Transcripts For SFGTV SFCTA Full Authority Board 20240713

Total 2. 2 frillion relief in the cares act and its far below the investment that the federal government provided in 2009 and 2010 in the education jobs fund. And whereas the Public Education is one of the largest employees employers of any organization, public or private, in the nation. And whereas published Economic Research has demonstrated a strong connection between a countrys g. D. P. Growth and its investment in elementary and secondary education and whereas research has found a strong casual relationship between levels of schooling and wages that individuals earn over a lifetime. And whereas the Public Schools to thrive and for our students to realize a bright and productive future, the federal government needs to make a substantial new investment in our wellbeing and whereas the council of the schools, and the National Education association and the American Federation of teachers and the National School Boards Association and the American Association of School Administrators and the National Parent Teachers Association and others have called for some 200 billion in relief for the nations Public Schools. And whereas this level of funding is a minimum needed by the nations urban Public Schools to sustain and accelerate their academic achievement trends over the past decade, including gains in reading and math achievement that outpace the national average. And whereas the United States congress is debating a bill proposed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the health and economic recovery omnibus emergency solution heroes act that includes 58 billion for k12 School District and 3 billion for child nutrition programs, and 1. 5 billion for erat for internet and for schools. And 42 billion for higher education. And 500 billion for states and 375 billion for citys and counties. Therefore, be it resolved that the San Francisco unified School District board of education urges the members of its congressional delegation to continue to advocate for and to approve additional educational funding for our nations Public Schools which is critical to protect safety and allow Student Learning to continue during the ongoing pandemic. President sanchez did anybody catch we moved the census resolution so can i get a motion and a second to suspend the rules for this resolution on heroes . So moved. Second. Commissioner cohen presidel call. Miss collins . Yes. Mr. Cook . Yes. Miss lam. Yes. Miss lopez. Yes. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Miss norton . Yes. And mr. Sanchez . Yes. Seven ayes. President sanchez formal motion and second for this resolution. So moved. Second. President sanchez read into the record. Any Public Comment on this resolution . For the heroes act . Not seeing any at this time. President sanchez thank you. Commissioners, any comments or questions . Commissioner collins. Commissioner collins thank you very much for this resolution. Its amazing. I appreciate it. Thank you. President sanchez and thanks for after this bill for putting us on record as supporting the heroes act as the board of education. If theres no other comments or questions roll call. Thank you. Miss collins . Yes. Mr. Cook . Yes. Miss lam. Yes. Miss lopez . Yes. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Miss norton . Yes. Mr. Sanchez . Yes. Seven ayes. President sanchez so we have moved the other resolution which is your other resolution, jenny, on the census so weed need reaweedsensewe neee record. President sanchez youre still on mute though, jenny. Commissioner lam resolution number 20526a about, the 2020 census San Francisco counts whereas the bureau is required by article one of the u. S. Constitution to conduct an accurate count of the population every 10 years to enumerate every person residing in the United States and its fundamental to ensure that all residents have fair representation, essential services and economic development. And whereas an accurate count of persons living in the city and county of San Francisco in the 2020 census is vital to determine the representation of individuals, families and communities in our local, state and federal governments. And whereas the 2020 census count of children living in sfusd will be the basis of federal Education Funding allocated to our schools over the next 10 years, specifically the federal program serving our students living in poverty and students with disabilities. And whereas the population data derived in the 2020 senseus wi l be used to determine which communities in the city of San Francisco can receive libraries and grocerys and retail stores. And whereas the populations that are prevalent in the urban areas, including the city and county of San Francisco, are at higher risk of being not crow cd and plus lgbtq plus communities and language minority families and undocumented residents and tenants that are foreign born, and those with limited internet access. And whereas children are more likely to be missed in the census count if they reside in the complex household and its also common in urban areas. Such as multigenerational households and extended families and multifamily households and whereas during the 2020 census theres a risk of an undercount due to the Digital Divide and Language Access issues and local Community Mistrust in the federal government. And whereas, local and state governments as well as communitybased organizations can play a Critical Role in counteracting the undercount risk and reaching hardtocount populations and ensuring that their communities get counted in 2020. And whereas the San Francisco current selfresponse rate is 57. 9 . Which is below the National State responses. And the selfresponse phase is scheduled to end on october 31, 2020. And where is didas its pair moe principals and educators and parent organizations and all local leaders and sfusd to community the importance of census 2020 to families and Community Members to ensure that everyone is counted. Therefore, be it resolved that sfusd will develop and adopt a plan of action around ensuring a complete count of all students and their families within the School District on the 2020 census by august 31st. And be it further resolved that sfusd is committed to working in partnership with other local, civic, business and community leaders, the state of california and others to engage and educate and count every resident in the 2020 census. President sanchez thank you so much, commissioner lam. Any Public Comment on this item . Yes. Hi, thank you so much for this and i just want to thank commissioner lam for the work on this and the other one as well. Thats a lot of work. I wanted to have a shoutout to the student delegates for that other resolution. Thank you, thank you, thank you. These are not meaningless. They really matter. So i appreciate your efforts in doing this, commissioner lam. Thank you. That was it for Public Comment president sanchez. President sanchez thank you. Commissioners . Okay, commissioner lam. Commissioner lam i just wanted to note on record that our executive director of San Franciscos office of Civic Engagement adrian pond back in february in a public hearing acknowledged and recognized that a quarter of the citys population is vulnerable to the undercount. Which can translate and result to more than 4 billion lost in federal funding over the next decade. So given that, coupled with what were seeing as the underresponse rate now at 57. 