can rerefer. supervisor chan? submit, thank you. supervisor haney. submit. >> supervisor haney: i have two in memoriam. i'm requesting that we adjourn the meeting in richard. he was a longtime advocate for san francisco neighborhood spending 15 years supporting at as bury heights neighborhood. richard was born november 4, 1940 in new york. he attended the university of san francisco and following his graduation worked for bank of america. one of the businesses, american shared hospital services black-owned medical services company recruited richard to join its board and serve as the company c.f.o. richard's life only got busier when he retired from his long career in finance. what began as a volunteer gig turned into a job when the merchants recruited richard. richard lived in his apartment for 45 years and served as chair for 25 years. the organization focused on improvements to buena vista park. he spent five years pushing for much "yes" to the park including new benches and lawns and stonewalls which were stalled in 2013. throughout the past year, richard was an eloquent advocate for stopping the practice to strengthen protections against removal housing services that this board passed unanimously in november. richard is survived by his sister, nephew and countless friends workshop worked closely with him over the years to make san francisco a better place. may his memory be for a blessing. next i'm asking that we adjourn in memory of robert thomas who died on december 11th at the age of 75. robert who went by bob operate a magazine on market street for almost 50 years. he was born in patterson, new jersey on february 2, 1946. he graduated in 9/11 68 then followed a friend to san francisco. in 1969, bob met his lifelong partner at a sunday brunch. the pair also had a knack for provocative window displays. one such display which went up immediately following the resignation of richard nixon and included every single cover with nixon on it. the magazine ruled in popularity in the 1980s. bob he was first diagnosed in 1996. he was passionate about the visual art. he preserved many works. his passion for preserving for history was institutions like the lgbt historical society. bob is survived by his partner of more than 50 years, his more is already in san francisco. he's -- may his memory also be a blessing. the rest i submit. >> clerk: thank you. supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: i have one item for introduction today. one in memoriam. early in the pandemic, we saw local state and the federal government move swiftly and boldly to expand access to paid level for workers impacted by the pandemic. those, we also face a grim reality while the pandemic audid public health emergency leave unanimously as an emergency ordinance on april 14th. public health emergency leads gave over 200,000 san francisco workers to access two weeks of paid family level. climate change continues to exacerbate our wildfire season. we need laws that reflect these threats and provide safety and security in the face of them. when we created paid sick leave law in 2006, it's time to lead again to protect working people that stand exactlies. i want to thank the board and mayor breed for the support of the policy and i want to thank the city attorney and my legislative aid for all of their work on all of their versions of this policy. i look forward to further discussions. i like to close today's board meeting in honor and celebration of veteran affairs commissioner. george dedicated his life to serving our country and young people of san francisco unified district. in his career with the united states army, george served in iraq, afghanistan and kosovo and retired after three decades as a colonel. as a senior instructors he provided guidance and mentorship to hundreds of teenagers who looked up to him. in addition to jrotc, george also volunteered with the civil air patrol beginning as a cadet himself and then mentoring youth. he was a san francisco state university graduate. george's legacy and leadership serve as mentorship and friendship will be carried on and remembered by all the individuals that he has touched. the rest i submit. >> clerk: thank you. supervisor melgar? >> supervisor melgar: thank you very much. happy new year colleagues. i do today, have a hearing request that i'm putting in along with supervisor ronen to be heard at the children's family, young adults committee. like many of us, who are parents of children in san francisco, i spent the weekend trying to score some testing for my kid before she went back to school. colleagues, the lines were long. everywhere. there were no test kits available anywhere. that brought a lot of questions for me. i was particularly struck by the line in front of the testing site on 24th and lilac in supervisor ronen's district. where the line, mostly latino, went down lilac up 24th street down mission street and down 25th street. there must have been about 400 people in line. many families with children trying to get them tested before going back to school on monday. it occurred to me, we put all our efforts to that site to support the latino community. it had the highest rate of infection. it seem like now, we're putting extra vaccine on that site for everyone as well. i know there were no testing sites available at all. i do want to hear what our plans are. i am afraid after spring break, we may be in the same situation. i want to make sure that we as a city are doing everything in our power to support the san francisco unified district so we can make sure that folks, staff, educators and kids are safe. kids are not going back and possibly carrying this back to their homes to their unvaccinated baby sibling that we are making sure that our emergency response support can be mobilized to ensure that every one has access to testing, to p.p.e. to all of the things it seems like the private school in our city has access to. because they have the resources. i'm looking forward to hearing from the department as you all know. it's now up to the department of public health. we will revisit that later in our hearing. >> clerk: thank you, supervisor peskin. >> supervisor peskin: i will defer my roll call because it's related to the committee of the whole. for some reason, i will ask to be rereferred. >> clerk: thank you. supervisor preston? thank you, submit. mr. president, you wanted to be rereferred. >> president walton: thank you so much. i'm also just wanting to introduce and in memoriam on behalf of the san francisco board of supervisors, i would like to adjourn in meeting in honor of gerris woodson hope. she lost her life few weeks ago to gun violence that is senseless. we want to remember gerris as a compassionate, hard working and loving community leader. gerris was an effective organizers and committed her life to pushing for new possibilities for families living in san francisco public housing. gerris was a mother to five beautiful children. the rest i submit. >> clerk: thank you. i see supervisor safai on the roster. >> supervisor safai: can you ask me memorial to mr. george. >> clerk: there are no other names on the roster. that concludes the introduction of new business. >> president walton: we are now at public comment. >> clerk: at this time, the board of supervisors will hear general public comment. the best practice is to use your touch phone. you will be in live sync to listen to the proceeding and provide your comment. throughout the meeting the telephone number is (415)655-0001. when you hear the prompt, enter the meeting i.d., 24993702895. press pound twice. you'll know you have joined the meeting. you'll hear the discussion but your line will be muted. once you're ready to get in the queue to provide your comment, that's when you should press star 3. when it is your turn, you'll hear a prompt that states, you have been unmuted and just begin speaking your comment. here you may provide general public comment on the approval of the november 16th and 30th, 2021 board meeting minutes and the items on the latter section listing matters of adoption without reference to committee items 13-18. what i stated earlier, item 18 is whether or not the board of supervisors should convene a committee as a whole. please save your comments for the actual committee of the whole once item 9 is called. all other agenda content has had its public requirement fulfilled. we do have interpreters on standby. i appreciate it if they could introduce themselves and the service they are providing to the public. we'll begin with mr. arturo for spanish, ms. agnus live for chinese, welcome. [speaking spanish] [speaking chinese] >> clerk: thank you. thank you for being here and the services you providing to the general public. as president stated earlier in this meeting, we are setting the timer for one minute. i will apologize in advance if i do interrupt anyone. we want to make sure that we do provide everyone the same amount of time to provide their comment. now, operations, let's please hear from the first caller. welcome caller. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm calling in about item number 13. the six unit building on page street was the home of 1-year-old iris canada and home for 60 years. this case symbolizes the worst of greed, quick windfall profit scheme with the outcome of iris's death. east coast speculators came in -- [ indiscernible ] this is a huge shame. this is a stain on our city. we cannot forget and we should not approve. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. we have nine who are listening and three callers in the queue. next caller please. >> caller: supervisors, it is a shame that you allow us, the public, one minute. we just heard about ms. canada. up guys are without a plan. you are the laughing stock of the world. >> clerk: thank you for your comment mr. da costa. do we have another caller on the line? >> caller: hi. i wanted to quickly comment on one of the early items is about domestic help, help and support. it's really needed. [ indiscernible ] >> clerk: thank you. we have 10 listeners and if you are one of the 10 and you like to provide public comment, you should press star 3 now. operations let's hear from the next caller please. >> caller: good afternoon. restore muni service. open the central subway. hire more bus drivers. why is there thousands of muni buses parked in the muni parking lot? muni supposed to go everywhere. there's people in the neighborhoods that have never seen a muni bus. we should be expanding muni, not cutting service. stop the cuts. expand muni. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. another caller in the queue? >> caller: hi, can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. >> caller: i'm dr. teresa palmer. i want to comment on the tenderloin emergency plan. i think the plan is a joke. >> clerk: i'm pausing your time. this part of public comment is not about the merits of the issue. this is about whether or not the supervisors should convene that committee of the whole to hear your comments. >> caller: in the committee of the whole. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. anything further? let's hear from the next caller please. >> caller: my name is wyatt smith. i live in district 6. i recently had omicron. i was out of work for two full weeks. my rent is 50% of my income. i will not be able to make rent on february 1st. i wanted to call on the entire board of supervisors to try to come up with some solutions to this problem. it's going to get really bad come end of the month. thank you for your time. >> caller: i want the board to convene to discuss the declaration of emergency. i want them to have another hearing to discuss it. >> caller: do we have another caller in the queue? >> president walton: seeing no other callers in the queue. public comment is now closed. let's please go to our for adoption without committee reference agenda items 13-18. >> clerk: items 13-18 were introduced for adoption. unanimous vote required for adoption of resolutions on first reading today. alternatively, a member may require any resolution to go to committee. >> president walton: thank you. colleagues, would you like sever any items? supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: item 15. >> supervisor preston: item 13. >> president walton: i don't see anyone else. i will sever item 18. >> clerk: so then on items 14, 16 and 17? on items 14, 16 and 17. [roll call vote]. there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: thank you. without objection, the resolutions are adopted and motion are approved unanimously. please call item number 15. >> clerk: supervisor safai, you wanted item 13 to be called? >> president walton: my apologies, this was item 13. >> clerk: item 13 is motion to approve final map 9475 and to adopt the appropriate findings. >> president walton: supervisor preston? >> supervisor preston: thank you. colleagues, thank you for continuing this item from the last meeting so that our office could have a chance to review it in-depth with the city attorney. this item is really the final step in a shameful episode in our city's history involving the eviction of the tenants from an entire apartment building on page street including 100-year-old senior who died after losing her home. if you want to know how a city and a neighborhood changes how the rich forced out the poor, how the privileged force out black residents, how a city loses its soul, look no further than this building. the owners of the subject property sought to convert the apartment to condominium. both within city government and among our advocate community, there's been a long standing struggle to stop this from happening. starting in september 2002, nearly 20 years ago, when the owners filed an early eviction out the building. attorneys raised this as emblematic of a hyper gentrifying city. throwing olds out their home to allow pursuit for greater profit. actions were held at the property. legal petitions were filed and the case garnered international attention. the discomfort with allowing this