Designated facility is because and children are often sent to psyche Emergency Services or to hospital Emergency Rooms you can imagine how difficult this is for children and their families to be sitting there while already in a crisis situation and often not equipped to deal with crisis where that is a great facility its really hard for children and families to be in an adult setting. Were hoping to relief the San FranciscoPolice Department by being a facility that will accept children efficiently and safely and hoping to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and were hoping that by keeping children to San Francisco they will be closer to their Current Mental Health provide ers, schools and support systems. How will this improve the care for children. Like i mentioned when children are in psychiatric crisis they need to go to psyche emergency or ers and most of our youth are hospitalized out of county. We have limited referral sources if were trying to get providers to go out of county to see their clients its difficult this way its much more efficient and in our proposed system youth will be seen in a Family Friendly unit and its in San Francisco. The interventions are family focussed and of course theres easier access to immediate follow up. Extensive Community Outreach has been done. Weve had 2 Community Meetings with over one hundred people in attendance and provided interpreters and flyers will distributed 1 week to todays neighborhood and Safety Committee meeting. Ill talk a little bit about our community response. Many of the neighbors did express support. Edgewood has been a Good Neighbor for over one 100 years and the neighbors did appreciate the service that they provide to children and youth of San Francisco county. Some neighbors expressed concern about noise and safety. The siren policy that means when children are brought to the facility there wont be a siren. And the 28th avenue entrance has been remodeled to add security. So i have edgewood here to answer any questions you have regarding this resolution. Supervisor campos. Thank you just let me be very clear from the outset that i understand the importance and the need for this service and i had a conversation with a Public Health director today specifically about this item i do believe that at some point the city needs to designate a facility as an alternative because right now theres only one facility that actually provides that service. And so i dont question the need for it i dont question the fact that this should happen and should happen expedio u. S. Ly but we need to be careful about what kind of entity we designate and i have some serious concerns about edgewood. When you talking about a unit or entity that provides this kind of service for children, this is a very important work, its very sensitive work and the quality of the work is ultimately dependent on the workers, the people on the ground doing this work. And i just want to note that i am very troubled by the fact that over the last few months we have received a number of complaints and concerns from workers at edgewood and my office has actually reached out to edgewood to address some of those concerns and the response was actually pretty diss diss miss pretty diss missive and i think if you ask some some of the workers that are familiar with this facility and familiar with this entity they will tell you that this is not an agency that at least from the workers who are on the ground treats their workers well, this is not an agency that recognizes that in order to treat workers the reason why you need to treat workers well is because it has a direct impact on the quality of Service Provided to the families and if the working conditions of these individuals are not sound and strong that leaves a lot to be desired in terms of the quality of the service that is provided. So i will be voting against this item and i would urge my colleagues that we send a very clear message today while indeed it is the case that we need to provide this service we want to make sure this entity thats designated to provide a very important and Sensitive Service is one thats going to have the kind of Work Environment could conducive to providing good service to these families id urge my colleagues to join me me in rejecting this item. Thank thank you supervisor campos i also have letters of support and also i have letters of protest from a number of people and i just wanted to ask maybe if the edgewood rep can address theres a number of National Labor relations charges that will be heard on on february 17th in San Francisco and im wondering if if you can address the workers conditions and the extremely high turnover rate of the staff there and what type of organization were talking about and i know edgewood too because my twin brother lives a couple of blocks away and im appreciative of the letters of support that weve received too and. It is a separate issue from our conversations with our staff i think if you came to edgewood at this point you would see that the majority of our staff are in favor of this particular unit the issues are about how aggressively or quickly can we enhance compensation and Healthcare Benefits and those kinds of things and so if the pleasure of the committee id like to separate these two issues yes theres one issue the need for the crisis stabilization unit to help the childrens families that are dealing with these psychological crisises and at the same time theres edgewood and the aggressive measures weve been taking and trying to enhance our benefits to our staff we have not been able to keep up at the pace wed like to as you know the cost of living in San Francisco is escalating and its been difficult to retain staff and to maintain the pace of increase in pay and benefits that wed like to but with that said weve made aggressives measures to be able to do that and edgewood is a nonprofit organization. 