Meeting. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda. Both channel 26 and sfg tv. Org are streaming the number across the 2013. Each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. Comments are available via phone by dialling 882045984, and once you are connected to that phone number, use access code which is 3501008. After entering the access code, you will be prompted to press the pound symbol. Then press it a second time. If you wish to add yourself to the queue to speak on a particular agenda item, dial 1 and 0 in order to be added to the queue to speak. You will be lined up in the system in the orreder in which you dial 1 and 0. While you are waiting, the system will be silent. The callin system will notify you when you are in line and waiting. All callers will remain on mute until the line is open for comment. Everyone must account for the time delays and speaking discrepancies we may encounter between live coverage and streaming. Best practices for callers are to call from a quiet location. Speak clearly and slowly. And turn down your television, your radio, or your streaming device. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in either of the following ways. You can email me, john carroll, the clerk of the government audit and oversight committee. My email address is john. Carroll sfgov. Org. Again, that is john. Carroll sfgov. Org. If you submit Public Comment via email, it will be included in the legislative file z a part of the matter and i will ensure that members of the committee receive the commune case. Written comment cans be sent to the Committee Via u. S. Post. You would address your letters to city hall, 1 dr. Carlton b. Goodlet place, room 244, San Francisco, california, 94102. Finally, items acted upon today will appear on the board of supervisors agenda on may 12, 2020, unless other wise stated. Mr. Chair . Thank you so much, mr. Clerk. Can you please call item number one . An ordinance amending the administrative code to close jail number 4 on the 7th floor of the hall of justice by november 2, 2020. To require the Sentencing Commission to establish the safety and justice subcommittee, to plan for the reduction of the citys daily jail population, and the closure of county jail number 4, and affirming the planning departments determination under the California Environmental quality act. Also, mr. Chair, i am in receipt of a memo from yours reing this ordinance be requesting this ordinance be heard as a Committee Report to be heard next week on may 5, 2020. Members of the public who wish to provide Public Comment on this ordinance should call the 8882045984 and enter the access code 3501008, press the pound symbol twice and 1 followed by 0 to enter the queue to speak. Mr. Chair . Thank you, mr. Clerk. Supervisor fewer, thank you so much for sponsoring this ordinance and bringing it forward. The floor is yours. Supervisor thank you very much, chair mar. And first of all, i want to thank president yee for waiving the 30day hold and to accommodate this meeting today. I want to recognize that each of the members of this committee is a cosponsor of the legislation. And i am appreciative of your support and collaboration. In particular, i want to acknowledge supervisor haney who called for the closure of county jail number 4. We have been tag teaming this issue for some time now. I than began exploring this issue as chair of the budget and finance committee. I was seeing lease after lease to move city departments and their staff out of the hall of justice. I asked about the plans for county jail no. 4 and then asked the city administrator and many others, and the answer i received, again and again, was that incarcerated people would have to be transferred out of county in alameda county. At this point in time, santa rita was in the move for the unprecedented death rate. 45 deaths in five years, and it was inconceivable to me that this would be our only option. I was presented as it was presented as an intractable problem and i refused to believe it. I met with the sheriff in september of last year as my office began to explore this and as we continued to meet with every Justice Agency multiple times over the course of several months. We watched the Violent Crime rate consistently decrease and watched the jail count consistently dip. In fact, it is at 696 today. This is truly a result of the work being done in the safety and justice challenge working group and each of its partners with the District Attorney office and Sheriffs Department and the Public Defenders Office and adult probation, superior court and the department of Public Health and pretrial diversion. To shows departments, thank you for your hard work. Today i held a Virtual Press conference with the District Attorney, public defender, Public Health professionals and formerly incarcerated people on the dangerous conditions at cj4 and why it needs to be closed as soon as possible. The legislation before you does three things. First, it requires the closure of county jail no. 4 in six months by november 1 of 2020. Second, it states in order to close the jail, we must reduce the population to no more than 90 capacity of the remaining jail facilities a goal that is stated by the safety and justice challenge working group. And interagency collaboration that was formed when the city received a grant along with more than 50 other localities to work towards a fairer and more effective Justice System. And third, a formerly recognizes this is an already existing working group and the existing structure and requires that the subcommittee consider multiple strategist and measures to meet the objective of reducing the population so we can safely close county jail no. 4. The subcommittee will be required to submit who reports to the board of supervisors. In august and in october with progress made and data points and policy recommendations. I realize there have been questions about the reduction of the