Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Land Use Committee 20240713

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Land Use Transportation Committee for with monday, may 11, 2020. I am the chair of the committee, chair peskin. Clerk, do you have any announcements . Clerk we, due to the covid19 pandemic, the board of supervisors legislative chamber and Committee Room are closed. Members will be participating online as if they are present. Channel 26 and online we are streaming. People will be allowed two minutes to speak. Ability to make comments are available by phone by calling 8882045984. The access code is 3501008. Press pound and then pound again. When you are connect with, dial 1 and then 0 to be put in the queue. When you are waiting, the system will be silent. You will be notified. Everyone must account for time delays between live coverage and streaming. Best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly, and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment by emailing me. If you submit Public Comment by email, it will be included in the legislative file as part of the matter. Written comments may be sent via u. S. Postal code service. Chair thank you, ms. Major. Could you please read the first and only item. Clerk yes. Planning code zoning controls urban mixed use District Office uses ordinance amending the planning code to provide that in the urban mixed use district all office uses are prohibited, except that a professional service, financial service, or medical service is allowed as a conditional use on the ground floor when primarily open to the general public on a clientoriented basis; affirming the planning departments determination under the California Environmental quality act; making findings of consistency with the general plan, and the eight priority policies of planning code, section 101. 1; and adopting findings of public necessity, convenience, and welfare under planning code, section 302. Members of the public should you wish to make a comment, call the phone line. Chair thank you, ms. Major. This item which has been before this committee on a couple of occasions is authored by supervisor ronen and her staff ms. Amy binart is in this Virtual Meeting and i believe would like to ask for another continuance. Ms. Binart, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, chair, supervisors. Once again, thank you for opening this meeting and hearing this item. You are correct, we would like to continue this item at this time to the call of the chair. Unfortunately, we probably should have done that last meeting, but we will set it for a date certain. So here we are. So if you would entertain that motion to continue to the call of the chair, we would be very much appreciative. Chair thank you, amy. Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. The staff are checking if there are any staff in queue. You have zero questions remaining. Chair okay. There are no members of the public wishing to speak. Chair thank you. So Public Comment is now closed and i would like to make a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair, and on that motion, madam clerk, a roll call, please. [ roll call ]. Chair the item is continued to the call of the chair and the Land Use Transportation Committee is adjourned. The director of the department of Human Services, trent roer, the director of homelessness and housing, Abigail Stuart khan. Our police chief bill scott. Thank you so much for joining us here today. Were here to provide an update and answer questions during our Virtual Press conference. As of today, we have 1,954 reported covid19 cases diagnosed in San Francisco. And sadly with 35 people who have lost their lives. 71 people are currently hospitalized, and dr. Colfax will continue to provide an update of where we are and why the need to continue the work weve done around sheltering in place is so important to continuing to maintain the curve. As a reminder, data sf. Org covid19 is our website so that you can access data or information that you may need regarding the numbers that we know exist around those who have been diagnosed, but also information by zip code as well as the number of tests and other valuable information that weve done. Now last week we announced the next steps for gradually reopening San Francisco, and i know that people are anxious to see our city reopen. Im anxious to see our city reopen. And this has been a very tough and challenging time for all of us. When you think about what weve all sacrificed, kids who are graduating from high school and will not be able to have a traditional graduation or attend prom, those parents who cannot go back to work because they have no child care access for their children, the people who are elderly who actually really need comfort through family and friends, who are not able to visit with those folks that they love and care about the most, especially during this past mothers day. It continues to be a challenge, but especially with regards to our economy. Our economy is suffering not just in San Francisco but throughout the united states, and what weve tried to do here in San Francisco is redirect resources and raise private dollars in order to get support in the hands of those who need it the most, and oftentimes people who may not qualify for any assistance whatsoever. The people who have been impacted the most include our Small Businesses, our Small Businesses that are really the backbone of our city, employing hundreds of thousands of people who, sadly, were laid off as the result of this crisis. When these businesses are not open, they are not generating any money. They were already having a tough enough time as it was before the coronavirus pandemic with the high cost of commercial rents, with the laundry list of fees that are charged by the city that need to change, with a number of other taxes and other expenses, it oftentimes made it difficult for many of these Small Businesses to not only stay open in their existing storefront locations but also to maintain their staff. And its gotten even worse as a result of this pandemic. And this is why i was so excited to announce just a step forward in reopening our economy, and that includes specific Small Businesses that in some cases, for example, our florist. They were allowed to deliver this mothers day, but when you think about their capacity even to do just that, to prepare the arrangements, to take in the payments, to also arrange for delivery so that everyone is getting what they want when they want it, many florists were reached out to had to decline because they had so many orders and so they had a limited number of people who were able to assist them in delivering those orders. And this is why im also very excited that florists and bookstores, folks will be able to do both delivery and Pickup Services. Music and record stores, hobby, toy and game stores, Home Furnishing and home goods, cosmetic and beauty supplies. Lord knows i need a new fresh supply of cosmetics. Art supplies and Musical Instruments and supply stores, sewing, needlework and goods stores, pieced good stores okay, i dont know what that is, but nevertheless, we are opening a number of businesses for pickup and delivery, and were doing so gradually, and i want to explain, because many have asked, well, whats the difference between what the governor, our Governor Newsom is proposing, which was that businesses would be opened this past friday, versus what San Francisco is doing. And again, everything has and ive said this from the very beginning. We follow the advice of the Public Health officials here in our city and in our region as it relates to the data that were seeing. As it relates to the number of cases, the number of hospitalizations, the number of deaths, and because of all of you who have followed these orders, San Francisco is in a better place than most cities. But were still not in a place where we are seeing a decline, and i think thats important to remember. The more access we provide people with where there is a contact with another human being, the more the possibility that infections can spread. So the fact that we are offering a delivery and a Pickup Service is a big step, and it is definitely a big risk, and we hope that the types of systems that we put into place in order to protect you as youre able to support and use these places as a resource that we will continue to see the curve not only flatten, but decline, and again its up to the people in this city to continue to follow these orders, and i want to say again how much i appreciate what folks have continued to do, whether its standing in line at Grocery Stores or pharmacies, at a safe distance. I noticed people are wearing their mask in those lines. I noticed that folks were just following the social distancing order, for the most part, in most parts of our city. And this is gonna be the reason why we are able to lower the curve, but we also know that a number of challenges still exist. So as we allow Small Businesses to begin work around pickup and delivery, we have to keep in mind that we know that the more people are in contact with the public, theres a higher probability that they could contract the virus. Weve seen that in a more recent study done by ucsf, with the department of Public Health and a Latino Task Force when they conducted in one of the seconddensist census blocks in the mission community. They conducted an ongoing testing where they allowed anyone to test and discovered that although of the few thousand people that they tested, less than 2 were diagnosed with covid19, and many of those folks were in the workforce. They were still working at various locations. So we know that the probability that the more youre out there, the more youre in contact with other people, thats how the virus could spread, and this is why its necessary for us to continue down this path. Whats great about our