That will let people understand in detail before the budget gets to the board. Its something that ive often behind the scenes tried to request but havent had very much success in and only requesting those from the departments that im focused on. We should be receiving those as a matter of course from all departments. I want to tell you how excited i am with that particular part of the legislation. With that, if theres no further comment from my colleagues, ill open this up for Public Comment. Anyone wishing to speak, please lineup to my right, your left, and anyone wishing to speak please start us off. Debra . Good morning, supervisors, and i share your excitement. I am Debbie Lehrman from the budget justice coalition, and first i want to thank supervisors fewer and mar, chelsea and daisy, and all of the cosponsors who have signed on, along with the Mayors Office and the Budget Office. The budget is the singlemost important piece of legislation that this board takes on every year, and this will improve transparency and civic trust in government. The budget negotiations often happen behind closed doors. There are boards that dont hold meetings at all, and those that do, some of them dont have a meeting until late in the process, just before it goes to the mayor. Its hard to get budget information from departments. Its either buried on their websites or not on there at all. This legislation addresses that through public hearings, and a centralized website where people can go to one website and find out about the budgets and about upcoming hearings. This will ensure that the budget reflects Community Values and priorities through a more open process, and i cannot express enough or appreciation for your support and your vote. Thank you. Chair ronen thank you. Mr. Mornino. Supervisors, matthi matthias mormino. We look through peoples budget and annuals, and we find usual suspects like chelsea boillard, who authored a piece around how we should reform our budget. I remember we were talking with supervisor fewer and supervisor mar and saying yeah, we might do that. But there has been a lot of fighting there. I think its important that we increase transparency and access. Too many times, we ask our constituents, our folks to come out to a hearing, stand in line for hours and hours to get two minutes to speak on something that theyre passionate about. And then, as you sit there with them or as they leave the room, theyre like what happened . What are they going to say . How is this question that i had a burning question for the Police Departments budget or the Sheriffs Department budget, why is it not being answered . You know, i think with this legislation, we start seeing more information come to our constituents so that really the budget process is anchored in community, and so that people that want to get information about the budget process dont have to go through proxies like ourselves or the coalition but can actually find that information directly on the citys website, which seems a really simple task, but i know that our friends at the Controllers Office and the city attorneys office, thats not an easy task. So i want to thank everybody at the Mayors Office, the Budget Office and staff, and everybody that helped. Thank you. Chair ronen hello, again. Good morning again. David elliott lewis. One of the great frustrations in dealing with city hall at times is lack of opacity and transparency. I think this is a big step forward. The public hearings are immensely helpful, but the website especially will make it make the information useful. I think this should be a best practice for all city hall processes. I know you do it with Commission Hearings and minutes, but all processes should be as public and transparent as this, so thank you for considering it. Thank you for your time. Good morning, supervisors. I just wanted to echo what the other folks have said. The budget and im sarah shore with Community Housing partnership, and im with the budget housing coalition. With the folks that ive been working with in coalition, folks who have masters degrees, and in some cases, doctorates, it is incredibly difficult to find out where the money is going. Thats the most important piece of this is, where the moneys going, and what are the Funding Priorities of the city . Whos being left out and whos, you know, maybe being disproportionately served . We as advocates for folks who are the most vulnerable in the city deserve and need to know about those things, and we need to know the details so we can advocate in the right way. So i really appreciate this legislation. I think this is going to bring tremendous transparency to the process. The remember site is wonderful website is wonderful, but also the fact that the board gets a lot of information and therefore a say in this process is incredibly important, and it actually helps power the district members, constituents, to be able to speak to that, as well. So we just wholeheartedly support this. I have to say that i was, back in the day, a member of what was called the peoples budget, so thats just so thai that the community has been working on this for a very long time and has to put together whole big coalitions and long, lengthy processes just to do the work of understanding the budget and watchdogging it and getting that money going to the right groups, and it should [inaudible] chair ronen thank you. Are there any other speakers on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [gavel]. Chair ronen supervisor fewer . Supervisor fewer yes. I was remiss in saying that the inclusion of supervisor mandelman and supervisor stefani, that means the entire Budget Committee. I meant to say that supervisor mar and supervisor yee are sponsors. I want to thank chelsea boillard. I think she has a much deeper understanding of