jail population but i want to acknowledge a few things here. The month before covid19, we were at under 92 of the jail capacity for the remaining facilities. Literally only 20 beds away from meeting our goal of 9 0 or under. And for months the number has consistently been dropping. The numbers are dropping because of the hard work of our justice partners and also because Violent Crime rates are going down. Down 6 from last year precovid19. The people who are being held in cj4 include people like terry who is recently featured on a american podcast who is a 64yearold veteran who has been in jail for over a year with burglary charges. Member that 60 is there pretrial meaning they havent been convicted of a crime. Too many of the jail population are people awaiting treatment or transitional housing who really should be in other programs and facilities rather than being incarcerated. And finally, covid19 has forced us to expedite releases in ways and we should be evaluating and learning from as we plan for the closure of county jail no. 4. As of last friday, the jail population was 699, and as i mentioned today, it is 696. Almost 345 or more under the threshold needed to close the jail. Now with covid19t jails are implementing Public Safety measures to create physical distancing to the extent possible in this kind of congregate setting, but this is all incredibly hopeful for the ultimate and inevitable goal of closing this facility safely. All of that said, this legislation is going to be creating a mandate to close the facility that everyone agrees needs to be closed. Only on a more aggressive timeline, but it has been 24 years since the jail was deemed to be site unsafe and slated for demolition. And the conditions have only gotten worse. This mandate is long overdue. Administrator kelly wanted the jail closed by the end of 2019 and informed the sheriff to call the facility depressing, decrepit and an embarrassment. Every city leader agrees this Facility Needs to close, so lets do what needs to be done, permanently close county jail number four. Since january my office has been working closely with the sheriff to address issues with the legislation as well as reaching out to labor unions, my colleagues on the board, and i have worked hard on the amendments to address concerns that have arisen, and i am confident that we have been able to make this a thoughtful and responsible piece of legislation while still bold. Colleagues, i present to you a summary of the amendments i am sharing with you today that i hope you will accept. Changes inmate and offender to person first language and in alignment with prior board resolutions. Remove the deadline for meet and confer based on advice from the City Attorney. And upon request from the sheriff, adjust key language to acknowledge the legal authority. Upon the request of the sheriff, add language that expressly says the renovation of county jail number two is not prohibited. Upon request of the sheriff, direct the Sub Committee to develop plans in the event of the jail population spike above the 90 capacity once county jail no. 4 is closed. Upon request from the sheriff, direct the subcommittee to take measures to protect Public Health and prevent the spread of covid19 in the jails including building into the two required reports and an assessment of the impact of covid19 and related policy recommendations for physical distancing and temporary housing. This also includes a clause that speaks to the intent of the board of supervisors to prevent layoffs and job loss as it relates to the jail closure. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the hardworking staff at county jail number four. I realize legislation like this will trigger a meet and confer process, but i want to say on the record that i will do Everything Possible for those workers to retain that their jobs and i hope my cosponsors had the same commitment. Further more, the sheriff has told us he believes existing staff can be incorporated into existing organizational structure. With that, id like to acknowledge that we have some speakers that we have invited today. Sheriff niamoto, the District Attorney, and public defender to represent the meeting and share comments as they have been each engaged deeply with my office as we try to craft this legislation. We have dr. Lisa pratt from the jail health, and ken from the Deputy Service association and also in attendance to answer any questions. With that i have speaker sheriff paul niamoto, and the District Attorney and the public defender. Thank you, colleagues. Perhaps we can hear from the commissioner first. Sheriff . Hi. Good morning. I dont know if i have appeared on the video here yet. Can you see me . You are live. Awe thank you. We can certainly hear you. Okay. Thank you. Good morning to everyone, members of the committee. Members of the board who are present and also everybody here this morning. I appreciate the time and consideration given to some comments on my part regarding this legislation. I want to make it very clear for everybody that i support the closure of county jail 4 for housing of justice involved persons. I am very grateful to supervisor fewer and her staff for working with us on the changes and the edits that she referenced that will ensure we have flexible to accommodate the capacity needs we have should the population count change in elected months and as elected is our responsibility to remain thoughtful and measured plans and i truly appreciate the opportunity to make sure that this will be crafted as responsible legislation. As a sheriff, i have the duty to provide housing for justice involved to make sure that ensures a meeting the needs of the constitutional standards that are required. And to provide those constitutional standards, i am appreciative of the effort to alter the legislation language. I cant ignore the needs of the people who are just as involved that are incarcerated. Parameters are always