city, again, is weve come a long way, and testing is so critical to our ability to allow more places to open. The more access people have to testing and also contact tracing, the better our ability to identify someone as quickly as possible, make sure that they are quarantined, but also track the other folks as they have been in contact with in order to just really stop things in their tracks. I want to say that here in the city whats great is, number one, we will provide testing for anyone who is an essential worker, whether you have a symptom or not. I think its important that we continue to get the word out regarding testing, and we will provide a test to any san franciscan who exhibits one of the symptoms, and if you have the need to be tested, please call 311. Insurance is not a barrier to testing. We will test anyone, and secondly, your immigration status is not a should not be a barrier to testing. So you should not feel afraid to get tested, especially if you feel like youre exhibiting symptoms. Our testing statistics over the past month have steadily grown. We have seen an increase in the number of tests, and as of today, over 36,000 covid19 tests have been reported to dph, department of Public Health. And in the last week weve averaged over 1,000 tests per day. And i just want to remind everyone that we were not always able to get that information from some of the private hospitals that are testing, and so this is a big, big thing. People wanted to know how many tests were being conducted, and this is really, really going to be helpful to helping us understand whats actually happening in San Francisco based on the percentage of those who test positive and the number of tests weve been able to administer. And i really want to thank Elaine Forbes from the port. I also want to thank my policy director, andres powers, as well as the department of Public Health, for the work that you all are continuing to do in coordinating with the community to make sure that we have this very, very important information. The Real Progress is when we get to at least the ability to conduct 200 covid19 tests per 100,000 residents. And again, this will help us get to a place where we can begin to understand whats happening in our city, a way to address it and a way to gradually move San Francisco in a direction of reopening. Testing capacity is critical, and as a reminder, just because you are tested and you are negative does not mean that you are immune from contracting covid19 after you discover that you are negative. Or even in any other event. So i want to just reiterate how important it is to continue to wear your mask when appropriate and maintain social distancing. We also know that, you know, equity is important. Making sure that communities that may not watch the news, that may not read the paper every day, that may not be in touch with whats happening with city government, that we do a better job of making sure that we outreach to those communities with a number of trusted communitybased organizations, as well as an Incredible Group of community volunteers, and i really want to thank the equity team and the team under cheryl davis. They have been incredible. These are people we have the office of racial equity, shackra smiley is the director there. We have had her and cheryl davis working hand in hand developing strategies from day one to make sure that as we have information were communicating to folks in these communities, to the seniors in the bayview to many of our sadly homeless residents in the tenderloin to folks in various parts of the city that may not have access to what is actually going on. They have been able to distribute the work from chinatown and other communities, they have outreached to these communities on a regular basis, not just distributing almost a million flyers with information and answering a number of questions from so many of these folks, again, who are not necessarily connected to the internet or connected to resources, but you know, providing masks, providing access to support for food or connecting them to other resources. The work that they have done around education on the coronavirus and education on around resources to help people weather this storm has been incredible, and i am grateful that they are also continuing to outreach as Testing Capacity continues the work continues. Because we showed up in one Community One day does not mean that we should not be going back to that community the next day and the next day and the next day. It includes not only individuals, but we have businesses where we have people who have limited english and may not be completely familiar with the policies of the city. So its the responsibility of this equity team to really reach out to many folks who are not always connected and who may not always have the resources to make sure they have the resources and that we provide them with clear direction around testing. Because as we saw in the study in the mission, many of the people who are part of our workforce are the ones who are testing positive. So we want to make sure that many of those essential businesses that are open, as well as the delivery thats gonna start on may 18 for those other businesses, the delivery and the pickup, that they know that their workers can get tested. So i want to appreciate the equity team and the work that theyre doing, as well as appreciate the Human Rights Commission here in San Francisco. Thank you for the work that youve done on outreach, and i also just want to finally wrap it up with talking a little bit about the hotel rooms because were preparing for a significant surge. We were also preparing for the opportunity to make sure that people who are our essential Health Care Workers and our Public Safety officials who were concerned about the impacts on their families, that they had places to go where they were able to isolate themselves. Because of how well the city has been doing in terms of maintaining the curve, we have not used as many of those hotel rooms as we anticipated, and the good news is we are able to repurpose those hotels. Weve negotiated. Trent roer and the department of Human Services and his team were able to renegotiate those contracts. So now those extra few hundred rooms that were supposed to be used for our frontline workers, and to be clear, we still have access to rooms for our frontline Health Care Workers and Public Safety officials. Those rooms will be used for people who need to isolate if they are covid positive. And were talking about people who live in our singleroom occupancy hotels who, if they contract the virus, they cant necessarily social distance themself in an sro if they are living there with their family, or someone whos homeless, or someone who lives in a congregate living setting, or anyone who lives with family where theres not the ability for them to selfquarantine. We have the opportunity to extend our Hotel Capacity to provide this as a resource to the people of San Francisco. So this is really great, and i think weve come a long way. The challenges around covid19 still remain as real today as they have been since we announced the first case, and i just want to, again, thank the public for doing everything you can to follow the social distancing orders as well as the masks. Your commitment to this has been tremendous, and im sure continues to be very challenging. Its challenging for me. Its challenging for the team thats working every single day to keep all of us safe. Those who are putting themselves on the line to make sure that the city continues to run in some capacity, they are the reasons why were able to provide essential services, and so i just want to really continue to appreciate the team here at the Emergency Operations center, the people who are showing up every single day. The folks who are driving muni, the people, the Police Officers who are working their shifts, the paramedics and others who are out there doing their jobs every single day, and they dont have always the luxury to socially distance themselves when they are trying to save someones life. So so many people the Grocery Store clerks, the nurses, the doctors, the folks who are on the front lines. So many people who want to continue to make sure that they are there to support this city, to support you and to keep everyone safe, i want to, again, express my appreciation to each and every one of you and thank you to the people of San Francisco for continuing to lead us down a path of safety and getting to a better point. One day im going to stand up here and hopefully make a great announcement about the fact that because of all of you weve been able to lower the curve. That day is not today, but just keep that in mind. That day is coming and we will be so grateful when it does. And with that, id like to truce the director of the department of Public Health, dr. Greg colfax. Dr. Grant colfax good afternoon, im dr. Grant colfax, director of the department of Public Health for the city and county of San Francisco, and thank you, mayor breed, for your leadership during these very difficult and challenging times. Its been a week since the new health order took effect across San Francisco and the bay area region. As of today, there are 1954 San Francisco residents with confirmed cases of covid19, and, as the mayor mentioned, sadly a total of 35 san franciscans have died. I send my condolences to their loved ones, their friends and their community. Of the people with confirmed covid19 in San Francisco, 156 are experienced homelessness, and one of those persons has unfortunately died. This is why we continue to prioritize vulnerable populations in our ongoing response, including people over 60 and those with Underlying Health conditions. These groups include people experiencing homelessness and those who live in congregate settings, such as shelters and Skilled Nursing facilities and incarcerated settings. I point