9 , and how that gets magnified around the lawsuits for federal funding coming back to the city and county of San Francisco. President sanchez upwards of 100 million a year. And so the council might have a template model for us to look at in terms of how we can come up with a plan ourselves. So i dont want us to have to totally invent it on our own but asking commissioner lam, could the staff have something by august 31st that can be rolled out, is that correct . So just wanted to put it out there so that the staff can utilize the councils efforts. No other comments or questions, roll call. Thank you. Miss collins, yes. Mr. Cook . Yes. Miss lam. Yes. Miss lopez. Yes. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Miss norton . Yes. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Seven ayes. President sanchez section m, the Board Members reports and the following meetings, Virtual Meetings that take place through the last regular Board Meeting. And monday may 18th, 2020, 5 00 p. M. , commissioner norto norton. Commissioner norton sorry. Yes, we the Committee Heard the results of all of the input from the Community Meetings on the redesign. There was some great input and we heard some of it earlier tonight from the parents. And there is definitely concern about equity and about making sure that we have a plan to ensure that were that all schools are providing an excellent education and relieving the disparities between schools. And the other item that we discussed was whether to continue to extend the timeline and we talked about it and we considered extending the timeline for the redesign into the past the election into the winter. And decided as a committee that we wanted to stay the course. And still stay on track for a vote on the final plans in the late fall of this year. So more to come. I have not scheduled the next meeting of the committee yet. I believe that it will were going to take a little pause for the summer and then reconvene in august. President sanchez thank you. Although, you know, were probably going to meet throughout july anyway. Okay, so we have curriculum and program on thursday as commissioner collins has mentioned, thursday may 28th at 3 00 p. M. I want to make a plug that well talk about the summer so thats the time that people can talk about summer learning. President sanchez thank you. And rules, and policies and legislation will be monday june 1st at 3 00 p. M. And budget and Business Services committee is wednesday, june 3rd and i want to verify with the chair that is at 3 00 p. M. Yes . Yes, it is. President sanchez thank you. Commissioner lam. And section n, other informational items, hosts and agendas and acceptance of gifts. Monthly report for april 2020. Section o, memorial adjournment. Theres none tonight. And this time well take Public Comment for those who wish to speak to closed session items. Mr. Chairman, are you going to go back to section 8f, number nine, and theres challenges to the resolutions. President sanchez yes. We need to do that and i forgot. So superintendent matthews, i dont know if the staff has been able to this is on the contract for items and if we dont vote tonight, if the contracts will be able to be brought to us in the next meeting for a vote . Yes, im getting that information now. There was a recommendation for at least two and now i cant the other members, do you have oh, number 13 in terms of the ones that need to be passed tonight, 13 and 1 16. And the relationship reasons fos to start inservice staff work next week for summer learning. And 16 i believe is the bond audit, its a routine process and it has to be held and it needs to be funded. So theres recommendation for those two to be passed tonight. I dont know if staff had any others. To be clear, you are meeting the resolution for 200,000 yes. And those dollars actually are from sales force and theyre directed just for that. And then the one for the bond work, i think that its number 16. President sanchez so can we vote on those and hold off on the others to the next Board Meeting . Okay were talking about the k resolution, is that k13 and k16, mr. Superintendent . Or is this 13 and 16 in its quite different. Theres a difference here. Number nine is consent calendar item 9. But within that the one that is for the bond you see them or no . President sanchez so well vote on those two and the rest well hold off until next one, okay . The amendments where were getting credit those i think that we want to pass those as well, right . They are credited to our account. Right . President sanchez i dont understand. Yes, those are amendments to return money to the district. Right, so we would want to pass those today because were getting money back probably. Theyre belo below 21, 22, 23, l the way down to 31. President sanchez do you understand . No. I need clarity on this. On number 9 theres an attachment. With all of the k resolutions that have separate case numbers. Right. And so theres amendments all of the amendments were saying that we want to pass those because the amendments are theyre crediting our accounts. Were getting money back. President sanchez why dont we follow up afterwards. K31 yes. K9 k13 and k16. Okay, so they are k numbers. And k13 and k16. Yes, they are. I needed clarity. Thank you. All right. Got it. President sanchez roll call. Miss collins . Yes. Mr. Cook . Yes. Miss lam . Yes. Miss lopez . Yes. I didnt hear it. Sorry. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Miss norton . Yes. And mr. Sanchez . Yes. Okay thats seven ayes. Thank you. President sanchez just make sure that you are circling back thank you. All righty. I think that were there. So at this time well take Public Comment for closed session items and theres a total of five minutes for Public Comment. Is there any comments on the closed session items . Not seeing any, president sanchez. President sanchez all right. So section 2b, well go into closed session unless i call a recess of the regular meeting. And why dont we take at least a fiveminute break. Five minutes and then the nex next. You can find out more information about this data and on our data tracker, on our online data sunny skies sf. Org covid19 for full details. I want to just kind of update all of you on a few things and get to dr. Colfax and some important things that definitely need to be discussed. First of all, this past monday dr. Colfax and i had a monday was yesterday, right . It feels like monday every day, but yesterday dr. Colfax and i, along with dr. Susan phillips, had this great conversation about what it would take to reopen, and we talked about the indicators and the hospitalizations and a number of other things and the various phases. It was a very good conversation, and i think it is needed. What we found from that conversation are, of course, a number of questions, and many questions centered around when will we will able to get child care open, summer camps, schools and other things centered around children because i know many parents are anxious to not just get a break from their children but to get back to work and to get their kids involved in activities, and i know kids are anxious to play with their friends, and so this friday at 11 30 i, along with bill ginsburg who is the