Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Special Govt Audits Committee 20240712

Supervisor mar thank you to this committees clerk, john carroll, and id also like to thank sfgtv for staffing this meeting. Mr. Clerk, do you have anything else . Clerk yes. Committee members will attend this meeting through Video Conference and participate in the meeting through the same extent as if they were physically present. Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda. Cable channel 26 are streaming Public Comment number across the screen. Your opportunity to speak during the meeting will be by calling 4084189388, and enter 1 1 1469339147. Press pound, and pound again. When you are connected, your microphone will be muted, and you will be in listening mode only. To enter Public Comment, press star and three to be entered into the queue. Your written comments may be sent via u. S. Postal service to our room at city hall, 100 carlton s. Goodlett, room 244, San Francisco, california, 94102. I believe youre muted, mr. Chair. Supervisor haney thank you, mr. Clerk. Will you please call item 1. Clerk yes. Resolution urging the city administrator to immediate nominate an interim county Veterans Service officer to safeguard the Public Health of the veterans in the city and county of San Francisco during the existence of a local emergency due to the ongoing spread of the Novel Coronavirus covid19. Mr. Chair . Supervisor haney before we begin, i do want to welcome supervisor stefani whos joined us for this item, and also note that susie smith from the Human Services agency is here with us and able to answer any questions. Supervisor haney, the floor is yours. Supervisor haney thank you, chair mar and members of the committee. Colleagues, today for your consideration is a resolution that i introduced last month, urging the city administrator to immediately nominate an interim county Veterans Service officer to safeguard the Public Health of the veterans in the city and county of San Francisco with covid19. Since i introduced this resolution, the city administrator has nominated someone for consideration, and i really want to thank supervisor stefani for her very vocal and steadfast leadership on the Veterans Service officer. She first raised it at the board of supervisors and has been taking the lead on making sure this happened, and [inaudible] supervisor haney someone is not on mute. Can everyone put themselves on mute . Thank you. So [inaudible] supervisor haney this is a concern that was brought to me from the Veterans Affairs commission, their leadership, and they have been also raising the alarms about a lack of support for veterans not just during this crisis but before it. We brought together a roundtable of leaders in the Veterans Community, swords to plowshares and other community leaders, to discuss what needs to be done and critical urgency of bringing forward a veterans resolution. The effect of this virus on military veterans has been especially hard. They are, many times, but not always older, and many reside in shelters, nursing homes, and places that have been breeding grounds for the virus. Many are essential workers that continue to serve our city as sheriffs deputies, hospital workers, and others, there are 12,000 veterans in San Francisco, many of them who reside on the streets. Many are black and brown people who struggle to get the services that they need. Many veterans are unsheltered or homeless, and in some cases, theyve been moved to a new facility, making it difficult to provide access to care for them in this new environment. And the v. A. , which many of them do rely on, may not have the same access for them. San francisco veterans do not have a central advocate to represent them and to coordinate services. The position of the county Veterans Services officer has been left vacant for over a year, including during this crisis, and the city needs a dedicated liaison to coordinate with state and federal services, local organizations, and local services. Many require Wraparound Services as well as going beyond basic intake and referral services. I just want to close by thanking the Veterans Affairs commission. I think this is a resource for our city when it comes to our veterans and their services, and i think there should be greater partnerships with a Veterans Services officer, a cvso, and making sure that tisy is brought to us in the last number of weeks and months. Thank you, supervisor stefani, for your leadership and continuing to push on this. And i think because of your work, as well as the Veterans Affairs commission, were seeing some progress in the appointment of or nomination of a Veterans Services officer. We have a petition of miles tucker from the Veterans Affairs Commission Speaking on behalf of the commission to explain the issues that our veterans are facing, and he will also complain why the position of the cvso is so critical, and their position on sort of how this process has gone and what their prospective is on the nomination and what it entails, and im sure perhaps supervisor stefani has comments, as well. Again, i just want to thank you for bringing this to our attention and your vocal leadership to get this done. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor haney, and also, also, supervisor stefani for your leadership on this position. Supervisor stefani, do you have any remarks . Supervisor stefani yes, thank you, chair mar. As ive mentioned several times, i am the daughter of a viet nam vet, a granddaughter of a world war ii veterans, and this is an issue that ive been working on quite sometime [inaudible] supervisor stefani so perhaps that can be part of this resolution. You know, i dont know where the miscommunication might have happened with regard to the Veterans Affairs commission because i was working with them, as well, on this position, so i think the need for a resolution is really moot at this point because of the work that we did prior to the introduction of your resolution, which i do appreciate. As i mentioned tuesday at roll call, this is a position that, because we called attention to it in a formal letter of inquiry, i worked with this city administrator, naomi kelley, and several others, to make sure that it was posted right away. Theyve already hired somebody who started june 29 is my understanding, the la understanding. The last process to make sure this thing goes through is a resolution to the board of supervisors, which will be heard on tuesday, so i think it will go through next week. I understand the urgency which i explain in your resolution, but again, like i said, i think it is moot at this point. In regards to Veterans Services, i think its something that needs to be done, and we need to continue to work on that. This is a process, and obviously, the hiring of this process is a process that we cannot interfere with us. I just want to, again, thank you for your attention to this very critical issue, all of the statistics that you mentioned about the veterans that suffered through this pandemic are all the more relevant and absolutely heartbreaking to me. I think we need to do much more for veterans and everything that touches on Veterans Issues. I have 108 units of Veterans Issues in the presidio. Ive worked with swords to plowshares, and we are working to improve that area, as well. Again, thank you for your attention. I think part of the resolution for calling for an interim director is moot at this point, but i think working on Wraparound Services for veterans for everything that theyve done for us and continue to do is important. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor stefani. Supervisor haney, did you have anything in response to supervisor stefanis comments or report . Supervisor haney no. Im looking forward to working with you on these larger services to veterans, and so definitely with that, you know, i think that the pieces of the equation that relates to the Veterans Services officer, i think it still remains relevant, but were moving this forward because of no small part of your leadership. The veterans and leaders who have brought this to us have not told me that they believe its moot. So i would defer to them, and i know we have someone here, as well, who may want to share some remarks on it. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor haney. Maybe we what is your interest on having miles tucker from the Veterans Affairs commission be before we get to Public Comment . Yeah. So mr. Tucker, would you be willing to share your remarks right now . Yes, chair mar, i would. Supervisor mar okay. Thank you. First of all, thank you, chair mar, supervisor haney, supervisor stefani, and supervisor peskin. My name is miles tucker, and impart of the Veterans Commission. I know our chair would have liked to address the board, but he was unavailable today, and he sends his regrets. The Veterans Affairs commission has a concern due to the handling of the Veterans Community services officer. The position had been vacant since may 1, 2019, and while the agency had named an interim supervisor, we did not appoint an interim cvso. Given the understanding of the Veterans Commission that this person was not a veteran, then this would possibly have run in contrast to the state statute stating that the cvso must be a veteran. In addition, in order to receive funding, the cvso must be filled. Were grateful for the services of supervisor stefani and haney to expedite this hiring. However, that process did not start until may of this past year. While were very, very grateful in working with the city administrator to allow this hiring during the covid pandemic, 12 months out a leader for our veterans coordinating services is, in our view, unacceptable and unavoidable, and we believe this was due to just lack of oversight. And on a similar note, while we do understand, as supervisor stefani, again, helped to expedite the hiring of a cvso, the commission did not really know who this person is, and we understand in the draft going up to the board now, there is no supporting resume listing this persons qualification, which is contrary to the last nomination of a cvso. Its the lack of transparency that sort of fits into this narrative over this position. As supervisor haney has mentioned, the commission has brought up this concern and proposed a possible ordinance that would work in coordination with cvso to involve the cvs excuse me. The v. A. C. Would work to help facilitate oversight of the cvso position through to the planning process similar to how the commission has a role in hiring the director. This falls in line with that intent, we believe. The v. A. C. Is composed of a group of veterans from different backgrounds, different Armed Services experiences. Wed like to be a part of this solution, and we thank supervisor haney for his proposal. Now to pivot to covid19, covid19 has had San Franciscos 27,000plus veterans especially hard, including our 600 veterans who are currently experiencing homelessness. We are unaware of spread due to a lack of access to care. We understand theres over 100 h. U. D. Bash vouchers. Part of the c. V. S. Role is to active seek out veterans to use these vouchers, and again, to have this position vacant during the last 12 months and during the pandemic, to the commission, is very unacceptable. The cvso, with covid19, this has made an already democratic system more challenging to navigate. Id just like to reiterate this commission doesnt believe this situation would have been in place if the leadership position lierg had been carried out. The v. A. C. Is requesting that this committee recommend to the board of supervisors to pass the current resolution to nominate a cvso, to name a permanent hire, and to grant oversight of this position to the Veterans Commission and certain rules, and to have any nominee for the cvso, to include the current nominee, if changes to oversight are not in place, to be subject to a rules Committee Hearing if not brought to a hearing before the full board of supervisors. Id like to thank you for your time today. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor haney . Supervisor haney yes. Mr. Tucker, as ive said, im committed to working with you to make sure we really strengthen the Critical Role of the Veterans Commission. What i wanted to ask you as it related to the potential interim or to the interim cvso, was the Veterans Affairs commission consulted in any way . Did you all know that there was obviously, there was an application that went out, and a process. Were you all involved at all in the selection of the individual who was nominated . Supervisor haney, no. We saw his name in the draft resolution and saw no supporting documents or this persons resume. While we think this person is a fully qualified, outstanding person, there was simply no way for us to qualify or verify this person is. Supervisor haney and i heard they had started their job, it sounded like, from supervisor stefani, on monday. Have you or any of your fellow commissioners heard from them since theyve been in their role . Through the chair, supervisor haney, no, we have not. Supervisor haney okay. I realize this isnt a hearing on the nomination of the interim cvso, but i think that seems to me to be unusual and problematic and underscores the need for this commission to be much more involved in these sort of decisions in the future. And obviously, the necessity of this resolution. I hope the person whos put forward is fantastic and does his job incredibly well. I also hope that they are closely in touch with our veteran leaders and most importantly our Veterans Affairs commission. Supervisor stefani . Supervisor stefani thank you, chair mar. Let me be very clear. The Vice President of the Veterans Affairs commission contacted me about this way back in april, and i immediately started to work on this. I went through the process to inquire with our city administrator, to inquire with our Human Resources agency, and get this process going. I was a Department Head for two years with the county clerk, and i understand the process. I think we would benefit from hearing from susie smith about how the hiring process actually occurs, and whether the Veterans Commission had any oversight. As i mentioned before, as supervisors, we cannot interfere with the hiring process. We know that there is a hiring process that is very well set out. It was posted on may 11, and that was a post that was open to the public. The Veterans Commission was very well aware. They could have had people that they know to apply for it, and im just very confused as to where the breakdown in communication was in terms of me putting forth a process that was brought to me and concerns brought to me by the commission president. And then, it seems, at some point, that same concern was communicated to supervisor haney while the process was already underway. Now whether or not the Veterans Affairs commission wanted to weighin, and of course, their opinions and their expertise is very valued, and we will have a hearing at the rules committee on the resolution ive introduced on this person who has been selected through our hiring process. So i would like to have miss smith weighin on that, and perhaps the deputy City Attorney ann pearson, to weighin on what was or was not followed in that position. So id like to, miss smith, explain the process. Well, i appreciate the reference to your experience in terms of Civil Service hiring. Sometimes it can take longer than we all would hope. So this, the position, people were encouraged to apply through may 25. We had it was an open process, so any candidate that the Veterans Commission was interested in putting forth, we would hope that they would encourage that. In terms of the commissions part in the hiring process, as a Civil Servant position, im not sure they could fully be involved, although we could look at having them on a panel in the future in terms of moving forward. I feel that would make a lot of sense, but they could put forward candidates that they felt were qualified, and wed provide the resume of the candidate who had been selected. In terms of the work thats been happening during the vacancy, i just want the supervisors to know that the work has been ongoing. Weve had a manager. We couldnt put that manager forward as the veterans county services officer. Shes not a veterans herself, but she has had years of experience working with Veterans Services, so the part about advocacy and getting veterans to their services and connection to the larger safety net, its been there. We couldnt put her name forward because she wasnt a veteran, but the work hasnt stopped because we didnt have a Veterans Community service officer. Supervisor haney thank you. I didnt think that the work has stopped, but i think in the future, we should integrate the commission into more of the process, whether thats giving them a bigger role or making them part of a panel. I would say that i dont think that anybody thinks that this is sort of an ideal situation how the process was done, considering how long the position was left vacant. I think were talking about moving it and helping our voluntarily leaders on this commission in terms of their experience and expertise and not suggesting anything inappropriate in how this person was nominated, although we do have some questions as this ultimately goes to the board of supervisors, and hopefully this person reaches out soon to ensure that theyre all on the same page here. Supervisor mar supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. I have been around long enough to see. I understand that this is a Civil Service hire, but i understand what miss smith says and has been referenced by supervisor stefani and haney, the normal protocol, which is a member of the commission or a former member of the commission or somebody from the community is on the panel. I was selected, as a supervisor to be on the panel for the new budget and legislative analyst on the board of supervisors. So there clearly is a communication breakdown here, an inclusivity breakdown here. Unfortunately, the head of the commission isnt here. Certain members of the commission sent messages to one member of the board of supervisors, and other members of the commission sent messages to another member of the board of supervisors. But having said that, transparency, and having this position which is not within the purview of the board to hire or fire or the commission to hire or fire would just make this process for our Veterans Community much better and much more inclusive. Im not sure how we resolve this due to the instruments that are in front of us today and will be in front of the whole board due to the efforts of supervisor stefani. It would be great to see if supervisor stefani and supervisor haney could come together. Im trying to see if i see something that could do that, but i just dont see it. Supervisor mar supervisor haney . Supervisor haney i just just in terms of what youre saying there, supervisor peskin, that this was somehow factions of the Veterans Affairs commission, that was not my goal of it. We want the Veterans Commission so be involved. We want their leadership, and we want the services for the veterans. I dont think we have any conflict, we just all want to get this done. Supervisor peskin right on. Supervisor mar okay. Any further comment from anyone before we go to Public Comment on this item . Mr. Clerk, are there any callers on the line . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Operations is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. For those who have connected to our meeting via phone, please press star and three to enter the queue if you wish to speak on this item. For those already in the queue, please wait for the beep to be prompted to speak. If you wish to speak on this item, please call in by following the instructions on your screen. Dial 4084189388. Enter the meeting i. D. 1460991339. President the pound key twice and then starthree to enter the queue to speak. Mr. Qu, do we have any callers on the line. Operator there are no callers on the line for item number 1. Supervisor mar thank you, mr. Clerk and operations. Hearing no callers on the line, Public Comment is closed. Thanks again, supervisor haney and supervisor stefani for all of your leadership and work on these important issues. Supervisor haney, do you want to make a motion . Supervisor haney yeah. Id like to move to send this to the full board with a positive recommendation. Supervisor mar supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin at this speak to the motion, and maybe this is not particularly important because the resolution expresses a sentiment. Do we really want to urge the nomination of a temporary officer if a permanent officer has been selected . I mean, should we take out the work interim, through the chair, to supervisor haney . Supervisor haney yes, that is a fair point, and i supervisor peskin i mean, do we want to include a whereas an individual has been selected and take out the interim. Supervisor haney yes. Supervisor peskin page 3, at line 15. And indeed, this has already happened. The county Services Manager has already nominated a county services officer, right . Supervisor haney yes. Supervisor peskin so i dont know we need to instruct the city manager to do something she has already done. Supervisor stefani that was my point in the beginning. Supervisor peskin to maybe that first resolve is no longer necessary, and it sounds like the national search, identify, and recruit has happened, and the third one is, i think, still relevant [inaudible] supervisor haney the third one is still relevant because we need to still find that person. Basically, were talking about the first resolved . Supervisor peskin yeah. I think the first resolved is now superfluous, and the second is maybe kind of superfluous, too. Supervisor haney supervisor peskin, the fourth resolve. Supervisor peskin ill just do line numbers. I think the resolve starting at line 14 is superfluous, the resolve starting at line 18 is superfluous. All the other ones are still relevant. Supervisor haney all right. Why dont we strike lines 14 through 20, and then, we need to have the title of the resolution reflect that. Clerk so the title my policies for interrupting. If we remove the first two resolve clauses that are on page 3, that would change the function of the resolution to being a resolution that provides the Veterans Commission with much more so that is the resolution beginning at line 21 and below. And you would want to strike lines 14 through 20 on page 3. Supervisor peskin yes. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisors peskin and haney, for those amendments. Supervisor stefani, do those amendments make sense to you . Supervisor stefani yes, they do, and i look forward to working on this together Going Forward. Supervisor haney yeah, thanks. Same. Supervisor mar so i would just move that we amend that we accept the legislation as discussed. Clerk would you like me to take a roll call on the motion to amend . And i have the motion to amend as being offered by supervisor haney. Supervisor mar okay. Please call roll on that. Clerk on the motion to amend lines 14 through 20 and make conforming changes to the course of the resolution offered by supervisor haney [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thank you, mr. Clerk. Can you please call roll on the motion to recommend the item as amended to the full board . Clerk okay. We have a mover for that . Supervisor haney ill move that we send this to the full board. Clerk as amended . Supervisor haney as amended. Clerk on the motion by member haney to recommend as amended [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar great. Thank you, mr. Clerk asupervis and everyone. Mr. Clerk, please call item 2. Clerk item 2 is an ordinance amending the administrative code to prohibit the city from entering into an agreement to provide goods or services to incarcerated persons of a jail facility that allows the city to collect some or all of the revenue paid for these goods or services. Members of the public who wish to call in to provide Public Comment, call had 084189388. Enter the meeting i. D. , 1460 91339, followed by pound, and pound again to enter the meeting. Press star and three to enter the queue. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor fewer, the floor is yours. Supervisor fewer thank you. I want to thank mayor london breed and former sheriff Vickie Hennessy for leading on this effort a year ago and want to thank the Treasurers Office financial project and Jail Justice Coalition for their advocacy. Thanks to their leadership, these reforms were reflected in the city budget. One year later, i am taking this one step forward and make this a permanent part of our budget. [inaudible] supervisor fewer in the midst of our Current Health and economic crisis. Prior to this reform, if a person incarcerated in San Francisco jail made two 15minute phone calls a day, it would typically cost 300 over 70 days or 1500 over the course of a year. Items in the jail commissary such as soap, coffee, and food items were marked up 48 to generate revenue for the jails. In total, we were extracting 1. 7 million from families and loved ones of incarcerated people each year. Its important this is enacted now. As we know, the city is facing a dramatic budget deficit. Lowincome people and communities of color face this also. We want to ensure we never again return to this practice of generating revenue for incarcerated people and their families. We do not want to repeat some mistakes of the past, even if we are tempted to do so during tough budget times. We also do not want to reduce the funding commitment made to this cheap programming in the jails. These include violence prevention, Parenting Classes, Substance Abuse recovery and more are vital in supporting incarcerated people in their time of need. We need to do whatever we can to provide support, not hit them with higher prices. The Treasurers Office financial Justice Project commitmented that 80 of jail estimated that 80 of jail phone calls and commissary were paid for by incarcerated peoples loved ones, lowincome people and people of color. We cannot ask them to bear the burden of filling our budget gap. And third, as our jails explore offering other Communications Service like video calls and tablets, ipads to incarcerated people, we want to make sure that these services apply to services so they can operate. Typically, they provide these services to incarcerated people by charging high prices. We want to make sure these services are provided for free or at the lowest cost possible for incarcerated people and their families. I want to applaud sheriff miyamoto and their office for their partnership on this issue and mayor breed for championing this issue, and thanks to the officer of the treasurer and Tax Collector and the San Francisco Justice Coalition for collaborating with my office and the sheriffs office. This should be the norm, and this legislation will help pave the way for other municipalities to follow suit. [inaudible] supervisor fewer the first is to add language to the finding, on page 3, lines 7 through 16, i would like to add the following language to address that we do not want to jeopardize the budget for funding the program previously generated on the backs of incarcerated people. [inaudible] supervisor fewer prison or leader services, Substance Use programs, contracts with Community Based organizations to provide Parenting Classes and violence prevention programs and programs staffed to coordinate jail programming. When this policy change was implemented in 2019, it was done so with a commitment that funding for programming for incarcerated people would not be reduced. Instead, it was the intent that San Francisco, the city and county, would provide the funding and would not rely on people in the incarceration system to do so. On page 4, lines 9 through 15, i would like to strike the language regarding, if the services are Available Online as the sheriff is committed to sharing this information with stakeholders. Id like to turn th we have several people available for comments and questions. So if we could have ann from the treasurer and Tax Collector financial Justice Project speak first. Thank you. Yes, hi. Thank you, supervisor fewer, chairman mar, and supervisors for having me here today. My name is ann, and i direct the San Francisco financial Justice Project. Can you call hear me . Clerk yes, we can hear you. Supervisor mar yes. Thank you. You know, the financial Justice Project, its our job to work with others across the city, county, and courts to reform fines, fees, and financial penalties that can have an adverse effect on lowincome people and people of color. As supervisor fewer said, we would be the first county in the nation to commit to never again generating jail revenue for Services Provided to incarcerated people and their families. Id like to make a few quick points about why this legislation and this ordinance is important. As the supervisor said, charging exorbitant fees to incarcerated people and their families whether its for jail phone calls, commissary goods, or ipads is common in almost every jail across the country. But things like Reentry Services should not depend on fining incarcerated people above and beyond their sentences or on gouging their families. Secondly, these practices strip money from incarcerated people and their family who are disproportionately African American and people of color. Most often, the people paying these costs are women of color and women of color with lowincome. When we drain the Bank Accounts of incarcerated peoples families, were punishing them for staying in touch with their laughed ones, and this should be celebrated and not penalized. For lifting this burden off of incarcerated people and their families is a good investment. We make it easier, not harder, for families to stay in touch with their incarcerated family members and loved ones. Yes, the way we were doing things previously generated a small amount of revenue, but it has adverse effects when we financially strain or cut people off from their families. The services that were previously funded by high prices for phone call and commissary items are really important services, and the funding for them should be maintained. The only problems with the way these services were funded, not with the services themselves. And lastly, passing this ordinance is would have a big impact beyond frisk. Were getting calls from across the country about how and why we did it. San mateo Just Announced it was lowering its commissary prices to match San Francisco after a person there asked why items why their jail store were more expensive than in San Francisco, and state senator Holly Mitchell has put forth sb 555 to lift this burden off incarcerated people and their families. Lastly, so many people came together to put this forward. So Many Community members came forward and shared their experience and talked about the impact of these practices their lives and shaped this ordinance. This is not easy for people to do, and i want to thank them for that. The San Francisco sheriff and his team have been committed to this every step of the way and very open to dialogue with formerly incarcerated people and their families. Theyve hosted Community Meetings to listen to people, as well, and thank you, supervisor fewer and supervisor walton for your leadership and championing this issue. Thank you very much. Supervisor fewer thank you. And could we have the public defender. Thank you, supervisor fewer, so much. Thank you, supervisors, and thank you, supervisor fewer, for leading on this legislation. And i also want to thank supervisor walton for his cosponsorship. My office, in particular, jennica and carolyn, has bee n engaged in this process from the beginning, and we are thrilled that this is moving forward today. As public defenders, we see firsthand how markups of phone calls and commissary items are a financial burden on families who are already desperately struggling to make ends meet. These costs weigh heavily on black and brown communities, especially women. I met with a friend last night who was telling me that the ramen was at least four times what it cost in the store, and since dinner was at 4 00, he had no choice but to purchase it. We know that increased communication between incarcerated people and their loved ones in jail decreases jail incidents and the commissary provides a way for people to purchase basic necessities, like food and basic hygiene products, both critical for people to maintain as much dignity as possible until we can get them home again. This has become even more important during the pandemic, when many people inside and outside of incarcerated settings are afraid of preparing food prepared by other food. Request the people over profits ordinance, we can ensure that both phone calls and commissary are available to loved ones and incarcerated people in San Francisco. San francisco is, again, leading the way on the potential consequences of criminal legal system contact. This legislation provides a model for other cities and counties nationwide to follow, to put people over profits, and i want to thank supervisor fewer for taking this step to ensure the city will not be allowed to profit avenoff thos our jails and our loved ones ever again. Thank you for allowing us to speak to you today, and i urge you all to vote in favor. Supervisor fewer thank you very much. Now, could we have valentino from Young Community developers . Perhaps we should then now pivot to the sheriff, paul miam miyamoto. Hi. Thank you, supervisor fewer, and everyone. Good morning. I cant add to everything that was already said, other than this was a long time coming. This legislation is a recognition that the city has in partnering with us to make sure that we can do this in a way that we continue the services, the programs, and the many other things that we do with our inmate welfare fund, which is mandated for us to maintain. Having a commitment from the city to ensure that we set out the funds to have these accomplished is important to us and to me specifically as a sheriff because we have a longstanding relationship in working with you first. Ive gotten inquiries from other jurisdictions and sheriffs offices in how were doing it. And as this is repeated throughout the county and the state, hopefully, thisll be repeated in the nation as a whole. Ann mentioned, you know, that she is she has provided us with the focus. And by highlighting what were really doing here and accomplishing, i believe, public defender even mentioned, in terms of clarification and communication to the community for those that are in our jail system, incarcerated, is extremely important from a Public Safety aspect in keeping people in our community safe, and that communication is key. As mentioned earlier, we are trying to provide for tablets, to put a tablet in the hand of everybody whos incarcerated, and the major component for that is to make sure that theres communication, not just for programs and services, but their loved ones, and Community Support networks, as well. This is all tied into the Bigger Picture of making sure we support those in need. I am happy to be a part of the leadership here. Im happy and grateful for the commitment from the city to ensure that we continue to have that funding and that revenue being replaced with the budgetary commitment to continue these programs and services. I just want to say thank you to everybody for this, especially in those times of global uncertainty, with everything going on, were committed to finding ways to impact people and through the community to making sure we support everyone in need. Supervisor fewer thank you very much for joining us, and thank you, sheriff, for your collaboration. With that, char, i think we are ready for questions and comments and Public Comments. Thank you. Supervisor mar thank you so much, supervisor fewer, for your leadership on this important issue. Before we go to Public Comment, colleagues, do you have any questions or comments . Yep, seeing none, why dont we go to Public Comment. Mr. Clerk, are there any callers on the line . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Operations, are there any callers in the queue . For those already connected to our meeting, please press star and three if you wish to be connected to the queue for this item. For those already in the queue, please wait to be prompted to begin. For those watching our meeting on cable channel 26 or via streaming or through sfgtv. Org if you wish to speak on this item, please call in by following the instructions on your screen. Dial 4084189388. Enter the meeting i. D. 1460991337. Please press the pound symbol twice, then press starthree to enter the queue to speak. Mr. Qu, do we have callers on the line . Operator yes, we have three callers. Clerk welcome, caller. Hello. My name is Paul Connelly bryley. Im with all of us or none, and i want to thank you all for this effort. Im also from San Francisco. This touches me to my heart. This addresses so many issues, and to make phone calls free, that was one thing, because to even get people to put money on your books, you have to be able to make the phone call itself. We all know that this is rise from plantations, and i would think the rise of black people from share people and incarceration, id just like to thank everybody who moved this forward. Clerk thank you, mr. Bryley, for your comments. Mr. Qu, can we get the next caller. [inaudible] can you hear me . Clerk we can hear you. Good morning thank you, thank you. Good morning, supervisors. I am a Program Manager at Young Community developers and a member of the San Francisco Jail Justice Coalition, and i wanted to voice my support for the people over profits ordinance. [inaudible] they often struggle to stay in touch with their loved ones even despite the hassle and high cost of jail phone calls. The higher the price of each call or commissary item, the more difficult it is for incarcerated people to stay in touch with their support, so they rely on any civilian contact with for a variety of reasons, but mostly to develop a plan thatll help them transition back into the community successfully and reduce rescidivism. Its important to recognize that when an incarcerated person has some support, it is typically from other family members who are most often black and brown, lowincome people, like me, who have to take on the responsibility of putting money on the persons accounts to maintain any form of contact they can. I have been deeply affected by this over the last couple of decades. Most family members will still sacrifice some basic needs or choose between paying rent or groceries to meet these needs. Especially during the pandemic, these calls are critical timelines [inaudible] clerk thank you very much for your comments. Mr. Qu, could we get the next speaker, please. Hi. [inaudible] clerk we can hear you. Hi. My names javier, and im a Community Organizer with Community Housing partnership, which is a Supportive Housing provider, and also a member of the Jail Justice Coalition. I want to start by thanking supervisor fewer for leading on this legislation and to the financial Justice Project for their tireless work on behalf of justice for lowincome communities. And i also am in full support of this legislation and want to note, in the last few years, San Francisco has been leading the charge to eliminate unfair fees against against lowincome folks, and to also note that a couple of years ago, we passed legislation to get rid of 33 million in criminal justice debt. And so were leading the charge and inspiring other cities and municipalities to stop making money off of the lowest income people in their constituency. And also, as a Supportive Housing provider of the people in our building get the little money that they have eaten away by these kinds of things if theyre inflicted by the criminal justice system, so i want to applaud this legislation, and im excited that the city is taking seriously the resolution passed two years ago which really treated incarceration as a Public Health issue and not as a means to make money off of the backs of the lowest income communities. So thank you, and i want to urge you to vote yes on this led legislation. Clerk thank you very much for your comments. Mr. Qu, could you send in our next caller, please. Thank you, supervisors. My name is [inaudible] hello . Hello. This is roma guys from taxpayers for Public Safety, and i want to i want to support we want to support this ordinance at every level, and most importantly, at the level of those who will implement it in the sheriffs office. This is a landmark, and its already been noted by our leader, supervisor fewer, and the coalition. So we agree that prices shouldnt be based on the poorest and it has a thoroughly racist implication, which were trying to change in our community. So thank you, and just lets move on and see where we can get with this. Really appreciate the leadership. Clerk thank you for your comments, miss guy. Mr. Qu, could we get the next speaker, please. [inaudible] im a 40year resident of San Francisco, and i have found myself incarcerated three different times over the years, and i found that the biggest concern over the years is staying in contact with my loved ones through letters and phone calls, so im really pleased with the effort that youre making in making that not a burden anymore. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you very much for your comments. Mr. Qu, do we have any further callers for this item . Operator that completes the queue. Clerk thank you. Supervisor mar well, thank you, operations and mr. Clerk. Hearing no further Public Comments, Public Comment is closed. I just wanted to thank, once again, supervisors fewer and walton, and all the Community Advocates for Justice Reform for your work on this. This really important measure is long overdue and unjust fees and charges on individuals incarcerated in our jails. Especially now in this historic moment of reckoning over systemic racism in Law Enforcement and criminal justice, its incredibly important that we move this forward now, and its exciting to know that this is going to lead to similar efforts in other cities and counties around the country, so thanks again, all of you, for your work on this, and i would like to be added as a cosponsor on this. Colleagues, do you have any supervisor fewer . Supervisor fewer thank you, chair mar. I will defer to Committee Members first before i end with closing comments and ask for your approval of the proposed amendments. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor haney . Supervisor haney thank you. I also, supervisor fewer, want to thank you for your leadership. Its so amazing to see consensus from the mayor, the sheriffs, the public defender, on this incredible issue. Folks have been raising this issue for years, for decades, in terms of the huge burden that it places on incarcerated individuals and their families in challenges that make it harder for them to stay connected and get on their feet when they come out of incarceration, so its obviously something that is racially cre racially discriminatory, as well, and has an impact on certain races in San Francisco. Im happy that we are ensuring that this is a policy of our city, so thank you, supervisor fewer, and i would also like to be added as a cosponsor. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. Let me associate myself with the words of the chair person and supervisor haney and saying in the interest of time, i, too, would like to affix my name to this legislation as a cosponsor and share my thanks for pushing this legislation. This is really great work. Thank you. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor peskin. So id like to move that we incorporate these amendments presented by supervisor fewer. Mr. Clerk, can you please call roll. Clerk on the motion to amend offered by chair mar [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thank you, mr. Clerk. And id like to move that we recommend this to the full board with a positive recommendation. Clerk on the motion to recomme move this to the full board with a positive recommendation [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thanks, again, for all of your work on this. Mr. Clerk, please call item number 3. Clerk agenda item number 3 is a resolution urging city departments to ensure that all clients brought into the covid19 response system be placed into shelter or housing post emergency, requesting a comprehensive plan to prevent shelter in place Hotel Clients from being discharged to the streets, and urging transparency in hotel referral and griefance policy. Members of the public who wish to comment publicly on this item should call 4084189388, enter the meeting i. D. , 1460991338, and press pound, and pound again. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor haney, do you have any comments . Supervisor haney yes. Focus investments have helped to curve the spread of covid19 and provide temporary housing for over 1800 people experiencing homelessness in hotels and hundreds more in safe sleeping sites and r. V. S. This is clearly still ongoing. There is a lot of work left to do to get Vulnerable People off the streets and into the hotels as the covid emergency continues. We also have to plan ahead, and it will take all of us thinking about, right now, the next step building off of these investments in temporary housing to keep everyone housed. The resolution cosponsored by supervisor walton calls for a [inaudible] Homeless Housing plan, and a clear, unequivoca requirement that those being housed outdoors are brought in to shelter. There was a block on eddy and taylor that, for months and months and months was full of People Living humanely on our sidewalks. 44 people were brought off of those sidewalks and placed in hotels just yesterday. And what everyone in the community is asking is how are we going to make sure that this doesnt go back to the way it was, and how are we going to make sure that this is permanent for them, and they have longterm hows we have longterm housing for them . As groups work to put forward a plan, i look forward to having a more robust conversation about how we leverage acquiring hotels and transitioning them into permanent Supportive Housing, filling vacancy in the citys current stock of Supportive Housing and rapid rehousing, flexible housing subsidies, new housing, and other placements. This resolution urges other critical priorities, as well. One that h. S. H. And h. S. A. Apply the shelter grievance policy to shelter in place hotels. This city has a longstanding shelter grievance policy and should be extended to the shelter in place hotels since we are extending this for an indefinite period of time. The current process relies on the h. S. A. And then the controllers Whistleblower Program as request for clients rather than the long established process that is familiar to shelter clients. I hope that h. S. A. And h. S. H. Can work with the shelter client advocates, the shelter in place providers, hotel providers, and Shelter Monitoring Committee which should resume meetings immediately to create more due process. Secondly, h. S. H. And h. S. A. Should refine a communitybased referral model. Intake referral has remained largely nontransparent with the exception of one small hotel. Service providers are able to refer covid positive or people under investigation of covid19 to isolation and quarantine, but given how critical these shelter in place rooms are, it is essential for this Health Intervention to be provided for in a way thats more transparent and clear for people to access. Lastly, we want to request that h. S. H. Conduct a coordinated entry assessment and enter into one system every client in a shelter in place hotel, r. V. , or congregant sites. Its my understanding that many people have not been surveyed for shelter in place housing, a critical step in helping them end their homelessness. This is a conversation how we build off the immense investments over the last couple of months and ensure that anyone in the Covid Response system is released to the streets, and Behavioral Health options Like Mental Health treatment, addiction treatment, are integrated into future system planning. I know that emily cohen from the department of homelessness is here to answer some questions, and i would love any remarks to address the status of issues raised in the resolution, in particular, the grievance policy, coordinated entry assessments, and any updates on planning. Thank you. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor haney. Miss cohen . Hi, good morning, supervisor mar. Thank you for having me. I dont currently im not set up as a presenter, so i cant share my screen, but im happy to set up some slides if anyone can help me thank you. Clerk we can see your slides, if you can put them as a presenter. There you go. My slides are to discuss the advancing Planning Working Group that supervisor walton shared with director stewart khan, and happy to discuss that as a framework for advancing many of the goals of this resolution. Im also happy to answer questions about the specific things that supervisor haney just raised in terms of the response system. And before i start, i just want to say that h. S. H. Shares many of these agencies goals. Were very glad to be able to expand the holistic response system so rapidly in response to covid while keeping numbers relatively under control, keeping our clientele as safe as possible, and really wanting to utilize this crisis moment as an opportunity to improve our homeless response system across the board. That includes expansion of housing, expansion of opportunities for people experiencing homelessness. We also need to keep in mind that capacity has remain unchanged for a long time, given covid and the way to do shelter in place, and that limits our resources, so weve become very dependent on hotels, but we certainly share the commitment to ensuring that people experiencing homelessness have as much access to housing and Shelter Resources as possible, and i know that the working group does, as well. So just a very high level overview of the goals of the working group to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness and mitigate the impacts of homelessness. And to ensure that the Covid Response system is remobilized so that no one exits reentering homelessness. We share the burden, and i think those requirements are articulated in this ordinance, and that option is central to the work of the advanced planning group. In terms of scope, the working group is largely focused on developing system models for the next phase of people experiencing homelessness, and as supervisor haney said, this is the beginning of a conversation. In many ways, were early in the process. Weve had four meetings of this working group, and i have plans for more working groups and more topics, and ill share those, but yes, were looking forward to coming back and sharing the recommendations coming out of the working group. Housing and shelter are at the core as well as expansion. How do we pay for an expanded system . How do we pay for an expanded shelter system and keep people as safe as possible, and of course, how do we incorporate Mental Health treatment as part of a homeless system response . It was an important part of our treatment before covid, and its certainly exacerbated, but it its remained central to our work with the department of Public Health. This is a list of those on the working group. Its a diverse list of city and Community Members with critical project staffing from the Controllers Office. Theres discussion about planning and discussion of the scope of this group. And i just want the supervisors and the public to be aware of the topics being discussed. We have had the first four meetings. [inaudible] and i wanted to tell the public that there will be working Group Meetings held throughout july so that people and the public can give their input into the working group issues. So in addition to Public Comment in this group, there will be other opportunities to engage as we tackle many of the topics that are raised in this resolution and are already outlined in the work plan for the working group. And so i can take questions. There are some specific ones from the resolution itself that supervisor haney already spoke to. Supervisor mar supervisor haney . Supervisor haney yes. So, you know, i know that there are some longterm you know, and i do think that Something Like a more, you know, clear and systemic approach and strategy as it relates to a post pandemic plan is in part something thats being done by this committee, to understanding what that process is is really important, and im sure well have a hearing on this at some point. I did just want to zero in on a couple of these specific policies and get a status update on them, and i kind of mentioned in there at the end, but i wanted to go, i guess, through each one. One is the shelter grievance policy thats in place in shelterinplace hotels. We have a very articulated process to shelter grievance and kind of the resource and accountability that clients at these hotels have or sorry, at our shelters have, and many of these people are those at the shelters and nav centers and now in hotels, and the grievance and accessibility that they have arent the same, particularly as were looking at the longterm role of shelterinplace hotels. What are the types of advocacy and ways for clients to bring up issues, particularly as it relates to the Shelter Monitoring Committee . Yes, and i have a couple of slides that i can use to address that question. [please stand by] when and where its stefani to reinstate somebody. This is for the congregate facilities than the hotels. Its critically important. Additionally, the existing covid procedure is very resourceintensive from a staffing side, from both the advocate sight, as well as from the shelter staff. So in an emergency, we moved forward with an alternative model that we think provides the clients with good recourse, very clear direction and response to some of their needs. So the first is the complaint procedure, which is a threetiered approach, allows clients to first direct their complaints in verbally or in writing to the site manager. Then get escalated to the h. S. A. Doc which sees the hotels and partnership with h. S. H. Excuse me, the department of homelessness is part of that document. We have a coordinator who fields these and responds. And the vast majority of the time we can handle these at that level. And we work directly with the client or the site to address the complaint. And a complaint can be from i dont like the food to poor treatment. And so we do get a why the variety of things come through. If something needs to be escalated further, we rely on the citys Whistleblower Program to escalate and run that through a prompt and thorough investigation through the city into the complaint. In addition to the complaint process, we have an emergency exit. Im sorry, emergency housing immediate exit policy. And this has been implemented across the hotels. And i want to also use this opportunity to let folks know that let the supervisors know that we have pretty significantly changed the reasons why people can be exited. As you might know, in the shelter system, you can get warning, if you get a certain number of warning, they can escalate to a denial of service. And theres theres more bureaucracy and there are rules within the traditional shelter system. And in light of the emergency and our need to keep people inside and safe, weve really reduced the reasons why somebody can be immediately exited to violence, possession of a weapon or threats of violence. So really a bare minimum in terms of standard of behavior and safety at our six sites. Then clients are asked to leave, and its pretty rare that this happens, the client may submit a request to be readmitted and are provided the information to the