this out because even as we continue to move forward with plans to reopen, we must keep in mind that we are still that we are still in the midst of a pandemic. These are not normal times, and normal times will not return for some time. Our recovery as a community will depend on our ability to protect the most vulnerable and to maintain a Health System that can respond to continues outbreaks. And recovery is foremost on all our minds. So lets talk about the gradual path to the new normal. In the past week, we have begun to enjoy some loosening of restrictions with the reopening of construction and increased Outdoor Activities and jobs. We have also announced, as the mayor announced, that if all goes well, some additional businesses can begin to offer Curbside Pickup and Takeout Services as soon as a week from today. May 18. This includes bookstores, florists, art supply stores, toy stores and sewing stores. The last is particularly important for all those home mask makers out there. We will also be easing restrictions on medical care, such as nonessential surgeries and nonurgent ambulatory care visits. In all of these hopeful steps, we continue to put Community Health first. That means that we will keep a close eye, as we have throughout this pandemic, a close eye on the data so that we can move forward or pause or even increase restrictions depending on the spread of the virus in the community. It also means that we must support businesses and other entities with clear guidelines so that they can operate as safely as possible for their workers and customers and our community as a whole. In that effort, the department of Public Health has issued new directives to businesses that are allowed to operate now, such as restaurants, Delivery Services and Grocery Stores. These directives will also apply to the expanding group of businesses that we anticipate will be able to reopen to a limited capacity next week. And just to be very clear, the restaurants are operating under very limited capacity now. We are working with the Mayors Office of economic and Workforce Development and Economic Recovery Task force to reach out to businesses and make sure that they are informed about the guidelines and can prepare. Here are five highlights of what businesses need to do to be safe in the current coronavirus environment. One, create a health and safety plan. Two, ensure social distancing and Face Covering at work. Three, provide the proper equipment and cleaning materials, including hand sanitizing and handwashing. Four, protect customers by marking off sixfeet areas and cleaning hightouch surfaces and, five, ending selfservice of food items and the handling of produce without purchasing it. Some of these rules will change the way we currently shop and interact at work, or at least the way we used to shop and interact at work. This will take some adjustment, but believe me, they are worth it to keep everyone safe and allow for the economy to start to reopen. All of the new Health Directives are posted on the department of Public Health website, on our coronavirus page. And as we look forward to next monday, may 18, and the potential for some businesses to reopen safely for curbedside pickup, we will also be keeping a close eye on the data. Specifically we will be looking at hospitalizations of covidpositive patients as our metric of whether to move forward with expanded Curbside Pickup and takeout next week. This is a key metric. Since april 6, our hospitalization numbers have ranged from 70 to 94 patients. The curve is indeed flat. And as the mayor mentioned, it is not decreasing substantially. We have not yet seen a substantial downward trend. Today there are 71 people hospitalized in San Francisco with covid19. If we can keep within the range for the next week, we anticipate allowing the next group of businesses to reopen. If we have a sustained increase in hospitalizations, we will evaluate where the new cases are coming from and shift our focus there. The reason is an increase in hospitalizati hospitalizations will tell us that the virus started gaining strength in our community about two weeks ago and that more people are starting to get very sick and require hospital care. And there are data to show when our behavior allows the virus to spread, we see spikes in infections. We are seeing spikes in infections in Southern California commensurate with when the beaches became crowded. We have seen spikes of infections when people have gone to large gatherings at churches or birthday parties. We must be vigilant and we must continue our social distancing, our wearing mask and our emphasis on testing. If indeed our rate of hospitalizations start to climb substantially, it may not be safe to continue to reopen. Of course i hope i very much hope that that does not happen. And i am looking forward to picking up some books and gifts for myself. But we must proceed cautiously and maintain our gains. We will be giving more information this week about what the path to recovery will look like for San Francisco. The community, our community, your community, has been so vigilant and so effective in slowing down the spread of the virus. But you may well be asking where is this all headed . What will the new normal be like . This is a complex question, and we are in uncharted territory. We are in discussions with other counties and municipalities, as well as the state, about that very topic. We are working hard at all levels of San Francisco government and with community and Business Partners to develop our local road map. Again, following the science, the data and the facts. For now i can emphasize that we will all have an Important Role to play. You can think of these roles in groups of three. As community members, there are three key things you, your family, your friends can do. Physical distancing, Face Covering and testing. Testing if you are working outside your home. You should get tested, even if you do not have symptoms. As city and Public Health leaders, there are three critical things that we pledge to do. Testing. We will continue to expand testing toward our goal of universal access. Number two, outbreak detection. We will continue to build our Public Health reporting and Monitoring Systems to improve our ability to predict and respond to the virus more quickly. And three, contact tracing, which includes case detection and contact investigation and support for isolation and quarantine to reduce exposure and spread of the virus. If we all do these things, the three things you can do, the three things that government and the Health Department will do, we can accomplish the following three things. Decreased transmission. We have the power to reduce disease and death. We have that power. Number two, increased safety and confidence. We will see more opening up of society and people knowing how to act in the safest ways possible. And number three, that will lead to economic recovery, a goal we all share. Together we can do this, and we must do this together for it to be successful. San francisco, i cant thank you enough for your perseverance, dedication and ongoing commitment to each other, your neighbors and the community. This city has always been a very special place, and it is even more so now. This pandemic, as difficult as it is, has truly brought out the best of us, and i thank you for that and the ongoing commitment to that as we move forward together. Thank you. Scott will make some remarks, and i want to thank him for his incredible work and his teams efforts on the front lines in helping us manage this pandemic. Chief scott . Good afternoon. Everyone, im chief bill scott of the San Francisco Police Department, and as always, i want to first start off by expressing my immense gratitude to our mayor, london breed, and our director of Public Health, dr. Grant colfax for their outstanding leadership during this Public Health crisis. Im gonna start my remarks by piggybacking on what dr. Colfax just stated with my thanks to the residents of our city in San Francisco. I want to expand on the fact that without the cooperation and voluntary compliance of the people of our city, we probably wouldnt be doing as well as we are, so thank you again for our support and your voluntary compliance. And thats not to say we dont have challenges, because we do, and ill go into that in a minute, but i want to begin my remarks, again, with thanking those people that are, number one, following the Public Health orders. And number two, abiding by the law. And oftentimes its my job as your chief of police to get up and in front of you and report statistics on people who are breaking the law, but its also very important to say thank you to the people who abide by the law, because without that, our society would be in chaos, and we do understand that and thank you for abiding by the law. On that note, you know, this weekend we anticipated that it would be a busy weekend as far as more people out, and we had a team of officers, along with our cadets and volunteers, and we werent the only City Department out, but i want to speak of what we did this weekend in that regard. We worked and focused on 25 parks, one of which was dolores park, and i know the mayor has made comments about dolores park, and weve had some challenges there with the number of people wanting to enjoy that beautiful park and enjoy the beautiful weather. And i want to again thank the people who enjoyed our parks across the city over the weekend. What we are seeing is people are getting out to get fresh air, to get exercise, to enact or interact with another human being, and thats a good thing, but i want to go back and remind everybody of just the basics. We still need to have people keep that six feet of social distance if you are not with people who live in your household. We still need you to wear Face Coverings when youre out and youre doing your business. If youre not exercising or in the