Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240713

2019 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. Thank you. Can you please call the first item . Number one is a resolution declaring a state of emergency regarding pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. Supervisor haney . Welcome. Yes. Thank you, chair mandelman and thank you for having me back, committee members. I feel like i am an honorary member of this committee at this point. Thank you for hearing these very important items. I authored this resolution with president yee declaring a Traffic Safety state of emergency on pedestrian cyclists pedestrian and cyclist fatalities with walk s. F. Immediately after the tragic death of Benjamin Dean and the injury of his wife in the tenderloin after a driver ran a red light and struck them both, but this is about even more than one death in the tenderloin, which i know there have been many across our city. We have lost 15 pedestrians and cyclists to preventable violence on our streets this year. In light of the lengthy and informative hearing on tuesday at the sfcta, i will keep my comments brief and described the Emergency Actions called for in the resolution. The city has set bold goals to get 20 traffic deaths by 2024 and yet we continue to see avoidable deaths and serious injuries happening on our streets. Every day, on average three people are hit by cars across the city. The injuries and fatalities are happening on just 13 of our streets, many of which are in district six. This resolution is about taking Emergency Action, but these are not new ideas. We need the board of supervisors , and sfmta, and the mayor and other agencies to meet the urgency this issue requires. We have to Work Together to identify the funding and do whatever it takes to implement these Emergency Actions before more lives are lost. Here is what we are calling for with this resolution. Number one, double the red light cameras at major high injury intersections. Currently there are only 13 red light cameras across the entire city with a handful more planned just a few years ago there were more than double in operation but because of changing technology, most of those have been removed and not replaced. Well recorded recorded crashes are down, we have to use every tool we can and red light cameras are a tool. Specifically we need to identify which intersections would benefit most from these cameras, identify funding plan and install new cameras by the end of next year. Number two, expand parking control officer enforcement. They have many competing needs but we have to prioritize enforcement of behaviors that are making our streets deadly. Cars that are blocking the blocks and preventing people who are safely crossing and cars that are blocking on blocking off bike lanes. Sfmta should be giving scorecards in conjunction with the reports that sfpd is already giving doing and present a plan for expansion. Number three, increased enforcement by the sfpd to 50 focus and that the level consistent with past enforcement numbers. This directive came from air breed earlier this year with the support of supervisor if you are there more traffic officers on our streets, but there is still work to be done. Sfpd shall produce an immediate action plan to get to the goal of 50 specifically on hi injury corridors and an adequate level. Sfpds quarterly reporting to the committee should be disaggregated by highend record doors to make sure the efforts are targeted. Number four, identify solutions to lower speed limits and actual speeds to 25 miles an hour lower on the hi injury networks. We have some constraints placed on us by the state, but we can be creative. Sfmta recently agreed to lower the speed limit in front of an area where a young boy was hit a few years ago and that is great news. What about the other streets where we are not taking advantage of this single opportunity . Where else can we make changes immediately . Are there streets on the Entry Network where speeds are over 2 . Can we put in speed bumps . Speed kills and we have to use every tool in our toolbox including advocating to state leaders. Number five, pedestrian blocks. Certainly this is something that i have spoke out about and the sfmta and the board has been a partner on to look at what streets can actually be made for people entirely and i know that a number of my colleagues have also expressed interest in studying these opportunities in their districts, certainly in the tenderloin we are very willing and prepared and supportive of moving forward. Our goal of this resolution is for the mayor, the board, the sfmta and other agencies to take Emergency Action and set us up for a clear plan. I have a set of amendments to the resolution that incorporate language requested by sfmta as well as language that identifies specific Emergency Actions. It also reflects that unfortunately as since this resolution was introduced, we lost another life of a pedestrian on our streets. I would there are no planned presentations. That is probably a good thing, especially after the long conversation about this at the c. T. A. This week, but the sfmta is here if there are any questions. Great. Thank you, supervisor haney. Thank you for the expedited process this morning. I dont see any comments or questions from my colleagues. Okay. So we will open this up to Public Comment if there is any Public Comment on this item . Seeing non, none, Public Comment is closed. There was a lot of Public Comment when they all came when we were going to hear it before. Supervisor walton . Thank you so much for bringing this resolution. I