shelter client advocate. That way they can access the advocate, as they would under the traditional grievance process. And supporting them in followup conversations. Readmittance to the same or other site depends on the persons covid status, if were talking about a congregate facility or a specific issue. And then obviously resources within the emergency housing portfolio. But this policy allows for a much quicker review than our traditional policy, with the goal of readmitting people as quickly as possible, within Public Health guidelines. So we find process to be more efficient than the more robust or the traditional grievance procedure. It has served us somewhat well for the immediate emergency. We recognize that there is interest in reforming this policy and this is something that h. S. H. Is looking at in partnership our providers to better understand how we can support our clients in ensuring that they can continue to have access to immediate emergency housing. And so with this, is the sense that this is a Better Process than the shelter grievance process . It is interesting because the Shelter Monitoring Committee and some of the advocates and such have shared with us that they dont feel that way. That people are not familiar with this new process and theyre more familiar with the shelter grievance process. There are a way to connect the two maybe . If somebody files in a similar way that the shelter grievance, that somehow thats connected. You know, i just i hear what youre saying. I can believe theres a better way to do this. The people working with the folks in there dont feel that way. Theres not a universal sentiment on that. Youre certainly hearing from one subset of the community. And i think that this way i would say more efficient. In an emergency like covid19, efficiency is important. And quickly as possible to reinstate people. We know that if folks are asked to leave the hotel and then spend time outside, more likely to then get infected and bring it back to a different hotel. We want to speed up the reinstatement process and this policy has allowed us to do that. Were absolutely open to continuing to evolve this policy. Its something that weve been grappling with internally. So, you know, very committed to an ongoing conversation with the advocates and the providers about finding the right balance between efficiency and due process so that our clients have the best access. And the needs of the clients need to stay central in this. And i think that the alternative process does give them a much quicker resolve. To h. S. H. Is central. But we also want to make sure. And we are engaging with the client advocates. They have the opportunity to be contacted as part of that reinstatement. But like i said, were not closed off to continuing to evolve. And i think this is not an opportunity to look at the existing shelter grievance policy, the traditional policy and see where it can be made more efficient and reformed. So i think the reform can go from both directions. Thats fair. Thank you. I just would ask that, if it hasnt already, that theres conversation with the Shelter Monitoring Committee and the local homeless coordinating board about this this different grievance process. On the issue of referrals to the shelterinplace hotels, you know, this has come up again and again. For a long time, it was only through the hot team. It was really not a way for Community Groups to or even individuals or anything to be able to refer people. And even people really couldnt refer themselves in the sense. Like,. Commissioner haney , im over 60 and i have a medical condition. I need to be in a hotel. We didnt have an answer for those folks. And so, you know, theres some change that to that in the tenderloin that im very well aware of. A broader change thats taking place . Or how do people access the shelterinplace hotels . How do they know how to access them . More broadly, not just in the tenderloin. Thats a great question. And one i get many, many times a day. And so i appreciate the discussion on this. You know, the top priority for the shelterinplace hotels, much like the entire Covid Response system, is to ensure that we have capacity in our Hospital System to respond to a surge in covid19 for people experiencing homelessness for, you know, for housed folks as well. When it comes to hotels. So discharge from the hospital, vulnerable folks who have either been covidpositive or who are in the hospital for unrelated reason, but need to give up space. They no longer need the hospital care. That is a top priority for the hotel. As is identifying the most Vulnerable People that weve talked about, numerous times with the board, with the shelter system and on the street. As you well know, we were able to move the Vulnerable People out of the shelters. That was the priority number two. Priority area number three has been the streets. And largely focused on at this point moving vulnerable covidVulnerable People off the street into hotels. We work off of a we have worked off of our existing data systems and have identified over 4,000 people in the homeless response system and the Public Health system who need that vulnerability criteria. When theyre on the street working with folks to bring them in, they can quickly verify their vulnerability, and move them in. One thing we have noticed over the many years i have different referral processes into shelter, is that folks arent always where they say they are when we get a referral. What we dont want again is inefficiency. And so what we have found with our limited Community Engagement pilot is that while we get referrals from partners, were not able to identify or find those folks. And then we waste sorry, waste is probably not the time. We lose time in what we could have moved in five, six people into the hotel, in the time we spent looking for that one specific person, based on the referral. So we have found that, you know, continuing with our prioritization, using our existing data and working the streets in highimpact areas, the bayview and tenderloin the most specifically, most efficient way to bring people in. I think we you know, we really want to utilize the shelterinplace resources as a tool of Emergency Response system. So thats a tool for the hospitals, a tool for the Health Care System and a tool for the street as we see these emergencies emerge. We are sort of open to exploring more processes here. But what we cannot lose sort of the ability to deploy beds quickly based on the Public Health need. And thats why sort of control has remained tight. Supervisor haney have you shifted at all our own eligibility or definitions of who is high risk . I know that just last week, the c. D. C. Removed the specific age threshold from the older adult classification. And now ones that, among adults, risk increases steadily as you age. So its not just over the age of 65. But actually they have an expanded list of medical conditions that puts people at risk. Any way our own eligibility requirements . Were working with d. P. H. To determine how to best integrate that new guidance. Supervisor haney okay. Last thing that i just wanted to ask about, and we have some amendments as well. This issue of whether people were inside the shelterinplace hotels, or congregate sites are receiving a coordinated entry assessment and being entered into the one system. You know, i imagine that most are. But i just would like an update on if that is starting to happen and how extensively. Yep. Absolutely. So thats one of our top priorities. We know that in order to house somebody, the first step is to do this housing assessment. So 85 of shelterinplace guests have been enrolled in the one system. And 60 of the guests have had a coordinated entry system. Were working towards the goal of 80 , which is standard across our system. So were at 60 , were not quite where we need to be, but were making pretty steady progress on that, by deploying Rapid Response teams to the hotels, to the congregate sites and the r. V. S, to conduct these assessments. We have found that about 16 of people who have been assessed, of the 60 , their housing referral status, which means they are the highest priority to be moved into Supportive Housing and 84 are probablesolving status. And so they work with some of our flexible financial resource, home ward bound, a variety of other sort of problemsolving tools to connect them with housing alternatives. But with 16 that are housing referral status, are immediate top priority to move into housing and out of the hotels. You know, were not waiting for the end of the hotels to begin that process. That work is under way. Supervisor haney great. All right. Well, great. Thank you. And well look forward to further opportunities to hear about the postpandemic plan. I know it comes up all the time now, particularly as we see some progress in the tenderloin finally. People are saying lets use this as an opportunity to make a fundamental change in what is happening on our streets. I have some amendments, chair, but ill turn it back to you. Supervisor mar okay. Thank you so much, miss cohen, for the presentation and responding to the questions. And thank you, supervisor haney, just for all of your work introducing this resolution. Also im just addressing the challenges of the intersection between our Health Crisis and the homelessness crisis. That certainly impacts your district the most intensively. It impacts our whole city and concern for everyone. Yeah. And supervisor peskin, do you have any remarks or questions . We can go to Public Comment right now on this. Mr. Clerk, are there any callers on the line . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Operations will check to see if we have callers in the queue. For those who already connected to our meeting via phone phone,. Supervisor preston star followed by three to be added to the queue to speak for this item. For those already on the hold in the queue, wait until youre prompted to begin, it will say your line has been unmuted. For those watching the meeting on cable channel 26 or sfgov tv if you wish to call in, follow the instructions on your screen, dial 408 4189388. Enter the meeting i. D. , todays meeting i. D. Is 146 099 1337. Press the pound symbol twice and then press star followed by three to enter the queue to speak. Mr. Coop, do we have any callers who have connected . Operator yes, sir, two callers are on the cue. Ill admit the first caller. Clerk thank you. Caller supervisors, we all know san franciscans looking at whats going on at ground zero, that we need to help those who cannot help themselves. I made this statement before that at the press conferences, where you have dr. Grant colfax and some others. And i believe some them are jumping ship and maybe this woman who just gave was making some statements, beating around the bush. Supervisors, after all this, the people who need to move into some type of housing, where they can get Wraparound Services, has long passed. In other words, people are slowly dying on the streets of San Francisco. And we cannot just be talking in circles. And we just cannot be relying on statements that are made. No timelines, no goals, no accountability and no transparency. As you know, these Virtual Meetings are drab. And there is no full accountability. And i will read in the course of today or tomorrow about the brown act and other laws that i think are being put on the back burner. But time is running out. And those that are facing inclement weather, they need to be helped. Thank you. Clerk thank you for your comments. Mr. Coop, could we be connected to the next speaker, please. Caller linda chapman. You know, i really want to thani really want to thank the sponsors and supervisor haney for having the special hearing to monitor what was happening on april 30th. And everything came out. I realize that maybe you it may look normal to have People Living on the streets. But before the 1980s, nobody did. Anybody who was receiving public benefits, whether it was from the county or from the federal government, veterans, you know, social security, s. S. I. Or whatever was housed. Now we have a situation that weve created, first by the Homeless Coalition as randy shaw has described, you know. Creating an affirmative action class. And then the city managers, programs, they have such a distorted view. Who knew until they actually disclosed at the hearing that supervisor haney called that we believe that people could not seek care in hotels. We were not worthy. That was why they were paying for rooms, hundreds of rooms, 40,000 a night i think supervisor peskin said and leaving them empty. And not considering whether they should put people in. And deciding which ones carefully screening. My god. When i worked for welfare rights, the county welfare director was skewered by the person who came from albany for a fair hearing, simply because he discovered that the director had not immediately moved a woman, who was homeless and her poem home was partially damaged by fire. I urge you to read a book called blaming the victim. It was written to the way in which social workers and teachers and so on look down on people who are living in poverty, at the time poverty was an issue. Clerk thank you for your comments. The speakers time has expired. Mr. Coop, do we have any more callers on the line . Operator mr. Chair, that completes the queue. Clerk thank you. Supervisor mar hearing no further Public Comment, Public Comment is closed. Supervisor mainy , you want to present your amendment . Supervisor haney i have two amendments that i would like to move. One is on page 2 and also the clerk has an electronic copy of the amendments already. Im on page 2, line 17. Id like to add a clause, whereas as part of the citywide postcovid19 recovery efforts, a housing and shelter work group, comprised of representatives from the board of supervisors, mayors, h. S. H. , h. S. A. And Community Stakeholders was formed in early june to outline a set of option and policy proposals for safety increasing housing and shelter capacity post covid19 response. And address. And secondly, in a final result clause, further resolved that the board urges the work group of the citywide Recovery Work Group to incorporate the goals outlined in this resolution, including ensuring that nobody exits the covid19 response system to the street or unsheltered homelessness and ensured behavior and Health Treatment options are integrated in future system planning. I want to move those two amendments. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor haney. Mr. Clerk, can you call roll accepting the amendments. Clerk on the motion to amend, as offered by supervisor haney to insert the two sections, member haney. Supervisor haney aye. Clerk vice chair peskin. Supervisor peskin aye. Clerk chair mar. Supervisor mar aye. Clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar supervisor haney, do you want to make a motion . Id like to move this resolution to the board, positive recommendation. Move it to the board. Clerk on the motion that the resolution be recommended as amended to the board of supervisors, member haney. Supervisor haney aye. Clerk vice chair peskin. Supervisor peskin aye. Clerk chair mar. Supervisor mar aye. Clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thank you, mr. Clerk. Can you please call agenda item where are we. 4. Clerk a resolution urging public works and the office of the City Attorney to take immediate steps to cancel the revenue agreement with j. C. Decaux, including ceasing implementation of the lucrative grant of advertising rights. Members of the public who want to call the Public Comment number, the number is 408 4189388. Enter the meeting i. D. 146 099 1337. Press the pound symbol twice to connect to the meeting. Press the star key followed by the number three to enter the queue to speak. Mr. Chair. Supervisor mar supervisor peskin, the floor is yours. Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar, and thank you to d. P. W. In the form of miss dawson and mr. Spitz, with regard to the discussion that we will have today. Youll be regaled with something that predates all of us, which was the original 1994j. C. Decaux advertising and kiosk contract, which expired some 20 years later. In 2015, there was an r. F. P. Which ultimately to reasons that i dont fully understand, was which had three bids did not go forward. And subsequently there was a second r. F. P. To which only one bidder j. C. Decaux. There were a number of shortterm extensions that were granted by the board of supervisors, relative to the 1994 contract. And the board was put under quite a lot of pressure to move forward with the contract, both for financial reasons. And all of that is set forth in the july 2019 budget and legislative Analyst Report. Obviously as we all know in january, there were revelations and this is going to be the subject of our next hearing about corruption at the department of public works by the then public works director muhammad nuru. And i started thinking about all of the places where mr. Nuru and this was the general exception to his operating rule, put the board under a lot of pressure to approve contracts or in some cases certainly the case with regard to the removal of the bridge over kearny street, that connects the hilton hotel to portsmouth square, where mr. Nuru actually went to Great Lengths to scuttle what the Community Overwhelmingly wanted, which was the removal of that. So in some of these instances, it has led me to wonder what was going on behind the scenes. And in february, late february of this year, i introduced the resolution that is before us today, urging public works and the city, which is all we can do, to cancel the j. C. Decaux contract. That was on the eve of of the covid19 emergency. We know that the controller just released his report detailing over 10 million of funds that mr. Nuru and public works expended with little actually virtually no oversight. If theres any good news, j. C. Decaux contract was passed unanimously, the resolution was signed by the mayor. But i wanted to use this opportunity to hear from public works, to go over it, the original contract, which by everybodys account this is the 1994 mayor jordan era contract, which by everybodys account was lucrative for j. C. Decaux and not lucrative for the city. Certainly the contract that the board of supervisors approved was much more financially advantageous for the city and county of San Francisco and came with a number of benefits, including some 50,000 50,000 hours per year of staffing of these toilets, which is policy priority that supervisor then supervisor jay kim started in the tenderloin, which we all support. But i wanted to turn it over to mr. Spitz and ms. Dawson to really walk us through the history of this contract. And most particularly the thing that im most interested in is and probably did not delve into enough or did not resist enough is what happened in 2015 as to why that request for proposals did not move forward and was thrown out. And subsequently in the next r. F. P. In 2016, there was only one bidder j. C. Decaux. I would like to understand that. And certainly have heard directly and indirectly that in the 2015 solicitation, one of the three bidders Clear Channel had a proposal that was much more financially advantageous for the city and county of San Francisco. So with that, i would like to turn it over to mr. Spitz. Thank you, supervisor. Thank you, chair mar. Im actually going to let julia dawson take the lead on this, because she was really the subject Matter Expert on this contract. So our Deputy Director for finance and administration julia dawson. I will walk you through the existing or the existing contract, the r. F. P. Process and the 1994 contract as well. Supervisor peskin thank you. Julia dawson from public works. I apologize for not having my camera on. Im having bandwidth trouble. So i want to make sure that i can both hear you and you can hear me. I hope that is okay. Okay. So im going to go ahead and walk through kind of the timeline a bit. As supervisor peskin mentioned, in 1994, under mayor frank jordan, the city enter into a first kind of trial agreement phase with j. C. Decaux for automatedded toilets in exchange for advertising rights on Public Service key os,s and the rightofway. They first amended and restated full agreements was approved in 1998. And it expanded the Program Beyond the first trial through october 17th of 2016. The original agreement provided 25 selfcleaning and a. D. A. Accessible singlestall toilets. 