With our along with first five for our citys jointly funded Family Resource center initiative. Our work is stronger because of the participation, engagement and guidance from our commissioners, that you have met here today. And i urge you heartly to support their appointments and recommend them. Thank you. Supervisor ronen thank you so much. [bell dings] is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel] well, were lucky. We get an easy one this morning. We have four exceptionally qualified people, who have done this three of which have done this work for quite some time. Were so grateful for you lending your expertise to the city in this way. Your work is so important. As you mentioned, as Mental Health becomes every day a bigger crisis in the city, we know that the best way to prevent people from declining to a state, where its very difficult to help them, where they end up on the streets, is to get them while theyre young. And to do the preventative work in the first place. So hearing that from you today it meant a lot. Please know how much we appreciate your work for the city. It means a lot. So thank you. And with that, supervisor mar, would you like to do the honors. Supervisor mar sure. Actually id like to echo chair ronens words of appreciation to our great and committed commissioners. And thank you so much for just your willingness to continue to lead on this really important body. I think for myself and my colleagues on this committee, as working parents, we very much understand that the importance of these issues and the challenges that families face in our city. So thank you so much. So, yeah, i would like to move that we move this forward to the full board with positive recommendation. The appointment of let me make sure i get this right, Sylvia Deporto to seat 2, linda asato to seat 6, suzanne giraudo to seat 9 and lynn merz to seat 9 for children and Families First commission. Is that correct . Supervisor ronen yes. That would be joan miller to take the place of the seat vacated by Sylvia Deporto. Supervisor ronen thats right. And then i would just add that we are also doing a residency waiver for joan miller in seat 2 and lynn merz in seat 9. Clerk per the city attorneys advice, seat 2, the residency waiver is not required for seat 2. Reporter supervisor ronen okay. It is for seat 9 . Clerk yes. To correct. Correct my motion, so that would be joan miller to be appointed to seat 2 and then a residency waiver for lynn merz for seat 9. Supervisor ronen great. Without objection, that motion passes. [gavel] thank you. Thank you so much. Miss clerk, can you read item number 4. Clerk item number 4, hearing to consider appointing nine members, terms ending December December 32020, to the Cannabis Oversight Committee. Did you want to make any opening comments . May i please do. Thank you, chair ronen, the committee for hearing this item today. With the legalization of Recreational Cannabis in california, we have a brandnew multibillion dollar industry, with the potential to grow much larger than it already has in San Francisco. We have seen the Tech Industry explode into a massive industry very quickly without an equity of social justice lens. So tech has certainly made a few people very wealthy, this industry left a lot of people behind, including working class of color who are struggling to stay here. With the legalization of cannabis, we have an opportunity here to grow this industry in a way that benefits all of our communities and doesnt leave behind the communities of color, that have been decimated by the war on drugs. We can do 24 by giving Industry Experts and Key Stakeholders a seat at the decisionmaking table, specifically those with a social justice and equity lens. I understand that it has been difficult for many small equity businesses to get a foothold in the market, which is why its critical that they have a seat at the table. Its also critical for labor unions to have a seat at the table to ensure this industry is creating livingwage jobs and not hording profits among a few at the top. I believe the creation of a public advisory body, made up of the Key Stakeholders to oversee the office of cannabis and the implementation of laws governing commercial cannabis activities, the best way to provide transparency and accountability for this brandnew growing industry. This Advisory Board will also provide valuable insight and recommendations to the board of supervisors, as we implement the voter mandate of Recreational Cannabis. I created the legislation of a Cannabis Oversight Committee to provide the board on regulations, growth of the industry, and to help the board meet its goals of equity within the industry. I want to thank all of the applicants for their interest in serving on this committee, as it is an allvolunteer committee. We appreciate your interest and willingness to help us create a Cannabis Program in San Francisco, that can thrive, be an important part of our local economy and also meet our equity goals. Thank you. Supervisor ronen thank you so much. Any other colleague wish to make any opening comments. Supervisor walton. Supervisor walton i want to say as were working to make sure that individuals, who have really suffered and been criminalized because of marijuana convictions and making sure that our equity agenda and platform is really adhered to here in San Francisco, this Oversight Committee is very important. And i just want to also say that im excited about the number of applicants that we have. And the number of people that actually take this serious, because we have a lot of work to do under the Equity Program. So i appreciate everyone wanting to serve and be a part of