The meeting will come to order. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the thursday, july 11th meeting of the government audit and oversight committee. I am supervisor gordon marjoined by supervisor brown and peskin. We are also joined by supervisor fewer who is here to speak on the first item today. Thank you to the committee clerk, john carroll and i would like to thank sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. Those standing with no seat you need to go to the overflow room, the main Board Chambers across the hall. You can watch the meeting from there and also come over to speak when you have a opportunity to speak during Public Comment. It will be open in a few minutes. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements . Clerk mplease silence cell phones and have your speaker cards to the clerk. Items today will be on the july 23rd meeting. We have over flow seating arranged for the Board Chamber room 250. This room we may not have anyone standing and present in the room. If you are standing please move to the Board Chamber. Chair mar thank you. Before we begin i want to thank the members of the public who have joined us today. We have four important items before us, and Community Members here to speak on each one of them. We also have a very limited window of time to move through these items. We lose quorum at 5 00 p. M. Please keep time constraints in mind when giving comment. To ensure every item will be heard today we will enforce strict time limits. Members of the public have one minute for comment on items today. Mr. Clerk, please call item 1. Clerk ordinance to create an office of Racial Equity as division of the Human Rights Commission with authority to create a city wide Racial Equity framework and action plans, analyze and report on the impact of ordinances and care reit out various other policy and reporting functions. To provide annual updates on the plans, to require city departments to designate employees as Racial Equity leaders and to require the department of Human Resources to produce an annual report concerning the Racial Equity in the city work force. Supervisor brown. I am excited to address Racial Disparity in San Francisco and move with the First Ever Office of Racial Equity. I want to thank my fellow sponsors superis visor fewer and her aid and my aid for your hard work and digging in the weeds to bring this forward. I thank the commission of human rights and the director davis for working with us every step of the way and thank you to the hr staff. We appreciate your work. Our office has worked with dozens of Community Members, labor and nobod nonprofit to cop with a accountable way to address systematic racism. I want to thank the Community Special thanks to the community that have met with our offices, all three offices. Myself, supervisor fewer, hrc office to really work with us to get this right. It is not easy. It wasnt easy, but we are here today. I will start by making an important distinction to ground this conversation. Equality means treating everyone the same. Equity means ensuring everyone has what they need to be successful. Here in San Francisco, we need to fight for equity. For over two centuries our black, latin x and native american and asian and Pacific Island communities have not had what they needed to be successful. This is not accidental or mistake. This is a structural and institutional racism in housing, education, employment, healthcare, causing real racial harm. By harm i just dont mean our feelings are hurt or trauma. I mean devastating impact on community of color. Ongoing segregation and displacement, Voter Suppression and lack of representation, Bad Health Outcomes and Educational Achievement gaps and mass incarceration. Lastly, this inequity is deeply rooted in the land we stand on. This land we stand on. Throughout this country and including california, it has had a violent history with native and Indigenous Community including genocide, loss of land. This history was made possible by the states laws and polici policies. This city was built on that history and those policies. For years, the city we have done reports, we have had working groups, commissions and policies to try to address this harm. We have made some strides. It really is not enough. We o an incredible owe a debt to the black, native american and asian and Pacific Island communities that built and sustained the city. No single policy is going to undo this harm. My hope is that we can Work Together to take the first step. Now, i want to hand this off to supervisor fewer for her comments. We will also hear from the Human Rights Commissioner director cheryl davis as well and then i will read the amendments to the legislation before supervisor comment. Supervisor fewer i think this legislation establishing an office of Racial Equity in San Francisco is one of the most important pieces of policy i have introduced. As a chinese American Woman raised in San Francisco i can attest to the discrimination. As director of organizing children and youth i bore witnesses to the painful experiences with interpersonal racism in the schools and Housing Market and Justice System and Health Care System and more. These are emotionally painful and leading to barriers in ability for residents of color. This country has a long history of Racial Injustice. Beginning with enslavement of africanamericans. Ristor rick race historic discrimination like obstacles from chinese residents to own businesses and red lining and destruction of black neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal. Now Racial Injustice is not ex clusnary but inaction of the government to correct past harms. It is more dangerous and harder to address. We now see incredible Racial Disparities in areas of life impacting the black residents of San Francisco but la latin communities. In 2016 the black income was 46 thousands for latin x it was 70,000 in comparison to 107,000 for white households. We see the children in San Francisco in the over representation of children of color in poverty and African People homeless. We see it in the black city workers who come forwar forwardo eliminate the discrimination. We need to take responsibility for these disparities not only collect and analyze the day take but close the gaps and hold ourselves accountable. We know this is not a silver bullet. We know we will not be able to immediately address the Racial Disparities over the course of generations across San Francisco. This is a critical step to take and acknowledge the history and current communities to address those conditions. As legislator this is a tool to request a racial Impact Analysis before i vote on legislation is not only helpful and informative. It is imperative if you want everyone in San Francisco to succeed. I thank supervisor brown and her aid and big thanks to Human Rights Commission cheryl davis and hrc staff who were critical in the drafting process. Supervisor brown and i have worked to make sure this legislation is real and not just in name only. To this end we center also worked on amendments that supervisor brown will review to ensure we have the feedback of the community as well as departments and city employees. Thanks to the stakeholders who emailed or called with feedback and thanks to members of the public today. I want to recognize my staff chelsea for her hard work. Before i was even elected and while we were running this is a dream of both chelsea and mine to start this office. We have worked together. I was shocked when i came to City Government when from wasnt a racial analysis given with other reports. Race wasnt a factor in determining many decisions and primarily that was up to the board of supervisors. I think this is lacking in the City Government. I think it is way beyond