114 advertising kiosks. Since the program started, we have had extensive use of those public toilets. 13. 5 million uses since the program began. And about 830,000 uses last year alone. In that original agreement, there were tiered advertising rights given with a cap of 7 of gross advertising revenue to the city. In preparation for the expiration of that agreement, the department did issue a solicitation beginning in mid2015. And at that time we issued an r. F. P. And received nonexpensive submittals and it needed to be readvertised. These flawed bids were caused by an error in the original r. F. P. , which did not mention that advertisings kiosks could not be further expanded because of the voterapproved proposition g, which was passed in 2002. As a result, the three different proposals that the city received had wildly different and incompatible proposals to what was actually required by law and the will of the voters. So the department declared all of those proposals nonresponsive and moved to correct the lack of clarity in the original r. F. P. And then reissued an r. F. P. With the correct information, clarifying that there was a cap on how many advertising locations would be eligible to any vendor. When we issued the revised r. F. P. , to companies actually did attend that preproposal conference. But j. C. Decaux was the only company that chose to respond formally to the reissued r. F. P. J. C. Decaux originally provided a design and we began to seek all the necessary city approvals. Decauxs design was approved by civic Design Review and the Arts Commission. But we did receive some negative feedback on the design, from members of the public, members of the board and members of the Historic Preservation committee. The feedback there was that they were not particularly happy with the rather utilitarian design of the first concept. And the lack of Community Input into the process. And as a result, public works listening to the feedback went to the beginning and launched a Design Competition for a new design of the toilets and the kiosks. At that time the department engaged in the Robust Community outreach process and took the approach that the toilets in the kiosks should be aesthetic assets, rather than just blend into the background. As supervisor peskin has said, the new agreement was approved by the board in july of 2019. The agreement offered a one for one replacement for the existing toilets and kiosks, with the option for the city to purchase additional toilets and core responding Maintenance Services at cost. It replaces the toilets and the kiosks with uptodate technology and the new design that came out of this Design Competition. In addition, and as part of the new agreement, j. C. Decaux will be assuming staffing responsibility at 11 of the j. C. Decaux locations, 12 hours a day, which is an inkind service valued at 2. 15 million per year. Other financial benefits of the agreement included a onetime payment of 1. 5 million or equivalent in Monitoring Services, administrative fee to cover the cost of oversight of the agreement, 50 of any gross advertising revenue over 16 million. And 50 share of all nonadvertising revenue that might be generated under the agreement. So that concludes my summary. And im happy to take any questions from Committee Members. Supervisor peskin thank you, ms. Dawson puppet that pretty thorough. That was pretty thorough. I appreciate what was that in the 2015 r. F. P. Insofar as the board approves this and the mayor signed it in july, i believe that the contract was actually executed in august i believe august 20th of 2019. And as i read the contract, that would make the start date as defined in the agreement september 1st of 2019. Do you know it says that there were 30 days. This is section 1. 8 of the executed agreement. Do you know if that 1. 5 million was tendered within the 30 days of the start date . What i can tell you is that the department chose to take that 1. 5 million in Monitoring Services, rather than taking it in cash. And so what will happen is as of august 1st, j. C. Decaux will take on responsibility for 11 of the pit stops for 12hour service, or whatever financial equivalent that is, if we decide they should take on some of the 24hour pit stops, which are currently j. C. Decauxs. So that implementation date is again august 1st. So the citys general fund will then benefit for not having to provide for the cost of those services. Supervisor peskin so when you say define Monitoring Services for this committee, ms. What i mean is the people who stand by the pit stop and ensure that it is being used safely. They provide assistance to users. They provide a dog waste receptacles, they clean the facility, they also clean around the surrounding area and just generally make the public feel comfortable that the facility is safe and well maintained. Supervisor peskin right. Wasnt that 50,000 hours per year one of the requirements of the contract . Yes. But it phased in after 18 months. So what we did was move up the phasedin date, using the 1. 5 million financial equivalent. So that the city would be relieved of that responsibility sooner. Supervisor peskin and it is about i believe budget Analyst Report said about 200,000 per year, per toilet worth of staffing, is that correct . Thats correct for 12hour shifts. If its a 24hour shift, it actually is more costly. Supervisor peskin and then relative to how the who does the staffing and does j. C. Decaux enter into a contract directly with those individuals . Are they City Employees . Are they citycontracted workers and how were they selected . So the Selection Process is going on right now. It is a competitive solicitation. They have issued a public r. F. P. For services. And then they will evaluate their proposals, tabulate the results and then provide the city with their assessment, which we have to approve. Supervisor peskin so were outsourcing this entirely to the contractor j. C. Decaux . No. They are doing the solicitation process, but the city still has the right of review and feedback. We had the right of review of the r. F. P. That they issued. We have the right of review of their recommendation. But they will take on, once we agree to that their process was meeting our programmatic needs, they would enter into the contract for the 11 locations. But it is anticipated that we would coordinate, between j. C. Decaux and the city, because there are other decaux locations that are currently monitored. The city has three different nonprofit organizations that are currently providing Monitoring Services. That has become far more extensive as we have stepped in to try to help the citys covid19 response, at the request of policymakers, including the board members. Supervisor peskin right. And those three nonprofits are who are they and how were they selected . So the three current nonprofit providers are urban alchemy, Hunters Point family and Mission Neighborhood centers. We have provided we did a competitive mini r. F. P. Process to our qualified grantee pool. Each of those we received five responses and im remembering this off the top of my head now. Each of those responses was scored and then we picked the top scoring proposers, in order. Supervisor peskin and then so what you just spoke to does not include the sites during the transition period for the inkind services, as opposed to the monetary subvention that was provided for under the contract. But you also said that j. C. Decaux is in the midst of their own procurement for those services. Insofar as as i read the contract, were taking it inkind services and the start date, as i understand it, was september 1st of 2019, although you just said august. Its been going on for almost a year. Who have they been using for those locations during the transition period . And how was that vendor or vendor selected by them or did they just inherit what we gave them or how did that work . I think i might have confused you, supervisor. So let me try supervisor peskin its easy to confuse me. I apologize. So from the start date of the contract, the Monitoring Services would not start until 18 months later. Sop you have to add a year and a half of time to the execution date of the agreement. So what we did or what we asked j. C. Decaux to do was to move the Monitoring Service up in time from being from starting 18 months from the start date to instead starting as soon as possible, with the 1. 5 million additional onetime payment, which calculated out to be august 1st of 2020. Supervisor peskin okay. You know what, i am owe owe d and i am slow. Heres what section a1 of the executed agreement says. It says fees paid during the transition period and the transition period is defined as 18 months from the start date. During the transition period, the contractor, which is j. C. Decaux, shall pay the city as follows. A onetime payment of 1,500,000. Or payable inkind by the payment of attendant services at the sole discretion of the city. Well get to that in a just a second. Should have notified by the city to the contractor through an authorization to the contractor within 20 days of the start date. So what youre saying is that within 20 days of the start date, which was almost a year ago, the d. P. W. Sent a letter saying we dont want the 1. 5 million, we want you to start doing the monitoring in a year and a half . Is that what that means . Did i get that right . Well, what we asked decaux to do was instead of starting monitoring 18 months from that date, so that would have been march of 2020, that instead we use the 1. 5 million to move the start date for monitoring up in time, for what they what that 1. 5 million would cover. The way the calculation worked, that would mean that decaux would start monitoring all of the 11 locations, that they would ultimately be responsible for in the contract sooner. From march until august. August 1st. Supervisor peskin from march of 2020 to august of 2020 . 2021. From march of 2021 to august of 2020. Supervisor peskin march. Lets do that again. March of 202 2020 to august its about an extra seven months of monitoring, supervisor. Supervisor peskin okay. If the annual costs of the kiosk for 12 hours a day, let me go back to the budget and legislative Analyst Report, its 200,000. How do you get to the 1. 5 million for only seven months . Because that gets you to 1,283,000 worth. I think we would need to look at all of the dates to give you the correct calculation, which i apologize i dont have in front of me. And im having a hard time doing on the spot. Supervisor peskin no problem. But the intention here was to take the 1. 5 million and to bring the Services Forward in time from the 18 months 18 months after the official date of the agreement to as soon as we could, understanding that we didnt want to have them take on fewer than 11 of the locations. The idea here was to be able to provide kind of uninterrupted transition between the city and decaux. And not disrupt the program the Pit Stop Program any more than necessary. And id be happy to come back and or share the information on exactly when decaux and the city, you know, discussed this and that there was this notification and how we made the calculation on when the appropriate start date would be, given the amount of money we had available. Supervisor peskin and how internally well, it says at the sole discretion of the city, i assume that met the sole discretion of the department . Thats correct. Supervisor peskin and how did the Department Come to the internal decision that it didnt want 1. 5 million in cash last august, as compared to it wanted services next march . The department felt that it made more sense and it would be better for the program to have the continuation of the Monitoring Services come sooner, rather than the cash payment. And can you characterize those discussions, because i mean this seems to me that it would have been financially better for the city to be working the interesting on 1. 5 million than waiting that long period of time. But the interest on the 1. 5 million still accrues to the city regardless. So the value of the Monitoring Services includes the accrual of that value to the new start date. So it is not as if the city is foregoing interest. It just earns that on behalf of the Monitoring Services, starting when they do. Supervisor peskin and can you tell us sorrelletive to the current so are these 11 sites being monitored . I think attended is probably a better word than monitored. It looks like theres a service. These 11 sites, are they being attended now . Yes. They are. Thats under a city contract . Correct. Supervisor peskin and who does that now what vendor does that or is it done by City Employees . No. Its this attending service has never been provided with City Employees. And its likely a combination. I dont have the list of all of the pit stops in front of me. But its changed over time. The original program was overseen by Hunters Point family, as ive said now its transitioned to three Different Service providers. So it kind of depends on what poinpoint in time, decaux may wl have been had Services Provided by Hunters Point family and now may be urban alchemy or Mission Neighborhood center. The idea of the program and the way that the program is run is the same, regardless of the grantee on terms of the services that the grantee provides. And the way that the services are performed. Supervisor peskin and the city spends city money, presumably general fund money for those vendor . That is correct. Yes. Supervisor peskin so why wouldnt we just take the 1. 5 million and continue to pay those vendors Going Forward . I dont understand why we would defer that to an earlier start date . Why . For us as long as the accrual of interest on the 1. 5 million was still to the citys benefit, it seemed equivalent. Whether were earning interest on the cash and doing the appropriation or whether we choose to take the million plus the earned interest and start the services sooner, it was an operational decision. It had the same financial benefit regardless. Supervisor peskin and was mr. Nuru involved in that decision . Did he care . No. He was not particularly involved in that decision, no. Supervisor peskin okay. And then relative to the annual administrative fee, in the amount of 275,000, have we received that first fee yet . No, not yet. I dont believe its actually officially the start date of that fee has not officially occurred. Supervisor peskin yeah. I think its due one year from the official start date. And you are right. That is still a little over a month away. All right. Thank you, ms. Dawson. I really appreciate it. That was helpful. And i will defer to my colleagues, if they have any questions or comments. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor peskin, for this and for those really good questions around the details of the current agreement with j. C. Decaux. Ms. Dawson, hi some questions just about the r. F. P. From 2016. That is the basis for the current revenue agreement with j. C. Decaux. And just, you know, the fact the glaring fact that they were the only bidder, you know, responding to the 2016 r. F. P. And so, yeah, i just wanted to see if you could explain why that was and why d. P. W. Would allow a sole, you know, only one bidder on an r. F. P. , given that this is for over 20year period, you know, representing you know what may be hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Yeah. And i know this is definitely related to the the next item on the agenda, you know, which is the controllers audit of d. P. W. s procedures and processes. With you explain why they were the only bidder to the r. F. P. Thats a little bit hard for me to completely answer, because that really relates to what was going on in the private sector and not the public one. But what i can tell you is that the initial r. F. P. , that was written, was confusing to the providers. And, as a result, when we received three proposals from the original r. F. P. , they were tall wildly different. Wildly different numbers, assumptions, wildly different budgets. We couldnt compare them. They didnt make any sense. And it was clear to us that unfortunately the original r. F. P. Had not been written in a way that was clear, so that vendors could then respond appropriately with proposals that were comparable, that had the same assumptions on the number of advertising locations. So that we could then rank the proposals. So we ended up having to reissue the r. F. P. When we had a preproposal conference, we had two vendors in attendance when we had the first series of bids. There were three proposals. The public Advertising Industry is a somewhat small one. And there are only a few big players in the business. I would also say that generally speaking, and this is just my understanding of the industry, and im not an expert, but that in this case, there are not very many advertisers that specialize in providing inkind products and services, in exchange for advertising rights. That is a niche that decaux has generally taken in the industry. And they are good at that particular work, because they provide very good quality product. And in terms of the public toilets that have been out on the streets, theyve been there a really long time. I think we know any furniture in the rightofway has to be pretty durable in order to survive repeated uses over more than 20 years. And still look pretty good, relatively speaking and work well. So in terms of why we had two proposers that attended the prebid conference and then only one proposal, i can only presume that the other attendee, that attended the conference, which was Clear Channel, decided that it was not in their best business interest to submit a proposal, because it didnt seem to work for them. And i cant speak to why that would be. That would be their private company decision. I hope that somewhat answers your question. Supervisor mar yeah. Thank you, ms. Dawson. Colleague, do you have any further questions . Supervisor peskin i want to thank chair mar for that. Before supervisor haney says anything, what id really like to delve into the original sin, if you will, of 2015. And ive heard some very different its been, you know, half a decade, but ive heard some very different stories at the time. And i would love if you could furnish me, ms. Dawson or public works could furnish me with the original r. F. P. , the subsequent r. F. P. And any and all letters that were given to the original three bidders, as to why the r. F. P. Was canceled. I really would like to delve into that further. Because the word on the street, after i scheduled this hearing, was that basically it was put out there that nobody else should bid because this was going to end up going to j. C. Decaux. Obviously that was not information that was before the board of supervisors last year, when we voted on it. But now postmr. The revelations about mr. Nuru, that is what im hearing. I would like to delve into that. Im sorry for interrupting supervisor haney, sir. Thank you, chair mar. Supervisor mar sure. Supervisor haney. Supervisor haney, did you have a question or comment . Supervisor haney yeah. And i want to thank supervisor peskin for bringing this forward and for your leadership on this. You know, one of the things that comes up with this contract, that i think is important and maybe was mentioned a little bit, but i want to see if you could clarify a bit more around this particular structure of the advertising and if the limitations that are available on advertising on sort of Street Furniture. And sort of how that leads us to have somewhat of maybe an unusual arrangement. Or maybe it isnt unusual. Is this generally how other cities fund these type of, you know, programs . I know that we have some unique limitations that weve placed on our selves, as it relates to advertising. And that sort of drives some of the aspects of this contract. Can you explain those a little bit more and i may have some more specific questions about that. So i will try. And if i dont, id like to provide all of the answers, please, ask me for additional clarification. It is pretty common for public jurisdictions to have an exchange of some kind of Street Furniture, in exchange for advertising rights. And an example, even within our own city, the sfmta transit shelter agreement, where there is transit there are transit shelters that are provided and maintained by a private entity in exchange for placing advertising rights on those shelters. And also on some freestanding locations, because of platforms that are underground. So it is very common. There are other agreements like this in los angeles area, new york has a very similar transit shelter agreement with j. C. Decaux, where they provide new York City Transit shelters in exchange for advertising rights. But there are other examples with other Street Furniture. And i dont have all of them in front of me, id be happy to kind of provide you with a bit of a rundown on what is common in a bunch of different cities. One thing that is different about San Francisco, and you alluded to this, and i mentioned in my testimony, is that there was a proposition brought before and ratified by the voters, that basically restricted the number of advertising locations that could exist in the rightofway. That was called proposition g. And it was passed in 2002. The proposition did not place similar limitations on the shelters connected to transit. So what you see now in San Francisco is that the general advertising and the rightofway, which is the agreement that public works has, is restricted to the 114 advertising locations that are essentially grandfathered in by proposition g, whereby the sfmta can actually expand its number of shelters and its number of advertising locations, depending on what happens with their service locations. So they are not restricted in the same way. Supervisor haney so essentially we restricted it, but the particular set number are grandfathered in. But we dont restrict it for m. T. A. , because theres sort of an exception for transitrelated things, so that they can expand based on their services . That is correct. Supervisor haney okay. So in order to allow more if there was more advertising, we would actually have to go back to the ballot to allow for that . That is correct. Supervisor haney got it. Okay. So that provides in terms of the r. F. P. , that provides some, you know, pretty strict guidelines in terms of what can be offered to us by a particular if were seeking for these bathrooms to be funded, you know, in no small part or largely or entirely by advertising. They have to only use these particular already defined Street Furniture . Locations. Theyre restricted to the 114 locations, yes. And i think that has something to do with whether vendors would or would not choose to propose. Although here im only speculating. I cant say for certain. Because im not any one of these advertising providers. Haney. Supervisor haney the actual bathrooms themselves cannot they dont provide advertising . Thats correct. They just have Public Service information on them, whether its maps or anything else that the city determines it would want to put on them. But they are not permitted to be used for advertising. And the other piece is that one in three images or 1 12 of electronic images of Public Service announcement, even on the kiosks that are used for commercial purposes, there is a set amount of time that is reserved for public use. And the Arts Commission has curated those locations on Market Street. I think to quite a great success. And we included that provision in the current agreement, as well as the plan to basically to transfer part of the administrative fee, that were receiving from decaux, was intended to cover the cost of the Arts Commission, production, of those items so that we could continue that Public Service benefit. Supervisor haney okay. Thank you. Supervisor peskin i do have another question for ms. Dawson. Do you recall if either the first or second r. F. P. Included a very tight timeframe for the successful bidder to put the toilets out on the streets . Do you remember that . I dont. But im happy to look and share that information with you. I dont remember the timing being different between between r. F. P. One and r. F. P. Two. I was involved in the preparation for r. F. P. Two. I have brought in to help with r. F. P. Two. I was not very involved in r. F. P. One. Though i remember r. F. P. Two being rather patterned on r. F. P. One, but just making an effort to respond to the confusion that was clearly happening with the proposers. So r. F. P. Two was rewritten to hopefully avoid and clarify those points of confusion for the proposers. Supervisor peskin all right. Im going to get to the bottom of that. But my recollection is that r. F. P. Two had a 90day transition period, which because j. C. Decaux owned the original street, furniture and toilets, or i should say the kiosks and toilets, the other entrants into the field thought it was impossible burden to meet. And that it was basically structured in such a way that only j. C. Decaux could compete. But we will get to the bottom of that. May i speak to that for a minute. Supervisor peskin sure. I would say two things. One is i wish if that were the case, that that proposer had brought it up in the preproposal conference. I was at the preproposal conference and i dont remember that being a question. We would have entertained looking at changing in the r. F. P. If somebody had brought that as a concern to us at the time. The second thing i would say is that it wouldnt have precluded them making a proposal, but flagging that as a point for negotiation, which i think the city would have entertained, because Something Like a transition plan is a were looking for proposals. But the city is always willing to entertain a better arrangement and be flexible on those kinds of terms. Thats often what happens in contract negotiations. You work through things that the city might have put forward, that were not reasonable, unintentionally so. And try to craft an agreement thats in the best interest of the city. Supervisor peskin well, in that vein lets go back to the mid2015 r. F. P. There were three actual responses. In that same thinking, why not say were interested in what appears to be the best response, but we the city want to let you know that you cant have any additional locations beyond the 114. Why would that necessitate throwing it out. Why cant just say, yeah, this is the most lucrative bid for the 114. And we need to clarify with you theres not any expansion. Why would you throw them all out and start over again . So the bids were so wildly different, that some of the bidders assumed that there would be thousands of locations available. It would have been very hard to understand how we could have negotiated well, for one you dont negotiate until you can compare. And if you cant compare, because the differences are so huge, it wouldnt make sense. And my recollection of this is that the only bidder, that really the three bids were radically different, each of them. And each of them had very different assumptions on the number of advertising locations that were even available. And as such, offered arrangements that never would have been feasible. If they assumed thousands and thousands of locations, their financial picture would have been it might not have scaled appropriately. So it was our decision that we couldnt professionally compare all three proposals. There was gist no way t justo way to do, that without making so many assumptions, that we didnt have information for. Rather than make inappropriate comparisons and make incorrect assumptions, we chose to reject and put another r. F. P. Out on the street. And we felt that was the most responsible thing to do at the time. Supervisor peskin ms. Dawson, i totally appreciate that you were not involved in r. F. P. One. If you take the same logic, which is the notion of comparison, when you have only one bid, theres nothing to compare it to. So in reality, the second r. F. P. Was as flawed allegedly as the first r. F. P. , because in the first instance, you had three proposals that you couldnt compare. And then in the second instance, you had one proposal that you couldnt compare, because there was no other proposals to compare it to. Or you make the assumption that with so few locations, that arrangement didnt pencil out for some of these providers, because to ramp up and create Street Furniture or other things and be able to come up with a viable operation, wasnt worth it to them. That there was too much risk involved. And so im not sure you can say that, that would be necessarily true. Perhaps i would feel more that way if we had only one bidder at the preproposal conference, but we had two. And at that time, that bidder had the opportunity to ask questions to clarify, to tell us the timing was incorrect, whatever. They did not do so. And so when we received one bid, we just felt that there was a reason for fiscally it didnt make sense for those proposers. And they had the opportunity. We did a lot of outreach. We made sure they knew about all of the conferences. They all got the r. F. P. At some point in a limited market, we had felt that we had done our due diligence. And that this was the only proposal that felt that this arrangement worked for them. Supervisor peskin and you say the first r. F. P. And the second r. F. P. Were basically the same, except for the clarification of the limitation on the amount of locations . Yeah. I mean, its been a long time, supervisor. But what i remember is that the first r. F. P. Was confuse, probably more than one place. I think when we received three radically different proposals, we did go back and had a review, that included our City Attorney, it included our head of Contract Administration and it included me. Supervisor peskin okay. So i cant say we only made one change. We may have made a couple of changes. But they were in the interest of making sure that the r. F. P. Was as clear as it could be, in all places. Because when you pull something back, you get the chance to do it over and hopefully make it better. Supervisor peskin and was the scoring criteria what weight was what weight is given to different things, whether its formal interviews or the value of return to the city. Were those weighted the same in r. F. P. One as they were in r. F. P. Two . I apologize, supervisor. I dont remember. But im very happy to provide that information in a memo to the committee, with the two r. F. P. S. And anything else that you wish to have. Supervisor peskin that would be great. Thank you very much, ms. Dawson. Just so that were clear, i have nothing but respect for your professional and integrity. Unfortunately i cant say that for your former director and maybe some other people, definitely at least one other person that used to be in the department. So, you know, these are, in addition to a pandemic of racism and Public Health, we also have public corruption problem that is keeping me and my ten colleagues up at night. So im sorry, this is not certainly. This is not personal. I do appreciate your kind words. Ill do my best to provide all of the information the committee is interested. Im happy to come back and speak on the matter, if you so wish. And i will do my best. Supervisor peskin thank you, ms. Dawson. Supervisor mar supervisor haney, did you have further questions. Supervisor haney i have one more question which is for the Street Furniture, thats part of this sort of designated in this contract as places where advertising can take place, is there is there further specification of what that Street Furniture can be used for . Other types of uses . Does j. C. Decaux get full kind of authority to design them and sort of include different aspects of them . Im particularly interested its my understanding that some of them are used for like cell phonerelated reception and uses. Is that a part of whats included . I guess theres a partnership between j. C. Decaux and verizon. That allows them to use these for these sort of things . Are you familiar with that . I can speak to that a little bit. There are a bunch of different possible uses. So in the old days, in the original agreement, you might remember a lot of news stand kiosks, because at the time we were trying to eliminate surplus Street Furniture. And a lot of the new stand operations were consolidated into kiosks. The idea and the new agreement is there are basically three types of Public Service kiosks. One thats just threesided and has advertising. One that is similar in appearance, but offers the opportunity for smallscale i guess you could call it retail operations. So what we had done is convert those to kind of a Public Service or Community Benefit idea. And we had been working on a program to basically solicit, you know, s. F. Made or a Community Group who was interested in activating those kiosks to be able to do so for really no cost. So its a public benefit. So weve gotten interest from a variety of Community Groups to do that. And they would share that space. Theres also a model of a kind of, for lack of a better word, a rather large ipadlike screen, where we could provide information on the Community Activities that are within that region, where people could come and touch, get a map, you know, maybe get a directory on what type of Community Activities, museums, organizations, restaurants. You know, things that we could curate that would provide an incentive for people to go out and have fun and shop in our different communities, where its mostly kind of oriented towards the commercial districts. But there are some that extend out towards north beach and chinatown and some in south of market. And so those can be used to kind of promote the community identity. And thats what we have been working on internally. I hope that kind of helps to clarify. In terms of the cell sites, the idea there would be, and my understanding, it wouldnt necessarily be exclusive to verizon. That any of the cell sites could approach decaux. If those were sites that they thought were of interest to them, and that the idea is there is essentially spare space, so the cell sites would not be visible. Theres no kind of urban visual impact. But there is a monetary benefit to the city. We would share in 50 of any leasing arrangements that decaux would enter into for that type of mortgage private corporate use. Supervisor haney so would they be able to i mean, do they have to get permission if they have some sort of private partnership or theyre going to get some revenue as a result of allowing one Cell Phone Company to use this Street Furniturer . Or sort of have the authority to do that as they wish . They do have the ability to enter into those lease agreements, because technically the kiosks were licensing them. They own the kiosks themselves. But, you know, they are under a city agreement. And if there are particular concerns, i have always found them to be responsive to our concerns. So if theres anything in particular, that you have a concern about, i would appreciate you letting the department know. Supervisor haney right. It just came to my attention this morning around the issue of verizon. You know, i dont know that theres it was a surprise to me. My understanding particular person who brought it to my attention, said its exclusive with verizon. If its not, which seems like your understanding of maybe its available to anyone. It doesnt sound like this is something thats available to anyone. It sounds like theyve basically turned some or all of those Street Furniture into like sort of mini cell phone towers for verizon. Thats