director of park and rec and others will have a conversation around some of the options that we have available and what you can expect for the future. It will center around opportunities mostly for the summer and transitioning kids into, you know, a place where we can allow in some cases some summer activities, and we will be able to speak to more details about that on friday and hopefully get to some of the questions that so many of the parents have. So we appreciate you all tuning in. We decided to cut back on some of the press conferences and really focus on the conversations with a lot of the leaders who are leading around Public Health, who are leading around support for children, youth and families, folks who are helping us to make the decisions about economic recovery as we move in our new normal of covid19 this provides us with an Incredible Opportunity to really get to the heart of, you know, what is of most concern to the people of San Francisco and answer your questions so that you are able to make plans or arrangements as information is provided to you. So we know that its been probably very challenging that we have not been able to provide you with specific dates or times around the things that you want to know the most, and as we have said before, this is a fluid situation and things can change at a moments notice, but because most san franciscans have complied with the orders, people have been wearing their masks, socially distancing themselves, and again i say most people. I didnt say all people, but most people have complied, and because many people are taking this directive seriously, we have seen a decline in the curve, and that is something to be proud of, but our goal is to get rid of it entirely, and thats going to take continued work. Yesterday was the first day that shops were able to open for Curbside Pickup, and some offering delivery. I stopped by green apple, a bookstore, in the inner sunset, and they have another location further out. I was so happy to buy a book. I just didnt know what to do with myself. It felt good to go out to the community and to support this incredible institution. This past friday i picked up dinner at the golden mira. I stopped by, you know, the garden center, and it just you know, to be able to support these businesses was really incredible, and i think that its important i know that we are all sheltering in place, going out to run errands and do essential things, but heres an Incredible Opportunity. We want to support our businesses, and this is a way that we can do that. So rather than making that next purchase on amazon, maybe consider finding a place in your community and trying to shop at the local stores that may have availability for pickup and delivery. I am really i needed a cord, and so i made sure that i checked in with the local Hardware Store. They didnt have the cord at the Hardware Store that i called, but i found it at another place. So i like the idea of making sure that we are purchasing things from businesses in our city that are able to offer their services, but i think its going to take a lot more effort so we can make sure that after we get through this hump those businesses are able to open they are not able to bring back their entire workforce. They still have to pay their rent and bills. Its been a really challenging time, even though they are raising private money and were putting public money together and were trying to support our small Business Community, and there have been a number of other initiatives, its not always reaching the people who need it the most because we still have our hair salons, our nail salons, our barber shops, our masseuse, people who do services that require direct contact with people, they are still not open, still not in business, and this is a really challenging time for so many people. So whatever we can do to support our local economy, our local businesses, i really want to strongly encourage you to think about supporting the businesses in your neighborhood and just maybe seeing whats available, going online and doing some research to see whats available to support Small Businesses in San Francisco. Another way that we are able to help some Small Businesses in San Francisco and help our seniors is through this great plates food program. And im really excited about this because we know that, first of all, when we first issued a before we issued a shelterinplace for everyone, we specifically asked that vulnerable population, our seniors and those who have Underlying Health conditions, to stay home. And what we found, of course, you know, there are some seniors, for example, who qualify for calfresh, some concerns who qualify for meals and wheels and are lucky to have those opportunities, but there are a number of seniors who are just above that threshold. They may even own a home but are on a fixed income and can barely take care of themselves and take care of their home. And i do think its important, regardless of whether or not you have the means to make sure that all of our seniors are taken care of. And so this program is a program that partners seniors with local restaurants, and what were able to do is provide three meals a day from local restaurants. So it not only helps support our seniors, it helps support our restaurants. And it provides a nocontact delivery. It makes it so easy for them, and i am so excited that along with all the other programs that are available, including the food bank, the San Francisco food bank, meals on wheels and a number of other initiatives and people who are doing it on their own, the fact that we have even another program that will provide food to our seniors and also support our restaurants is really great and i want to thank governor gavin newsom for his support for this program. I want to talk a little bit about testing because i know that comes up. The great news is weve come a long way. The fact is, if you are a san franciscan and you exhibit one symptom, you could have a cough, you could have a temperature, call 311 or go online to sfgov. Org and sign up and youll get sent to a Testing Center to be tested, any san franciscan. But we also will test any essential worker, whether you are a San Francisco resident or not. If youre an essential worker in San Francisco and you dont exhibit any symptoms because youre on the front line, whether youre selling groceries or driving muni or out there as a paramedic, those are the people who are in contact with folks on a daily basis, putting their lives on the line to provide us an essential service, so we wanted to make sure that you know that testing is available for you. Weve expanded the number of sites, and in addition to a site in selma area, in the Western Addition and bayview and a few other sites scattered throughout San Francisco, we wanted to make it a lot easier for communities where we know testing is needed. We specifically announced a few mobile sites, including the mobile site in the tenderloin, a site in ocean avenue and the omi, the lakeview area, and another site in the bayview Hunters Point community, and the site in the bayview Hunters Point community, the testing will be over the course of a few days, specifically in hunters view. But anyone from the bayview is definitely welcome to receive a test. We did this in collaboration with a number of communitybased organizations, similar