Opportunity to have his voice in it. Its always easier to do it in a meeting. But here we are, in a committee, so theres a couple things in observations that ive seen. Thank you to everyone thats come out to participate in this discussion who have sent emails and who have taken the time out of their own personal schedule to join us in todays conversation. One thing that really has struck me is the level of diversity for the people who are against urban shield. You saw young people, you saw old people, you saw skrifgss, you saw jews, you saw muslims, and they were all advocating on the same thing. What was more concerning are the people that are in favor of the uasi training all fitting the same profile, and that really concerns me, because i think it speaks to the ethos to the mindsets of the persons that are making the decisions in the spending, putting the budgets together who are thinking about training. Now, in this almost yearlong conversation that we have had about this item, ive done a tremendous amount of due diligence. Ive reached out, and ive spoken to every Alameda County supervisor. I have spoken to sheriff ahern on the phone multiple times. Ive met him in person, as well, as supervisor scott haggertys event in south county, so the point im trying to make is ive left the comfort and security of the city and county of San Francisco to peel back a very complex issue. There is something that i want to reinforce, and that is that i believe that training and exercise is important. I personally go to the gym every single day, and i push myself to the limit because i want to increase my strength, and i want to increase my flexiblity and increase my endurance, and cannot do that by sitting on your butt and thinking about exercising. With supervisor yee, we both witnessed exercises several months ago. I will admit, though, i think one of the flaws, supervisor yee is we were witnessing exercises with our friends, our friends that are in the sheriffs department, people that we know and see on a regular basis coming in and out. Perhaps during the next exercise, we will actually go to dublin. To be fair, dublins exercises started at like 6 00 in the morning, which was a deterrent for me, but ill work through that the next year. So what i saw in where were we . San mateo county . Is that right . Supervisor yee san bruno. Supervisor cohen san bruno. What i saw were lechblth latrice exercises, legitimate scenario, coming up with a plan, coming up with a strategy, and then debriefing. I saw measures take to deescalate, i saw actors who were contributing their time so that our regional First Responders have an opportunity to be the best that they can be. Now, what does concern me is when you take it to the take it too far. Why do you have to wear a hijab . Why do you need to wear i think its a kaffia . If im mistaken in my terminology, i apologize. There is still room for you to lead to your imagination. I dont think that those extra props help the situation. I think it exacerbates and plays out into the fear that is very real that particularly communities of color that have the highest interaction with the multieilitary and police structures, and it plays into the role of whos administering and making these decisions and who came to speak. And for me, that is where the challenge lies. How do you strextrapolate and n the acknowledged value of the exercise from the bull . And i hope my words havent offended anyone, but thats what i think it is. How do we begin to tease that out . Now, if we relinquish our authority as a fiscal agent, then, i think, to supervisor tangs point, grossly undermines our ability to be an authority and a leader. This is the first time that ive ever seen anyone from Alameda County come to talk about this, and i think by virtue of their presence here, and thank you for being here that that speaks to the importance of San Francisco in the entire region, so i support us being the fiscal sponsor. And as i have said in comments earlier in the year, i think thats a very serious responsibility and that we have a leadership role to play in this. You heard me chastise the leader of the law library lacking leadership. From my perspective, leaders are built over time, and through experiences, good ones and bad ones, and those experiences need to be passed down, and at some point, you need to stand up, even, and make difficult decisions, and so we are faced with difficult decisions, and im not interested in San Francisco leaving that role as being the fiscal sponsor for this. Supervisor yee has made several amendments. Some, i support, some, i do not support. Supervisor yee, when it comes to item 18, i do not support the last resolve clause that the San Francisco board of supervisors intends to establish a set of guidelines for the city and county of San Francisco for a set of exercises to participate in this grant. I do urge that no city and county of San Francisco shall extend any expo or vendor shows that include military or automatic grade weapons, but iible thati believe thats redundant. Ive had comfortable conversations with our own sheriff, and she and i have not seen eye to eye on every single item, but shes shared with me her perspective and that there is very little, little to none of San Francisco personnel participating in the exposition. Now, the exposition, i understand, is a significant revenue generator. Thats what brings the money in that allows us to move forward with these exercises, so its kind of like a catch 22. Can we exclude the vendors but still hold the exercise . I dont know. Ive posed that to someone from the controller or someone from the mayors Budget Office so we can somehow extricate ourselves and have a true exercise that is void of commercial influences. It is concerning when you have an Assault Rifle weapon being raffled off, and i assume that is to entice people to buy tickets so they can get a free rifle. Thats hard to stand here before you and support. Thats really hard. And in in a lot of the work that ive done in the