Approve the agenda. So moved. Do we have a second . Any discuss in all in favor. Any opposed . Motion carries. May i have a motion to approve the february 5th, 2020, Meeting Minutes . Thank you. Do i have a second. Second. Any discussion . All in favor. Any opposed . Thank you. The motion carries. Now i would like to introduce our newest commissioner, nelson lum, wholl tell us about his background. Thank you. Mr. Chair, fellow commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, good morning, my name is nelson lum, and im the newly appointed member of this commission. Ive been a resident since 1961, and i went to school here. Upon graduation from George Washington high school, in 1966, i was soon notified by uncle sam that he had a special interest in me. I was inducted in the army where i volunteers to be a member of the paratrooper unit, and after training, i was assigned to kentucky with 101st airborne division. In 1967, my division was deployed to vietnam. Luckily, i returned in november 1968, with all my fingers and my toes. I took advantage of the gi bill and completed a degree in criminology. I then joined the San FranciscoPolice Department where i served for 30 years until my retirement in 2005 with a rank of sergeant of police. Since retired, ive been devoting most of my time with American Legion where i participated with assisting veterans. Its thage laest veteran organization in our country with 2. 5 million members. The main mission of the legion is to assist veterans with benefit claims along with providing generations of veterans. There are ten posts in San Francisco. With the exception of one, they are at the Veterans Building across from city one. Theres post 384 that was formed exclusively by chineseamerican veterans back in 1931. The membership exclusiveness was not by choice. Confronted with discrimination against asian and Chinese Americans in particular, such as chinese exclusion act, the chineseamerican veterans were not welcome to join the post at that time. Thus, the formation of their own post in 1948, the members of the post voted and contributed to the purchase of the building located at 1524 powell street. I have been honored to serve as the post commander for four years. I am currently representing the district which covers all ten American Legion posts at the state level. Thats enough about me. I must confess that even though i have been doing a lot of reading about this commission since my a appointment, im nowhere near caught up with all the information necessary to render myself in the effective overseer. I will do my best to learn more about this commission and the responsibilities that encompasses. When i sat in to observe last months meeting, i heard references to how the budget of this commission has grown over the years. My thought was and is, well, it is a blessing to have a larger budget. It is far more important to measure our success by how effectively that money was being utilized to help those who are in need. So that will be my guideline as i join my fellow commissioners to implement the goals of this commission. Thank you. Thank you very much, commissioner lum. Im sure youre going to be a worth while addition to our commission and help with the services we perform. The next item on the agenda is the directors report. Good morning, commissioners. Welcome commissioner lum. Looking forward to working with you. As usual, i will start with the federal level. Last month, i said that by this time, we would probably see that the senate had reauthorized on its side the Older Americans act. However, that has not quite happened yet. What did happen is they there was a long awaited reauthorization of the National Caregiver bill which provides residence busines respite se, so that was exciting, but were working to advocate for the Older Americans act to pass. Its really focused on that. I will be assuming that it happens. I will be going to washington, d. C. In two weeks for the National Association meeting and also for the policy briefing that i go to each year and bridget is working to schedule visits with our representatives in washington. So its always a Good Opportunity to talk about the great work were doing in San Francisco and in california, rally along with other california triplea directors, you know, at the capital. So looking forward to that visit. At the state level, there are a couple of budget items that have been introduced and are being advocated for that would really help our services and help put some more money into some of our services. The first is theres a big budget ask for an enhancement to Adult Protective Services. It would increase the Adult Protective Services budget in california by 100 million. It would provide for different things. One of them would be that it would enhance the Home Safe Program which is, as you know, were doing in San Francisco, and its a way of really preventing homelessness for older adults who need extra services, who need intensive Case Management or who need to move into assisted living. Its really a partnership with homeless services. It would also enhance the training opportunities and it would also allow for Adult Protective Services to be able to keep cases a little bit longer. So theyre seeing more complex cases. They need a longer intervention. It would allow for that. Im going to sacramento tomorrow to testify on behalf of the California Welfare Directors Association and as, of course, the director in San Francisco to talk about how important this is. It will be before the Senate Budget subcommittee tomorrow. Also