to what was done in the mission, because we know that there are high rates of covid19 in the bayview Hunters Point community, and we know that people need access to testing, and we also understand that sometimes they may not call or they may not go online to figure out whether or not they should be tested. And we also want to make sure we detach the stigma associated with getting tested, and so on friday, myself as well as supervisor walton, we will be going to the bayview Hunters Point. We will be tested, and the goal is to show people how easy it is and to make sure that folks feel comfortable and they feel safe, that they can be tested whether they have insurance or not, whether they are documented or not. The more that people know they have access to testing and they feel comfortable when they exhibit a symptom or if they think theyve been exposed, the better well be. And so our goal is to get to a certain level of testing in the city because its gonna be critical to our ability to reopen. And thats why we want to make sure we set up these mobile locations. We hit all of the neighborhoods and we make it easy for people to get tested, and this is another opportunity to do that. So with that, i just want to, again, thank all of you for your patience and your cooperation. We have come a long way, and i just want to appreciate how far weve come. There was a time where access to testing was very, very limited, and now were at a place where we have expanded testing, and this is absolutely critical to reopening. There was a time when we were having discussions about requiring everyone to stay home, and now the pickup and deliveries and other things are available. Were going to have a conversation, as i said, this friday about the options available for families because i know that there are so many parents who are anxious to figure out what is gonna happen for their kid this summer. We want to make sure that kids have, you know, a great experience. It has been challenging and will continue to be, but its important that we make sure that there are options available, and so our goal is to have an indepth conversation on friday at 11 30, so i hope you will tune in, and with that, i know dr. Colfax has an update of where we are as it relates to Public Health overall, as well as some information, the latest on laguna honda hospital, and so, again, thank you so much for your cooperation, and with that id like to introduce dr. Grant colfax with the department of Public Health. Dr. Grant colfax good afternoon, everybody. I want to thank mayor breed for her leadership, and mayor was just a great experience to have that conversation with you yesterday on zoom, of course, about where we are headed and the phases of the potential phases of reopening and the key indicators we are going to be looking at Going Forward. So id really encourage people to watch that. It is available. It was recorded. Ill allude to a few of those points today, but if you really want more detail, please go to that conversation. And certainly well be sharing more information in the future as we move forward together. So as of today, as the mayor mentioned, there are 2179 San Francisco residents who have been confirmed with covid19. Sadly, 36 san franciscans have died from the disease, and again, my condolences to their family, friends and community. And as we move into a new phase of our response and recovery, i would like to thank you all for doing your part. Everything that you have done has truly saved lives and slowed the spread of the coronavirus in our community. You have protected each other. You have protected your families, and you have protected your community. And most importantly, you have protected the populations that are most vulnerable to this virus, the populations over 60, people with comorbid conditions who we know, both on our local data and from our national data, are unfortunately most likely to die from this disease. Today there are 62 patients with covid19 hospitalized in San Francisco across our nine Health Care Hospital entities, and while this is an increase since yesterday, the curve has been remarkably flat for many weeks now and steadily declining since may 5. Although, of course, and youve heard me say this many times, but its i will continue to say it, this could change at any time, but we must acknowledge that big accomplishment that, again, all of us have made major contributions to. You have all been a part of this, and for this i thank you. And lets continue to flatten and push that curve down together. We are certainly making this measurable progress in our fight against coronavirus, and because of that, we are starting here locally under the mayors leadership and across the region with regard to the gradual process of reopening. Yesterday we issued new Health Orders that allow Curbside Pickup for most retailers in the city, and we are taking steps in this regard with caution as our focus on Community Health remains a top priority. We will need to watch, continue to watch for the effects of increased movements that this opening will bring. We know that before the shelterinplace went into place, order went into place, the more we moved, the more the virus moved. And we are certainly hoping, based on the data, the science and the facts, that as we continue to take the precautions necessary, the masking, the social distancing, the intense hygiene that i think weve all adapted to over these last few months, i dont know about you, but my hands are a little red from the washing, and ive used a lot of hand gel recently, but as we adapt, we are hoping that as we move more we will not see increased movement and transmission of the virus. And remember the virus has no timeline, and our new stayathome order reflects that reality. We are in the second inning of a long game, and most scientists expect that this long game is going to be with us for 18 to 24 months. So the new updated health order will allow for future expansion and the reopening of additional businesses provided, again, we continue to flatten and even see a decrease in that curve. And again, the Health Indicators need to continue to look good. This new order doesnt have an Expiration Date so we can act with maximum flexibility and not be penned in, literally, by artificial deadlines. And i have hopes, and i think we should all have hope and good reason to believe, as i said, that if people continue to take precautions we will continue to make progress. But at the same time, if needed, we will dial back. If that curve starts to go up, if we start to see indications that the virus is spreading in the community at an alarming rate, if our intensive care unit numbers start to go up, the hospitalization numbers over all start to go up, we will need to take a step back and decrease our activity in our community. I hope that doesnt happen, and again, the more vigilant we are in our preventive activities, the more likely it is that we will be able to make incremental but sustainable progress Going Forward. It will take resilience. It will require that we stay nimble, and it will require that we continue to monitor the evolving health situation, you know what i say here, using data, science and facts. So in terms of our reopening phases, and i think we have a slide up to show this, this is the focus of our steps will be aligning