year and in trying to better understand whats happening, ive had many conversations who with elected leaders in emoryville, in the smaller cities that makeup the larger Alameda County, and theres a diverse perspective. I think one thipg that is uniform that is everyone values the exercise, and i value the exercise, so my question to my staff at dem is how can we as the fiscal sponsors extrapolate the vendor portion of of of the exercise . How can we exercise more oversight and influence and ensuring that there are none xenophobic, racist, islamophobic sexist comments written in the scenarios. Do you want to comment . [ inaudible ] with the department of Emergency Management. Well, you have my word, i will consult with my executive director as soon as she returns from d. C. Supervisor cohen well, to be fair, you gave me your word that you were going to work with supervisor yee, and you didnt do that. We have met with him several times, and we have a differing dialogue, to be fair, but i will work with the director, cronenberg, and im sure its a conversation she will have with the other Community Members and sheriff ahern, absolutely. Supervisor cohen at this time, id like to ask the assistant sheriff of Alameda County to come up. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to give some feedback on some of the remarks you heard here today, going a little further than the two minutes that you had in Public Comment, and i assume out of the representatives, i am the most senior. Yes, maam, i am. Do you mind if i grab my notes. Supervisor cohen grab your notes. Ill just continue talking until you get back to the podium. Thank you for being here, because i think the short coming of this conversation is you guys have not been here at the table in San Francisco, so thank you, and i appreciate you being here. And i appreciate those comments, and in the future, i will make sure that there are people here from Alameda County to address any questions. If i could start by saying, i know that theres been some comments that urban shield has evolved over the years. It started out as a police exercise and has evolved into an Emergency Management exercise. We have heard the concerns of the community over the years, we have heard the concerns of some of our elected officials, and we have made changes as a result of that. We had a significant amount of community involvement. Weve always had citizen and Community Volunteers with urban shield, however, you heard we had Neighborhood Response Team exercises, we had the gray command, very successful. Heard the issue about the oath keepers. We dont have interaction with them. They requested to come at the last minute. Had we known that there was a perception that they were an extremist group, they would not have been allowed to be there. Those were not used to identify suspects. There were many wearing those, at what i believe to be the incident in question. They were strictly being used as a protective measure. Many people here in the United States of america now wear those when theyre in certain environments to protect those in sun. Supervisor cohen with you were in Alameda County. We dont have strong one. We can discuss climate change, but the reality is it doesnt enhance the exercise in any way. You see how it makes you look bad . Yes, maam. I do tunds. I just want to make it clear that we were not using it to identify suspects, and we do not use them to identify suspects in any kind of incident or anything like that. There were about 70 vendors there primarily targeting an audience of police and fire. Out of those almost 70 vendors, there were five of them that did have firearms displayed. Theyre not sold on the premtss, bpremt premtss premises. Supervisor cohen correct me if im wrong, to the point, theres other trade shows and other opportunities to evaluate new weapons. Yes, thats correct. Supervisor cohen so it doesnt necessarily need to happen with this at this event. Thats correct, and also you had mentioned the funding that comes from that, the funding that comes from that is utilized to pay for things that we cannot bill to the grant, for example, so the amount of funding that results from that is pretty small in the grant scheme of things, and i am planning on speaking to sheriff ahern about possible making some adjustments Going Forward with the vendor show. I have had some discussions with my staff regarding that this year, but i will be planning to have further discussions with the sheriff to see what his thoughts are on the matter. Supervisor cohen i would appreciate that because times are changing, and i know the sheriff is also up for reelection, i dont know if theres anyone thats running against him or not. Not yet. Supervisor cohen but there is times are changing, and i think that we would be we would be foolish not to acknowledge the change, and that we have to respond accordingly. You took an oath to protect and to serve, and that means everyone. And when i think about the all too numerous shooting occurrences that have happened, even in our state of california, when you think about a few weeks ago, north of San Francisco, i mean, we need i do believe we need to be prepared. I and i couldnt agree more, maam. And just on that note, i would like to state that that the number of shootings, at least in the region, have declined significantly over the recent past, and not that thats attributed to urban shield, but just so you know, swat operations that take place, most swat operations are resolved in a safe manner without a use of force, and part of that is a result of the equipment thats utilized at those incidents, if you will. Years ago, swat operation was basically, you know, busting down a door and flooding into a house as fast as you possibly could to overwhelm the occupants. Thats not the case anymore. Now what swat teams typically do is they do surround and call outs. Its very methodical, and they try to bring out the people inside, and a lot of that equipment is utilized during urban shield. Supervisor cohen