at the state level, there is a request from the California Association of area agencies on aging to enhance the aging and Disability Resource Center connection funding. That is a model that we use in San Francisco, and weve been lauded for our hub model that we have here. The aging and disability resource connection really integrates aging and disability by providing information, referral, and assistance for services that are for people with disabilities and older adults. We have done that here. We have an effective relationship between our area agency on aging that sits within our department and the independent living resource center. Paragraph paragraptheres a lota connection in every county or at least in every triplea across the state. This big ask im not exactly sure what the dollar amount is. Were still working on the dollar amounts on that ask. It would be a substantial infusion of money for that program so that it can really effectively work throughout the state. One of the biggest things that we know is that, you know, older people and people with disabilities dont know how to access services. This is a statewide problem, and developing the hub model in every triplea would really help with that problem. It allows us to work as a Network Across the state to, you know, use best practices for information, referral, and assistance and outreach and be sure californians know about the services that they need. Then at the local level, i think the Big Conversation this is actually should be at the knowledge level, too, but at the local level right now, were really doing a lot of work around covid19. The coronavirus is most dangerous to older people, people with diabetes and asthma, and as people get older, its people 55 and older most at risk, but of course as people get older, in their 80s and 90s, they are more at risk. There are issues around People Living in congregate living. San francisco just received testing kits on monday and has the ability to test now, and so the assumption is that we may have a positive case sometime soon. I think mayor breed is has been proactive in declaring a state of emergency so that it puts us in a position where we can activate the Emergency Response system. We have people at the Emergency Operations center every day. We have two staff there who are going to be there on a twoweek stent. They are there every day getting information, bringing information back to the department, and helping to inform practices around, you know, how do we think about ensuring that older adults are safe . How do we ensure our staff in communities are safe, out in homes, all of those things. So its a rapidly changing environment, and so the main i think the main messaging is, if youre sick, stay at home. Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. Dont shake hands. Its simple messaging because just like any flu or any virus, we need to treat it seriously. So thats been a lot of the energy over the past week or so. A couple of other things coming up. One is this year is the 30th anniversary of the americans with disabilities act. The das will not working with the Mayors Office, senior disability action, and a number of other disability groups on disability pride event. Its very exciting that were going to be part of that. April 14th is National Health care decisions day, and just like last year, das is involved along with the Palliative Care work group in supporting a number of events throughout the city through the libraries to really create conversations and discussions around advanced care planning. We, again, have had some people back out of that, of some of those events muc. Were going forward. If we need to cancel them, we will, and well think about another way. Maybe, you know, a webinar or something that we can do if we have to cancel those events. But right now, were moving forward with that april 14th National Health care decisions day group of events. Then one other thing that we are involved in is our city put out a grant opportunity for cities to apply for funding to really look at Financial Empowerment for people with disabilities, and so Mayors Office of disability and thriving in place, nonprofit thriving in place, and d aos came together and said this is something we should really look at and we decided it would be great to do a road map of Financial Empowerment opportunities in San Francisco, kind of an asset mapping exercise so we know what do we have here and what are our gaps. So its an initial grant that allows us to look at those services, kind of identify what we need to do next and then hopefully go back for a bigger grant so that we can actually make some headway in providing Financial Services for folks with disabilities. Thats a really Exciting Partnership that were embarking on. I think unless there are questions, i think thats all i have for today. Thank you. I have a couple of observations, questions. I think the potentially increased funding for the Adult Protective Services is good news. I hope its realized, but it triggered another thought. How is the city implementing the increased conservatorship options for people who are severely troubled . Many of whom are on our sheets. The housing conservatorship bill passed, and the city is working very hard to get it in place to implement it. So, you know, it seems like it would be very simple to just enact that, but there are a number of steps that have to be taken when you change law. So it comes down sometimes to the forms that youre using. So the court has been involved in working on the forms. The City