act of exercising, walking, jogging, bicycling, wear your Face Coverings. And we still need you all when you get home to wash your hands frequently to prevent the spread of this virus. Now our team of volunteers and officers and cadets were out this weekend in the parks. We issued we gave out 68 or 58, im sorry, 58 Face Coverings or masks. There were over 100 informal admonishments or warnings to people who were enjoying the park, and i will say almost by and large everybody who was warned informally came into compliance. So we want to thank you for that, and i want to thank you personally for that, because that is what makes this work. Well continue to focus on those efforts. We know as this goes along and the further that we get into this were now at nine weeks and going into our tenth week, people are anxious. People have anxiety. People want to get out and interact with other people. People want to do their business. Businesses have sacrificed immensely, and we want to thank all those Business Owners that have sacrificed to make this work. I know as the Health Orders evolve and as we continue to go into different phases of this pandemic and attempt to reopen to get things back as much as we can to normal, there are a lot of questions. And with some, there is a lot of confusion, and thats why we follow the compliance model that we follow of starting with education, and we will continue to do that. There were a lot of questions about how many cites we write or how many people were arrested. Fortunately we have not had to arrested anybody, but we have issued some citations, but we start with education first, and thats really important now as we begin to go into additional phases and attempts to reopen. Things change almost weekly, and its really important that we do our part, your Police Department and your Police Officers, to educate the community for those, as the mayor mentioned and as dr. Colfax mentioned, who may not be watching the news, who may not have access to internet or who may just not have heard that things have evolved. So thats why we start with education, and i must say by and large we have been very successful with this model, and we will continue to use this model of education, then warnings or admonishment, and for those folks that still refuse to abide by the Health Orders, we do have the citation as a last resort. So thats been successful, and ill get to kind of where we are on those numbers in a second. But again, thank you all for the cooperation and for making our city a model, as the mayor said. We are far better off than many other cities, and thats a good thing, and thats because of you all. So now ill get to the statistics of those who have not followed the Public Health directives, and then ill get into a little bit of our Crime Statistics for the week and for the year. As far as citations, we have issued a total of 23 citations since the initial Public Health order went into effect, and the breakdown is 13 businesses and 10 individuals. That 23 is an increase of one. The last time i reported we had 22, so thats an increase of one, and that additional citation was for a business. We have had a total of 105 formal admonishments, and the formal admonishment, what i mean by that, the formal warnings are those warnings thats your last warning before we have to come back and issue a citation. And that breakdown is 58 businesses and 47 individuals. Thats two higher than my last report of 103 in my last report. And i would like to say in addition to that, just like this weekend when our volunteers and our officers and our cadets were out in the park, they issued or had engagement with over 100 i think the number was about 138 individuals where those were informal warnings, where people were asked to either wear Face Covering or create some social distance, and they complied on the spot. So thats what were seeing by and large, and for those individuals where we do have to go back after youve been warned, particularly formally warned, we have issued citations, and we will continue to do that if we have to, but we hope we dont have to. As far as our Crime Statistics, i want to go into our weektoweek, which i have reported on consistently, and also our yearoveryear Crime Statistics. Overall the news is good, a 22. 5 decrease in part one Violent Crimes over this past week, that means 16 fewer Violent Crimes. In terms of property crime, we had a 33. 6 decrease in property crimes which equates to 186 fewer crimes for a total, part one, or serious crimes, that decrease was 32 . This is the week over the prior week. And that equates to 202 fewer crimes than the prior week. As far as our yeartodate Crime Statistics, we are at an 8. 6 crime decrease in part one Violent Crime which is 166 crimes fewer than this time last year. Property crime were at a 13 decrease in property crime which equates to 2,125 fewer property crimes over this time last year. And our total part one crime decrease is at 12. 4 , which equates to 2,291 fewer crimes than this time 2019. I will say, though, although we are pleased to have a decrease in crime, we do understand that part of the reason is that there are just fewer people out on the streets, fewer victims, fewer opportunities. And we want to remain vigilant when we do reopen to make sure that we can reopen without people being victimized. So we will have a presence, as we always have during this pandemic. We will continue that, and well make adjustments as we have to. I want to encourage everyone to continue to report crime, because thats part of this analysis, is you have to report it for us to know about it and to respond to it. So call 911 for Violent Crimes. If its a crime in progress, also call 911. If its a nonviolent property crime thats already occurred, you can call our nonemergency number at 4155530123. Thats 4155530123. Also you can call 311 or use our San Francisco Police Department website at sanfranciscopolice. Org to either request crime reports or report crimes that qualify for online reporting. We still have a report callin center that we stood up during this pandemic thats been very effective, so makes us more efficient in allowing our public to report crimes, and that will be ongoing. Lastly, i want to close with just the basics. As dr. Colfax has said, as our mayor has said, we need everybody if you must go out to conduct essential business or to just get exercise, please wear your Face Covering. Maintain a distance of six feet between you and anybody who is not living in your household, and when you return home, or even if you dont return home, whenever you can, wash your hands frequently. These prevention efforts, although basic, will help prevent the spread of covid19 and get us back to normal quicker. So please continue to cooperate and well continue to ask for your voluntary compliance, and we need to flatten the curve and beat this covid19 virus. So i will thank you and, again, we appreciate everybodys support. And with that, i think i have a few questions and then we will open it up to the questions for everybody else. We will begin questions for questions for chief scott. Chief scott, this question is from dan kerman. Have any businesses defied the current order and reopened on friday and over the weekend . If so, will this be allowed to continue . Over the weekend we did not have any we had one additional citation, as i stated. We didnt look, by and large, we are seeing really good compliance with our business community. We have thousands of businesses in this city, so its not to say that every single business has been checked, but we said from day one, on march 17, when we started this, that we would be proactive in going out to ensure that businesses were doing what was asked of them, and by and large that has happened. On those occasions where we had to go back and we had 13 examples of such, we have cited. After the warning has been given, and some of those 13 were cited on the first attempt after an inordinate amount of education was out in the public realm. So the answer to the question, though, is by and large we are seeing compliance, and we hope to continue that, and thats why i get up here and ask for voluntary compliance, and thats why we give warnings. Thats why we educate, and thats why we have this progressive pathway, to make sure we do this in a fair and just manner, but we need to get it done, and we need to make sure that people are compliant. The next question is from kathy novak. During the shelterinplace order, are any exceptions being made to the law requiring stores in San Francisco to accept cash . The ordnance about accepting cash is still active. It has not been suspended. I want to remind everybody what the spirit of this is. Its about equity. Not everybody has a credit card or an atm card, and people need essential services, and this is about equity, making sure that everybody in our city has access to what they need. So that is the spirit of this. So if there are people who are not abiding by that, the proper venue is to call our nonemergency line if you need a Police Officer to help you resolve that. Thats 4155530123. Okay, the next questions are for dr. Grant colfax, San Francisco department of Public Health. Dr. Colfax, the first question is from abc 7 news. Should san franciscans be concerned about people traveling to the city or the bay area from other counties and states that are less restrictive . Dr. Grant colfax so i think right now travel, its best for people to limit their travel to essential travel. This is not the time to go on a trip for recreation, a vacation, even to visit family and friends. I think its very important per my prior comments that we focus on focusing on the stayathome order, wearing Face Coverings, and social distancing. I think that with regard to people coming in to San Francisco from other areas, its also very important that we as a community create norms where the facial covering, the