not my understanding. Because i know they were all working with at t. So i can work to clarify that for you, supervisor, if youd like. Supervisor haney but theyve done this as part of their revenue model it sounds like. Theyre not required to share that with us. No they are. They are required. We get 50 of any of these arrangements. Its a 50 50 share. The city benefits equally. That was important to us. Supervisor haney okay. If they use their any of the revenue that they get, whether its advertising or cell phone towers or whatever it is, its a 50 50 split . Well, the advertising is different. We get a 50 split after we reach a threshold of 16 million. And thats because theres an awful lot of capital and Maintenance Services that theyre providing to us. So what happens is once we reach a threshold of 16 million, then we share equally. And anything thats above essentially what covers their capital and operating costs, which is a very different arrangement than the last one, where we were only had a tier that maxed out at 7 . Supervisor haney okay. Thank you. Supervisor mar great. Thanks again, ms. Dawson. Also mr. Spitz, for ep gaming with the engaging with the committee in this discussion. Colleagues, unless you have any further questions or comments, i think we can move to Public Comment . Mr. Clerk, are there any callers on the line . Clerk thank you, mr. Chair. Operations is checking to see if theres any callers in the queue. If those connected already via phone, press star followed by three. For those watching our meeting on cable channel 26 or via a streaming link or sfgov tv, if you wish to please on the item, dial 408 4189388. Enter the meeting i. D. Of 146 099 1337. Press the found symbol twice. Mr. Coop, are there any callers on the line already . Operator yes, there are two callers in the queue. I admit the first caller. Clerk thank you, caller. Go ahead. Caller hi, this is bob schmidt. Im with Clear Channel outdoor. Im the regional president. Id just like to make some comment about some of the questions that the supervisors asked. So the first motion is relative to r. F. P. Number one. Relative to that the r. F. P. Was written, we went back with questions, through the process, and the r. F. P. Was not clear there would be widely dissparaged response. It would be difficult to evaluate. And we met and were told that was the intention of d. P. W. At the time. And so d. P. W. Got what they asked for. And then later on it was determined that they were widely disparaged, so that was canceled. Relative to the second r. F. P. , there were provisions in there regarding transition time. I believe it was 90 days that you had to provide new service, new kiosks, new toilets, all of those things. Again we responded that that would be onerous and cumbersome and virtually impossible for anybody to do. We asked about things, could we purchase the equipment, so we could fulfill those requiremen requirements. Based on those things it varied directly and got negative responses to our requests. It was perceived by us as a very lucrative contract. We wanted to do it. We tried to get it and at the end of the day, we chose not to bid on the second one, because it was not a leveling Playing Field in terms of the r. F. P. So we chose not to do it. I had to write a memorandum to my executives on why we would choose not to bid on an opportunity like this. Mr. Chairman. Supervisor mar supervisor peskin. I dont know if the previous speaker, mr. Schmitz, i have not spoken to has been it has been many years. I have not spoken to or seen in many, many years. Is he still on the line . Yes. I dont want to truncate your testimony. But i would like to ask you some questions. And i had no idea that you were calling in. So this is remarkably interesting. But please conclude your testimony. I didnt think i was going to call in, too. I just was listening to the testimony. Thought i could contribute. Thought i could contribute some items just to bring some clarity on why the proposers chose to bid, would not choose to bid, what did we do. And because i had firsthand knowledge of the situation. And thought i could bring some clarity from the private sector into what was happening here. Supervisor peskin if that concludes your public testimony and chair mar and supervisor haney will allow it, i would like to ask you some questions . Supervisor mar yes. Please do. Supervisor peskin. Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. So i think and thank you for shedding some light from the perspective of one of the proposers in the mid2015 r. F. P. I was not on the board of supervisors at the time. Wherein you represent that you did, indeed, or your company did, indeed, inform public works that they were going to receive wildly responses and their response was that that was exactly what they were intending and precisely what they wanted. Was that documented . Was that done verbally . How did your company set that forth . I believe that we put that forth in a question. Then there was a meeting with a director. And i think the managing person for the r. F. P. And we had a meeting with myself and our Public Affairs and other people to discuss our concerns about the r. F. P. Supervisor peskin got it. In the second, there is a representation from ms. Dawson that is very different than the representation that you just made, which is that you indicated and i you indicated that the 90day provision for the requirement for provision of new service, within 90 days of transition was onerous and cumbersome. And that you set that concern forth. And also proposed solutions, including the potential purchase of the assets from j. C. Decaux. Did you do that in writing . Because ms. Dawson represented that there were other proposers that came to a meeting and that none of these issues were raised. So how did your company raise these issues . We proposed them in writing. We proposed them in writing. We asked if the incumbent would be open to having it purchased us purchasing the equipment, so we could continue on. We i think even in our original proposals in 2015, we gave an amount to purchase the equipment. But it was referred to us that the incumbent was not interested in having that type of arrangement. Supervisor peskin okay. If you could, and obviously this is up to you and your company, but if you could provide this committee and this supervisor with any or all written correspondence or comments that you made to public works during the mid2015 r. F. P. Or the subsequent one in 2016, please do so. And then relative to the question i asked ms. Dawson, which she did not recollect, but will furnish to the committee about differences in scoring between r. F. P. One and r. F. P. Two, do you have any recollection about that . I dont have any recollection. I can research it. But i dont have any recollection at this time. On the difference in the evaluation process. Supervisor peskin okay. Thank you very much, mr. Schmidt. I dont know if any of my colleagues have additional questions for you, but i really appreciate that you took the time to call in. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor peskin. Mr. Clerk, can you continue Public Comment . Clerk we can. Mr. Coop, can you please connect us to the next speaker. That completes the queue. Supervisor mar great. Thank you. Thank you, operations and mr. Clerk. Hearing no further callers, Public Comment is closed. Supervisor peskin, would you like to make a motion. Supervisor peskin , no actually i would not. I would like to make a motion, but not the motion to pass this today. I would like to just go back to ms. Dawson. Because ms. Dawson has committed to getting this committee the information that we previously discussed. Do you have so to ms. Dawson, based on what mr. Schmitz said and i realize the mid2015 r. F. P. You were not a part of, he specifically referenced director nugu and another person who is no longer with the department. Neither one of them are with the department. But you were involved in the 2016 r. F. P. , wherein mr. Schmitz makes very clear representations around the issue of the 90day transition period from new services that, indeed, seems in his words and i agree, quote onerous and cumbersome. You dont recollect that they brought that up. [ please stand by ] were going to hear updates from the Controllers Office, Public Integrity assessment process and from the City Attorneys investigations and reports. On monday, the office of the controller released their first Public Integrity review report, focused on contracting procedures that the department of public works, in that report and its findings are the focus of this hearing. There are a myriad, concurrent investigations connected to the scandal. Both locally and federally. Our focus today is not on criminal charge or the fbis work specifically. Our focus here is less on individual bad actors and more on the systems and structures that enabled and empowered them to commit bad acts. And failed to provide oversight, accountability and transparency. And today were looking at public works. How the behavior in the complaints and the structures that allowed them to allowed for them to demonstrate the need for structural reform to preempt and prevent the potential for criminal and unethical actions by Public Officials. This is one hearing on one report. We have much of substance to discuss today and there will be much more to discuss at further hearings and further reports in the near future. Well hear today first from controller Ben Rosenfield and acting director of audits mark delarosa, who will present the preliminary assessments of San Francisco public works contracting. We will then hear brief updates from deputy City Attorney anne pearson on the City Attorneys concurrent investigations. We have not invited departments or other parties to present today. The scope of the issues is broad and we thought it valuable to focus the first hearing to dig deep into the report and its findings. Before we move into the presentations, any initial remarks from my colleagues . Supervisor haney. Supervisor haney yes. Thank you, chair mar. I want to thank you for calling this hearing. And for your leadership on this. I also want to thank controller rosen field and your team for putting together a very detailed set of recommendations and analysis. In this report. And we are looking forward to working together to adopt these recommendations quickly. [ please stand by ] departments, in terms of its lack of oversight, and i think that is made absolutely clear in this report, but even beyond that, some of these loopholes, some of these issues around has allowed contracts to go out with no oversight whatever. When we have corruption government, it is the residents who suffer the most. It is the residents who get poor and ineffective City Services, and trust is eroded, money is wasted at a time when we need not just good outcomes, but we need trust, and we need resources probably more than ever, so i really do want to appreciate the work that has been done on this, and i think its critical that this committee assert our responsibility in oversight and moves forward many of these recommendations to restore oversight and to restore the public trust. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor haney. Supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. Many years ago, when i was the chair of the board, and i created the Oversight Committee, while this entire chapter is scurrilous and shameful and an embarrassment to government and elected officials, this is exactly what the Oversight Committee was enacted to do. So lets get out it. Supervisor mar thank you, supervisor peskin. Id like to introduce the department controller, whos going to lead the presentation. Thank you very much for the opportunity and good afternoon to the committee. The first item here from the Controllers Office is our preliminary assessment on process, procedure, and pros specifically with regard to City Contracting with a focus on public works. Id like to first of all thank you in advance for any questions today as well as welcome those from the public. The important of the public tip line as well as the controllers information line provides important information. We have underway other work for friends of organizations and outside city accounts. We have reviews underway of Commission Contracting for approval processes at s. F. Go and other city commissions, including revenue contracts, the citys contracts, as well as awarding of permits at d. B. I. And any assessments that we determine is necessary in part of our ongoing coordination with the City Attorneys office. With that, id like to welcome Mark Dela Rosa whos director of the City Services program and tip line. Thank you so much, todd. Good afternoon, chair mar, members of the committee, supervisors peskin and haney. Mark de la rosa, acting director of the Controllers Office. Were just going to give you a very brief overview of the report we issued on monday, earlier this week. Let me begin by providing some context on this slide three. Just to provide the kind of the magnitude of the contracting activities at the San Francisco public works, we chose the scope of july 2017 through march 2020 as part of our assessment. This table before you is the summary of all of the contracts that were led within the department over that threeyear period. There were a total of 366 contracts that were in existence during this time period. The nottoexceed amount of all of these contracts were 1. 4 million, and they are the chapter 6 public works type of contracts as well as the grants category of contracts that well also discuss a little later. So this slide basically provides a little bit more detail on those 366 contracts by the different contracting methods that were used by the department of public works to make those contracts effective. So the majority of them, as has shown here, were formally competitively bid or solicited. Those are ones of slightly higher value, and well talk about the different nuances and categories in this. There were those that fell into the informal solicitation categories. Those were a little bit more in the lower value in terms of the dollar thresholds, and those that were not solicited or no solicitation were required, that included sole source contracts, Emergency Authority contracts, and projects addressing homelessness, which were also going to cover. And the last category here is grants. So were going to cover the seven findings that we covered in our report. There were eight total recommendations that sprung from those seven findings, and the first we do want to emphasize is more overarching in nature, and this is about the construction of public works procurement. We do have a chapter within our admin code called chapter 6 that covers public works procurement, and there are six departments that are basically given the authority under that chapter 6 code to enter into public works contracts, and that included public works, the airport, port, rec and park, m. T. A. , and p. U. C. All of the chapter 6 department except for public works were overseen or are overseen by a board or commission which oversees the departments contracts in excess of a certain threshold amount. In 2011, thenmayor ed lee designated mr. Nuru as the director of public works to act on the mayors behalf in various aspects of the awarding contracts including Construction Contracts that were in excess of a certain threshold. Mr. Nuru then in turn designated three Deputy Directors to serve as contract aproofe approvers on his behalf. They had the ability to approve contracts without any external oversight of the department itself. Our recommendation then, is to, under chapter 6 of the admin code from the mayor to delegate final approval of Construction Projects to an individual outside of the mayor or director, and per chapter 6, to prohibit the Department Head from approving these contract activities. The second thing i would like to emphasize today is the ones regarding the projects addressing homelessness. In 2019, there were certain elements of the admin code for the city that were revised, and those were chapter 21b and section 6. 76 of the admin code, and these were basically added as part of the efforts to highlight the the efforts that are going on citywide for projects addressing homelessness. And the admin code basically defines this as projects designed to prevent homelessness through housingfuls, ahousing services and to provide shelter services. It allowed for the departments to bypass the standard competitive solicitation process. Therefore, the needed controls that are typically present under our formal solicitation were not always adhered to. Some of those are really the minimum solicitation requirements, the vendor qualifications, and the fair selection of the various bidders that were not uniformly applied when during procurement under these two admin code provisions. According to public works, they were awarded 15 contracts with a value of 24. 6 million for projects addressing homelessness under the 21b and the section 6. 76 authorities. And of those 15 contracts, 11 of these contracts are worth about 14 million, had no discernible Selection Process just based on our review of the information we gathered as part of this assessment. Back in february, the acting director of public works issued new policies and procedures to address these weaknesses, and our recommendation related to this finding is for public works to continue adhering to these new procurement procedures implemented by the acting director and for the city to adopt similar procedures for purchases citywide so theres the control that one would expect from regular solicitation. Supervisor peskin and can i just jump in with questions or should i write them down and do them at the end or should i do them as were going . Supervisor mar why dont we hold the questions to the end . I think that would be more efficient. Please continue, mr. De la rosa. Thank you. The third finding that i would like to highlight today relates to the prequalified contracting pools. As you may know, and as background, both chapter 21 and chapter 6 of the admin code both allow for a prequalified contracting pools, and basically, this is where departments can prequalify a group of vendors using a procurement process and then draw from the pool when the need arises. Once the pool is created, the city can select its preferred vendor instead of going through another solicitation for the specific scope of work that is needed by the department. What we found and this is not just within department of public works, but this is definitely a citywide occurrence is that the city does not have the standard procedure for selecting vendors once they are in the prequalified pool. There were instances in which the same vendors would be selected repeatedly from a prequalified pool at times by the departments former director, mr. Nuru. Although this is not prohibited, this certainly presents unethical procedures. The recommendation that follows from this finding is that the mayor, board, and the office of Contract Administration should establish clear guidelines for selecting a vendor or vendors from a prequalified pool. Possible methods that should be included in there should be considered a solicitation of quotes or a description of all vendors in the pool. The fourth finding relates to grants. For the period that we reviewed, which was 2017 through 2020, march, there were 19 grants that were valued at 23. 