changing including providing a safe Living Environment, not limited to the reduction of risk factors such as the potential for physical harm to otherses, not limited to some of the limitations we have in regard to medical risks, not just related to Infectious Disease but also some things that we have experienced historically at county jail 4 such as sewage spills. There is also litigation involving access to sunlight and other needs for those who are incarcerated. Needs that were not met by county jail 4, its structure, or content. I am very happy having worked with the department my entire career to have the opportunity to be a part of this change in closing county jail 4 as a facility we use z a referenced by supervisor fewer earlier. We all feel that it is not a humane it is an out of date structure which we have for years now worked on moving out of. Moving us forward in with respect with this legislation is something that we support and we continue to support. I reference the risk of Infectious Diseases in our congregate setting and i want to point out that weve always had that concern z. Now in light of a new concern with covid19, one of which our entire community has experienced the effects of, we require some changes in the way we do things. Such requirements such as physical distancing personing from each other. I do want to point out right no that as of time thanks to the efforts collectively of all the people referenced by supervisor fewer, our partners in the Justice System, we havent had a single outbreak of any justiceinvolved persons in our congregate Living Environment with a positive case of covid19. Weve had two instances where those coming into the testimony were tested positive and both were isolated and released under the protocols to prevent such an outbreak in our jails. Although we have had five Staff Members tested positive, they successfully quarantined and were kept separate from the population and did not result in any outbreaks. Its only possible for us to achieve this success with the reduction in the count as referenced by supervisor fewer as well as the flexibility in where we have people if their living housing arrangements in our system. Even at the historically low count that we have, cj4 has been utilized as a potential resource, and i appreciate the changes to the language where we have included the ability to be flexible in where and when we house people in the event there are changes in the population count, although we share the goal of keeping our count at the 90 capacity for two and five, we do recognize that such is the emergency created by covid19, there may be the need to house in a different type of medical setting. I want to thank supervisor fewer and her staff for helping to alter the language which is more minimal to meeting our needs there. I do want to point out at this time that there is some ongoing work that i believe and my staff believes still needs to be done in relation to the utilization of space to address the need for the construction of or the renovation of the kitchen at county jail two. Currently county jail four has the kitchen which is used to make sure that we have meals for not just county jail four but also county jail two and county jail one located at 850 brian and the hall of justice and 425 7th street. And that need while we are moving forward with construction plans on the cj2 renovation, we are concerned and want to make sure there are assurances that the language could not prohibit us from being able to keep the kitchen open at county jail four if the need arises and we were working on this a language and i know that we continue to work on these things, and i appreciate that. I do want to mention that our one advantage in regards to covid19 crisis and space and effectively distance people who are incarcerated and we are concerned because the november 1 date that we are trying to reach with the plans to move out of the jail are contingent on the belief we are going to move out in june of next year, but as i stated earlier, we are working with everyone to move out by november 1 and i think with the slight adjustment for the kitchen use and assurances that language will be in there that allow for us to take that into consideration if there is a problem or change in the conditions at cj2s construction project is not going to finish by november 1, i just want to make sure that we have language in there that is flexible for us to maintain the operation of the kitchen past the november 1 date. I actually feel, too, and this is not something that weve talked about with the supervisor, but i feel confident because weve already worked towards changing cj4 population and incorporating it into the rest of the population, i feel confident that we can move people out prior to november 1 date if there are no external factors that affect us in terms of the surge in a covid19 outbreak or pandemic in terms of an outbreak in the jail. While i am very proud of and very happy for the successes we have experienced in keeping it out of the jail, i am also to be prudent and have to plan for the worse Case Scenarios and in the event we have an outbreak, we need adequate spacing needs addressed for the population. In closing again, i want to mention that we are here to work and continue to work with everyone to ensure that we have the language necessary for that flexibility. I do know that there are some additional meetings coming up that we discussed this and i apologize right now for my lack of experience in the legislative process, but i do feel that i no ethat this is going to i do know that this is going before the committee for a vote today, and i know there is an interest in accelerating the timeline as evidenced by the waiver of some of the threeday things that supervisor fewer referenced for president yees assistance. I wanted to at this time just state that if we have an additional two weeks to work on the language or that addit