social distancing is encouraged and enforced. So i would really ensure that we do this, whether people are in San Francisco as part of their residency, whether theyre coming in to work in San Francisco, or if people are coming to travel here, that again, the social distancing, the facial mask are very important. And again, to limit travel to all but the most essential travel. Is the department of Public Health monitoring people from coming outside the area . So what we are monitoring is looking at the overall activity of the area, how Much Movement there is in terms of cellphone activity, cars and so forth. And whats really quite important about this is that it clearly shows that before we put more of these restrictions in place, the more people moved around, the more the virus was transmitted, and we see basically a clear correlation between activity in the public realms with transmission of the virus, which is why its so important as we gradually consider and put in guidelines around reopening that we are doing it in a very safe way, again with social distancing, with facial coverings, and really following the data and monitoring the activity in the city, as well as, of course, the very important metrics around the number of cases and the number of cases hospitalized in the city. The next question is from ctvu. The Trump Administration is calling for testing of people residing and working in Nursing Homes. How are San Franciscos efforts progressing . Well, were way ahead of the Trump Administration. We require are now requiring that Nursing Homes test staff and residents in Nursing Homes on a routine basis. That health order was issued last week, and we last week started testing staff and residents at laguna honda hospital, and this will be extended to Nursing Homes across the city. Very important, this is routine testing, testing people regardless of symptoms on a regular basis. Testing in the case of people having symptoms, whether staff or residents will also of course continue. Will the department of Public Health test private facilities to monitor covid19 for infection . The nursing home facilities . Yes. So the nursing home facilities in the city, with the exception of laguna honda, which is under direct auspices of the Health Department, the Nursing Homes are regulated and overseen by the state. Right now our focus is on doing conducting good Public Health interventions, and we are supporting those facilities Going Forward in scaling up their Testing Capacity. So the Health Department will be working very closely with those private homes and with the state to ensure that there are testing protocols made available, that in certain instances that materials and Technical Assistance is provided. And the intent is that over time these facilities will be able to conduct testing either on their own or through a third party or with ongoing assistance by the Health Department in a way that is sustainable and reinforceable. Last question is from mission local. Julie and mark. How much has homeless cases risen since last week . How many are severe or requiring hospitalization . So on the number of people diagnosed with covid19, of the 1,954 positive cases in the city, and this is with the thousands of tests that have been done, 8 or 156 people report experience homelessness. This was defined as this is defined as selfreporting homelessness, being included in a shelter outbreak or indicating homelessness or a shelter location as matched by Health Department records. And as i said, unfortunately one person who experienced homelessness has died of covid19related causes. Thank you. This concludes our questions for todays press conference. Todays special guest is claudia dume. Hi. Today, my guest is claudia gorham. Shes the deputy managing director of the real estate dri division at the city and county of San Francisco, and shes my special guest. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. I know that your department is the department for managing and renting properties, and also cleaning for the city. How has your department been preparing for the crisis . Well, because our citizens are sheltering in place and our buildings are closed to the general public, a substantial amount of city staff and City Departments are still open and operating and doing city businesses. So we still have to do the cleaning and engineering on the portfolio and things that need to be service. And the other thing is all our workers are Disaster Service workers, so we have been providing the Emergency Operations center with various staffing needs such as drivers of trucks and accounting staff to assist them in this crisis. Have you obtained Additional Space for the city to use during this crisis . Yes. The crisis has actually required numerous transactions, and so we help basically the department of Public Health, the department of Human Services, and the department of homelessness determine where they can put the services that they need. So, for example, if they need a testing site or if they need a building a vacant building to put supplies or if they need to put some trucks, we will help them locate that Office Building or that property based on their factors that they need. We will then contact the landlord or the Property Owner of the space or the Building Owner decides they want, and then, we negotiate the terms that they need, whether its a permit or a lease, well help the City Attorney draft that agreement. Nice. So can you talk about how some of our iconic buildings, such address the palace of such as the palace of fine arts, has been repurposed during the pandemic . Certainly. The city needs as much space as it can use during this pandemic, and the department had to relocate to Moscone South Convention Center so that we could do social distancing as required by both the city and the state. We have hundreds and hundreds of staff people working on this covid19 crisis. All of the department of Public Health and the departments of homelessness and Human Services, including several other hundred people, they need several different sites. They need testing centers, they need shelters for the homeless, those with the covid19 virus, those who need a place to stay after they get out of the hospital. So weve been assisting them with places to stay. You mentioned the palace of fine arts. It has over 100,000 square feet of space. It could it we were going to use it as a shelter, but now, were going to use it for different needs. Were going to negotiate a different lease so that the city can use it for this crisis. Were using the bill graham Civic Auditorium and tfor the deployment of ambulances. The Fire Department needed additional supplies, so were using it for that service. Thats great. I also understand you have a staff of custodians, electricians, janitors and other support workers. How are they helping the city . We could not be more thankful for our civic and engineering staff under our real estate division. They have been working 247 since this crisis began, not only doing their daily responsibilities to keep the public buildings open and operating for the city staff continuing to go into the office but also because once the crisis started, several memos came down as to additional cleanings and how to do disinfecting, and we have to do the c. D. C. S recommendation does. So not only do they do recommendations. So not only do they do their regular cleaning, they are also doing deep cleaning and disinfecting in places like the Public Safety building and the haul of justice. But theyre also going in and doing a deep cleaning and disinfecting after we had a suspected case or a confirmed case of a person having the coronavirus. So theyre going in and doing this every night since this started. Our workers are continuing as laborers to make the buildings safe and secure and maintained. And however we help or however we can help the e. O. C. , we do that. Well, thanks for coming on the show, claudia. Id like to thank you and your entire team on behalf of all the residents of San Francisco for all the work you continue to do. Thank you very much. Its been a pleasure. Thats it for this episode. Well be back with another pandemicrelated episode shortly. This is coping with covid19. Im chris mathers. Thanks for watching. I view San Francisco almost as a sibling or a parent or something. I just love the city. I love everything about it. When im away from it, i miss it like a person. I grew up in San Francisco kind of all over the city. We had pretty much the run of the city cause we lived pretty close to polk street, and so we would in the summer, wed all all the way down to aquatic park, and wed walk down to the library, to the kids center. In those days, the city was safe and nobody worried about us running around. I went to high school in spring valley. It was over the hill from chinatown. It was kind of fun to experience being in a minority, which most white people dont get to experience that often. Everything was just really within walking distance, so it make it really fun. When i was a teenager, we didnt have a lot of money. We could go to sam wongs and get super soup for 1. My parents came here and were drawn to the beatnik culture. They wanted to meet all of the writers who were so famous at the time, but my mother had some serious Mental Illness issues, and i dont think my father were really aware of that, and those didnt really become evident until i was about five, i guess, and my marriage blew up, and my mother took me all over the world. Most of those ad ventures ended up bad because they would end up hospitalized. When i was about six i guess, my mother took me to japan, and that was a very interesting trip where we went over with a boyfriend of hers, and he was working there. I remember the open sewers and gigantic frogs that lived in the sewers and things like that. Mostly i remember the smells very intensely, but i loved japan. It