generally with the states plan that you see on this slide. We are currently in stage 2 a , which is really, again, focusing on that allowing Curbside Pickup and then having the manufacturing and supply chains to support that Curbside Pickup in place. So again, this is just the beginning, and over the next period of two to four weeks, we will continue to watch the data to see if we can enter into that next phase, the 2 b phase. Again, if things go well, we would then be, over time, moving into stages 3 and ultimately into stage 4. But this is, again, an iterative process. Its going to take nimblism, and its going to take a lot of vigilance on all of our parts. We are working locally with the Economic Recovery Task force, the office of economic and workforce development, and the community the Business Community and other stakeholders to design smart ways, to design smart ways, ways that are informed, again, by the science, to help businesses come back while protecting Public Health. These things can go and will go hand in hand. I look forward, we look forward to bringing the next steps together and will continue to provide updates in this regard. And again, we will continue to study these indicators over a two to fourweek cycle, which will give us sufficient information to determine whether we can gradually open up into these next stages. So one of the key things we will be doing in this, the vital statistics, as it were, for this staging, is looking at the five indicators that i have mentioned before, but we have another visual for you to see here. As we move towards this reopening, the five indicators we are going to be looking at are cases, the number of covid19 cases, our hospital capacity, testing, Contact Tracing, and p. P. E. , or personal protective equipment. The mayor mentioned these indicators earlier, and as i said at the beginning of my remarks, we had a very good conversation, along with dr. Susan phillip, about how we will be determining and following these indicators as we go forward into these new phases. So again, i would encourage you to watch that session, and we will be coming back to these indicators during this next phase of reopening and onwards. Many of these indicators are also represented on our data tracker, and so i would encourage you to follow along, if you havent already, particularly that hospital curve that i continue to look at every day. I know many of you are doing that. You can also look at our testing data. As the mayor mentioned, we have dramatically scaled up our testing over these past few weeks, and that information is, again, available on our website. So those are the slides, and im going to talk more specifically around testing in one of the most vulnerable populations in a setting in our Health Department, which is laguna honda hospital. And one of the most important testing expansions we have launched is to require universal testing of residents and staff at all Skilled Nursing facilities in San Francisco, including, of course, the largest Skilled Nursing facility in the region, and one of the largest if not the largest in the nation, laguna honda hospital. Id like to provide a Progress Report on how our universal testing is going at laguna honda hospital, and well have final results next week on this. But we were as we initiated the universal testing order, laguna honda was the first Skilled Nursing facility in the city to begin universal testing, and that started on may 4. Resident testing, so the people who live in the facility, the residents, resident testing is now complete, and staff testing will conclude next week. So far we have of the approximately 2500 staff and residents of the laguna honda, we have completed screening, the universal testing of 2,087 people. So just in this facility alone, over 2,000 people have been tested, screened if you will, tested on a routine basis because they either live or work there. This testing allows the hospital to proactively protect residents and staff from exposure by identifying covid19 cases among people without symptoms, and we know that many people have covid19. They may not show symptoms, whether its because they dont show symptoms at all during the course of the infection or whether they are in the early stages of covid19 disease. As of yesterday, 718 residents and 1369 staff have completed the universal testing, and weve had just four positive results, two among staff and two among residents, as, again, a result of this universal testing. That is a less than 1 Positivity Rate for in fact, to be very specific, i know im throwing out a lot of numbers today, but its a 0. 19 rate. That said, with increased testing at laguna honda, we do anticipate additional covid19 cases. We know these institutions are highly vulnerable to infection with covid19, and while we are being extremely vigilant, we know that it is likely that there will be more cases. The key thing is that we do as much as we can to prevent cases, to detect covid19 cases when they are in the facility, either amongst staff or among residents, and then take aggressive action to limit the outbreak and, of course, care for both the staff and residents who are found to be infected. The people who have followed up who have tested positive, excuse me, we have followed up with Contact Tracing and so far have tested additional residents and staff based on the possible exposure from these four cases. This past weekend that followup enabled us to small a outbreak in the south two neighborhood. These neighborhoods are historically been you may think of them as hospital wards. Its a neighborhood because these are longterm residents and certainly goes beyond sort of the traditional hospital ward, but its an area of the hospital where residents live together and where staff Work Together. So we did identify a small outbreak on south two precisely because we implemented this universal testing, this universal screening process. We had found two cases there through the universal testing in that neighborhood, and Case Investigation led us to test additional contacts as a result of that. This additional testing resulted in four positive cases in residents who had previously tested negative. So again, because of our vigilance and repeated testing, we were able to identify four positive cases of residents who had tested negative before. This is an example of the systems that we have put into place working in the way that they should and in the way that they must, enabling us to take action quickly and to move quickly in response to testing results. Staff who test positive are immediately sent home to selfisolate and provided with supports. And residents who test positive are immediately transferred to the new dedicated covid19 unit at laguna honda where all best practices and best medical care is provided. All staff and residents who have tested positive, im thankful to say, are in Good Condition, and we have quarantined south two and continued to monitor, test and investigate contacts. So these new cases bring the total confirmed covid19 cases to laguna honda to a total of 29. Again, thats going all the way back to march 22. Eleven residents and 18 staff. Several of these cases have fully recovered, and im thankful to say that the rest remain in Good Condition. Im also thankful that to date there have been no deaths from covid19 at laguna honda