just wanted to go on record and state that we have seen an increase in car and traffic deaths in district 10 as well, and along with homicides we want to see we want to see an end to all of these avoidable deaths i would like to sign on as a cosponsor as of the resolution a everyone know we are currently working on neighborhood safety plans in district 10 and a pre neighborhood that includes strategies to avoid strap traffic deaths, along with our vision zero plan on homicides and violent crimes. Thank you, again, supervisor haney for bringing this resolution forward. Thank you. And for not calling the cavalry. [laughter]. Thank you for the cavalry for being here. Thank you, supervisor walton. I appreciate the amendments and would like to be added as a cosponsor as well. Vice chair stefani . I want to say that i appreciate the resolution would also like to be added as cosponsor. Supervisor haney, our first move is to accept the amendment. I will make that motion. We can take that without objection. I will move that we forward this to the full board with a positive recommendation and we can take that without objection. Inc. You very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Now our second item. Clerk, please call the next item number two is a hearing on Police Staffing levels, the Police Departments recruitment strategy and process, attrition and retention of officers, progress towards civilian isaiah and of appropriate positions and details regarding the demographics of the department including age, race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and others. This is president yees item so i will recess this for five minu we are reconvened. President yee, the floor is yours. Okay. Did recall the item already . We did. Thank you. As many of you know, i have been raising the issue of adequate Police Staffing for several years now. In june of 2018, almost a year ago, the budget and legislative analysis analyst provided the board with a performance audit of the San Francisco Police Department so we could better understand, number one, how to put the police are deploying police staff, that is funded by the general fund, and number two , how uniform staff is allocated to administrative versus patrol duties. One major finding and recommendation of that audit was that in light of an increase in property crime in our city, with public demand for more officers on the street, the San Francisco Police Department should put as many administrative positions in as possible. This is best practice is recognized by major Law Enforcement associations including the International Association of chiefs of police and adopted by most major Law Enforcement departments in the country, but San Franciscos ratio of sworn officers to civilian staff remains higher than the National Average over its peers. While there is a need for sworn officers with certain administrative and nonpatrol positions, there are also opportunities that we have not taken advantage of to produce cost and operational efficiencies for the department. That is why i asked the Controllers Office to provide us with the analysis of the civilian efforts made so far. That is the sole focus of today s hearing. We will not close this hearing, but we will continue it and it will be called again for the full Police Staffing analysis that i requested that will be completed by the end of this year. This Police Staffing now is one that i have tossed the department to conduct with experts in the field to provide the board and the public with the report about their staffing needs and the manner by which the San Francisco Police Department determines its Staffing Levels throughout its different divisions. Again, we will be holding a hearing specifically about this topic in early 2020 when the analysis is complete. At that hearing, we will also be asking the presentations from the citys Human Resources department and Police Department regarding a bunch of things including how they are recruiting new officers, Graduation Rates from academy classes, attrition numbers, demographics of the department versus the city, and our departments rate of retention of trained officers. Every year during budget time, this board is asked to support the departmental budgets. We rely on the departments to tell us what they need in order to carry out their assigned responsibilities. This is important when it comes to the nuts and bolts of running the city smoothly. For example, if public works doesnt have enough resources, that impacts the level of quality of the services that we are providing to our residents, businesses, and visitors. At the same time, we have to be vigilant. That we are being efficient with taxpayer dollars and making the very best use of these resources to get the most value possible for our residents, businesses, and visitors. As we seek to increase the number of officers serving the city, the San Francisco Police Department should have a plan in place as a key component of the effort to maximize the number of Duty Officers providing direct Public Safety Super Services and it should give us a basis to determine if we need to adjust the charters mandate of 9,171 fully Duty Officers. I want to add that another piece of analysis i have asked for is, again, its very exploratory at this point, but we know that we have many, Many Police Officers assigned to the airport and whether or not that makes sense to the city when some of these Police Officers, or many of them , or all of them could be deployed in our city streets instead of at the airport. I want to thank you, my colleagues, supervisor stefani for cosponsoring this