the budget than i do as the budget chair, so i just want to give her a thanks. Shes been working on the budget as a Community Organizer for a really long time. I feel that we are so honored to be able to be in this position that as budget chair and on the Budget Committee to be able to drive these things, and thank you to my cosponsors. Thanks. Chair ronen we are the lucky ones. Is there a motion you want to do the honors, supervisor mar . Supervisor mar i would like to move that we move this forward to the both items, items number 3 and 4, to the full board with a positive recommendation. Clerk Committee Report . Chair ronen as a Committee Report . Supervisor mar as a Committee Report. Thanks. Chair ronen without objection, those motions pass. Clerk item number 3 and 4 will be recommended as a neigh. The task force will identify the underlying causes of the increase in streetlevel drug dealing and implement immediately coordinated, evidencebased solutions to urgently tackle this problem. The task force will look at crime prevention, Law Enforcement, recidivism, longterm employment and alternatives to incarceration. It will have the power to solicit data and Research Best practices from around the country. The task force will prepare and submit to the board of supervisors and the mayor a plan which will contain a review of the best practices. The goal of this task force is to start in the next couple of months. Small businesses right now are suffering and residents are suffering and need a seat at the table where these critical decisions will be made about the future of their neighborhoods and their wellbeing. We need to come up with strategies beyond solely policing and incarcerated low level offenders. There needs to be a comprehensive and strategic approach. For those who have applied, if you are not selected to sit on this task force, i hope that you will continue your commitment to the community and will still engage in the task force by attending future hearings and meetings that the task force will have. Thank you, and im looking forward to getting to work. Thank you so much. Chair ronen thank you. Do any of my other colleagues have any questions . Okay. So we have 25 applicants for nine seats. I think its testament to how important this this task force is that we have so many applicants for for to play a role in fixing this longstanding entrenched problem in the neighborhood and in the district. So were going to call one by one those applicants thats true here today. Were that are here today. Were going to ask that you hold your comments to two minutes so we can get out in a timely manner. Im going to call three applicants at a time. Feel free to come up in any order and lineup to my right, your left. So i will start with lindsey maria richard, lindsay lasalle, and benjamin ambrogi. My name is lindsay lasalle. I am an attorney, and really, we work to remove drug use and drug sales to the maximum extent possible out of the criminal Justice System and instead into the Public Health and other social Services Systems that can better address the harms of drug use and drug sales and also can better address the harms of criminalization. If we dont want people selling on the street then saddling them with a criminal conviction and a criminal record where they cant enter the employment market and only leave them to enter an illicit market is counter productive. Our policies that we have, we intend to be based in science, compassion, health, and human rights. For my part, my portfolio largely focuses on crafting policy solutions in the space of health and Harm Reduction. My expertise really lies in translating lived experience, international practice, and the research and science to come up with effective solutions, policy proposals, and programs that can be implemented at the local, state, and federal level. So in the context of drug use, this has looked like access to naloxone, access to medication treatment like buprenorphine. Im very interested in translating those issues from drug usage and drug sales. We also have a broader report coming out on drug sales next week. For that, i interviewed dozens of people who sell drugs to try to remove the stigma and racism that largely informs who we think sells drugs, and that has a whole host of policy solutions that i would love to bring to the task force and start exploring, so thank you so much. Good morning. My names maria richard, and i am very experienced at using a multifaceted approach to addressing negative behaviors such as the street drug dealing. Ive worked for 20 years on the corner at turk and taylor, at 111 taylor as the director of a reentry program. We house over 100 men and women that are returning to the community from prison, and this is another alternative to prison. We have an 85 employment rate on individuals who have extensive criminal history. So i have an excellent relationship with our Law Enforcement family, with the sfpd, probation, state parole, federal probation, as well as working with just a plethora of agencies to assist our returning citizens in umm canning back into the community. Many of these individuals have had an extensive history of drug dealing charges. Not all of them, but many of them have. We strongly believe in a Restorative Justice model with our program. We have several agencies that are really working on the street that are dealing with this population kind of in a different way. We have given offices to both civic, pit stop, and Hunters Point family to work out of Taylor Street so they can be right there. I have worked directly with formerly incarcerated individuals, their families, friend. Although i have not personally been incarcerated, i have firsthand experience with the Substance Abuse issue as well as the arrests, so our main focus is helping to assist