hospital. And im really just so personally grateful to the residents and the staff at laguna honda who have worked tirelessly to continue to contain the spread of covid19. This universal testing, which will now become routine at laguna honda, a huge lift, something that took really a great amount of investment and time, and im just so grateful to the leadership at laguna honda and the staff there who are not only doing the work that they did so well before this pandemic but now being resilient, being flexible, being nimble and ensuring that they are protected they are continuing to take the best care for residents possible. I am proud of our work and really want to thank the ongoing collaboration with the cdc, the centers for Disease Control and prevention and the California Department of Public Health. The improvements that weve made at laguna honda not only benefits the more than 700 residents of laguna honda and the workforce there, but we are also sharing what we learn with other Skilled Nursing facilities across the city. In San Francisco, approximately 40 of all Skilled Nursing facility patients and residents have been tested through universal testing to date. Five facilities have completed universal testing. Four are under way with our support, and the remainder are planned in the next coming weeks. So in conclusion, over the next weeks and months, we will continue to focus on vulnerable populations and expand universal testing to more congregate settings, including shelters. We will continue to focus on the five indicators that i and the mayor have emphasized. We will continue to Work Together with Community Businesses and other stakeholders across the region and coordinate with the state to accomplish as much restoration of activity as we can. And we know that the coronavirus is still here. But we are going to find a way to protect each other and enter a new era for our city, for San Francisco, for our community. We continue to rise to this occasion. And San Francisco, i cant thank you enough for your dedication to the entire health of the entire community, and i look forward to moving forward together. Thank you. Good afternoon. The first questions are for dr. Colfax. The first question is from mel baker, San Francisco public press. When will San Francisco residents and staff of all San Franciscos nursing facilities be tested for coronavirus . Dr. Grant colfax so as i detailed in my remarks, this effort is going well. I dont have a specific end date for you, but i can tell you that with our health order and with the aggressive actions that we are taking and supporting in Nursing Homes across the city, i expect that it will be done soon. And again, this is an iterative process. Its not as though we do one round of universal screening or testing of all residents and staff. This is a process that will be ongoing because we, again, want to support the staff and respects in the Nursing Homes in Early Detection of covid19 to prevent it from spreading through these communities. I would also add that the Health Department is supporting many of these institutions. They havent had the technical expertise, the capacity to test residents, and as we enter this new normal, one of the key things were working with them to do with support and engagement of the state, is to make sure that they make the investments necessary so that routine testing becomes part of their model as they support the communities in their Nursing Homes. Next question is from joshua sabotini, on testing at laguna honda, you mentioned there was an outbreak at south two but there was also an but was there also an outbreak in north four . So that was a prior situation which has been contained, and again, i think in that earlier outbreak one of the key things that we did was bring in our own Infectious Disease experts, experts from the state and the cdc who helped us provide the best techniques and monitoring efforts to contain the infection. That did contain the infection in that neighborhood, and so now were using that evidence and those guidelines to now mitigate the outbreak in this new neighborhood. And again, these Lessons Learned will be applied across nursing facilities, not only in San Francisco but i expect across the state, if not across the nation. So this is hard work. Its challenging work, but as we expand our testing and our ability to care for people and detect the covid19 virus early, im hopeful that we will be in a much better situation than we would have otherwise been. Since the patients who tested positive are outside of the initial outbreak detected in south five, are you concerned about how widely the virus may have spread throughout the facility . Dr. Grant colfax well, this is exactly why we tested all the residents and why were testing all the residents and all the staff. So you heard, this is exactly why we issued a health order to require this testing and, you know, needed to make sure that we were following our own orders, which is why we started with laguna honda. Its also a very large facility. You heard me say, you know, we found a relatively small number of patients and residents on im sorry, of staff and residents on that routine screening, but the system worked because we found a few and then that helped us focus our efforts in a specific neighborhood where we were able to detect more cases and take aggressive control actions, as well as ensuring that the residents who tested positive who were in Good Condition and might not have otherwise been detected get the best care possible. So you know, yes im concerned that we need to be vigilant and this vigilance is paying off in terms of ensuring that were protecting the health of the residents and the health of the staff to the best of our ability based, again, on the data, signs and facts. The next question is from ron lynn, l. A. Times. Can you update us with the percent of people testing positive for coronavirus in San Francisco compared to the worst point . So i think if you go to our data tracker, you can see the percent of people testing positive in our system of care, and that percent that test positive varies depending on how testing is being scaled up, whether there may have been an outbreak at a facility or in a setting where theres likely to be more positives. What i think we really need to focus on in terms of i think the gist of the question is how do we know that were doing better, thats really best reflected in the hospital data. Those are the people who are living with covid19 who are the sickest. Thats the curve that we really need to be looking at. That curve, again, is flat or going down. As we expand our testing, and i think this is a key point, as eexpand our testing, we will surely detect more cases in the city because if we test more people we will get the numbers will go up. We will be watching that percent, that Positivity Rate over time. The last few days that Positivity Rate has hovered around 7 per cent. The next question is from jamie har with the associated press. The governor floated the possibility of having live sporting events without spectators as early as june 1. Is this in any way possible for San Francisco . Well, i think we need to, again, look at the data and monitor carefully work with the sports Business Community and determine whether that is something that could be done safely and commensurate with