hearing request and we are really looking forward to the discussion. Supervisor stefani, would you like to make any comments . Okay. Who is presenting . Good morning, supervisors. My name is peggy stevenson, i am the director of the performance unit and the Controllers Office by way of background, we have been engaged and looked at Police Staffing and multiple analyses over the years including prior civilian analyses and just to refresh everybodys memory, there have been a series of studies of civilian over time. We engaged an Expert Consult with the Police Executive Research Research forum back in 2008 that produced the study was published in 2018 and then last year, we worked with the Police Department on a command staff review of civilianization in their department where we validated their work, compared it to the prior recommendations that had been lined up by all the prior expert studies that i just mentioned, and compared it to some industry best practices so that a new set of civilianization proposals could be made for your last years budget process. That was done in response to the request by supervisor yee. A memo went out from our department to all of you that was published on our website well in advance of your budget hearings last may, on may 13th if youre curious about any of the detail, it has appendices which list civilianization recommendations that occurred in each of the prior years and how well the Police Department had done on fulfilling those. That is available to the public on the controllers website. May 13th publication date. By way of summary, i will say that if you look over that period of time, there has been a lot of progress on civilianization. About 60 positions from fiscal year 1213 until 1718 when we were looking at it again. These civilianization came from a variety of studies listed above and changes that were occurring in the organization at the time. Most notably the sfpds civilian the civilian eyes to research and analysis functions, technology functions, permits, property management, facilities management, contracting, and fleet management, the bulk of all of those things were done over that period. I will just say, at the same time, and leading into the last budget process, theres still a lot of functions as supervisor yee noted you noted that can be civilian eyes no further study is necessary to move forward on these so just put another way, the department specifically in fiscal year 18 19, the sfpd received 25 new positions for civilianization. At the time of your budget hearings in may, many of those were complete and others were underway. The sfpd can update you on progress on those positions, same concept for fiscal year 19 20. I mentioned the analysis that they had done working through their command staff. They identified an additional 50 positions that could be civilianized. My office reviewed and validated their analysis. Some of the functions that were identified there included records management, media, police commission, legal bureau, professional standards and community engagement. You will recall this discussion from your budget hearings, and then during your budget process last spring, they received approval for 25 of those 50 positions. Again, these are broadly agreed, approved, and budgeted. The challenge is a realistic staffing plan in hiring and the sfpd can update you on their progress. Lastly, they have an Expert Consultant currently at work doing staffing analysis to inform staffing and organizational design broadly speaking. Civilianization is part of that, including civilianization and bureaus where we know it needs review including investigations, special operations and administration. We will work with them as the findings come out from their consultants, to validation, and be prepared to validate and comment on any civilianization proposals that come forward for your next budget process. Finally, just as a point of interest, my office has been engaged with staffing studies and workload studies with the Police Department for many years , during most of the years i have been director of this unit. At the moment, last year we finished our Culture Service analysis that took cab data, did a lot of cleaning and review taking out outliers, working with the sfpd to understand what you can observe and data about the time they spend on calls for Service Versus administrative time, versus officer on duty time and understand how those things are varying by time of day, day of week, and geographically, and build a series of dashboards so that the Police Department, captains, and command staff can look at those things on an ongoing basis. We did a lot of years of studies it was a oneoff, a snapshot of data and analysis. Then we have to do the whole thing over again a couple of years later. This is continuously updated and is available for use by the captains and helping them with their deployment decisions. That is a piece of work that was done last year, and then in the current year, we are in the next phase of that with them when we are looking at response times and how response times are affected by the decisions they make on deployment and understanding that broadly, and again, building interactive dashboards that they can use to try and improve their performance on response times. That is underway. And the next few months, we will hopefully be wrapping that up and we will look forward to sharing the results with a broader audience. The calls for service analysis, in case you wanted to look back, our presentation on it was published on the controllers website on may 8th, 2018. I will stop there. Im happy to answer