alvarez said job one is simple, police presence in the station and the trains. i finally have the opportunity to use the additional police officers to put them out to our system and increase our presence. we know with presence we will be deterring and increase safety in our system. reporter: the agency is able to increase the presence with the 19 new officers hired in the past year. alvarez says starting monday 12 will be assigned to right trains at various stations, especially at night and on weekends, to stem what has become an increasing problem. unfortunately, 2019 we had 45% up tick in thefts of electronic devices. reporter: more than half of the violent crime on b.a.r.t is related to the theft of electronics. the biggest up tick was at balboa station. he is called a good filth. he is called a good fit. someone from our b.a.r.t family. reporter: he says pairing officers with the ten unarmed volunteers who walk the trains, gives him 22 sets of eyes and ears
in isolation. we are working with the behavioral health system, and as i said time and time again there is a real issue around equity. around those 4,000 people that we know we are not serving properly, 35% of them are african-american. we need to call out the injustices in these systems and make deliberate investments in targeting the population that continue to get left out when we propose new solutions to support the communities that we know are most vulnerable. so we are going to be making deliberate investments around making sure that african-americans are supported as we move this process forward. [ applause ]. mayor breed: i want to thank dr. nigusse bland and dr. colfax because you have been doing the difficult work of managing the system with the resources that you have and not necessarily getting the support that you need to do it and that change starts today. that change won t happen overnight. we will be working towards making this a more justice, equitable, fai
mayor breed: hello, everybody. i m london breed. i m mayor of the city and county of san francisco, and i am so excited to be here today. we all know that there is a real crisis in our city, and i know that we hear that word used on a regular basis. but in this particular case what we see happening with those who are struggling with mental illness and substance use disorder and chronic homelessness is something that we see every day and we need to take aggressive action to address that issue. i am standing here with supervisor hillary ronen and mandelman to announce that even though we have had two competing measures, we have come together to do what is in the best interest of this city to introduce today at the board of supervisors a compromise that is going to help us address the most significant problem in our city. [ applause ]. mayor breed: i not only want to thank the supervisors, but i wanted to thank lou girardo. you remember lou has someone who worked with the bo
ccba president. don t take that kind of commitment lightly or for granted. thank you so much. the ed lee democratic club. you guys gave the best testimony, but you also had the best stickers hands down when we were in the testimony room. many of you worked hard with and for ed during his years as mayor and that came out when you gave your public testimony. thank you. also to our grassroots leaders to the community associations. our non-profit community leaders from a.p.i. council. your coming out really showed that this campaign was something special to real people and not just us political types or quoks out the there and i thought that was meaningful. jan sey, you came out, wayne lee. the sisters of cities communities, you came out. you clearly relished ed s relishment. that will be my only bad joke. individual friends of ed lee came out. you guys were really amazing and you were there all the time. ed s city family was incredibly helpful, the johnsons who aren t here. thos
a star for san francisco. we are very excited here today. the first person i want to thank is is the mayor, not just because of her commitment and support, but also i want to thank the mayor for not just her support and partnership in this, but the fact that you challenged us you were the result of a challenge to get a bold leader to take this agency forward. i m grateful for that challenge. that challenge led us to an international search. we searched far and wide. i want to thank the search committee for the wonderful job that was done to conduct a truly international search that led us to someone in our backyard, a san franciscan to run our agency. what has struck us about jeff more than his expertise, dedication, and his experience is his passion. you just heard it. he recognizes how transportation affects people s lives, making it better when it goes well and worse when it doesn t. with that, we are very excited. i wish jeff the absolute best. i know he won t need luck b