Attorney has to agree to the forms. The public defender has to agree to those forms. Our staff and the department of Public Health staff have worked really hard to come together to move this forward and its frustrating a little bit because the legal ease piece takes time. Were moving forward, and looking forward to being able to have our first test case really soon. Thank you. And then on the coronavirus, its wonderful that the city is being as proactive as it can. But im sure everyone is aware of the impact on tourism in the city of the canceled flights and foreign visitors and so forth as well as domestic travel. Has any assessment been made of the potential impact on the budget and our revenues from the coronavirus and what that may do to our department and their budget . I believe the mayors Budget Office and the Controllers Office are looking at that closely, certainly have mentioned it, and i know that they probably have gathered a lot of information already. I am not privy yet to what those projections are. Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the commission . Okay. Thank you very much. The next item is employee recognition. The Das Commission and executive director will honor from the public conservator. [ applause ] how are you doing . Youre popular. You have a huge following here today. So we just talked about conservatorship. Its a great segue much the public conservators office works with people who are unable to care for their own needs due to serious mental illness. One of the things that is true about them is they have so much skill, so many people skills. Right . They work with people who are very, very hard to serve, and ive talked to a lot of them. They actually have such good connections with the people they work with and they care very much about their clients. I know its really not easy its a work i would find hard to do. Im always really impressed with the work of social workers that we have in the public conservators office as well as the people who support them in the management. So its a great group of people. Its a really Diverse Group of people, and at the same time that they are doing the hard work theyre doing theyre on the same floor as i am. And so i get to see them enjoying each Others Company and really supporting each other, and they are really strong group. I think, you know, it takes that. When youre doing the hard work that youre doing and you come back and you can be joyful and laugh and have fun and eat together, thats what makes a really good strong group of social workers. I just want to thank all of you for the work that you do. Its a changing environment and theres a lot of pressure on the conservator to be the answer. Right . And so i just think that all of you have extreme grace under pressure, and i just want to thank you for what you do. Today were talking about mike in particular. Mike, not only not just one person wrote about you, but two people did. I get to read what two people wrote. Ive known mike since i came in to the public guardian. What of the things he did immediately is he wanted to become a licensed clinical social worker, and he worked really hard at it. He didnt just say, well, ill wait and think about it. He jumped right in, got the consultation, did the work he needed to do, and then moved over to the you can public conservator. But he was great when i was in the public guardian. All of his coworkers enjoyed working with him and felt supported by him, felt his professionalism and hes carried that into this job. So im going to talk about i wont call them out, but im going to youll see because im going to hand this to you. From one of your colleagues, why he should be the employee of the month. Im nominating mike because of his body of work over the past decade, working for the city, including time at the public guardian. In his current role, he has taken on a leadership role and not a critical source of stability and support to allful our coworkers. He takes difficult situations in stride, works to develop understanding and better communication within the office, and regularly supplies our Team Meetings with sugar to keep us going. [ laughter ] personally, ive appreciated hes willing to contain situations escalated by other providers and remain a firm defender of the role and values. Then from another colleague of yours, mike is a True Team Player who works to ensure that his clients and colleagues are succeeding. During a period of transition, mike has stepped up and provided leadership and guidance to the team all the while successfully managing a heavy workload. He exemplifies the das core of value and inclusion. Its noteworthy that despite many stressors, he remains calm while keeping the needs of our clients as a top priority. Hes passionate about protecting Vulnerable People and driven by the work he carries out. Mike is an excellent role model for others at das and he is absolutely deserving of the employee of the month recognition. [ applause ] congratulations on being employee of the month for march. I just want to say that this was very unexpected, and i just really do appreciate it and im very honored to be employee of the month. I also want to say a big thank you to the lps team. They are a very resilient, dedicated team, and im really happy to be working with them. I just want to say thank you to jill who has been a great leader and support as well as kerry, cassandra and jason. The work that we do is challenging. The impact is ever lasting. I just want to say thank you. Its very heartfelt. [ applause ] the next item is the A