to proceed has been evident in 2018, the planning commission denied the condo conversion request, a ruling was upheld in the trial court. in february 2021, a california court of appeals overruled the order that the owners evicted 100-year-old senior in the process. the owners will be allowed to veteran to condominium. the procedure passed that led us to today. as in all final map approval, the board sits in a ministerial capacity and absent finding of factual error of fraud or the like in the record with lack of basis to reject these motions. while we may have not have the option to reject this item today, we are at the same time, under no obligation to give this our affirmative stamp of approval. the difficult situation for us, after confirming with city attorney, my understanding that if the board does not act on this item today, we executively waive our ability as a board to weigh in on this item. then transfers to the clerk for final certification as mandated under state law. i will not, today or any future date, give my affirmative stamp of approval to an act of ruthless, profit-seeking no matter how technical or administrative the act was called upon to make is. for that reason, i would like to make a motion to continue the item for a week. understanding, the implications of that as i described. before closing, i want to thank the many people who dedicated so much time and energy to this struggle regarding this building to fighting for iris canada, to fighting for our neighbors on page street. i want to thank the city attorney in particular, brian coffman for defending the city position in the court and to the hundreds of neighbors and activists who rallied again and again who stood by iris canada to the very end. we can only hope that this story and the situation on page street serves as a cautionary tale to anyone contemplating profiting from evictions like this in it future. this case has been ongoing for nearly 20 years. the get rich quick scheme for the owners was really a get rich quick scheme for morally bankrupt eviction lawyers. we welcome new people in district 5, but not and never like this. thank you, colleagues. i move to continue this item for one week. >> president walton: thank you. second. seconded by supervisor ronen. before we vote, quick clarity question, supervisor preston. what happens if we voted no? >> supervisor preston: i should probably defer that to the city attorney, i believe that there would be a question before the superior court regarding compliance with the writ that the court has issued in this matter. >> president walton: thank you. i get the gist of the situation. seeing nobody else on the roster. on the motion to continue item 13 to our january 11, 2022 board of supervisors meeting made by supervisor preston seconded by supervisor ronen. >> clerk: on the motion to continue for one week. [roll call vote]. there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: thank you, motion carries unanimously. please call item number 15. >> clerk: item 15 is a resolution to support california state senate bill number 237, introduced by senate member anthony portantino. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: i will not reiterate the comments i made before. other than to say, this is extremely personal for me, other than having the same experience with my son. i think this bill is extremely important. i want to thank senator portantino for sharing his personal struggles with dyslexia and working with the legislature. i want to thank all my colleagues today for unanimously co-sponsoring this resolution. i think it's extremely important that we send a message to the state legislature that city of san francisco is 100% behind this bill. i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support today. i want to say when this passes, i believe it will, i think it's going to have a tremendous impact on children's lives. supervisor ronen pointed out today, the reading and this proficiency that we see in our schools is directly linked to this issue with dyslexia. almost 20% of children and people in the united states and in the world, is something they believe dyslexia impacts. the problem is, so many of them are not identified until later in life. as i have experienced, the more i share this story with people, the more i talk to adults who say, oh, i have dyslexia, i didn't know until i was later in life. i didn't know until i was in high school. i didn't know until i was an adult. it causes tremendous frustration struggling with basic decoding when it comes to reading and writing. i want to thank allful you for your tremendous support of this today. i will fight tirelessly working with the governor and his team. i also spoken with him to support this bill and work to get some type of resolution at the state legislature. thank you, colleagues for your support. >> president walton: thank you. thank you for bringing this forward. detection and access is very important. thank you for prioritizing this. please call the roll on item number 15. >> clerk: on item 15. [roll call vote] >> clerk: item 18 is a motion to schedule board of supervisors to sit as a committee of the whole on january 4, 2022. that is today during the regular board of supervisors meeting to hold a public hearing on the mayor's december 17, 2021 local emergency relating to drug overdoses in the tenderloin. >> president walton: thank you, so much. colleagues, as we all know, over the break we held a very long special meeting on the mayor's emergency order for the tenderloin. we heard from various departments speaking on the plan and we also heard robust testimony from san francisco residents in support and against the plan. ultimately, our board voted 8-2 to approve the motion to concur with the emergency order. at the time of the meeting, we had not received a written plan from the department of emergency management or the mayor's office. it was promised to us the following week. last tuesday, a plan was e-mailed and submitted to the board of supervisors from the director of the department of emergency management. we want to appreciate director carroll for sending us the written plan. we know that there are additional questions and concerns on the emergency order. we will devote this committee of the whole to get unanswered questions about the actual plan and next steps. i want to let the public know what the committee of the whole is going to be focused on as we move forward. seeing no one else on the roster, please call the roll for item 18. >> clerk: on item 18. [roll call vote] there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: this motion is approved unanimously. madam since item 18 has been approved, please call our 3:00 p.m. special order committee of the whole. >> clerk: item 9 is a public hearing of the board of supervisors' convening as committee of the whole, today january 4, 2022. to hold a public hearing on the mayor breed proclamation of local emergency relating to drug overdoses in the tenderloin. >> president walton: thank you so much. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you. thank you all colleagues for indulging me in this request for a second visit with regard to the emergency declaration and apologies that i was not able to join all of you on december 23rd. although, my staff did watch all 10 1/2 hours that meeting have thoroughly briefed me and i want to appreciate all of you for your stamina and excellent questions that you asked the staff and the administration. as i said in the letter, i wrote from mexico, it is obvious to all of us who work at city hall, adjacent to the tenderloin to myself as the supervisor that has uppermost portion of the tenderloin in his district. t.l. has been in crises for quite some time and even more so during the pandemic. whether or not it has gotten worse in the last couple of months is arguable. i checked with the chief medical examiner office today earlier today about the number of opioid related deaths recently as compared to over the last two years. actually, there's no apparent spike. that is not to say that there's not a crises. it is not unforeseen. it is not unexpected. having said that, whether declarations of local emergency use are in order or not, i personally am pleased that the mayor and all of us are focusing on this and i would like to work collaboratively with the administration productively and use this as an opportunity to reverse some human misery that we all see in the t.l. having said that, i want to salute supervisor ronen for her work around mental health s.f. which i think -- i don't want to put words in her mouth -- it's been off to a frustrating start. perhaps this emergency declaration can be used and discuss this more to speed that up. i have some fundamental questions about linkage to what? navigation centers to navigate to where? these are some of the questions that we should ask and continue to be involved and continue to monitor and to continue to collaborate. i've been thinking about that over the last couple of weeks. i do have -- none of them are silver bullet so to speak. some thoughts that i would like to explore particularly with department of public health. to the extent that we view this as a public health crises, which i think is the right lens to look at it as a behavior health crises. i continue to be concerned about the lack of public health detail in this -- i guess it's called a plan. i would call it more of an aspiration document than a plan. i say that with sincere gratitude and respect for the director and her leadership around the covid and covid command center and the endless covid emergency. i also understand that d.p.h. is dealing with covid as well. i think that we really need to focus on behavioral health and talk to the head of mental health s.f. who is prepared to talk to us today. yesterday, i had a long productive conversation with the head of our department of public health, grant colfax and raised the idea and communicated with dr. warren browner that there are two hospital that are approximate to the tenderloin. st. francis, which has made efforts to involve itself in the community and this crises. frankly, cpmc, has been less of an active participant. i actually communicated with dre to engage cpmc in seeing what they can do with behavioral health specialists with clinicians, with beds to be part of the solution to this crises. i like to add that we have quite a number of shelter facilities in and around the tenderloin that because of covid, have been at 50% of capacity. when we are talking about linkage to capacity that is under utilized because of covid, there are answers there that we need it get serious about and explore. particularly, given that somewhere around two thirds of the homeless population is vaccinated, that we can utilize, shetter sites -- shelter sites more efficiently. to that end, i have a few questions for our city attorney and i apologize if these were asked at the last hearing on december 23rd. given that on top of the public health crises with covid, this is an additional strain on our public health facilities on d.p.h. i would like to ask deputy city attorney, pearson, why we can't -- why by law the mayor and or the chief health officer cannot introduce or can they introduce additional supplemental proclamations to the covid state of emergency to ensure that staff and resources are not being taken away from covid by the behavioral health crises. i don't know if i articulated that well. we now have more than two emergencies. we have a covid emergency by the mayor with 41 supplemental proclamations, a covid emergency by the chiefly health officer and now a local tenderloin emergency. i don't know if you understood my question. if not, i'm happy to repeat it. >> deputy city attorney ann pearson. let me describe the powers of the mayor and board and the health officer and emergency. may be i'll answer your question and you can repeat it and i can answer it more directly. obviously the mayor declared an emergency. when the mayor asked declare an emergency, she may take actions that are necessary to address that emergency. similarly, as we've seen in the past year and a half, the board of supervisors also has emergency authority. to the extent that the policies that are included in the legislation are necessary to address the emergency. those really -- those are the main limits on the authority. the things the board may do and mayor may do the things that are necessary to address the emergency. if you can rephrase your more specific question, i'm happy to try to address that. >> supervisor peskin: my specific question was really around ensuring that one emergency does not undully reduce capacity from the other emergency. what our abilities are to dictate that? >> again, i can describe generally what the power is of each person. it sounds like that you're concerned one emergency might take away from resources. i assume that there's some effort to try to make sure that resources are made available both for people who are suffering from covid as well as those in the tenderloin. if you can give me a specific example of something you're thinking about, it might be easier for me to address that. >> supervisor peskin: may be i will ask that. obviously, the covid contagion requires different set of players and skills within public health than the opioid emergency. may be i'll follow up with d.p.h. on that. let me move to the next one, which is why can't we use the emergency proclamation to ensure that expedited and streamlined implementation of mental health s.f.? can we use the local t.l. health emergency to streamline, expedite supervisor ronen's mental health s.f. hire? [please stand by] >> can we do relative to involving and obtaining additional capacity and human resource from the two approximate hospitals c.p.m.c. and saint frances? it would be easier to react to what you propose than to recommend policies to engage the services or resources of those pro entities. i don't know what type of partnership you are imagining with them. >> supervisor peskin: well, i was very pleased this morning to receive from dr. colfax a list of half a dozen or more items that he thought those local hospitals could contribute to this effort that would be meaningful in making some substantial progress. i am happy to share that list with everybody. it's a public document. deputy city attorney i will share it with you and forward to you right now and you can mull that over and give me some advice offline or online when we next hear this. i think we will continue to check in and collaborate as the three month period winds on. with that, i was also reflecting on the fact that early on at the emergency operations center when the covid emergency was declared, one of those supplemental proclamations allowed for streamlining of hiring for hundreds of nurses. kate howard and greg wagner were involved in that. greg is available today. how many thursdays were actually hired for the covid emergency. we went far and wide. we may have gone internationally to procure nurses. i believe we offered hiring incentives and bonus pay and supervisor safai was involved in that effort. i am curious how many we hired, if they are still in the system? given we are still in the covid emergency, when that winds down if there is potential to move them to the system to support the behavioral health needs in the declaration emergency the mayor issued in december. maybe that is for mr. wagner, who i believe is present. