Facing unprecedented housing crisis, homelessness crisis, despite our very large city budget. So we would like to see a public bank that would really invest in our local communities, especially most marginalized and vulnerable communities that are underserved by our current Banking System and the city would invest in Affordable Housing. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Thank you, and good afternoon all my relations, my name is Tony Gonzalez and im with the American Indian movement. And im the director of a. I. M. West here in San Francisco. I come here to encourage this discussion on behalf of the international, or intertribal community, i believe most of us are in support of this effort and i would like to also commend former Supervisor John Avalos for having the foresight to having initiate this process in 2011. And also, its rather ironic that north dakota has the public bank and this is where we have seen in the last two years, the Standing Rock people, community and no daple organizing that took place there and from there many of us returned to our communities and began to more enthusiastically begin the divestment process. So i believe this public banking process is very much a part of that. So on behalf of the indian community, i wholeheartedly support this effort. Thank you very much. It is in keeping with the values that San Francisco has been emanating and i think it will be a great model for the rest of the cities and the country across. Thank you very much. Thank you, tony. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is jesse fernandez, im here with support of sf rising, people organizing to demand economic and environmental rights. Im here in support for a public bank that will move us in a direction to achieve Sustainable Community investments. From new development, to acquisition of existing housing stock, time and again our tools and resources are to create and retain Affordable Housing are spread too thin and fall too short of the Affordable Housing goals and commitments we have as a city. A public bank would increase our local control and allow us to support as well our cherished mom and pop businesses, for example, the chicken coop that had to close its doors because they couldnt afford the prohibitive costs of seismic retrofitting or newly designated businesses like besitas bakery which is experiencing unreasonable rent increases. That came to a halt. In the resession it was the same private institutions that were unaccountable and ripped families from their homes. My own family struggled with this. As federal tax reforms are beginning to limit or will limit Affordable Housing, financing in our sanctuary cities targeted for servicing and being committed to our immigrant community, we need a Municipal Bank now to protect and advance our San Francisco values. Thank you. Hi, my name is otto pipinger, i want to remind the board this endorsement represents all 800 of our members, or approaching 800 that we have. Democratic socialists endorses because we believe it ought to be governed democratically as well. I would like to take a moment to address the conflict with San Francisco social issues these banks have addressed and remind you 9. 6 billion in the hands of these banks is a tacit endorsement tantamount to overtly giving millions a year to the private prison industry, the modern face of slavery. To the subject of public banks, however, its essential, the next time the market tanks, the banks that have invested in our businesses provided loans for our homes view our community the same way we do and are willing to hold onto these assets even in the face of liability which a private bank will never do. A bank, as every child understands or believes is a place that keeps your money safe and that ought to be true for san franciscans. Too risky to outright subsidize such as providing lowinterest loans for colleges and businesses that benefit us collectively as well as providing a partner for projects too risky to accept a loan from a predatory lender. The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate to stabilize prices. Bank of america has no mandate other than maximizing profits. The people of San Francisco are entitled to a bank with the same degree of respect that we do. Thank you for your time, i will cede the rest. Thank you, next speerk, please. Speaker, please. Thank you very much and i commend you. As residents of San Francisco, who pay taxes and fines into the citys coffers, we want to know the city officials invest our funds wisely, with a city not only ends highinterest but also where investments contribute to quality of life for all san franciscans. A private bank can do this. Other communities are realizing the best way for Government Funds to work efficiently and responsibly is to deposit them in a public bank. A public bank that will allow us explicit inclusion of a broad range of policy goals and purposes. Purposes such as Public Welfare. Public welfare through equitable Public Investments to overcome the harmful impacts of extractive economies, unlike a commercial bank it stands on the principle that Public Welfare is the priority rather than profit for private shareholders. Public bank will provide credit and Financial Services to local communities underserved by mainstream commercial banks and lenders and by limited Public Investment to undue the historical legacy of wealth disparities and harmful economic environments or social housing and transportation impacts on these communities. Community wealth building. A public bank shall seek to promote generative economy that holds social justice and ecological sustainability. Community