was wonderful. Toward the end. My mother had a breakdown, and that was the cycle. We would go somewhere, stay for a certain amount of months, a year, period of time, and she would inevitably have a breakdown. We always came back to San Francisco which i guess came me some sense of continuity and that was what kept me sort of stable. My mother hated to fly, so she would always make us take ships places, so on this particular occasion when i was, i think, 12, we were on this ship getting ready to go through the panama canal, and she had a breakdown on the ship. So she was put in the brig, and i was left to wander the ship until we got to fluorfluora few days later, where we had a distant florida a few days later, where we had a distant cousin who came and got us. I think i always knew i was a writer on some level, but i kind of stopped when i became a cop. I used to write short stories, and i thought someday im going to write a book about all these ad ventures that my mother took me on. When i became a cop, i found i turned off parts of my brain. I found i had to learn to conform, which was not anything id really been taught but felt very safe to me. I think i was drawn to police work because after coming from such chaos, it seemed like a very organized, but stable environment. And even though things happening, it felt like putting order on chaos and that felt very safe to me. My girlfriend and i were sitting in ve 150d uvios bar, and i looked out the window and i saw a police car, and there was a woman who looked like me driving the car. For a moment, i thought i was me. And i turned to my friend and i said, i think im supposed to do this. I saw myself driving in this car. As a child, we never thought of police work as a possibility for women because there werent any until the mid70s, so i had only even begun to notice there were women doing this job. When i saw here, it seemed like this is what i was meant to do. One of my bosses as ben johnsons had been a cop, and he i said, i have this weird idea that i should do this. He said, i think youd be good. The department was forced to hire us, and because of all of the posters, and the big recruitment drive, we were under the impression that they were glad to have us, but in reality, most of the men did not want the women there. So the big challenge was constantly feeling like you had to prove yourself and feeling like if you did not do a good job, you were letting down your entire gender. Finally took an inspectors test and passed that and then went down to the hall of justice and worked different investigations for the rest of my career, which was fun. I just felt sort of buried alive in all of these cases, these unsolved mysteries that there were just so many of them, and some of them, i didnt know if wed ever be able to solve, so my boss was able to get me out of the unit. He transferred me out, and a couple of weeks later, i found out i had breast cancer. My intuition that the job was killing me. I ended up leaving, and by then, i had 28 years or the years in, i think. The writing thing really became intense when i was going through treatment for cancer because i felt like there were so many parts that my kids didnt know. They didnt know my story, they didnt know why i had a relationship with my mother, why we had no family to speak of. It just poured out of me. I gave it to a friend who is an editor, and she said i think this would be publishable and i think people would be interested in this. I am so lucky to live here. I am so grateful to my parents who decided to move to the city. I am so grateful they did. That it never its great to see everyone kind of get together and prove, that you know, building our culture is something that can be reckoned with. I am desi, chair of Economic Development for soma filipinos. So that [ inaudible ] know that soma filipino exists, and its also our economic platform, so we can start to build filipino businesses so we can start to build the cultural district. I studied the bok chase choy her achbl heritage, and i discovered this awesome bok choy. Working at imarket is amazing. Youve got all these amazing people coming out here to share one culture. When i heard that there was a market with, like, a lot of Filipino Food, it was like oh, wow, thats the closest thing ive got to home, so, like, im going to try everything. Fried rice, and wings, and three different cliefz sliders. I havent tried the adobe yet, but just smelling it yet brings back home and a ton of memories. The binca is made out of different ingredients, including cheese. But here, we put a twist on it. Why not have nutella, rocky road, we have blue berry. Were not just limiting it to just the classic with salted egg and cheese. We try to cook food that you dont normally find from Filipino Food vendors, like the lichon, for example. Its something that it took years to come up with, to perfect, to get the skin just right, the flavor, and its one of our most popular dishes, and people love it. This, its kind of me trying to chase a dream that i had for a long time. When i got tired of the corporate world, i decided that i wanted to give it a try and see if people would actually like our food. I think its a wonderful opportunity for the filipino culture to shine. Everybody keeps saying Filipino Food is the next big thing. I think its already big, and to have all of us here together, its just it just blows my mind sometimes that theres so many of us bringing bringing Filipino Food to the city finally. Im alex, the owner of the lumpia company. The food that i create is basically the filipinoamerican experience. I wasnt a chef to start with, but i literally love lumpia, but my food is my Favorite Foods i like to eat, put into my favorite Filipino Foods, put together. Its not based off of recipes i learned from my mom. Maybe i learned the rolling technique from my mom, but the Different Things that i put in are just the Different Things that i like, and i like to think that i have good taste. Well, the very first lumpia that i came out with that really build the lumpia it wasnt the poerk and shrimp shanghai, but my favorite thing after partying is that bakon cheese burger lumpia. There was a time in our generation where we didnt have our own place, our own feed to eat. Before, i used to promote filipino gatherings to share the love. Now, im taking the most exciting filipino appetizer and sharing it with other filipinos. It can happen in the San Francisco mint, it can happen in a park, it can happen in a street park, it can happen in a tech campus. Its basically where we bring the hardware, the culture, the operating system. So right now, im eating something that brings me back to every Filipino Party from my childhood. Its really cool to be part of the community and reconnect with the neighborhood. One of our largest challenges in creating this cultural district when we compare ourselves to chinatown, japantown or little saigon, theres little communities there that act as place makers. When you enter into little philippines, youre like where are the businesses, and thats one of the challenges were trying to solve. Undercover love wouldnt be possible without the help of the mayor and all of our Community Partnerships out there. It costs approximately 60,000 for every event. Undiscovered is a great tool for the cultural district to bring awareness by bringing the best parts of our culture which is food, music, the arts and being ativism all under one roof, and by seeing it all in this way, what it allows san franciscans to see is the dynamics of the filipinoamerican culture. I think in San Francisco, weve kind of lost track of one of our values that makes San Francisco unique with just empathy, love, of being acceptable of different people, the out liers, the crazy ones. Weve become so focused onic maing money that we forgot about those that make our city and community unique. When people come to discover, i want them to rediscover the magic of what diversity and empathy can create. When youre positive and committed to using that energy, [ ] i am the supervisor of district one. I am sandra lee fewer. [ ] i moved to the Richmond District in 1950 mine. I was two years old. I moved from chinatown and we were one of the first asian families to move out here. [ ] when my mother decided to buy that house, nobody knew where it was. It seems so far away. For a long time, we were the only chinese family there but we started to see the areas of growth to serve a larger chinese population. The stress was storage of the birthplace of that. My father would have to go to chinatown for dim sum and i remember one day he came home and said, there is one here now. It just started to grow very organically. It is the same thing with the russian population, which is another very large ethnic group in the Richmond District. As russia started to move in, we saw more russian stores. So parts of the richmond is very concentrated with the Russian Community and immigrant Russian Community, and also a chinese immigrant community. [ ] i think as living here in the richmond, we really appreciate the fact that we are surrounded three natural barriers. They are beautiful barriers. The presidio which gives us so many trails to walk through, ocean beach, for families to just go to the beach and be in the Pacific Ocean. We also also have a National Park service. We boarded the Golden Gate National Recreation Area so there is a lot of activity to do in the summer time you see people with bonfires. But really families enjoying the beach and the Pacific Ocean during the rest of the time of year. [ ] and Golden Gate Park where we have so many of our treasures here. We have the tea garden, the museum and the academy of sciences. Not to mention the wonderful playgrounds that we have here in richmond. This is why i say the richmond is a great place for families. The theatre is a treasure in our neighborhood. It has been around