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. we have mr. wagner available. mr. wagner. >> thank you. greg wagner chief operating officer for the department of public health. supervisor peskin, i was not expecting that question. i will get you the number of nurses hired. i will send a text to see if i can have it momentarily. generally, that hiring practice has been very successful. we have hired hundreds of nurses under the covid emergency order. many of those nurses are still with us, and we continue to hire through the expedited processes in place under covid. certainly, to the extent that there is programmatic overlap, those individuals hired under the covid process can contribute to the work directly or indirectly that is happening related to the tenderloin. there is and i suspect you may be going there. there are some types of positions that we have the authority and ability to hire under the covid emergency declaration. others we have not. there is some overlap but not universal overlap 2009 the hiring through -- hiring through covid and hiring to do the work that we need to in the tenderloin. if you have a moment of patience i will text and try to get the numbers on the numbers. >> supervisor peskin: i appreciate that. maybe while you are doing that i can turn to dr. hillary, our behavior health director who joined us mental health sf director who joined half a year or so ago to help understand how dph is involved in the tenderloin emergency and what their role is so if you are available good to meet you and good afternoon. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. we have the doctor available. >> thank you and good afternoon, board of supervisors, i am dr. hillary cunnan director of behavior health services at san francisco department of health. happy to speak and answer any questions. the board has. since proceeding and then since the declaration of this public health emergency, the dph has been partnering with director carol, the department of emergency management and entire family of city departments to plan and begin implementation of our response to the emergency. this includes, as you have referred to, working to set up a linkage center as well as partnering and coordinating outreach and engagement efforts in the tenderloin. our goal is to reduce overdose deaths, reduce public drug use, and to provide ready access to care and treatment for the people of the tenderloin. we very much see this as part of our life saving work at the department and we are welcoming the chance to act with urgency and using every resource we can use of the city. supervisor peskin, i want to address the question around shifting resources and diminishing the ability to address the covid pandemic and the current surge which is extremely important to the city, department, and we are aiming to not divert resources and to very much maintain and respond to the current challenges that the pandemic is bringing us. >> supervisor peskin: i am not trying to be too cute. this is something i am trying to get my hands around. you referred to a declaration of public health emergency. maybe this is -- i am glad to hear you consider it such. that is not what it says. the fact that demversus dph is the lead doesn't seem to indicate that to me. you seem to think that, which i think is a good thing. the chief health officer has not said this is a public health emergency nor has the mayor, although public health is involved, but not as the lead. you understand what i am trying to get at? maybe you can tell me how you guys are involved. to that end, what services dph is providing, whether it is on the, you know, the physical health side or the behavioral health side in the lincoln center. >> thanks for those comments, supervisor. i appreciate just pointing out that my public health lens led me to insert public health into that emergency. that is certainly the way that we are collaborating across the city departments, thinking about each department bringing their own expertise, as we know. we are -- it takes multiple strategies and kinds of intervention to solve complex problems such as in the tenderloin. from the public health point of view, we are taking the view that we want to use this opportunity to expand, develop, be creative about the approaches to save lives. our work is to provide program design at the lincoln center, to shape and help coordinate all of the outreach work that is going on, and very much relies on our own dph staff expertise as well as our community partners and providers with whom we are be beginning and will continue to collaborate. >> will there be dph staff with medical or mental health services on site at the lincoln center? i am not clear on that. >> we are still working out the specific details about the staffing. by dph staff, i will use that broadly to say dph staff or contracted providers who will be on site at the lincoln center providing both and on site expertise where appropriate and/or linkage to provider based or dph based expertise where appropriate and feasible. >> supervisor peskin: relative to linkage, not just to expert tease but to other services or to beds, in a temporary facilities or midterm facilities or hospital beds, can you tell us what the plan is to link to what and where? is there sufficient capacity? >> yes, by expertise i should be more concrete. services and linkage to care. the expert tease available in those care settings. we are intending to use really our whole system of carry evaluating where space is available on a daily basis. we are working to facilitate where to create space if we need to. we know that there may be instances where we run into capacity issues. we will actively problem solve them because we have a team at the ready who is available to coordinate care, move people into care where appropriate, to assess needs, and to be creative about when and if there are capacity issues how to address those absolutely. i just want to point out that for the number of people who might not be ready for formal treatment or formal programs, we also intend to design a program for people to make positive behavior change wherever their stage of readiness where we use that. we see this as also helping motivate people to seek care and to pull them into care with all of our skills and expertise. that is part of the on site staff. >> supervisor peskin: relative to my earlier comments about what some of the local private hospitals could provide, that would be helpful to this effort this morning dph provided a list of those. i think you were involved in the creation of that list. can you tell us ways that c.p.m.c. and saint francis or any ear provide -- any other providers might be useful and what you might suggest? >> i would be happy to. the principal is as we need a whole city response to challenging behavioral health and other problems, we need a whole of healthcare response to challenging behavioral health issues whether they are substance abuse, addiction or mental illness. we offered a number of ways in which we would be very welcoming of collobbarration including hospital and emergency department based and enhanced social services for folks coming to the emergency room but who may also have a behavioral health need. i can see i was frozen on the screen. i am not sure you can hear me. >> you are going in and out a little bit. >> maybe if you turnoff the camera it may be helpful. >> let me try going off-camera. enhanced social services and service coordination in private hospital emergency departments. support and commitment to both assessing and coordinating care for patients in emergency departments who might be eligible or even voled in conservatorships. we are also really looking to expand access to addiction treatment, particularly something that emergency departments are doing across the country is initiating country with morphine for those with overdose or opioid addiction and hoping private hospitals will consider expanding use of that in the emergency department. we are very hopeful of working with the nearby private hospitals to receive emergency department data among visits made by people in the tenderloin to understand the impact we are having and help target or taylor responses as needed. finally, in the near term we would be very welcoming of support in the provision of medical van to include nursing or or physicians, particularly at night. people with physical health needs as well as behavioral health needs. let me stop there to see if you have questions. >> supervisor peskin: i very much appreciate it. i don't know if this is for you or mr. wagner. historically c.e.o.s of the public and private hospitals in san francisco county have met regularly. i think mr. wagner may have been the representative on the department of public health to that body. i know there is a sharing of information and i was wondering if any of this is brought up in that setting and if there has been any attempt by dph to involve either one of those or other hospitals in this effort. if so what the response has been. i know that in my communication with dr. brownner from c.p.m.c. today he did not seem like he had been approached about these ideas. i think it would be a good thing to do. i also think and i prefer to do this with honey rather than vinegar. there are certain things that we can easley date including sharing kind of reporting information that you set forth in that e-mail to me earlier and that you just referred to relative to ed reporting data from the tl. mr. wagner, can you tell us if that body still meets if you are the representative on the city's behalf and if any of this has or is going to be discussed in. >> supervisor, the body still does meet the hospital council. i am not the representative. i know that dr. cummings has had discussions about the opioid crisis in particular, but i would defer to her on the extent to which this has or has not been discussed with the hospital council. >> supervisor peskin: relative to bed capacity for behavioral health treatment expansion, what do we have? i know that we have a lot that we aspire to and many that have not been implemented. the good news is that we do actually have quite a bit of available funding for this effort. maybe you can give this body an update on those numbers. >> i just transferred to my phone. i caught the end of your question if you don't mind repeating that. >> supervisor peskin: i was asking about behavioral health residential treatment beds. what we have, what is planned, what is real? >> we do have new resources being devoted to expansion of residential care and treatment. thus far since launch of this fiscal year we have opened approximately 85 spaces or spots in residential care and treatment settings. there are a total of approximately 400 budgeted. we are aggressively moving those forward with some of the challenges as well in some cases acquiring new facilities as well as executing new contracts with providers. >> supervisor peskin: i will not over stay michael wom. -- my welcome. i look forward to being part of the solution. i will defer to my colleagues. i thank you for your indulgence and apologize for not being available on the eve before christmas eve. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. supervisor ronan. >> supervisor ronen: i have a couple questions rerated to what supervisor peskin finished with. the main reason i supported this emergency declaration was because of my excitement about the fact that 250 or around 250 vacant be behavioral health positions at dph could be fulfilled on a short timeline. something i have been pushing for for years. i was wondering if you could give any specifics about that hiring process. if you could tell us what are the vacant positions and what is the timeline for those to be filled i will add the lack of case managers is a major, major problem in our system of care. and the lack of staff running an office of coordinated care which is part of mental health sf. those two things make whatever resources are available to us in terms of beds and treatment programs much less successful because often times people are so sick they need the support of case managers and a coordinated system to enter services and stay in those services. i am so excited to hear about this. i had a hearing request outstanding not just on the tenderloin but on hiring needs to fully implement mental health sf. we are going to hear that in a couple weeks on the government oversight committee. i would love to hear an update related to this plan as well. that can be from mr. wagner or dr. cummings. >> thank you, supervisor ronan. we also view this as an extremely important effort. as you know over the past budget cycles through development of mental health sf and associated behavioral health programs we budgeted approximately 150 new city positions. in addition to that contracted funds to bring on staff through cbo partners. at the same time we have a historical deficit in our existing staffing and behalf of behavioral health and we are pushing hard to fill as many positions as we can. it is not that the pace of implementation is not fast enough for any of us. we are right now doubling down to make a major push to hire at least 200 positions in the next 90 days wherever possible we will hire through the standard civil service where we have an existing eligible list to use we will use. we have spent many past months building those lists recruiting candidates. there are 90 positions where we do not have an eligible list and which are critical positions including in areas you specifically just mentioned, supervisor ronan that are key tr efforts in the mental health sf program to allow us to have a public health impact in tenderloin. in terms of what classes those are, there is a list and there are many positions in many different classes. in terms of the emergency declaration that the board is considering and approximately 90 positions that we will be affirming in the next several days some. the bigger category psychiatric physician specialist, office of coordinated care, health program coordinators are key. pharmacists. epidemiologists, program managers and analysts including those required to bring those contracted services online, the beds and cbo partnerships that are embedded in the budget for mental health sf. we are going to push harder than ever and we are very hopeful and grateful for the assistance to make this push and i think that we have the opportunity here to really make a difference, get ourselves out of our place we are in terms of backlog of hiring and bring on the resources much sooner via this process. >> supervisor ronen: the addition of 200 positions, aside from the mass hiring of nurses that supervisor peskin referred to earlier in the pandemic. has dph ever been able to fill in many positions in 90 days before? >> thank you. the answer is no. by the way, i am still awaiting the data. i will provide that to the board on what we are able to do under the covid emergency. the level of hiring that is required and the number of different classes is unprecedented. we have the combined factors of we are trying to grow the system while we are digging out of deficit that was created during the covid-19 pandemic. it was indirect but because a lot of our freezes and the city's ability to conduct exams and create civilville service lists and resources dedicated to the positions for direct covid responses created a backlog. our ability to do this does require a major push and does require our ability to do some flexibility with the rules. this is a little unprecedented. i will say that we did have that authority under the covid-19 pandemic for nurses for a lot of the positions that are at the hospitalizations and in direct covid-19 response. the nature of this emergency allows us to take that model and apply to positions needed to make an impact in the tenderloin and part of this mental health sf initiative that we are not eligible for expedited hiring under the covid-19 emergency declaration. we understand this is a significant ask. we think it is necessary to be able to do an unprecedented amount of hiring on the timeline required. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. after the hearing on the 23rd and the articles in the paper and the way this whole effort was rolled out by the mayor, so many of the adsvo cats in the community that i so deeply respect who were against us voting in favor of this emergency declaration of local emergency, i really wanted to emphasize this point. i think this is a major, major deal. hiring 200 vacant positions in behavioral health to address very sick people living to streets of tenderloin is what we need to make that difference. 200 city workers in all of the categories that greg wagner laid out is more progress that we have had in behavioral health department that i have seen since i have been here at the board of supervisors. i am worried about and do not agree with a law enforcement-led response in the tenderloin and will continue to fight against that, that strategy which i do not believe when work and i believe we have literally 100 years of evidence showing it doesn't work. i do believe that what will make a difference is a proper health-led response to this crisis. that begins with having enough case managers, enough psychnurses, behavioral health professionals, epidemiologists, program managers to have a workable behavioral health system in this city that it can serve the people that need help on our streets. i just wanted to emphasize this point again because i don't think that this point which i actually believe is the most important part of this proclamation of local emergency has news been discussed enough by the mayor, department of public health and certainly not discussed enough in the press. i hope that explains the reason i decided to vote for this proclamation of local emergency. i want to assure all of the hundreds of people who wrote pome opposing this measure thiss is the reason i supported it. i will continue to fight against a law enforcement surge in the tenderloin. i will continue to fight for a services health response to this drug overdose crisis in the tenderloin, mission and all over the city. i am very excited and hopeful what it will mean in the next 79-- 90 days to have 200 professionals focusing on this crisis. >> thank you. supervisor melgar. >> supervisor melgar: thank you supervisor peskin and ronen for your strong statement and advocacy on behalf of mental health in our city. i am glad to hear that we are going to be able to do some of what we need to do. my question was more about something that supervisor peskin touched on earlier. that was the role of the private hospitals. as i remember, when i was sitting on the planning commission we would get annual reports from c.p.m.c. about the progress on making good on the community benefits of their development agreement. i remember now supervisor gordon mar was very involved in drafting a lot of the agreements that happened between the hospital and the community when we approved their expansion. i remember correctly part of what they agreed to do was provide more health services in the tenderloin. i thought at the planning commission i remember that in one area where they often underperformed in terms of what we were getting out of them. i am wondering if this emergency declaration and i think they have to report to the health commission if i am not mistaken. i wonder if the emergency declaration gives any additional powers to the emergency services does give additional powers to make sure those agreements are kept, if there are resources to compel them to spend in the tenderloin which they were to spend all along to support our efforts with something they got from us. i am just wondering if somebody from dph or planning can answer that. >> mr. wagner. let me see if anybody is here from planning. i am not sure. >> supervisor melgar: i can wait for the answer if it takes time for somebody to come talk to us about it. that was part of the agreement. they were supposed to provide health services. the report they give us every year at least when i was on the planning commission a couple years ago that is one area where they could have done more. >> we are probably going to have to track someone from planning down. we didn't invite them to this committee as a whole. we can reach out in the meeting. >> thank you, supervisor for your question and discussion about the obligations of the hospitals and the community benefits. i would have to get back to you. i think mr. wagner and i can bring that back. we will understand what the obligation is there. >> supervisor melgar, any other questions? >> supervisor melgar: no. thank you, president walton. >> supervisor safai. >> does he get back to you? i wanted to put out there we did have at budget committee we had a whole conversation. the first day we announced the covid case in the city and county of san francisco we had a hearing on the hiring process of nurses. the amount of vacant positions of nurses, amount of traveling nurses and the plan with which they would reduce the amount of time from nine months average to hire down to 60 days to 90 days. they did give us an update recently at the budget and finance committee because we were having a conversation. department of public health is heavily relying on traveling nurses. we wanted to scrutinize that and talk about the total vacancy rate of nurses. i want to read that into the record. it is reduced down to 7.2% of the number of nurses. in terms of san francisco general hospital and laguna honda 11%. when you start county the number of jobs awards it is 3.7 and 8.5 respectively. the process they were not back to business as usual but using the things we learned. there is still work to be done. there is a lot of concern at san francisco general in if emergency room. i wanted to put the amount of vacancies on the table to get that into the record. i will let public health and mrs well that is the data that we had. my question for mr. wagner. i did mention last time that we were here. couple priorities as part of this emergency order and plan. one was san francisco general addiction care team. in line with what supervisor peskin is talking about in the surrounding hospitals to the tenderloin. i know a lot of the individuals suffering from severe addiction are sept be to sf general emergency care team. it is there the addiction care team addresses them. they are under funded. it is an area where we could do additional work to increase amount of linkage to get people to proper treatment and facilities rather than handing them a flyer to say these are the services that you could tap into. doctor martin runs the team. i have spent time with her and her team. it is one of my top priorities for the budget season. now that we have accelerated the conversation and directly linked to what st. francis hospital and dealing with individuals there. it is also someone, another piece of the puzzle that could be increased. i just want to give mr. wagner the opportunity to talk about that. we will continue to work with dr. martin and her team. they have a proposal to expand the resources there and to increase linkage with individuals that have addictions. both maybe he and mr. wagner and ms. cummings can talk about that. >> if she has anything to add to that program. supervisor, that would be worth while for us to have a little bit of offline conversations about that particular program. certainly sounds like it fits squarely that type of expansion fits in the initiative. there would be the usual kind of logistical questions to work through. we would be more than happy to work with you and your office to look at that. >> just through the chair, mr. wagner, are you familiar with the addiction care team at san francisco general hospital and the work that they do? >> i will pass that to dr. cummings. >> i wanted to establish if you are aware of their work. >> yes, i am very aware and respectful of their work. it is a model that is being expanded across the country as a strategy to link patients who might come in for care for pneumonia or hurt leg or other physical health needs and then get the opportunity to have help for their substance abuse disorder or addiction and get linked to ongoing care. i worked with dr. martin as well and i think it is a terrific program of one of the challenges is unlike other kind of specialty services in hospitals like cardiology or pulmonology. medcalorie imbursements are not sufficient to support those services only with insurance reimbursements at least with public insurance. i will add that would be another interesting opportunity to discuss with the private hospitals as well. >> i would say thank you through the chair because of work they are doing, because this is again your area of expertise. you have individuals in this emergency room, you have individuals that are diagnosed with addiction and other substance abuse disorders in need of support. that would be to me one of to most important opportunities to connect them and if this is what this emergency order is about, it is about not going back to doing things the way they have been done for a long time but trying to change the paradigm. this is one of the things we will continue to push in this. very similar to mental health sf. you are going on and you want to fill these positions to deal with mental health crisis. it is very, very clear as you know and we have had these conversations. we have an addiction crisis in the city as well. we have to do better in terms of getting and linking people to services and no better place than the adsdiction care team at san francisco general. it is duplicating those. they are completely under funded and supported that is one of those priorities to push this conversation during this 90 day emergency declaration. did you want to respond to that? >> thank you for your comments. i think that those are highly -- i agree that is a highly impactful service and intervention. we will talk more offline. >> thank you, mr. president. >> thank you. supervisor haney. >> supervisor haney: thank you, colleagues for your questions and your comments. much appreciated. thank you for the answers. i had a few questions about some of the things brought up and a few that have not. i think it is incredibly hopeful that we heard today as supervisor ronan's questions led us to that we are going to see 200 positions filled over the 90 days as part of this health emergency psychat trick specialist, behavioral health, nurses, pharmacists, care coordinators. that is as was said by mr. wagner a much needed really unprecedented rapid hiring and deployment of public health professionals