85 percent of our funding comes from public agencies and weve not received an increase in our rates in 10 years and also that said earlier this year there was a union vote at edgewood and it did not pass the majority of our staff did not want to have union ization everyone would like to move it longer faster. Im actually curious as to how you can come up here and say the issue of working conditions is not relevant to the services that you provide to these families. I guess id argue the working conditions around expression around compensation and benefits but our managers and teamwork together to try to resolve in terms of of whether the working conditions are suitable. Weve also been able to hire 20 to 25 additional new staff to be able to help support this i see them as not related. Well i respectfully disagree i think they are linked especially given as as you noted theres so much public funding thats received so let me ask you this one of the questions that has been raised is the issue of giving the workers the ability to organize which is a basic thing that we respect do you believe in the ability of workers to organize freely. Certainly. And some of the letters from the National Labor union not with standing because were contesting those we did allow those to go forward there was an open and free vote and our staff voted against it. I actually think the record sort of speaks for itself and i think its its its unfortunate because i i think this is an important and needed service but i dont believe we should go down the path of creating this kind of relationship with an entity that unfortunately the people who work there have very serious concerns about the way those workers are being treated and if you treat your workers that way you can only imagine how you interact with the families that are served. There are a minor group of folks at edgewood feel like we havent moved along as quickly as wed like to and again, the majority feel the same way. And i invite you to come out and tour the facility see what were trying to do with the limited funds that we have and what weve been able to accomplish within those constraints. I take you up on that offer i certainly i look forward to that. I just wanted to add anytime a nonprofit hires mendel son an antilabor firm at their huge costs makes me question whether the funds could be used in other ways and if you are really trying to respect the workforce through but thats right off the top of my head supervisor campos. If theres any relevant information you have to provide to the board id be interested in finding out exactly whats going on with these workers and to the extent that you are talking about compensation you know any information you have along those lines is greatly appreciated but i hope you include in that information relative how much your administrators and executives get paid so we have a full picture of whats actually happening. I guess for our purposes we were hoping to move on this sooner than later i guess were pretty much at a stand still right now so can you talk to me a little bit more about the next steps we need to move forward. What i indicated to the director of Public Health is you know i know that you need to find a facility to designate i hope that you find a facility that actually you know is treating its workers well and i dont think you have that here and im certainly not prepared to move forward with this item and i can only speak for myself i think it would be be a mistake for us at this time. Would this then move towards a full board vote. I think what comes out of Committee Goes to the full board do you know when the board will vote. My motion will be to hold this item here in committee i dont think it should come out of committee that will be my motion. So just so i understand im sorry so by not coming out of committee means it will stay here until we can either present another facility or we bring back evidence that shows that a lay your concerns. Thats correct. I recommend the entire committee come to edgewood and talk to most of our staff not just a handful talk to all of our staff so you can get a good picture of what the over all sentiments and commitment is by our staff. I definitely will come out to see the facility and talk to the staff but i also wanted to say i appreciated the work with edgewood over the years and under standing the difference between a a 5151 and 5150 and so it will be a good experience to view the site as well. Thats what were post postponing at this time its its more suitable for children and families because right now most of them will have to go to San Francisco general. Supervisor campos is having serious concerns about the working conditions and unfair labor practice charges that will be discussed in february. Thank you. Supervisor christensen. If in fact theres a majority of children that have issues im very concerned about a lack of urgency in this i think were all aware of the fact that the Health Industry presents challenges and providing services in a nonprofit situation is even more challenges i think our duty might be to level the concerns to those that fund this organization. If funding is an issue then finding a way to fund the organization so things are at a level we require might be more appropriate and id like to see some deadline or sense of urgency here and if edgewood needs to come back to us with further proof that either things arent as bad as we think or they have mended their ways id like a timetable for that so these families dont continue to go to contra costa for treatment because ive seen the effects of that and its not good for