best practices. I cant speculate on a date, but i would say that i know many of us are looking forward to getting back to watching sports, and its certainly something that weve been discussing. The next question is from sf chronicle. Given sfs grim budget projections for the coming fiscal year, is the department of Public Health bracing for big cuts to its own budget . Dr. Grant colfax so, look, were in a situation where we have an unprecedented Public Health emergency and we also have a major fiscal crisis. And were looking across the department to figure out how can we accomplish the goals of ensuring that the pandemic that our Pandemic Response is robust while also looking at how do we continue to provide as Many Services possible for people in our clinics, in our hospitals, Behavioural Health services and so forth. So were taking a hard look of where we can make adjustments. I will give you a key example of where things have accelerated, for instance, because of the pandemic. Our telehealth work has accelerated in primary care and Behavioural Health services. So we are looking at how do we shift our response and whether there are commensurate cost savings in that work. So a lot of work to do Going Forward with ensuring that our budget goals are met, but also ensuring that our Pandemic Response and that our ability to provide care to the safety net populations is continues. Specifically this is a followup. Specifically, should programs within the Behavioural Health care system, like drug treatment programs and Mental Health facilities, prepare for reductions in service they are able to provide . Dr. Grant colfax im sorry, could you repeat the last part of the question . Ill read it again. Specifically, should programs within the Behavioural Health care system, like drug treatment programs and Mental Health facilities, prepare for reductions in services . Dr. Grant colfax so you know, i think its too early to speculate on that. Right now we are looking, again, at multiple factors that will help determine what our proposed budget will look like in the future. I think that certainly as we look at the intersection of the covid19 pandemic and the Behavioural Health challenges that we already have in the city, we will certainly be looking at what programs need to be supported that intersect with both the Behavioural Health needs and the covid19 response, and increasingly, you know, as we enter this new era, one of the key things we will be looking at across the Health Department is how do our services not only continue the strong work weve done in supporting health, but how do those intersect with our ongoing Pandemic Response, and those will be particularly those will be services that we will particularly focus on adjusting and maintaining and in some cases i think strengthening. Thank you, dr. Colfax. Our final questions are for director Abigail Stuart khan, homelessness and supportive housing. Dr. Stuart khan, your question is the mayor tweeted on friday about the newest safe sleeping site and said the city is looking for new sites. What are the sites that are currently still being considered . Thank you. So as the public may be aware, and just thanks for the opportunity to revisit things that are happening for residents who are unsheltered on our streets, when the epidemic began, the healthy streets Operation Center, which hsh is a part of, paused shelter encampment excuse me, encampment resolutions. This is because moving people into shelters was no longer possible given that congregate sites are a difficult location for people during a pandemic caused by covid. And so we know that this means that there are more People Living unsheltered than there were before, and we know that even before the pandemic we didnt have enough space for people. We also understand that in a crisis people, unhoused and housed, want to be together, that community is what makes us feel safe during times of high anxiety, and so similar to the physical distancing that i need to create with my colleagues or people who are not in my close family, we worked through our partnership to provide education, outreach, access to hand sanitizing, access to sanitation, access to food, and we continue to work in an ongoing way with the unsheltered population. Its become extremely clear that that is insufficient given the number of People Living unsheltered and how difficult it is to physically distance on our sidewalks. And so as you note, kathy, the mayor tweeted about the first sanctioned safe village in San Francisco. This is not something that the department of homelessness or the city has ever approved before, even though many, many cities across our country have done so. And this is really related to the pandemic and the need to provide safety for People Living unsheltered during the pandemic. So to the specifics of that site, it opened last week. It is seen as a shortterm solution. It is run incredibly well by urban alchemy with our deep gratitude and all of the partners working together. The intention at that site via our hsoc partners is to move people out of it as quickly as possible, whether that is into our traditional housing, if they are housing referral status, or into a hotel if they were known to our system of care before april 1. And then to find other solutions and resolutions for other individuals so that that location does not remain long term or even longish term. There is another location that has been identified thats been talked about publicly in the hate, and we are looking forward to its opening in the next couple of weeks, and to our partnership with larkin around that site and their subcontractors. Each site needs to be taken on a casebycase basis. Based on the needs of the unsheltered individuals, the community, the community input, and we look forward to that. The healthy streets Operation Center and the Emergency Operations Center Remains point on evaluating and looking at future sites. For example, we are looking at a site to serve the mission and the castro districts, and we look forward to that partnership and the role that hsh will play. And other sites will continue to need to be evaluated based on the need in the community, Community Resident input, and the specifics of each location. Followup question how can local residents participate in discussions about the site . Yeah, thats a terrific question, and for those of you who know how we do our Community Process around navigation centers, you know that it is robust and it is extremely time consuming before the covid pandemic. And so we will not be able to do that we cant come together in meetings, Community Meetings of 100 people and share all the details because we cant all be together. But i know that the healthy streets Operation Center and the emergency Operation Center, as they look at each site, partners with local leaders, takes a look at the neighborhood, tries to understand how to mitigate the impact if, in fact, a site is important. Listens to the residents and reaches out as quickly as they possibly can for that engagement, understanding that given the crisis that were in we need to move in an expedited manner. Thank you, director stuart khan. That 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. After my fire in my apartment and losing everything, the red cross gave us a list of agencies in the city to reach out