to meet this deadly epidemic that is killing nearly two people each day in our city. i want to ask a question about how it could possibly be that we have these hundreds of positions that i think we all i hope acknowledge will save lives. i am very hopeful that by deploys the hundreds of people that this type of public health response is capable of saving hundreds of lives. it also leads me to be both curious and sad that over the last two years we have seen 700 people die each year and we were sitting on hundreds of vacant but funded positions that this board allocated to respond to this epidemic. mental health sf made the foundation to respond to this epidemic years ago, and yet the lack of filling of positions, lack of deployment of strategies i think has led to us losing many lives. can you help me understand why we could possibly have a situations where we have so many hundreds of positions funded but unfilled and that only through an emergency were able to fill these positions? i think that is hard both for the public and for me as someone who has long supported this emergency to understand how that can be? is it truly there is barriers that it takes a declaration of emergency to do it? if that is the case, why didn't we do this two years ago? i have and this board has called for the declaration of emergency for some number of years for what it could mean for staffing. now as i am reflecting on that, i feel both hopeful about what this could provide for this neighborhood and the people but also incredibly frustrated and sad that this didn't happen sooner? how can we have 200 unfilled positions that we know can save lives that can only be filled by bya state of emergency? >> i and the rest of us at dph share the frustration and sense of urgency about filling these positions. i think there are a couple of factors that have led us to where we are today. we have combination of the fact that we do have an expanded number of new positions in the most recently adopted budget. we are growing. at the same time we have gotten behind both in behavioral health be grated care and else -- integrated care and elsewhere. where certain pieces of the hiring process were frozen due to covid emergency and we have not been able to dig ourselves out of that hole. in combination with that, the nature of the labor market environment particularly in behavioral health is very challenging. there is high turnover, people who have left the work force through burnout, through a lot of the issues that we are all familiar with over the last year or so. i think those factors combined to put us in a position where we have this backlog. we have a combination of backlog of vacant positions that is a lot to dig out of plus expanding the system. with the board support we did put additional resources into our budget to fill these. we really are at this challenging situation where we have a big hurdle to go over to get back to the point where we are at a normal balance between number of vacant be positions and the resources to hire. there are challenges in the city's hiring process, but that is -- those are the factors that got us to where we are today. again, i share your frustration and don't provide those reasons as a justification but as explanation for why i think all of these accumulated pieces that have brought us to where we are today mean this emergency order will give us the push to get out of our hole and back to a place where we have some balance where we are able to more sustainably keep pace with turnover and vacancies with the resources that we have for our employees. >> thank you for that. i asked that question not to place blame or point fingers but more to understand how we make sure that we respond in an ongoing way that is sustainable that keeps pace with the need that actually deploys the staff, public health staff that we have funded. i definitely acknowledge that mental health sf was passed right before the pandemic. then we have added additional positions and funding to build it out. during that time we were in the middle and still are another pandemic. or another epidemic in the middle of a pandemic. i do understand that. it is a reason why this level of focus and giving you the tools to move forward rapidly is something that i think is necessary and i hope that it gets us to a place that is much more sustainable. again, as supervisor ronan said, one of the reasons why this is so necessary is because of the opportunity to fill these hundreds of public health positions to help us respond to the behavior health needs in our city. i wanted to ask one quick question related to that which is about outreach. i noted one of the fundamental approaches we are taking with this emergency is bringing people to the linkage site or center, however, it is referred to, and from there connecting people with longer term care and treatment. in terms of hiring and maybe this is also a question for director carroll or others involved with the center. one of the clear needs is much more robust and ongoing set of street outreach to be able to connect with people where they are regularly and then bring them to the center or enroll in care and treatment directly on the street. is that part of the hiring plan? how are we building up street outreach? is that part of 200 positions? how are we planning to handle that in a different way? >> i see director carroll. i will weigh in on the initial question about 200 person hiring plan and i will turn it over to director carroll. very much part of 200 person hiring plan includes as supervisor ronan pointed out staffing to fulfill and staff up the office of coordinated care. that office will include care and case managers, some of whom will be street based and able to work with people lon people to o sustainable care to coordinate and expand the ability to coordinate the care and to help navigate people to care over not just one single episode but over time. director carroll. >> thank you. happy to be with you today. the outreach we are working on the outreach plan or strategy is led by trusted community partners who are already in the tenderloin. one of the things that we learned through our covid response was that we needed to let the communities that we are serving really help lead the way and to also give the voice to trusted partners, not necessarily the city leading. that is the strategy that we are following in our outreach now. we are meeting with the community partners on a regular basis right now with the health department and the department of homelessness and supportive housing. as you know, we have a number of outreach -- teams with a combination of staff that do outreach. we are working with them to figure out the best way to do the outreach. what we have been told already is that the sooner we can get information out to the people that we want to serve the better. we want to prepare people. we don't want to add trauma on trauma. we are listening to experts, the community, working to put the outreach plan together. >> i appreciate that. it is something that we also the street crisis response teams, outreach is very much welcomed and needed. i think the type of outreach we are trying to do in response to this particular emergency requires an even greater level of both city staff as well as service providers. couple other questions. this emergency focuses, of course, on stopping the epidemic of drug overdoses specifically, and i understand and support that a lot of that attention is focused on people unhoused or using publicly accessible to us in that way. one thing i have not heard as much of is how we are reaching people housed. [please stand by] >> yeah, thank you, supervisor. go -- go ahead. >> sure, sorry about that. and so, supervisor, i think -- i think that -- i hope that you know that we are really have overdoses as one of our highest health priorities. it is for those unhoused and unhoused folks, about two-thirds of overdose deaths are among people who are unhoused in the city. again what this plan in particular around the hiring will allow us to do is to amplify our ability to engage and offer care and treatment to people who are at risk of overdose. focus on people experiencing homelessness, but also able to extend to people who are housed whether they are housed upstabley or stable, whether it is expanding florida naloxone or access to other effective treatments for opioid use disorder. i think that we are really looking to bring to scale every opportunity to engage people at risk of overdose. and i think that some of the list of things that we are interested in bringing to the private hospitals, things such as supervisor safai mentioned about the addiction consult team as well as the work we're doing out on the streets are all aimed to find people who are at risk of overdose, offer them risk reduction strategies, ranging from naloxone, to treatment. >> great, thank you. and, you know, i know that the hundreds of positions that we've talked about here and the more critical care coordination, obviously, will also be serving people who are both housed and unhoused. and we'll help with that. i just wanted to make sure that was -- you know, a key part of this strategy. and i know that there are other goals that we have around some of the public impacts that happen in the tenderloin related to drug use and overdoses which are -- which are also very important. but -- and we want to actually stop people from dying of overdoses, which is the central part of this emergency declaration. and that's going to require us meeting folks where they are and as you said two-thirds of the people who overdose in our city are housed. dr. carol, i wanted to ask about the linkage site and if you could tell us what -- what generally the plans are with it now, and if you have a sense of the timeline, the hours, the type of services that will be there, i will say -- and supervisor ronen spoke about this as well -- one of the parts of the framework of mental s.f. was to have a low barrier, accessible, ideally 24-hour place where people could refer or go themselves immediately without bureaucracy and without barriers to get access to referrals or care. it sounds like this is largely what we're doing with the linkage center, at least focused on the tenderloin and focused on addiction. can you explain a bit what we know so far and what the plans are? and also i want to thank you for your work in securing this site i think that it will make a big difference and it will save lives. >> yeah, thank you, supervisor. so the linkage center is intended to be a service -- really service focused location, where people can voluntarily find respite from the streets, first. and, second, to gain access to a wide variety of resources that are provided by the city and our partners. so, again, there's sort of two purposes. and one is to provide a very safe and welcoming kind of low-barrier space for people who suffer from substance use disorder in the tenderloin where they can go and they can access a number of these basic services which are, you know, food, water, hygiene, what we call test treatment activities and programming, covid testing and vaccines. we're working on having some basic services around wound care. so things that really, if nothing else, it is a safe place for people to be that's not on the street. and then, secondly, of course, is the linkage to programs. and so those include programs in the area of behavioral health and treatment. temporary winter shelter. homeward bound. sobering and substance use. food coordination. child and family care and other types of problem solving. so, you know, people who are on the street have a lot of different needs, and maybe a person comes in many times to get a cup of coffee or have their wound addressed or to, you know, have some socialization or what have you and that can be many times before perhaps they may also have that time where linking to some services to help their addiction becomes available. so we don't -- it's not a very prescribed what people need to do there. we're going to offer everything that we can. i think one of the big -- for me, one of the benefits of doing this declaration and this project is that it really forces us as a city to coordinate in a way that we haven't before. or in the way that we did over the last two years under another emergency. but to really bring these programs together in a way that will be the most helpful and to expedite that -- that connection. and, frankly, to offer something that right now we are not offering people in the neighborhood which is relief from the streets. to the question about housing -- people who are housed, we are in those conversations, both with the clinical service providers, but also the housing providers. because, obviously, a fear of people going back and using in a way that is more unsafe, certainly, we don't want to drive negative outcomes from this project, right. we want to be able to achieve our goals, which is less overdoses overall. so that is -- that is sort of the basic picture. again, we're still working on a daily basis on the final programming of who is going to be there and what the schedule is going to be. our intention is for this to be a 24/7 operation, which means that everyone feels that that's not going to be the most optimat effect for everyone. it is very likely, especially due to covid and that we are opening this in the middle of the omicron surge that we may have to ramp up those hours kind of on an iterative basis but that is the goal that we are working towards. >> thank you, i appreciate that and this is obviously a tremendous, tremendous challenge that you are all taking on and it will not be easy, but this is something that requires this scale of a response and a level of coordination that is unprecedented. but, absolutely, essential. i just want to note too that -- and this hasn't been talked about as much, but there's one non-congregate shelter that has already opened and i believe another one that's opening this week, and i think that those have also been made available to help us