anybody. I guess im not sure how we would do that. We dont have another facility that we can designate at this time. This facility was remodeled its not a 5151 designated facility but its currently operating as a crisis stabilization unit. The way the facility is designated right now they cant accept a child on a hold those children still need to go to the Emergency Rooms and to psyche emergency and so im not sure what our next step would would be we dont have another facility thats in the pipeline to do this and im not quite sure what it would take to a lay the concerns of the supervisors my sense is that like you mentioned, its incredibly hard to run a nonprofit especially in this county where the costs are so extreme thats not to say that your concerns i dont know if they are legitimate or not im trying to setup a facility here so i feel like were stuck here a little bit and ill go back speak with my supervisors i mean like i said im a little bit lost on the next step because we dont have another facility. Supervisor campos might have a suggestion. It would be to continue this item so that we give the chair flexibility to reschedule this item as quick will he as quickly as possible i think at the end of the day the concerns that have been raised those are very serious concerns and i personally would not want a facility to welcome these children unless those concerns are actually addressed those are concerns that edgewood, its within its power to address them and im ready and willing to meet at anytime so when i make the motion the motion will be to continue it to the call of chair so that the that the chair can schedule the item back if need be but i think its within the purview and power of the edgewood to do the right thing here. And im in agreement with both of my colleagues but especially the concerns raised by supervisor campos but supervisor christensen raises the urgency and all of the other reasons why we need to move forward so im going to support the motion by my colleague supervisor campos but bring this back as soon as possible hopefully at the next meeting i plan to go to edgewood as well and hope that the Labor Conditions are something that we do our best to resolve as well so im going to support the motion by supervisor supervisor campos. Will there be specific concerns outlined . I think it would be be helpful like poor working conditions is that not enough staff at one time it would be helpful i think if i can speak for edgewood if edgewood had specific concerns that they could address because it seems kind of general at this point. Yeah the list of concerns were expressed by the list of folks trying to form a union and well certainly express those. I could even share with you the letter that you sent and other documents if you need them. So okay so we need a motion on the floor. Yeah we have it opened up for Public Comment. Now lets open it up for Public Comment is there anyone who would like to speak . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Id like to make a motion to continue this item and i guess what i would say to the department of Public Health weve been very clear ever since ive been on the on the board that when an item like this comes before committee if there are concerns by workers at a facility that were coming here and recommending to get this kind of designation, that we actually, that the Department Look into that before it comes to the board and actually makes this request because those are questions that were going to raise. There are specifics that have been outlined and im happy to share those with you but again, you know, we understand the urgency and it is because of this urgency that i think we need to get to the bottom of these issues as quickly as possible. The about the period the department of Public Health is aware that there was a vote on the union and it did not pass and in terms of their vetting of that or knowing of that that before this was presented let me say this there are dozens and dozens of nonprofits is it struggling in in San Francisco but are still able to manage to survive and do so and still treat their workers well so its not its not like you have to choose between families and workers its a false choice. You can do both and there are Many Organizations that prove that every day here in San Francisco. Thank you so we have a motion on the floor to continue the item to the call of the chair. Can we have a role call vote mr. Evans. Supervisor campos aye supervisor christensen aye and supervisor mar we have 3 ayes. Ill do my best to bring it back as as soon as i can but hopefully some progress as stated in the committee. Please call items five and six together. A hearing on the status of traffic calming programs on arterial streets and the findings of the budget and legislative analysts report on speed limit reduction. Thank you colleagues this hearing ive called this hearing on the Public Health safety and environmental sustainability benefits of lowering speed limits in the city of San Francisco and we have a number of speakers and Department Reps here to report on this. This hearing is about also ultimately healthier more livable streets and communities our budget and legislative analysts report will highlight San Franciscos culture of speeding in our city but also we know exactly which streets and where speeding occurs in our city with the highest incidents of accidents and injures according to our department of Public Health and mta and as San Francisco advances towards vision zero goals to reduce traffic deaths to zero in the upcoming years we need comprehensive solutions that will significantly alter that during the that during the that dangerous driving and speeding in our city. Today well hear from the budget and legislative