thank you. I appreciate your extra commentary. Supervisor yee . Supervisor yee so, we just concluded that one can go to other shows and get the same information. Thats one thing, and you just said that the show brings in some funding, but its a small piece of the funding. So why are we doing this, and if were i guess from my point of view, if we value that we dont want our personnel to participate in shows where theyre selling a bunch of weaponry and if theyre not selling it there, theyre raffling it off i hope next year, they dont raffle off a tank or something. But i guess the question is if this is a point of contention for many thats here, is it really worth the money that you get to do this or can it be made up in a way so that the controversial issues can go away so that you can actually have these exercises, that many people can see that theres some value in it . I think that is possible, and again, thats some of the discussion that ive had with my staff this year that oversaw the vendor show this year. Part of the reason the primary reason why we do it is again, theres things that we cant pay for with county funds or bill against the grants. For example, meals that are served at dinner at what we call the hot box. That gets paid for through money thats veefd from received from vendors, so it would result in a change of probably some of the things that we receive for some of the participants, but i think its a discussion we should have yee ayee supervisor yee one of the things you can do is there shouldnt be any vendors thats going to display military weaponry. Supervisor cohen i appreciate it. Were going to move on and take up the issue that we have here, and i understand its interesting. I would be offended if somebody came into my county and told me what to do with the money, but in order for us to continue to move forward, i think collectively, otherwise, were going to have the same problems, were going to have the problems, were going to have the protests, were going to have the unrest, and we have an opportunity to bridge a gap here. The department of Emergency Management is responsible for administering the grant fore the bay area uasi, ensuring that the grant funds are spend according to grant guidelines and ensuring that each of the bay area counties and cities that they may receive a portion of the grant funds, that they adhere to the grant and fifrk will guidelines cht i want to read into the record for those of you that dont know the summary budget as follows, because i think we need to bring some clarity. Equipment, equipment is approximately 6. 3 million. Planning is approximately 4. 4 million. Training is 1. 8 million. Exercise is what we line share of our conversation was about today is 1. 8 million. Organization is 6. 8 million, and the Management Administration is 1. 1 million, so this is still, in total, a significant amount of money. Were asking were being asked to accept and then expend approximately 22. 5 million from the federal department of homeland security, so this is not an insignificant amount of money and there are a lot of very concerned people that are paying attention. So supervisor yee or supervisor tang, i dont know if theres a motion that youd like for us to begin to take on. Lets start with item 18. There was a series of amendments that were read into the record by supervisor yee. There were two in particular. The last two, further resolved clauses in the back. Supervisor tang, i think you had are you able to support both or are you able to support one or none . Supervisor tang first, for item 18, i support all of his amendments. It was item 19. Supervisor cohen okay. Fantastic. So by the way, i just want to acknowledge that Public Comment is closed. Im not sure if i did that. So supervisor yee has read into the record his amendments. Im happy to accept both of the amendments as well, supervisor, and we can take that without objection. Supervisor yee yes. Supervisor cohen okay. So as amended, we will accept i guess two additional further resolved clause. Clerk and that will be referred to the full board . Supervisor cohen that will be referred with a positive recommendation to the full board. Thank you. Item 19, there were three amendments that were proposed, three additional whereas clauses to the mou, and lets take them one by one. Okay. Ill read them. The first one, whereas the city and county of San Francisco does not condone training that promotes militaryized training that promotes stroo types and focus on religious programs. We accept this without objection. Next item you be for consideration is the second whereas clause that says whereas the city and county of San Francisco are in incorporating or principles that is an amendment, supervisor tang . Is that a yes or a no. Supervisor tang oh, no. Supervisor cohen okay. Supervisor yee. Well do a roll call vote on this particular amendment. Well start with supervisor tang. Clerk yes. Tang, no. Vice chair yee . Supervisor yee yes. Clerk yee, aye. Chair cohen . Supervisor cohen no. Clerk cohen, no. The motion fails. Supervisor cohen the third and final whereas clause says whereas if uasi funding is used for programs that are incompatible with the values and goals the board of supervisors may consider legislation restricting participation in uasi in the future. We can do a roll call vote on that, as well. Clerk on that motion, supervisor tang . Supervisor tang no. Clerk tang, no. Supervisor yee . Supervisor yee aye. Clerk yee, aye. Chair cohen . Supervisor cohen no. Clerk cohen, no. The motion fails. Supervisor cohen all right. We have one amendment in item 19 that has been accepted, and id like to make a motion to move this forward to the full board with a positive recommendation as amended. Clerk madam chair, i believe theres one more amendment to the dem to make the matter retroactive. Supervisor cohen thats correct. We can also take that with the final vote. Clerk yet. Supervisor cohen so well accept the amendment from dem as well as the one remaining amendment that su