this committee. Thank you. Supervisor ronen yes. I also wanted to thank supervisor futurecast for creating this body and bringing this forward. I agree. Its extremely important. And we can see from the overwhelming responses, 24 applicants for 9 seats, that there is a lot of peopling to engage and participate in a voluntary way for this body. So were so grateful to all of the applicants today. And because there are so many of you, im thinking well just ask any of the 24 applicants that are here to just come up one boy one. Anybody in any order that you would like. So feel free to just come up and start us off. And then get in line whenever you want to. Good morning. My name is eric pearson. Ive applied for seat number 12. The seat is dedicated to a person who is an owner of a Cannabis Retail establishment. Ive been an Owner Operator since 1998, when i moved to snow sa know ma college. We operate three dispensariaries. We also farm in Sonoma Valley and santa rosa, where we manufacture cannabis products. Were a vertical company with a deep understanding 6 most aspects of the industry. Having say the on working groups and nonprofits related to cannabis, i understand and respect the commitment required of this position. Because cannabis was recently illegal, and has been slow to legalize, a lot ever work to do by our government and community and operators, in order to right the wrongs of the past and find Equitable Solutions for the future. I believe that my experience and dedication to this issue will serve the Cannabis Oversight Committee well and hope you will feel the same. I humbly ask for your support today. Thank you. Questions . Supervisor ronen any questions . Supervisor fewer thats great. For seat number 12, my question to you is, how do you how would you advise the board of supervisors on support of cannabis businesses, in light of the sometimes fierce neighborhood opposition . Well, were seeing a lot less of it than we used to see. So i feel like we should be having a lot less neighborhood opposition. But if were seeing neighborhood opposition, i think the best thing this committee can do and the board can do is to take applicants and introduce them to those neighborhood groups. And also work with existing operators potentially to show those neighborhood groups, through a dispensary, and show them what it looks like. I think theres a lot of misconceptions and fear around cannabis businesses. And so if you can show people and educate people what they look like, i think thats the first place to start. Supervisor fewer thank you. Good morning, supervisors. Good morning. Chairman ronen, my name is ive been in the city since 1997, when i started at u. S. F. , coming here from germany as an 18yearold. I havent left the city since. I started in cannabis in 99, also when i got arrested. And i was fortunate enough to not get convicted, but the arrest record obviously has been following me around my whole life. Every time i come to San Francisco airport, i get pulled out for a cannabis arrest record. It takes me about three hours to leave the airport. The reason im here and applied for multiple seats, im one of the few cottage producers from the sunset, that managed to raise 2 million, 3 million from the public company. We managed to transition out of the sunset and out of the back of the plant cafe into a very nice manufacturing space, that were currently building out and almost finished. I think we were one of the first Cannabis Companies to actually navigate the d. B. I. Process. And ive been following supervisor fewers legislation since she put it forth. I think my main motivation is seeing how many people from the smaller and disadvantaged neighborhoods got left alongside of the road and are not able to transition to the legal business. Thats my main motivation. As an operator and manufacturer, were doing fine. We sell to dispensaries and theyre probably one of the best dispensaries to tell you in neighborhood impact. But we have a lot of friends that didnt make it, whether they were brokers, small growers, small manufacturers, kids that are still sell going on the corner of some streets. Like thats who we need to bring in. Having navigated this process and restructure companies, restructure applications, made for a really good working relationship with the department of health, the office of cannabis. So id like to kind of pass some of that knowledge on, help people raise money for their small businesses. And in light of that, i actually hook hooked up with the renaissance nonprofit group, who recently got 300,000 in funding to start a program at ccsfto teach disadvantaged kids and youth and younger people to get into the industry. So, yeah, thats my main motivation to help people successfully transition. And kind of stop the gate keeping thats been going on in front of the office of cannabis, with the various bodies that have been, you know, keeping gate keeping essentially. Thats my consideration. Supervisor fewer i have one question. Supervisor ronen theres lots of questions. Supervisor fewer i just wanted to ask you. What do you see as some of our main challenges in ruling out in rolling out our Equity Program . I think one of the main challenges is misinformation. A lot of the equity applicants are under, you know, under wrong conscious theyre operating under the wrong premises, thinking they dont apply. Because they no one has really walked through them through the entire application process. Raising funds and having a venue. Thats one of the things we want to do with the Renaissance Group is essentially try to form a marketplace, like the ferry building, a place where you can teach people, have a stall where