through cognitive Behavioral Changes and making better choices. We obviously deal with this issue, being on the corner of turk and taylor. Ive been doing this for 20 years, and i would apply the eight principles of evidencebased practice that any Agency Working with or any element working with the incarcerated should be using, and i would use my expertise to help educate other people, what Behavioral Changes, and what is the best practices to address this revolving door and just change. We definitely go by it takes a village and it takes relationships to address this issue. Thank you. Chair ronen thank you so much. Next speaker, and while benjamins coming up, if michael brinkofski, pedro florez, and david bercutt can lineup. Good morning. The more time i spend in these communities, the more i think i can be a valuable contribution to these communities and to the task force because ive seen the streetlevel drug deal issues from both sides. A decade ago i know the tenderloin a different way because when i was 20, i was using drugs from the streets of the tenderloin, and it was a daily process, and i observed Police Strategies that would curb drug sales and use ageaged i saw policies that completely failed. Although a lost a lot of my life, i am lucky that i was able to turned my life around and get an education. I work closely with a program called Second Chance and specifically a professor mobley who taught me about Restorative Justice. We watched people turn their lives around using new and alternative programs and staying out of prison. Today, i still work in education and also in the law. Im usually working at a college on post and taylor or im working at u. C. Hastings a few blocks away. This spring, i worked closely training pro bono attorneys and working with the homeless advocacy project, and i consider myself lucky not only have been able to turn my life around, but to be able to have these two lives and two different experiences that i think put me in a unique position to be able to understand a Street Level Drug Dealing Task force. Id like to be able to use that experience to help the community. Chair ronen thank you so much. Hello again. Nows the right time. Yeah. I tried four times. So my names david bercutt, and rather than list take up too much time listing all the things ive done, i just would like to say that ive been involved in the drug world since i was a teenager, and im 66 now. Since 1998, ive been clean with the help of buprenorphine, which is a miraculous substance that can help the city very much. Ive been a salesman most of my life. I specialize in communications in helping people paint mental pictures of things, of helping people understand what is being attempted to accomplish, just all forms of communication between the task force and the people on the street requires somebody that knows who they are, where theyre from, has lived in their country as i have, that knows a lot of details that you people are probably not even aware of about the business on the street and how its run, and where its run, and where it works back to. Its all very surprising and not exactly what people think, but i believe theres somebody that can really mix with the people on the street whos not afraid of the people on the street and who has a lot of experience and expertise. Theres a book i wrote. Its about 220 pages long. Its called drug realities. Its available on the internet, so ive done a lot of communications work, historical work, all kinds of work that are sort of in the background but theyre very essential for making a bridge between what you people are trying to initiate and what their realities are on the street, which are so different. There has to be somebody that knows the two things and is able through communication to bridge that gap. I could name a lot of other things that ive done, but im not going to take the time. Chair ronen thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Chair ronen thank you. And i also wanted to call jessie james johnson, sam dennison, and portia diction sdiction dixson. Hello. My name is pedro florez. Ive worked with the National Council on alcoholism and ive led our prevention and diverse programs while working there, so working closely with many families in the tenderloin, which are immigrants and are forced to live there under the circumstances that were trying to remedy with the task force. What i would like to do is offer my service, both my insights professionally and my experience in Public Health and my listed experience as a resident to help support this work. Now i realize that this is coming from its not coming from one of your districts, but i hope that this can be an invitation for partnership, because although the tenderloin is burdened with this problem, it is not just in the tenderloin, it is a problem for all of San Francisco. Thank you. Hi. My name is jessie james johnson. Im a poet and a 20year resident of the tenderloin. I believe i qualify for seats 1, 2, and 3 and or 7 and 8. I have letters of support from several communitybased organizations, a Business Owner, one from a property owner, and my landlord. Theyre included because its not who i am that are important, but the people that are in my life. These are people who are part of my daily life, people who i have earned their trust and people who i work with. You might know that golden gate is the epicenter of the open air drug dealing. As different as we all are, we are the different people we must come together to address the crisis we find ourselves in. I believe i can help in reaching a consensus. Its heartbreaking to see the people of the tenderloin working against each other. The visual is an obstacle. I believe that anyone, if asked and given a clear path to follow will step forward to be a part of the solution. Some will be