as part of this plan. so i do want to underscore that, obviously, as supervisor peskin said, we need places for them to be linked to. and that is the kind of thing that we need to see, which is more of these placements being made available, including non-congregate shelters, treatment beds and, of course, filling the permanent supportive housing units that are open. one last question. you know, we had a hearing a few weeks ago and i mentioned this at our hearing on this item 10 days ago. they really shone a light on the fact that we have a lot of spending on behavioral health, on homelessness, that was approved as part of the budget -- and this is a special interest to me as a budget chair, but have not yet been deployed. is not yet been sent out the door. and one of the things that i am hoping as part of this emergency is that we can move quicker on that as well. is there anything that you can share as far as updates in terms of -- for maybe this is for the director on sort of how you're thinking about deploying resources or contracts that we've approved as a board as part of this in a way that is quicker over the next 90 days? >> yeah, that is very much unded thinking about ways in which we can speed up other processes in addition to hiring. i think since the declaration, we have been -- as i think that you have heard -- really laser focused on the hiring processes and making sure that we can take advantage of this moment. i think that your question is really a natural one and we are definitely going to be exploring that as well where we can use this declaration to do the same thing. >> great, thank you. and i know that we'll be in touch about, you know, the future update and ongoing ways for people to give input and receive data and transparency around this and i appreciate the data that was released today in terms of the number of people who have been placed and some of the other positive things that have taken place. and, again, i know that this is a tremendous, tremendous challenge that we are taking on, but i think that for the reasons that we have outlined here around the ability to secure this facility, the opportunity to move contracts, the opportunity to hire quicker, all of these things at least for 90 days i think that give us the -- the needed push to match this with scale and urgency, not to disrupt the status quo that had really devastated this neighborhood and our city. thanks again for the answers. thank you. thanks, president walton. >> president walton: thank you, supervisor haney. supervisor preston. >> supervisor preston: thank you, walton and thank you, supervisor peskin, for calling for this additional committee of the whole. and to my colleagues for all of the good questions so far. i must say that i am concerned and i appreciate some of supervisor haney's questions along the lines of just kind of did this problem of basically having all of these vacant positions and having this problem for so long and then sort of relying on states of emergency to sort of push through for things that should have been done and haven't been done, it is -- it can be a concerning style of governing. but more specifically i do feel like this conversation has so far really ignored the context here that we discussed at length and i don't want to go back over in detail. but i also don't thank we can just read it out of the situation. i mean -- that is the role of policing and law enforcement here. and, you know, since the last hearing which we talked about this extensively, in which we talked about how the mayor has made very clear that this is a law enforcement-led or co-led effort, complete with all of the talking points from the war on drugs, rhetoric, right, and flooding the streets of the tenderloin with police. i went through it in her statements in more detail last time. the administration has not really backed away from those statements, other than having the police chief say that's not the plan and we hope that people will voluntarily take services. but, surely, there's just no question that the mayor has been very clear on this. i think that we should take her at her word on that. and which we've had two more weeks in which the administration could have provided us anything in writing describing any limits on the role of law enforcement here. and we've also established that the proclamation here and the declaration of emergency, it's broad, and it doesn't pro-cludethe kind of increases of policing that the mayor has vowed to unleash on the neighborhoods. so -- so i appreciate -- you know, look, if this conversation were just about the public health responses, we'd have a unanimous board fighting all together with the administration for all of these things. instead, what we have is basically packaging a police response with a public health response and then telling everyone to just ignore police response. so getting the headlines around the police response, but then when it comes to our discussion here at this board we're supposed to just ignore that. we have received since the last hearing the three-page outline of a plan. you know, not a word about the police department, one way or the other, right. community ambassadors are referenced here as to what they're doing, to calls to intervene in street activities. this is so elegantly written to even avoid saying sfpd. i mean, who are we trying to kid? i just -- like, at some level, there's -- i think that there's a duty of candor in discussing these things and the administration coming before this board in which we need to be honest about what we are and we are not doing. so we have the mayor's public statements and nothing limiting those. two more weeks going by -- nothing. could have revised the proclamation, brought to us something that had limits on law enforcement and we would have been unanimously moving forward to address the public health crisis and, instead, we're back here to have the same argument. i do have some questions specifically in particular relating to these things that have or have not happened since our last hearing. so through the president, i wanted to ask first the controller ben rosenfeld if he is available, whether there's been any transfers of funds pursuant to the proclamation? >> president walton: we do have controller rosenfeld on and there he is. >> good afternoon, president walton and members of the board there have been no transfers or appropriations of funds [indiscernible] under the state of emergency today. >> president walton: controller rosenfeld you have some kind of echo for some reason. >> clerk: through the president, adjust your microphone, if that is possible. >> apologies, did that come through? >> president walton: it's still going. what was your -- what did you say, madam clerk, i didn't hear that. >> clerk: just through the president to mr. rosenfeld, if you could maybe turn off your camera and see if that would give you a better sound. >> can you hear me now clearly? >> president walton: that's much better. >> okay. apologies. good afternoon, president walton and members of the board. ben rosenfeld, controller. to your question, supervisor preston, no, there's been no transfers of funds or appropriations of funds processed as a result of this emergency to date. >> supervisor preston: thank you, mr. rosenfeld. have there been any requests for the funds, even if not yet processed? >> there have not. >> supervisor preston: thank you. through the president to director carol, i wanted to follow up on supervisor peskin's questions around the public health nature. is this a proclamation -- is this a public health proclamation? >> it's an emergency declaration to address the public health issue. so, i mean, i'm not a city attorney so i don't know what else to say. emergency declarations are set forth in the charter and the attorney can explain better the nature of what we're doing. >> deputy city attorney, i would field that question, supervisor preston, if that is okay. >> supervisor preston: yeah, go ahead, thank you. >> sure. so under state law, local jurisdictions have the authority to declare local emergencies. and then there are charter, the authority to make that declaration reside with the mayor. so the mayor here has proclaimed a local emergency. state law also authorizes the health officers to declare local health emergencies under certain circumstances, typically deals with infectious or communicable diseases. you may recall that under covid there were two declarations of emergency. the mayor declared a local emergency and the health officer declared a emergency. and this is a local emergency, even though as has been discussed it deals with issues related to public health and public health threats. >> supervisor preston: thank you for the clarification. and, director carol, how is the command for this structured? like, what is -- obviously, dem will be in charge of the emergency response. are all of the other departments equal? or is this -- or does public health lead beneath you? like, what is the command structure here for the emergency response? >> so we -- the department of emergency management is the lead. so our role is to coordinate the overall effort for this. our planning -- we are doing -- you know, a lot of what we're doing right now is in planning so we're working with a lead from the department of public health, dr. andy tenor, and we have moved from human services agency and then other support departments. >> supervisor preston: and -- >> go ahead. >> supervisor preston: sorry. director carol, i'm trying to understand, do all of the departments then -- their leads report to you? and just let me be more specific. for example, the police department, within the context of this emergency order, do they take their direction from the department of public health, some other entity or dem directly? >> so i don't have the ability to direct the police -- the police department as far as their tactics, but they are part of our overall incident management team. and we are focused primarily with them on the -- on how outreach will work. that's our main direct focus right now, but at the same time, the police department emergency declaration or not has law enforcement operations ongoing in the tenderloin. so it is important that we coordinate very closely with them so that we understand whers are and so that we are able to, you know, to focus on certain areas and what we're going to do that day. since mid-december, we have placed 58 people in non-congregate shelter and so on the days that we're out doing the outreach for that, that we have been out there, you know, we let police know that this is an outreach operation and that's where we are. so, yes, we coordinate closely with them, as we do with the health department, hssa and ta, and theuc, and this is a city-wide operation that we're working on. >> supervisor preston: and i'm trying to understand that there was some outreach done that you've been describing, but i think that in response to supervisor haney you clarified that there's not an outreach plan at this time, that you're working on that. so is this a model where you have, like, different folks from different departments as part -- like, what's happening in the meantime until you have that outreach plan? what is the outreach date that you are describing? >> yes, so we are working -- hsoc -- so, first of all, we've been working on this under the emergency declaration since last week when it was ratified and planning for it since before then. so over the last week and i think that this was shared and if it's not i'm happy to share it with everyone. i'm just pulling up my latest info. so since the declaration and for the past few weeks, what we've been doing differently is that we have been on a daily basis holding operations meetings. and that is with existing operations that are already there that normally on a daily basis are not an emergency. everyone is out there doing their thing. but what we're doing now is that we pull everyone together every day, and we have folks report on what they're doing specific to the tenderloin. this declaration directs us to focus our efforts on the tenderloin. so, for example, i can -- the data that we're collecting this week, 66 engagement by street crisis response teams, that is since 12/17. we have -- what was the disposition of those. we have -- we're keeping data on all of the successful encounters. we know that our tent count in the tenderloin has gone from 95 on 12/11 to 51 as of 12/30. this is due to the joint efforts of dph and hssh and pd doing the outreach and hsoc operations. the reason that we were able to do those placements is that we were able to secure specific resources in a non-congregate hotel for the tenderloin. we also know that pd has made 33 arrests for drug fails and possessions, and seized, you know, a certain amount of fentanyl. there's been 80 calls for street overdose response teams. and we have mta doing enforcement. so these are the kind of things that on a daily basis we have certain objectives, but we're also doing report outs. so we'll report out on a weekly basis all of this data. we've recently had contacted the controller's office and they'll help to provide us this information. so our focus, obviously, is on overdose prevention, but we know that the neighborhood has other problems also. and so we are looking at this as a whole. >> supervisor preston: thank you. and to your question or comment, no, we have not received any of this data and i would love to get it. and is this -- this is done daily or weekly, the data tracking that you're describing? you're on mute. >> i'm sorry. so we'll be doing a weekly report, similar to what you all receive, i think still receive for covid. >> supervisor preston: thank you. and then my understanding is that the linkage center lease was signed in the last few days, is that correct? >> yes, it was signed on new year's eve. >> supervisor preston: great, thank you. and i just want to comment again -- and i've made this point with other documents but i just want to make it again -- we're coming into a