for a very long time. Is one of our two neighborhood theatres that we have here. I moved here when i was 1959 when i was two years old. We would always go here. I love these neighborhood theatres. It is one of the places that has not only a landmark in the Richmond District, but also in San Francisco. Small theatres showing one or two films. A unique they are unique also to the neighborhood and San Francisco. Where we are today is the heart of the Richmond District. With what is unique is that it is also Small Businesses. There is a different retail here it is mom and pop opening up businesses. And providing for the neighborhood. This is what we love about the streets. The cora door starts on clement street and goes all the way down to the end of clement where you will see Small Businesses even towards 32nd. At the core of it is right here between here and 20 tenth avenue. When we see this variety of stores offered here, it is very unique then of the any other part of San Francisco. There is traditional irish music which you dont get hardly anywhere in San Francisco. Some places have this long legacy of serving ice cream and being a hangout for families to have a sunday afternoon ice cream. And then also, we see Grocery Stores. And also these restaurants that are just new here, but also thriving. [ ] we are seeing restaurants being switched over by hand, new owners, but what we are seeing is a vibrancy of clement street still being recaptured within new businesses that are coming in. That is a really great thing to see. I dont know when i started to shop here, but it was probably a very, very long time ago. I like to cook a lot but i like to cook chinese food. The market is the place i like to come to once a year. Once i like about the market as it is very affordable. It has Fresh Produce and fresh meat. Also, seafood. But they also offer a large selection of condiments and sauces and noodles. A variety of rice that they have is tremendous. I dont thank you can find a variety like that anywhere else. Hi. I am kevin wong. I am the manager. In 1989 we move from chinatown to Richmond District. We have opened for a bit, over 29 years. We carry products from thailand, japan, indonesia, vietnam, singapore and india. We try to keep Everything Fresh daily. So a customer can get the best out a bit. Normally during crab season in november, this is the first place i hit. Because they have really just really fresh crab. This is something my family really likes for me to make. Also, from my traditional chinese food, i love to make a kale soup. They cut it to the size they really want. I am probably here once a week. Im very familiar with the aisles and they know everyone who is a cashier cashier here i know when people come into a market such as this, it looks like an asian supermarkets, which it is and sometimes it can be intimidating. We dont speak the language and many of the labels are in chinese, you may not know what to buy or if it is the proper ingredients for the recipe are trying to make. I do see a lot of people here with a recipe card or sometimes with a magazine and they are looking for specific items. The staff here is very helpful. I speak very little chinese here myself. Thinks that im not sure about, i asked the clerk his and i say is this what i need . Is this what i should be making . And they actually really helped me. They will bring me to the aisle and say this is battery. They are very knowledgeable. Very friendly. I think they are here to serve not only the Asian Community but to serve all communities in the Richmond District and in San Francisco. [ ] what is wonderful about living here is that even though our july is a very foggy and overcast, best neighborhood, the sleepy part outside on the west side is so rich with history, but also with all the amenities that are offered. [ ] my name is doctor ellen moffett, i am an assistant medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco. I perform autopsy, review medical records and write reports. Also integrate other sorts of testing data to determine cause and manner of death. I have been here at this facility since i moved here in november, and previous to that at the old facility. I was worried when we moved here that because this building is so much larger that i wouldnt see people every day. I would miss my personal interactions with the other employees, but that hasnt been the case. This building is very nice. We have lovely autopsy tables and i do get to go upstairs and down stairs several times a day to see everyone else i work with. We have a bond like any other group of employees that work for a specific agency in San Francisco. We work closely on each case to determine the best cause of death, and we also interact with family members of the diseased. That brings us closer together also. I am an investigator two at the office of the chief until examiner in San Francisco. As an investigator here i investigate all manners of death that come through our jurisdiction. I go to the field interview Police Officers, detectives, family members, physicians, anyone who might be involved with the death. Additionally i take any property with the deceased individual and take care and custody of that. I maintain the chain and custody for court purposes if that becomes an issue later and notify next of kin and make any additional follow up phone callsness with that particular death. I am dealing with people at the worst possible time in their lives delivering the worst news they could get. I work with the family to help them through the grieving process. I am ricky moore, a clerk at the San Francisco medical examiners office. I assist the pathology and toxicology and Investigative Team around work close with the families, loved ones and funeral establishment. I started at the old facility. The building was old, vintage. We had issues with plumbing and things like that. I had a tiny desk. I feet very happy to be here in the new digs where i actually have room to do my work. I am sue pairing, the toxicologist supervisor. We test for alcohol, drugs and poisons and biological substances. I oversee all of the lab operations. The forensic operation here we perform the toxicology testing for the Human Performance and the case in the city of San Francisco. We collect evidence at the scene. A woman was killed after a robbery homicide, and the dna collected from the zip ties she was bound with ended up being a cold hit to the suspect. That was the only investigative link collecting the scene to the suspect. It is nice to get the feedback. We do a lot of work and you dont hear the result. Once in a while you heard it had an impact on somebody. You can bring justice to what happened. We are able to take what we due to the next level. Many of our counterparts in other states, cities or countries dont have the resources and dont have the beautiful building and the equipmentness to really advance what we are doing. Sometimes we go to court. Whoever is on call may be called out of the office to go to various portions of the city to investigate suspicious deaths. We do whatever we can to get our job done. When we think that a case has a natural cause of death and it turns out to be another natural cause of death. Unexpected findings are fun. I have a prior background in law enforcement. I was a Police Officer for 8 years. I handled homicides and suicides. I had been around Death Investigation type scenes. As a Police Officer we only handled minimal components then it was turned over to the coroner or the detective division. I am intrigued with those types of calls. I wondered why someone died. I have an extremely supportive family. Older children say, mom, how was your day. I can give minor details and i have an amazing spouse always willing to listen to any and all details of my day. Without that it would be really hard to deal with the negative components of this job. Being i am a native of San Francisco and grew up in the community. I come across that a lot where i may know a loved one coming from the back way or a loved one seeking answers for their deceased. There are a lot of cases where i may feel affected by it. If from is a child involved or things like that. I try to not bring it home and not let it affect me. When i tell people i work at the medical examiners office. Whawhat do you do . The autopsy . I deal with the a with the enou with the administrative and the families. Most of the time work here is very enjoyable. After i started working with dead people, i had just gotten married and one night i woke up in a cold sweat. I thought there was somebody dead . My bed. I rolled over and poked the body. Sure enough, it was my husband who grumbled and went back to sleep. This job does have lingering effects. In terms of why did you want to go into this . I loved science growing up but i didnt want to be a doctor and didnt want to be a pharmacist. The more i learned about forensics how interested i was of the perfect combination between Applied Science and criminal justice. If you are interested in finding out the facts and truth seeking to find out what happened, anybody interested in that has a place in this field. Being a woman we just need to go for it and dont let anyone fail you, you cant be. With regard to this position in comparison to crime dramas out there, i would say there might be some minor correlations. Lets face it, we arent hollywood, we are real world. Yes we collect evidence. We want to preserve that. We are not scanning fingerprints in the field like a Hollywood Television show. Families say thank you for what you do, for me that is extremely fulfilling. Somebody has to do my job. If i can make a situation that is really negative for someone more positive, then i feel like i am doing the right thing for the city of San Francisco. Valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. The first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the