socially owned, social owned enterprises, Community Cooperatives [bell] next speaker. Hi, my name is francis collins. Im a member of a. C. E. , i volunteer for the tenants united. I stand for veterans for peace. Ive been a renter since 1970. Im currently on section 8. If my building got sold and a nonprofit would buy out my building, instead of giving money to their shareholders like wells fargo or b. Of a. , they could reinvest in their community. We need a bank that will support marginalized people in San Francisco. People of color, low income families, the homeless, youth, Small Business, immigrants, public money for public good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next. Thank you, supervisors my name is julian dahl. An organizer with a. C. E. We have been on the front lines of dealing with the banks since about 2010. We had a number of members, quite a few actually in the bayview and excelsior who were forced to fight tooth and nail during the height of the foreclosure crisis to take back their homes and actually came up with make shift Financing Solutions to be able to buy back those homes. Working with socially responsible investors to buy back homes from speculators and put them back in hands of the community and back in the hands of our members. But obviously these solutions were the best we could do, but theyre inadequate. Since around that time, we worked with supervisor avalos at the time to find out if the creation of a public bank would be possible. It was really exciting to hear the results of the b. L. A. Report that showed that finally it could be possible. To have a bank that could create things like Revolving Loan funds, to buy back homes, to buy back buildings where tenants live. And keep people who were most affected by our housing crisis in their homes is something that would be really exciting to our members. Theres lots of reasons to support public bank. Cannabis banking is just one of them. Theres many, many reasons. I hope we could make this happen. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, supervisors my name is curtis [inaudible] with [inaudible] public bank sf coalition. I think the main goal for the task force should be to get to a point where you can provide a blueprint to the treasurer and say this is how you create a public bank. Thats the main goal. Anything short of that is a failure. Its not going to be easy but its absolutely doable. I think the task force needs to follow some key principles. Such as factoring externalities and hidden costs. These are some things often never considered with wall street banks. Shortterm losses versus longterm gains and redefining what it means to have an economy, false narrative that you need to put profit over people. Even the narrative you have to put people over profit, i dont think they are mutually exclusive, i think you could have both. I think the question is who gets that profit. Most importantly, i think, for the force is to make sure the public input, that theres a process for public input. This is a public bank. So if you dont have a public input process, it delegitimizes this task force. We need a public bank, we can no longer afford our current relationship with wall street bank, with bank of america, simply put they use our money against us. Its been mentioned sub prime Mortgage Loans displace people. Pipeline, fossil fuel industry literally using our money to fund our own extinction. We are currently in a crisis but the good news is whenever theres a crisis theres a great opportunity. So sf has a great opportunity to send a message to lay the blueprint for the rest of the country on how to actually break up with these big banks. If our federal government cant break up with the big banks, we will have to do it for them. Thank you. Hi. My name is julie. Im a registered nurse. And im with the california nurses association. We are here to support San Francisco public bank. San francisco is a city which prides itself on progressive values such as equality and justice. Yes, San Francisco banks with corporations that fund the exportation of Indigenous People and their land. Banks that fund the destruction of our planet. Banks that fund climate change, which is the biggest threat to human life. Banks that fund weapons manufacturing, big tobacco and have predatory lending practices which specifically target people of color and marginalized communities. Overall corporations and banks put profit over people. We are living in a dangerous time where we have an extreme president and g. O. P. Who is hell bent on further deregulating banks, corporations and wall street for the profit of the few. California, more specifically, San Francisco, can be a leader. And show that we will not tolerate banks and corporations that exploit people and exploit our planet. We want a bank that is diverse, inclusive, and that represents all of its community members. As the saying goes, if you dont have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu. We want a bank that puts its community first. One that invests in Affordable Housing, education and child care, Public Transit and infrastructure, small and local businesses, and Renewable Energy just for starters. San francisco has great opportunity to be a leader and San Francisco can be a great leader on public banking. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Good afternoon, supervisors. Thank you for bringing this to the attention of San Francisco. This is a really important issue. And i also want to commend everyone else thats spoken. Because im very proud to be part of this group. Everyone has covered everything i would have covered. So i only have one small thing to talk about, that is my next door neighbor. Ive lived in San Francisco for 40 years. Ive taught in San Francisco public schools. Galileo and [inaudible] for 30 years. Ive seen the city change in ways that are not so pleasant. And one is my next door neighbor stephanie hellman, who is an African American woman, who has a family, has three generations living in her home. Her husband was a custodian for San Francisco. She actually worked at a bank, stephanie. They saved their money and bought a home. And owned their home for 40 years in Bernal Heights. Last year the bank foreclosed on her and forced her and her family out of San Francisco. They had no sympathy for her and her situation, her husband just died. She was suffering from senility. Her family was forced out of the city. We need a public bank that has a heart. And i commend you and all the people speaking in favor of that to make that a reality. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is alan fisher. I retired a couple years ago but for a few decades a fought for financial justice and pushed banks to do more for communities and i think this is a great effort you are undertaking and i will try to be short, partly because im really hungry. [chuckles] also i just want to support all of the other san franciscans here. You cant be Ground Breaking if you allow yourself to be hemmed by whats risky. Seems you need to be focused on doing things that are not happening from commercial banks, or maybe even Credit Unions and really serving the needs of those communities and those people. In particular, whoever leads this needs to be a Community Development banker. Too often in these situations that ive been around, a banker gets hired. And then they do what a banker does and then its the same thing as a bank. So i just think those are things to look out for. And one part of this, i hope, will be Community Development lending. So that you are really answering those problems. Everything else, i think, has been covered so thank you for doing this. Hello supervisors cohen and fewer. Thank you for bringing this up and fighting for this cause. I think this is really important to a lot of people in San Francisco and a lot of people who dont know its important to them yet will soon learn, i think. I think this will be really incredible. Ive heard a lot tonight, or today about questions about marijuana. And how we can potentially use marijuana money in this public bank. And a lot of concerns about the legality and risks of doing so. I think that right now we should focus on just moving forward on a public bank. Not worry about the marijuana element. I think that is going to get cleared up on a federal level. Theres a lot of push on both the right and the left politically to do that right now. If you put the bank in place, it will be there at the time that federal and other legislations come through to our aid. Thank you. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak on this item . Please lineup. Thank you. Hello, supervisors, thank you so much for putting this hearing on and being champions of the public banking issue right now. Too bad we didnt move forward a little sooner when Matt Gonzalez actually put this forward in 2001, something the city should be pursuing. And then john avalos really put effort into it and fewer and cohen thank you for doing that work as well. I got activated in local politics about an issue with chase bank because i just graduated sf state with my masters degree, i didnt have much money and chase bank started charging me for being poor. So i was thinking about it from a personal level at first. And then i started to do the research into glass stegall and i started to understand that chase bank is responsible for supporting predatory lending and its also responsible for investing in fossil fuels and things that we dont believe in and so do the other big banks. So its so important for us to have an alternative that will give back to the community and it sounds like its really just an issue of getting down to brass tax like you were talking about and the speakers were talking about. Do we do something shortterm with the existing charters of the credit union or commercial banking charter or get in the formation of something entirely new and work at the state level. And theres a lot of issues right now we are having to parse that out because they are statelevel issue thats are hard. But i want to echo what ben becker just said about cannabis being something we should put off to the side when we are focusing on the shortterm and figure out how to move forward with this task force. Im curious, maybe you could respond to this what the process is going to be for the task force and selection and how fast its going to move forward. [bell] thank you. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak on this item . All right, seeing none. Public comment is closed. Thank you, to the members of the public for voicing your support. Articulating your concerns. And most importantly, kind of raising questions on the direction you would like the task force to go in that you would like the city to be going in. Thats actually very helpful. Supervisor fewer, i think that we have completed this hearing. I dont have any other questions that i would like to raise. I would like to take a motion to file the hearing as heard. Yes. And chair, if i may just add, that i thank you again to our presenters. And i want to also thank my colleague supervisor cohen for her sponsorship and cosponsorship of this hearing and partnership. And thank you to the public for coming out today. And thank you to mr. Brussow because i think you address a lot of th