committee of the whole, we're discussing this topic. it would have been great to learn about that directly from you or your team as opposed to, frankly, right now our source of information is public records act requesters who then tweet documents. i mean, that's where we are, that the board of supervisors that is charged with oversight and the unlimited power of inquiry is reliant on public requesters of documents. that's how i learned that there were leases signed despite that being a key assertion at the last hearing of why the -- i mean, we talked about this extensively at the last hearing and that was put forth really as the only reason that things couldn't wait until today's hearing before moving forward with the state of emergency. so, you know, that's not a question. but i want to just note that as an ongoing concern. i don't think that any of us expect, you know, real-time daily updates, but coming into a hearing, i've gotta say that it's really concerning when we're convening a hearing to discuss these issues that we learn more from public record requesters than we do directly from the departments that are before us. my next question for director carol is the hiring plan that's been referenced a few times. and thank you to my colleagues, supervisor ronen and haney in particular, for all of their work on mental health, s.f. and for their questions on this. but is that -- is there a hiring plan that's in writing? >> the hiring plan pertains to the health department. so i would defer that answer to my colleagues from dph. >> through the president to supervisor preston, we are right now working with dhr to finalize the list of positions intended to use under the emergency declaration and we'll be happy to provide that to the board as we finalize it. >> supervisor preston: thank you. is there a consultation with any representatives of labor in developing this hiring plan? (please stand by) >> have tents and people residing in them been involuntarily removed from the streets of the tenderloin? >> no one ever involuntarily removed by the operation. people have been offered placement and as i noted, 58 people have taken up placements in non-congregate shelter >> what happened to the people that did not take the placement? >> they are still on the streets of the tenderloin. >> then the arrest urk mentioned 33 arrests since the proclamation. how many of those were from possession? >> my understanding is that those were all around dealing. i don't know specifics to all those that were arrested. they were arrested for drug sales or intent to sell. again, i can't speak specifically. if you want the breakdown of those, i would refer to the police department. >> through the president, if chief scott is on, can you provide clarity on the 33 arrests. how many of those were for possession or intent to sale or intent to sale. or anyone from the police department? >> president walton: i don't see clear representative from the police department on this roster now. we're going to have to do some outreach to get someone on. >> supervisor preston: thank you. question to the deputy city attorney pearson. does this emergency order in any way -- can an emergency order authorize a sweep -- let me rephrase that. does this emergency order authorize any action, enforcement action against homeless people on the streets that would otherwise be prohibited by the boise case? >> boise case was a case that looked at constitutional limits on the ability of jurisdiction to enforce criminal laws relating to camping outdoors. a local emergency may suspend provisions of the charter. may suspend provisions of local law but may not suspend provisions of the constitution or federal or state law. >> supervisor preston: thank you for the clarification. when the mayor makes statements around enforcement of laws, all of those will be subject to the constitutional limitations of the boise case regardless of the existence or nonexistence of the state of emergency? >> that's correct. >> supervisor preston: thank you. through the president to director carol, are there sufficient shelter beds to offer people right now given the limitations of covid to do resolutions at this point? >> yes, h.s.h. dedicated shelters specifically to the tenderloin. which is why we were able to place that number of people off the streets in the tenderloin into those specific designated beds. >> supervisor preston: how many beds are currently available? >> i don't have that on me right now. we get numbers on a daily basis from h.s.h. we base our work on the number of beds that we have. >> supervisor preston: thank you. director carol, are there any -- i know you've been dealing with this over the last two years in the context of other emergency order. i'm wondering are there any general order, policies or protocols regarding how police interact with homeless people that this emergency proclamation would override? >> not that i'm aware of. >> supervisor preston: thank you. i think the last question -- in terms of shelter beds or other services currently, let's focus on available beds or housing now for this question. are there any new resources that are being made available or is it the reallocation of shelter beds or housing that would be available city wide now being prioritized for the tenderloin? >> to be honest, i don't think i can accurately answer that. as you know, i think we're all aware that the availability of beds is a very dynamic situation and it changes on a day-to-day basis. we're working close oh closely with h.s.h. to have as many beds designated as possible. i'm happy to come back or provide that answer to you in writing. i don't have it here. i don't know if any of my colleagues are here from h.s.h. >> supervisor preston: is anyone from h.s.h. on? >> yes, hi. this is emily cohen, deputy director at department of homelessness and supportive housing. >> supervisor preston: my question was whether there are any additional shelter beds or housing units being -- that have been made available pursuant to this declaration of emergency or whether it is just a matter of earmarking or prioritizing the existing resources for folks in the tenderloin. >> at this point, we are utilizing existing resources to provide shelter capacity to support the operation. we are looking at opportunities to expand shelter but there's nothing that has created more beds at this time. we are opening winter shelter currently. we are looking to open additional shelter capacity in the next couple of months. right now we're making beds available through our existing portfolio. >> supervisor preston: are there any plans to expand beyond what you will be planning to expand without this declaration of state of emergency. is there any plans to expand beyond that? >> we have plans to expand shelter but they are not reliant on the state of emergency. >> supervisor preston: thank you. i want to note, that is concerning. one of the benefits of state of emergency in this situation would be to use it in the same way i think my colleagues noted in terms of ramping up the hiring process. i would respectfully suggest to everyone that we be ramping up the number of shelter beds and so forth with the same urgency that's been described around the hiring of public health folks. thank you. those are my questions. >> president walton: thank you supervisor preston. i want to remind my colleagues before we go back to supervisor melgar and i know we have plans on. we have interpretation to 7:00 p.m. we do have the public that may need interpretation. we can come back to ask questions after we hear from the public. i want to be mindful of that. supervisor melgar, i know you wanted to hear from planning. i do see aaron star is on. are you available? >> i am. >> supervisor melgar: thank you so much. mr. starr, as you may remember, i sought through several annual reports on how they were doing on your community benefits obligations under their development agreement. we are talking here today about the emergency declaration in the tenderloin and the need to increase our staffing levels to provide health services, behavioral health services. in my mind, when development agreement is entered into with a developer and they commit to community benefits, that becomes the asset of the city. they allow them to do things this they wouldn't normally do. to me, it makes sense to view those resources and i'm wondering if you could update us as to what those are in their development agreement and how they are doing towards those. this is an obligation that our resources outside those we are paying for, that really belong to us in every other way. it was part of the development agreement. >> yes. you're absolutely correct. the development agreement, they have to abide by what's in there and make sure they do that. i don't have an update on where they are on that and how well they've been doing. on january 20th, they are presenting an update to the planning commission. we should have more data and information specifically on the health services to the tenderloin in the development agreement. it's something that we can look into. >> supervisor melgar: i will follow-up on that. thank you so much. >> president walton: thank you. thank you aaron. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: the other aaron, thank you president walton. just couple of quick questions and i will wrap up. to ms. carol, out of curiosity, you mentioned trusted community partners in the tenderloin. who are those trusted community partners which you are affiliating? >> give me one moment. the t.l. organizations that are so supportive and who we've been working with is st. anthonys tenderloin community benefit district, tenderloin housing clinic, level latino, organizations that we are working with actively but who have indicated they may still have outstanding concerns about the plan and we're still working out all those details are glide, chinatown community development, uc hastings and ywam. we appreciate their willingness to work with us and work through the process. that's the list that we have. we're also working with providers through department of public health and h.s.h. sorry, also adult probation. we forget them, they have enormous amount of resources. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. with regard to the terms of the new year's eve lease duration location and cost? >> it's a five-month lease. it is $75,000 a month. it is at 1170 market street. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. colleagues, not to quibble because one death is one death too many. i keep hearing the number of two deaths per day. i was curious, i asked the office of the chief medical examiner for all overdose deaths in 94102 zip code which is the entirety of the tenderloin. and 94103 zip code which is the entirety of the soma. if you add those together and these are staggeringly high and terrible numbers there are a total in the calendar year in those two zip codes and those two neighborhoods in 2020 of 282 deaths by overdose. in the year 2021 through the month of november, december numbers will not be ready until later this month. there are total 244 overdose deaths. that's a terrible and staggering number but it's less than one person a day. i want to make sure we're all using the same numbers from the same sources and as i also referenced earlier, those numbers are relatively static and consistent. they have not precipitously grown or declined in any particular month or either one of those two years. nor does the mayor's proclamation claim that there has been a precipitous increase as required by emergency. there has been other statements outside of that proclamation that would indicate that and the numbers are the numbers. they are depressing and they are tragic numbers. they are .73 deaths per day, less than one, not a factor of 100% or more higher. i wanted to say that for the record. i want to thank staff from d.p.h. and d.e.m. and you colleagues. we'll turn this over to the president. >> i have a correction to make. i said it's five month lease but it's six month lease. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: i wanted to pond quickly. i used that statistic. it's a horrifying statistic, no matter how you describe it. i've always been -- this has been nearly two day city wide. this is a city wide crises an epidemic. i believe that about 30% o40% of them have been in the tenderloin and soma and district 6. this is an epidemic that impacts our entire city. there hasn't been a huge increase in 2020 and 2021 it's tragically been about 700 in each of those two years. that's tripling from 2017. we've seen a huge increase in our city in the last three to four years. i would agree, this has absolutely has been crises or emergency level in the tenderloin and the city for the last few years. one we saw exponential of explosion people dying in our city from this epidemic, in particular from fentanyl. it has been here with us for a number of years. i am grateful that we are finally treating it as the crises that it is. >> president walton: thank you colleagues. i want to thank director carol and all department heads that are here today. i have to say i know one is excited about having to come back and have a conversation again about the committee of the whole particularly since we were here until after midnight and into christmas eve. some you have us later in different states and different areas. when you declare an emergency, we all have to go to work. emergency was declared. if we have to revisit this and have conversations about what the plan is, what the declaration actually means, that's something that we need to be prepared to do. because it's the situation that we're in. it's part of the work. i do sympathize with everyone who had to sit through that last hearing, which was important. there may be more. there's more work to do. we don't get to declare emergency and complain about sitting in meetings all day. supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: i would agree, this follow-up hearing was very important. i want to focus on the point that supervisor peskin and melgar made about engaging and with the hospital and being partners in this new focused effort in the tenderloin given their -- they are serving the community. i had to jog my memory around the cppm development agreement. it did include a significant commitment to more low income -- they committed to serving new med cal patients in the city. i remember the last time i was tracking their compliance report, they made their very little progress, particularly on serving the tenderloin residents. i appreciate the question and response to the planning department and aaron starr's responses. this also may be the question should be ready to director carol and whether you're going to be including cpmc in this part of the partners in this effort. >> that needs to be done hand-in-hand with the department of public health. we are also the e.m.s. regulator. we need all the resources to come there. we'll finally follow-up with my colleagues to make sure we're engaging the hospitals at the appropriate level in this conversation. >> president walton: thank you supervisor mar. thank you director carol. i don't see any other colleagues. at this point, we're going to take public comment from the public on the committee of the whole >> clerk: at this time, board of supervisors welcome public testimony on the proclamation of local emergency relating to drug overdoses. to provide comment, the phone number is (415)655-0001. when you hear the prompt, enter the meeting i.d., 24993702895. press pound twice. i'll have joined the meeting as a listener. once you're ready to get in the queue to provide your comment, that's when you should express star 3. listen carefully for the prompt. and begin speaking your -- we have interpreters here on standby to assist the public with interpretation. [speaking spanish] [speaking chinese] i >> clerk: thank you for being with us this evening. as the president stated at the beginning of the meeting, we are setting the timer for one minute. operations, do we have our first ruler -- caller? >> caller: linda chapman, i was impressed with the board packet. it's a general scoping per program. one thing that i note is that there was nothing that i saw about how we're going to represent the best programs. used to have public agency. the other thing, everybody needs to be housed not under a tent. the third thing is the police need to discrimination against gun. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: supervisors this is bafoonry. within 90 days you supposed to address this emergency. the plan was not discussed with the community. we have this woman in charge of behavioral sciences from new york, take up to restore san francisco. you don't a -- shame on you supervisors. -- next line will fail. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. there are 22 listening and 10 callers in the queue. if you are one of the 22 and you expect to make comments on this item, should press star 3. next caller place. >> caller: this is david elliott lewis, good see you we have a crises in the tenderloin, that's due to people being unhoused. that leads to trauma, and drug loose. we have a good solution. community created solutions called c.a.r.t. compassionate auto response team. i would like to see that get the support it needs. we do have better solutions. let's house our unhoused residents. thank you. >> caller: good afternoon. i was -- i'm happy to see the board meeting today and the constructive questions oop i'm absolutely supportive of this effort. some of the statistics abided today. i think the questions are good, the solutions will evolve. i really do support the mayor's declaration. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. joe, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: i want to thank supervisors and staff who have been able to hold this meeting tonight. i do strongly support the declaration of emergency. i do question the reports i'm hearing of street vendors being harassed. >> caller: hi. i'm a district 10 resident. the. l. need services. mental health, but not sfbd, no way. i'm want to know where -- we have the same problem at the sometime. >> clerk: next caller place. welcome i have to agree with the last caller and with supervisors. kin. this is a city wide issue. it's not just a tenderloin issue where. last week i was 1 -- 1000 percent again this. it's pouring lot of people into a beverly -- >> clerk: another caller please. >> caller: hi, my name is brook. you heard me speak ton before. i want to be clear, that the actions that have been taken in tenderloin so far are not actions that will prevent overdose. they are actions that will pave the way. uprooting people and causes overdose, can be -- it's actually the department of works installments people and pushes people long. i -- those kinds of services don't work. i'm hopely that.i'm hoping funds can be released. >> clerk: we were setting the timer for one minute. >> caller: good evening. i called tonight to emphasize how the police department should be. i'm prohibition. which explains this fentanyl crises has been driven by law enforcement response who is often more as a result -- please supervisors, i'm calling on you to act in and help the people understand. >> caller: if you like to make comment, press star 3. >> caller: this is dr. teresa palmer. i live in district 5 the only thing that's going to make is shelter with the door will lohse and -- please, do not approve the emergency continuing and passage many othank you. >> caller: i'm concerned about the idea of wasting money on events where what will translate to. stop the spread of the omicron variant will disable people who need to sunset down in health reasons. currently, if someone ask help from a social worker, there's a six months to a year wait list. >> clerk: another caller plaza. >> caller: i support this initiative. this crises affects us all especially in the tenderloin. finally we have an initiative to address violence, drug. i applaud the supervisors questions today to ensure that long-term care facilities and staff are available. i urge you to support focus plan that's taylor thank you so much. next caller please. >> caller: good evening. i spent 25 years working in the tenderloin. i urge you tonight to move forward with this emergency space -- the state of emergency lows us act quickly. i want to remind the abortion the state of -- it will allow us toramp up qf and enable the city to address this crises. i urge the lease to be longer than six months on the property. i urge you tonight to vote yes to continue this emergency declaration. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next caller please. >> caller: good evening. i'm with home life. we provide housing to people in the tenderloin who have been homeless. we have a few different concern about this plan. one of the largest ones is about the community involvement and the community-based organization that are involved in cracking the plan and continue to be involved in providing advisory capacity. we heard about -- i'm glad supervisor peskin asked question about community partners. we heard about hand full of groups. >> caller: san francisco delegates to private contact -- it mens they are less accountable to the public. that's the entire point what the executive branch is doing. thank you. >> clerk: thank you mr. anonymous. do we have another caller in the queue? >> caller: hi, everyone. i'm organizering in district 3. we know the mayor contradicting her own staff. we know we've seen harassment from the street vendors. we know the aclu has an active lawsuit. we know -- i'm telling everybody like i called last time, insanity is doing the sape thing over and over again and expecting a different result. this declaration has good components. please i agree with supervisor preston, this isn't working. thank you. >> caller: we like to have more affordable housing. that's really the only solution. we also need compassionate alternative response, c.a.r.t. you got it in the budget. it is has not allowed to get started. why are we doing this emergency thing? i fear people will arrest people who need more services to deal with their addiction. i appreciate supervisor peskin asking if there were sweeps. >> clerk: let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hello, i'm a resident of district 10. i'm calling against the emergency declaration in tenderloin. i really urge the board of supervisors to really look closely who receives contracts underneath this emergency declaration and start holding to account the way in which contracts are actually given out in this regard. there's a lot of shady stuff going on as we look through this stuff. we know -- we don't necessarily get as much scrutiny on the contractual detail. i urge you to dig into the detail on the contracts. >> clerk: we have 28 listeners and 9 callers in the queue. if you like to make a testimony this evening, you should press star 3 if you haven't already. mr. atkins, next caller please. >> caller: this is kristin evans. i was struck today by director carol's testimony, she doesn't have number of beds accepted. we have reports people surrendering tents with promise of a hotel room. that is the definition of a sweep. we need to focus on opening more noncongregate hotel rooms. thank you. >> clerk: next caller please. >> caller: good evening my name is kelly powers. i want to say thank you for supporting this emergency declaration. majority of you. remind of the other unintended victims which are the families, parents and children of the tenderloin. i don't hear many calls relegated to those who are also victims of this horrible situation. they need to also be considered. thank you so much for supporting it. it's a new solution. thank you. >> clerk: next caller please. >> caller: hi, folks. i work in the tenderloin. i work in area shannon street. we've been there ten years. i have to really back up what derek short said earlier. the tenderloin is not a monolith. it's very diverse community. you have a diverse field of different nonprofits and organizations that are working there. i think it's key to be able to reach out to those organizations and work them to make the plan come to fruition and successful. thank you. >> caller: hi. thanks for the item tonight. good luck how you work towards a better organization. as you continue to work on it -- [ indiscernible ] it can be okay for the police to describe how they are arresting people. we fleed to -- we need to know that. >> caller: good evening supervisors. i'm kevin ortiz. i'm speaking as vice president of the san francisco latinx democratic club. we heard lot of rhetoric that has been happening with arresting the honduran drug dealers. we feel this is a direct and racism that's happening. i like to know what's happening with those individuals that are being pushed into the system and what we're doing to ensure they are receiving support services. >> caller: i'm calling to oppose the emergency order. there is emergency in the tedder but not solved by sweeps. [ indiscernible ] >> caller: good evening. my name is noah roberts. we organize demonstration and press conference today outside of city hall demanding that your board revoke the mayor's emergency ordinance. i would urge the board to listen to these grassroots community organizations in the tenderloin. the support really isn't there for this plan. it's not there. >> clerk: i will say, we have 26 members of the public who are listening and there are 4 callers in the queue to speak. if you one of the 26 and you like to participate, press star 3 now. >> caller: i'm a d3 resident. i listened to all of you through the previous call. i want to thank you for the conversation. i'm still unclear what the plan is. one thing that's clear after the last call, no one on the call, staff, supervisors or public didn't need we needed leadership response. our city agencies need to do better. thank you. >> caller: hi, i'm district 8 resident. i keep taking back to something that -- he said last meeting. he was talking about people on the street being moved from one place to another. he said where do people go when they don't have a home to go to? if people are taken off the streets temporarily and put back on to the streets without a home to go to, we're running around in circles. we have to be providing homes for everyone. thank you. >> caller: my name is mark solomon from the north mission. this is like groundhog's day. for the past 25 years we see these divisive wedge measures that have been run not about homelessness at all but it's wedge issues to divide the electorate. what we need here is for you guys to deprive the mayor of the golden power to use homelessness and poverty as a wedge issue to win elections. when fox news setting the agenda for san francisco and local moderate conservatives are siding with that, we have to figure out ways to say, san francisco is going to stand up to nationwide campaign of demonization of cities. it's up to you guys to do the political work. we can't afford to have this happen over and over again. >> clerk: thank you. >> caller: good evening interviews. i work for code tenderloin. i been a 30 plus resident [ indiscernible ] you have take another approach to help people that's trapped as well. i applaud the mayor say it's an emergency i don't applaud of it being a masquerade. >> caller: good evening. i called in and made comment last meeting. i'm a social worker providing behavioral health services to unhoused residents in the tenderloin. i find lack of resources pretty concerning. i appreciate supervisor preston's questions and encourage no vote on this ordinance. we need care and partnership with the community, not policing. >> clerk: thank you, sir. mr. atkins, let's welcome in the next caller. >> caller: hi. this is cally with the coalition on homelessness. the community really came together. it worked. this time, so many that were part of the that process have been blocked out. what makes someone distrust the partner? why

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