to and i signed up for the belowmarket rate program. I got my certificate and started applying and won the housing lottery. [ ] the current Lottery Program began in 2016. But there have been lot rows that have happened for Affordable Housing in the city for much longer than that. It was there was no standard practice. For nonprofit organizations that were providing Affordable Housing with low in the city, they all did their lotteries on their own. Private developers that include in their buildings affordable units, those are the city weve been monitoring for some time since 1992. We did it with Something Like this. Where people were given circus tickets. We game into 291st century in 2016 and started doing electronic lotteries. At the same time, we started electronic applications systems. Called dalia. The lottery is completely free. You can apply two ways. You can submit a paper application, which you can download from the listing itself. If you a plo apply online, it wl take five minutes. You can make it easier creating an account. To get to dalia, you log on to housing. Sfgov. Org. I have lived in San Francisco for almost 42 years. I was born here in the hayes valley. I applied for the San Francisco Affordable Housing lottery three times. Since 2016, weve had about 265 electronic lotteries and almost 2,000 people have got their home through the lottery system. If you go into the listing, you can actually just press lottery results and you put in your lottery number and it will tell you exactly how you ranked. For some people, signing up for it was going to be a challenge. There is a Digital Divide here and especially when you are trying to help low and very low income people. So we began providing digital assistance for folks to go in and get help. Along with the income and the residency requirements, we also required someone who is trying to buy the home to be a first time home buyer and theres also an educational component that consists of an orientation that they need to attend, a firsttime home buyer workshop and a oneonone counseling session with the housing councilor. Sometimes we have to go through 10 applicants before they shouldnt be discouraged if they have a low lottery number. They still might get a value for an available, Affordable Housing unit. We have a variety of Lottery Programs. The four that you will most often see are what we call c. O. P. , the certificate of Preference Program, the dthp which is the displaced penance Housing Preference program. The neighborhood resident Housing Program and the live worth preference. I moved in my new home february 25th and 2019. The neighborhood Preference Program really helped me achieve that goal and that dream was with eventually wind up staying in San Francisco. The next steps, after finding out how well you did in the lottery and especially if you ranked really well you will be contacted by the leasing agent. You have to submit those document and income and asset qualify and you have to pass the credit and rental screening and the background and when you qualify for the unit, you can chose the unit and hopefully sign that lease. All city sponsored Affordable Housing comes through the system and has an electronic lottery. Every week theres a listing on dalia. Something that people can apply for. Its a bit hard to predict how long it will take for someone to be able to move into a unit. Lets say the lottery has happened. Several factors go into that and mainly how many units are in the project, right. And how well you ranked and what preference bucket you were in. This particular building was brand new and really this is the one that i wanted out of everything i applied for. In my mind, i was like how am i going to win this . I did and when you get that notice that you won, its like at first, its surreal and you dont believe it and it sinks in, yeah, it happened. Some of our buildings are pretty spectacular. They have key less entry now. They have a court yard where they play movies during the weekends, they have another master kitchen and space where people can throw parties. Mayor breed has a plan for over 10,000 new units between now and 2025. We will Start Construction on about 2,000 new units just in 2020. We also have a very big portfolio like over 25,000 units across the city. And life happens to people. People move. So we have a very large number of rerentals and resales of units every year. Best thing about working for the Affordable Housing program is that we know that were making a difference and we actually see that difference on a daytoday basis. Being back in the neighborhood i grew up in, its a wonderful experience. Its a long process to get through. Well worth it when you get to the other side. I could not be happier. [ ] shop and dine on the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of San Francisco by supporting local Services Within neighborhood. We help San Francisco remain unique, successful and vibrant. Where will you shop and dine in the 49 . San francisco owes the charm to the unique character of the neighborhood comer hall district. Each corridor has its own personality. Our neighborhoods are the engine of the city. You are putting money and support back to the community you live in and you are helping Small Businesses grow. It is more environmentally friendly. Shopping local is very important. I have had relationships with my local growers for 30 years. By shopping here and supporting us locally, you are also supporting the growers of the flowers, they are fresh and they have a price point that is not imported. It is really good for everybody. Shopping locally is crucial. Without that support, Small Business cant survive, and if we lose Small Business, that diversity goes away, and, you know, it would be a shame to see that become a thing of the past. It is important to dine and shop locally. It allows us to maintain traditions. It makes the neighborhood. I think San Francisco should shop local as much as they can. The retail marketplace is changes. We are trying to have people on the floor who can talk to you and help you with products you are interested in buying, and help you with exploration to try things you have never had before. The fish business, you think it is a piece of fish and fisherman. There are a lot of people working in the fish business, between wholesalers and fishermen and bait and tackle. At the retail end, we about a lot of people and it is good for everybody. Shopping and dining locally is so important to the community because it brings a tighter fabric to the community and allows the Business Owners to thrive in the community. We see more Small Businesses going away. We need to shop locally to keep the Small Business alive in San Francisco. Shop and dine in the 49 is a cool initiative. You can see the banners in the streets around town. It is great. Anything that can showcase and legitimize Small Businesses is a wonderful thing. In meeting is called to order at 11 01 a. M. The Small Business commission thanks sf gov for viewing on livestreamed at sftv. Org. Members of the public who will be calling in, the number is 888 2733658 and the access code is 2107452. When prompted, dial 10 to. Added to the speaker line. The auto prompt will indicate callers are entering the question and answer time and this is the Public Comment period. If you call in before public co