Mission Neighborhood extending from market to mission street. It is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. From 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. The mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m. T. A. To put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [ ] valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in San Francisco. It has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. We promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. Valencia is our mission fits our mission perfectly. Our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. Whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. I have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. During that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. We have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. One of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. The most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. We kept all the passengers the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. Most people arent actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. Half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6 00 p. M. , so could be used for fiveminute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. The five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. One of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. We worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. On this lot, there are a few schools. All these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. To address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings railings that channel channeled a designated crossing plane. We had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons . I do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. We have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the rightofway so they can cross the roadway. This is probably one of the most unique features. During the planning phase, the m. T. A. Came out with three alternatives for the long term project. One is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. A twoway bikeway. The third option is a Center Running twoway bikeway, c. Would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. Earlier, there werent any enter lane designs in San Francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for San Francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesnt exist already. With all three concepts for valencias longterm improvement , theres a number of tradeoffs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. When he think about extending this pilot or this still this design, theres a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. The pilot is great. It is a nobrainer. It is also a teaser for us. Once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. What were trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. The Pilot Project is one of our first major improvements. We will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. This fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. By spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about longterm improvements. I appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the Community Workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. We want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. Theres a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. We will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [ ] [ ] my familys starts in mexico in a small town. My parents are from a very, very small town. So small, that my dads brother is married to one of my moms sisters. Its that small. A lot of folks from that town are here in the city. Like most immigrant families, my parents wanted a better life for us. My dad came out here first. I think i was almost twoyearsold when he sent for us. My mom and myself came out here. We moved to San Francisco early on. In the Mission District and moved out to daily city and bounced back to San Francisco. We lived across the street from the ups building. For me, when my earliest memories were the big brown trucks driving up and down the street keeping us awake at night. When i was sevenyearsold and im in charge of making sure we get on the bus on time to get to school. I have to make sure that we do our homework. Its a lot of responsibility for a kid. The weekends were always for family. We used to get together and whether we used to go watch a movie at the new Mission Theater and then afterwards going to Kentucky Fried Chicken. That was big for us. We get Kentucky Fried Chicken on sunday. Whoa go crazy so for me, home is having something where you are all together. Whether its just together for dinner or whether its together for breakfast or sharing a special moment at the holidays. Whether its thanksgiving or christmas or birthdays. That is home. Being so close to berkley and oakland and San Francisco, theres a line. Here you dont see a line. Even though you see someone thats different from you, theyre equal. Youve always seen that. A rainbow of colors, a ryan bow of personalities. When you think about it you are supposed to be protecting the kids. They have dreams. They have aspirations. They have goals. And you are take that away from them. Right now, the price is a hard fight. Theyre determined. I mean, these kids, you have to applaud them. Their heart is in the right place. Theres hope. I mean, out here with the things changing everyday, you just hope the next administration makes a change that makes things right. Right now theres a lot of changes on a lot of different levels. The only thing you hope for is for the future of these young kids and young folks that are getting into politics to make the right move and for the folks who cant speak. Dy mind motion. Even though we have a lot of fighters, theres a lot of voice less folks and their voiceless because theyre scared. Announcer youre watching coping with covid19. Todays special guest is lindsey holmes. Hi, im chris manus and youre watching coping with covid19. Today my guest is founder and c. E. O. Of dispatch goods and former clinical profusionist at ucsf. She start add new initiative called project clean to provide alcoholbased cleaning products and Hand Sanitizers to atrisk bay area communities. Lindsey, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Its lovely to see you. Tell us a little about your background and how dispatched goods of San Franciscos restaurant community. Sure. We launched, in october, weve been working on this for a little over a year. And we partnered with restaurants to provide them with a free reusable container system that could replace singleuse products. We partnered with yelp headquarters in downtown San Francisco and 10 Restaurant Partners as of february before covid19 hit and employees at our Corporate Partners could request the reusable containers when they were getting their lunch for takeout or if they were getting it delivered to their office. We then handled the pickup and dish washing. So, obviously the virus pandemic has hit and now youve had to pivot your company and i understand you lunched a new initiative called project clean. Can you let us know what the program is all about . Sure. So we basically when this hit, we asked ok, what we do we have and how can we help . We also noticed there was a gap in the supply for Hand Sanitizers to Certain Community members and individuals and we talked to a distillery about making Hand Sanitizer and, in true form to our mission, we decided i bet we could collect enough containers from the community that we wouldnt have to supply more singleuse plastic containers and we launched project clean and with that, we collected over 200 containers. Theyre spray squeeze bottles and working on supplying the cleaning products. What has the response been from the community atlarge and how have peopled help . Were donationbased and selffunded right now. We are buying basically the products at cost and is not charging us much for that. Theyre also just trying to cover our expenses and we had a little bit of donations coming in. But if you go to our website, you can either donate containers that you have, well come do pickup. Were doing it twice a week now. Or if you yourself need any of the cleaning products, you can fill out the form and request those as well. And then there is also a place to make a donation. So, where are you handing out the Hand Sanitizer right now . Were doing it in the same route as the dropoff route. So, the Hand Sanitizer will be finished today. So, tomorrow well be doing our first round of dropoffs and weve been contacted by Health Care Professionals who after they come home have nothing on their hands there. We have been contacted by retirement communities and contacted by physicians in their offices that they dont have anything and a individuals that just werent able to get the supplies because they were sold out so quickly. Basically during our normal pickup routes now, we will be doing the dropoff as well. That is fantastic. You know, i think that is a Wonderful Service you are providing, lindsey. Thank you so much for coming on the show and keep up the good work. Thank you so much, chris i really appreciate it. And that is it for this episode. Well be back with more stories shortly. Youve been watching coping with covid19. Im chris manus, thank you for welcome to the San Francisco hearing. I would like to enter the following, on february 25, 2020, the mayor declared a state of emergency due to covid19. Therefore, due to the health emergency, city hall is called and there will be emergencies with boards, commissions and other policy hearings. On april 3, 2020, the Planning Commission received permission to reconvene through the end of the shelterinplace. They prioritize infrastructure, housing and Small Businesses. This will be our fifth remote hearing. Im