they wouldnt have the overhead cost of building out a building in San Francisco, which is almost impossible. Weve indebted our selves 3 million to get to the point where we are today and we have to do another raise. We need to create a space that allows people to come and sniff out the industry, see if theyre made for it. Because the commitment up front is too high. We have a lot of equity applicants who are looking for a lease for over a year. And they keep putting money into their brands and keeping them alive. We had to do it with tshirt sales. Just to keep our brand alive, while we werent able to produce. I think theres a lot of experience that me and my group have gone through trial and error, that we would really like to share with the applicants. And telling them its not scary to go this way. Thats the main hurdle is people just think the barrier to entry is too high. And its i have to say i had a 22,000 square foot canopy permit in oakland, that we decided not to pursue, because of the taxes, because of the difficulty in legislation. As a verified equity applicant, i feel like i can give a lot back to the equity. As a minorityowned business as well, of course. Its not easy to raise money and a minority with an arrest record. And id like to give people some of my experience and share that with them. Supervisor fewer thank you. Supervisor ronen supervisor walton. Supervisor walton my question is for mr. Pearson. Im sorry i didnt ask you. Im going to ask every candidate this question. How do you think diversity is for this Oversight Committee . I think its the most important part. Yeah. I think that what the legislation that supervisor fewer put forth, in an ideal world, it would have gone through last year. As a city, we lost a little bit of our head start. Seeing like so many l. A. Products populate our stores to a local producer, known as an artisan, it really hurts. Because we have so many good producers in town. I also think that to our point of the disranged neighborhoods, we drove mostly brokers out of town there. These kids were brokers that were taking it from the grower around the dispensary, showing it and doing the part that we didnt have the time to do. So running them out of business is to me one of the parts that just on the social justice that really gets me. Okay. Supervisor ronen dont go far. I have one more question for you. No. No. After you. Diversity is very important. Diversity and race and we need diversity in a way that we define these seats, to have various business interests, equity interests. So on and so forth. I agree with the lack of equity that we see in this industry nationwide. I do a lot of work in sonoma county. Theres nothing diverse about the industry up there. So the more we can focus on this, which is i think one of the main points of this committee, the better off well be as an industry and as a city. Supervisor ronen thank you. Have you been an equity applicant . Yeah. I was approved in august of last year. I actually had that on my application. I just saw now that that seat was not on there any more. Supervisor ronen im wondering 8, 9, 13 and 16. Supervisor ronen you are 8. 8, 9, 13, 16 is what i would qualify for. Supervisor ronen my bad. Never mind. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor ronen thank you so much. Good morning, supervisors. Im coming up, not only for myself, but also for my colleague jen garcia, who is unable to be here today. Theyre actually doing the elections for the union. So she wasnt able to meet. So ill start with a letter from her. Jennifer garcia apologizes for being unable to attend todays hearing and requested that i read this letter into the record. My name is jennifer garcia. Im a Union Representative and organizer for ufcw local 648. We are local that represents over 4,000 members working and living in San Francisco in various occupations. Im applying for seat number 10 on the Cannabis Oversight Committee. I served as an original threeyear member of the San Francisco state Cannabis Legalization Task force. I was cochair for the last two years. As a cochair and as a working member of the task force, we were charged with proposing cannabis policies of the board of supervisors. I had great interest in all five topical areas in task force, that Task Force Made recommendations in but my main focus is on the workers in the cannabis industry. My interest in serving on the Cannabis Oversight Committee continues to be related to the Owner Operators in the growing industry. Lows receiving a living wage, having safe working conditions and receiving benefits for which theyre eligible, like s. D. I. And workmans comp. Being appointed to the Cannabis Oversight Committee with ensure workers in the industry will continue to be educated on the workforce rights and responsibilities. Thank you for your time and consideration. My name is sarah. Im the Public Education officer for the apothecary in San Francisco. And for three years, i served as cochair of the state Legalization Task force and also seat 12. As a cancer survivor of stage 3 colon cancer, i started my journey with medical cannabis. Prior to my work in cannabis, i worked for a nonprofit such as earned assets, Resource Network and in civil rights for legal for lccr. I lecture nationally on policy and education, helping new states come up with equitable and educationrich laws and policies. I lecture at ucsf, kaiser and i created the first cannabis education program, for extended learning for city college of San Francisco. And im also a writer. My focus is education and creating safe access. Education is important, both on a policy end to keep the public safe and also what i worked when i ra