time we have done that. I am shocked that San Francisco the self proclaimed most progressive city in the United States would not have an office of Racial Equity. Thank you very much today for coming out. Thank you to my partner here, and now, i will hand it over to you. Thank you. Thank you. Director davis could you please come up with the presentation. Thank you for this opportunity. I am cheryl davis. I am the director of Human Rights Commission. You know, as we go through the process there are a couple of things i want to say before i get to like my formal words. I am grateful for this, but to supervisor viewers point a lot of people are working on this over the years. I think i would be remiss if i didnt acknowledge that i feel supervisor brown when you were alleging this is a conversation we had with supervisor breed. What is sad i dont think that the two africanamerican women on the board would have been able to push this forward. I think that in some ways if they had led the Initiative People would have seen it as selfserving and not able to hear what they were saying. I think that when we talk about racism and talk about disparities and the issues and challenges, it is hard to also admit i love to share the story i visited the lighthouse for the blind onetime with a group of young people. They asked one of the women what it was like to be blind. She said i have not been blind all my life, i have been black and black is harder. I just want as we do this to understand, yes, we are building this office of Racial Equity for everyone. To understand from the numbers and statistics that we see. We know there is one group worse off. That is not to say we dont need to be and i dont want to say equal. We dont need to be fair in how we do this. I am grateful the office is created. I am grateful for the leadership that pushed this through and the conversation you have had that have been difficult to have. I am grateful for the opportunity to have it fit in the hrc. I am by no means perfect and am flawed as we all are as people. I am glad in the hrc in the three yea years i have been thet is the sense that i only care about black people which is not the case. The fact you would put it there without fear it is focused only on black people i am grateful. Also, the knowledge that you understand we know where the greatest disparities are and as we roll this out we have to go in this work with that lens. Racism is a distinct form of discrimination that has lived daily and the experience across the nation. What i am grateful for is that this office signals San Francisco is coming to the reality San Francisco is not beyond racism. It lives and exists here. We need a mechanism to hold people accountable to that reality. Decades of not only failing to address but i would argue in most instances worse senning social inequality through systems through leadership and it has resulted in disproportionate Health Outcomes and unnecessary interactions with Justice Systems and lower wappings and homeless necessary for communities of colors. I see the goal a few key things. Acknowledging the rolling that institutional racism has had on our city. I would drill down institutions are made of people. One of the things that we continue to believe that because San Francisco is progressive is that it is not racist. I would argue it is far more racist than we see in Southern States because we hide behind the shield of progressive and behind the shield of liberal and in many communities they believe liberal and progressive is the same as racist. I want to own and understand whether we believe that, the perception of that reality. This acknowledges that. I am happy reof w rewe are goino consider the city budget are contributing to disparities and racism. Collecting data where it is important as this legislation moves forward the board and Mayors Office understanding the hrc does not have power or ability to do anything. If you do not stand by what gets put forward it will be the same. I do not want the hrc or staff responsible for sharing the policies or budgets are racist and you dont respond or react to them. The other piece is looking at the city as an employer. I think for me one of the challenges is the city as an employee and the folks who work for the city and county. The subcontracts the city has and folks are getting grants or doing work and perpetuating the disparities. Understanding the role the millions of dollars is city puts out contribute to and sometimes worsen those disparities. At the moment the city is going i am grateful for the bold leadership and political investment. I wonder if the folks moving this forward look differently if we have the same support and movement. This is not a silver bullet. There will be tough conversations and angry people all along the way. Part of this is giving people that are angry and frustrated a space to say what they want to say and to be heard and not just to be heard but have it acted on. That is requiring we put money where our mouth is. The Human Rights Commission is founded in 1964, 55 years ago. The same year the Civil Rights Act was signed. In San Francisco is hrc was founded to address antiblackness. I have been challenged by many people we have gotten away from that. That is still the heart and core of what we realize and see. We want to work on that. As the city has grown and challenges have changed. One fact is that antiblackness is still felt strongly in the city. As we do this work, we acwilling the office of Racial Equity is meant to address racial inequities across the board. Lastly, we have grown in mandate to fight discrimination in the many forms it takes. This office formizes some of the work we have been doing. Remove the discretion of city departments and requiring they share plans for improvement. Them sharing the plans alone is not enough without the will and power of the board and Mayors Office to hold people accountable. If there are instances where things keep happening that the board can make decisions to impact budges and play it out financially. Grateful for the work. Acknowledge it is difficult to move forward and hope we all recognize that there are pockets of people who have been impacted more often and higher levels than others. We cant sweep that under the rug. Thank you. [applause. ] thank you, director davis. What this legislation does, this ordinance will advance city wide agenda for Racial Equity through creation of office of Racial Equity within the Human Rights Commission. For those interested, we provided copies of the amendments for everyones preview. I will review the amendments for generally. This legislation the following is the accomplishments. We have updated findings and definition section to be more inclusive about the history of Structural Racism and more data on the impact of this history. It will mandate Racial Equity action plans for city departments and annual reporting about both city workers and contracts. It mandates a report card every two years on how San Francisco as a whole is doing with regards to indicators by race including housing, income, wealth, transit, health, environment and policing and criminal justice. The report card will be on the progress in City Government and private sector. It creates a Racial Equity policy analysis tool to be applied to legislation at the board of supervisors to illuminate the impact of policies on communities of color and force a public discussion about such impact. Our amendments create greater accountability and transparent to make sure the city departments are providing for Public Access to any plans. It designates at least one staff person to seven as Racial Equity leader by Department Division to coordinate the Racial Equity strategy, action plan and program. We also clarify to make sure thi