8 million within San Francisco public works. These were for a variety of services, including workforce development, job training, and according to public works, they do follow the competitively bid routes whenever they award these grants. So the finding we had on this was just that there were no clear law or rules that provided requirements or guidance of how these types of procurements should be handled. We identified a couple of findings according to the 1984 City Attorney opinion, and there was a 2017 opinion refined based on this guidance. The recommendation that we put forth under this finding was that for the board, the mayor, and the office of Contract Administration should establish minimum qualifications or requirements to ensure the competitive solicitation of grants are in place as well as the award of contracts and solicited processes as per code and policy. The next finding relates to centralized oversight and monitoring. As you know, chapter 21 purchases are handled by the office of Contract Administration, which is under the city administrator. The chapter 6 contracting or procurement fall within each of the six departments that i named as Public Works Authority is granted. Because of the the spread of the various authority that that the different departments and different entities in the city have, there really is no centralized process or an oversight of the procurements citywide, so lack of central monitoring and central procedures are definite. Commissioner lee definitely not in place, given that theyre spread through the various authorities that i mentioned. The two recommendations that we we provided on these are for the city to closed gaps in centralized in centralized monitoring of all procurement activities by strengthening and reviewing the procedures of City Administration or strengthening and monitoring all procurement throughout the city. We also recommend to promote data driven decisions by the agency to utilize data procurement systems and to enter the needed information so that we capture the information on all the contracts, not just from the time of awarding but also from the very, very beginning of outreach and solicitation. We wanted to call out the topic of tone at the top, which is definitely a topic that is very, very important, if not the root cause of a lot of the internal control weaknesses that weve identified. In this case, we identify tone at the top by the organizations leadership. And based on the information that we gathered, interviews that we conducted at public works, the tone at the top that mr. Nuru had was one that prioritized low cost, expediency, and lack of organizational transparency among staff. This is certainly one that were going to be highlighting as part of the various assessments that we will be issuing, so more to come in terms of a recommendation on this one. The very last set of findings or recommendations relate to gaps in gift restrictions and enforcements, and this is basically what we found was that despite certain requirements that are in place, including a form 700 statement, which is a statement of economic interest that is required of all city officers and employees to disclose reportable financial interests, there were some gaps that existed, and loopholes, and im certain that the City Attorneys office will be covering a certain portion of this. But we basically found that the loopholes should be addressed and that the recommendations that followed on this are that for the Ethics Commission to follow these to ensure that city laws do not create any sprung unethical behavior as well as follow the requirements of form 700 filed electronically and following the reviews of such. As todd mentioned in the beginning, we do this is just the first of many of a number of assessments that we will be issuing that relates to the various internal control weaknesses that we identified related to the nuru investigations. Some of those are the ethical standards at the airport, Department Contractor process, as well as policies and procedures at the department of building inspection. I just wanted to say before i move forward, i thank our group, our team within the Controllers Office who worked on these audits, with the leadership of amanda and kay. We also want to thank the staff and leadership at public works who really provided us with full cooperation and collaboration, and the data that we requested to make sure that we do issue a report that is substantive and that is value led. As far as we want to thank the City Attorney office of Contract Administration and the Ethics Commission for providing us their input. With that, were happy to answer any questions you may have. Supervisor mar thank you so much, mr. De la rosa and mr. Wrightstrom for your presentation and the work, and also, controller rosenfeld for this really important review. I just had a few questions that i wanted to ask and also, i know my colleagues do, as well. First of all, i guess i just want to make this clear. It wasnt clear in your presentation, but it is in the review report. For nine years, mr. Nuru had uni lateral authority to grant contracts of over 600,000 with no oversight. Not only did he have that unilateral authority, but he granted that power to three others. So when did this practice end . From our understanding, the process is still in place via the designation of the of the Department Head as the primary approver is still in existence, with the delegated authority to the deputies. If i could just add to that, as well, in addition to that, id like to call out the work and interim controls that were put in place on february 3, also outlining, effective immediately, that d. P. W. Staff had to put into place additional controls which included procuring quotes from at least three qualified contracts, and so that memo was dated contractors, and so that memo was dated february 3, requiring five on requirements for approval on contracts, shelter and housing, and public contracts emergencies. Supervisor mar thank you. So the acting director did at least put some controls into place on february 23. Got it. Well, i just want to state in plain language that Public Officials can accept an otherwise illegal gift if it comes from a friend. To your knowledge, is there a clear Legal Standard for longterm personal friend . Thats an answer that we dont have today, supervisor or chair mar, so well take that back as a legal question, and well be reviewing that as we look at subsequent reports with the City Attorneys office. So thank you for the question, but we cant answer them all today. Supervisor mar this is a followup comment, but it seems to me that longterm friendships would increase the number of contracts and sweetheart deals, especially if that [inaudible] supervisor mar so i appreciate you really looking into this issue further. Thank you. Supervisor mar and then finally, looking into the f. B. I. Charges that prompted th th this review [inaudible] thats a really good question. One thing that we did not have access to that the f. B. I. Had is certainly the Bank Transaction information, wiretapping, and access to the various communication that did not happen. I think that we do have, and it showed as part of some of the assessment is that they do have that the department of public works do have and have implemented controls that mitigate the weaknesses at any given time. Its never a given that theyre going to be weeding out the fraud and waste that we certainly dont want to be perpetrated. Id like to echo that, as well, chair mar, that the internal control environment is really a balancing of the risks and controls. Theres a potential for bad actors to occur, and also, if its too strong and too stringent, departments may look for shortcuts or other control overrides, so as were doing our assessments, were trying to figure out what is enough . Where has the world change, and now with transparency and consistency, where can the city have more transparency with the bidding process, the award process to build public trust, so more to come in those areas. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor peskin, you had some questions . Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. So first of all, thank you to the Controllers Office, and were it not for covid19, i know that we would have gotten this much earlier. So but better now than never, so here we go. And ill just take them in order. You said that the authority that was delegated by mayor lee in the year 2011 to director nuru was then subsequently delegated to three Deputy Directors, and who were those Deputy Directors . I believe they were the the Administration Finance and actually, if i lets see. Let us pull it up actually. Give us a few seconds. Its operations, engineering, and architecture. Supervisor peskin and engineering and architecture was john thomas . I believe so, if that is because we only have the organizational structure that we can. We can confirm, supervisor. Yeah, we can confirm, but i think it looks like fred sikes was the deputy. Supervisor peskin and you say was . Actually, no, it was john thomas, correct, at the time. Fred was the one at the time, and john thomas was the subsequent Deputy Director. Supervisor peskin right. And this is probably not within the controllers purview, but and i dont know if theres anybody whos invited to this, chair mar, but relative to who these three individuals were, if we want to get them to testify, and not necessarily because they misused that delegate of authority, but to the extent that mayor lee was not required to sign any documents, and then delegated that authority to mr. Nuru, who did not have to sign any documents. And now we know that 4 million to 5 million in a certain portion of contracting, that was done with no oversight whatsoever. Somebody had to sign those, and i want to know if they were in any undue pressure, and i want to know, for lack of a better term, whether they were conspireing with director nuru. I would like to get information to that on that. I dont have the slides. This is the problem with doing this but thats okay. I can try to do this relative to the what is really, i have to say, one of the most tragic aspects of one of the most nefarious acts that ive seen in 30 years, to try to increase programs to housing, the board of supervisors grant granted director nuru that authority. But rather than rescinding that authority by undoing what we did and i raised questions at that time and expressed concerns at that time, but ultimately, in the interest of delivering services as quickly as possible and getting rid of the supervisorial role that supervisors play, the checks and balances role, why is the recommendation that we should get the department to adhere to these procedures rather than take those procedures away from them . If youve got a crooked Department Head, what guarantee do you have that a crook is going to adhere to procedures that are not laws . And i ask that in other recommendations where you say, well, we need guidelines. In certain other places, for instance, around grants, you suggest changes to the code. Thats why. But in other places, like the prequalified bidder recommendation, you suggest guidelines instead of code changes, so thats really a question to the Controllers Office as to i in no way mean to be offensive, and i sincerely appreciate the work that youve done in this sordid chapter, but guidelines arent laws. Guidelines are suggestions. Whats your response . Your points well taken, supervisor. This is a preliminary assessment of the controls that the current d. P. W. Director has implemented. That can be done today, to the degree they can also be codified, were considering additional strengthening of some of our processes as we learn more, so we are open to every suggestion, as well. Not just in that recommendation, but others, as well. So whether it be recommendations, whether it be guidelines, or full codification. Supervisor peskin the thing that is just mindboggling is that Department Heads, not just in public works, dont seem to use the extraordinary powers for dealing with crooked contractors. Why. Do you have any analysis of that . One of our work products that is underway is the department process, so if i may, ill take those questions back, and well hold off the answers as we finish that work and prepare that for you. Supervisor peskin this seems to me that if youre a crooked contractor or a malfeasant contractor, it should not be in the citys discretion. You should be out. The second we find that out, you dont get to work for the city and county of San Francisco ever again. And then relative to the tone at the top, it sounds like the Controllers Office did interviews of staff. Can you tell us how extensive those interviews were, how they worked, whether or not anybody revealed more wrongdoing or collusion to you . How many were conducted . Who you know, how how that worked and whether or not you found a history of complaints . Because part of what, i mean, chair mar was asking is and granted, yes, i suspect well never have the ability to wiretap i mean, perhaps the d. A. S office can do that, and the f. B. I. Can do that, but thats not in the whistleblower department or our d. H. S. , department of Human Services does, but there are indicators. Was there a history of internal complaints that people like me didnt get to see . On the extensiveness of our interviews, we we conducted its not the most extensive, i have to say, because we wanted to provide a work product that was going to be available. We conducted a little over a dozen interviews amongst various stakeholders within public works, most of which are on the department and the manager level which were part of the purchasing Decision Making within the department itself. So we did not go through all of the layers within the organization, so thats thats something that we can certainly include as part of our future assessments, but for this one, we we took a much more limited approach, given the time constraints at the time. As far as what we knew in terms of other complaints, one thing that we did consider as part of the assessments, given that we have our Whistleblower Program within the Controllers Office, we used information from that to leverage some of the findings and the information that we gathered as part of our assessment. And if i may add to that, supervisor peskin, this is a balance our focus on these interviews in particular were on the process and the procedures and also on the practices of the department for contracting. In addition to that, we would want to preserve the integrity of the investigation alleged to potential wrongdoing. Supervisor peskin no, and i know that the City Attorneys office has been delving deeply, and some of that, were not privy to, and some of the things are leading to things that were seeing the federal bureau of investigation and the Attorneys Office pursuing. I certainly agree with that in that we dont want to compromise any ongoing investigations. With regard to the prequalified bidder pool and the contracting repeatedly with certain vendors, is there any evidence or have we already publicly seen whether those are some of the vendors that have been publicly identified as having done untoward favors for mr. Nuru . Yes, there was definitely one example that we found in which the contractor was named as one of the subpoenaed under the City Attorney investigations. Supervisor peskin and just in the intervening few minutes, do we now know who the three Deputy Department directors were . Yes. We have, for part of the time of the subject time period, supervisor. We can provide those names to you, as well as look at the h. R. Records to look at for the entire period that we knew who was acting and or the former. Ive actually got them from the team. So the three that they are inquiring about are larry stringer, Deputy Director of operations, edgar lopez, Deputy Director under Building Design and construction and city architect. As well as the third is fred sykes, Deputy Director and engine engineer. Supervisor peskin and this was what time period . The time period this is based on data we collected at the time, so i believe this is 20 in the idea of completeness, wed like to get back to you, but were happy to provide that to you, supervisor. Supervisor peskin okay. And then, did any of those deputy Department Heads have to sign off on any of that 14 million worth of contracts that had no demonstrable paperwork of any kind whatsoever . Our guess is yes, but we will get back to you on a more precise picture of how much they were involved in these department decisions. Supervisor peskin look, i dont think that any of us thought this was going on, but once this was discovered in january, its now july, and i would love to know, and the public deserves to know, as well as the 11 city legislators that represent 850,000 deserve to know right now who signed off on what when. Next, i just want to say that after you released the report, within hours, there was a press release from the mayor saying that she had taken back that delegation of authority, but what you said a few minutes ago, as far as you knew, that delegation of authority was still at the department. Actually, i misspoke on that one, and youre correct, supervisor peskin, that since monday, that that has been changed and reflected as you mentioned. Supervisor peskin and i know that youre not in a position to answer the close friend exception, but i do note that andrew shen, council to the Ethics Commission, is on this meeting, and perhaps he can respond to those issues. Yes. The matter that supervisor mar was referring to, its set forth in an effeicacy regulation. We would like to the regulation itself as well as these efficacy advice letters. Supervisor peskin and as well that the fppc is not the local ethic body, and our body is the Ethics Commission, we could get rid of that . Yes, supervisor peskin, we could be more stringent in our rules. Supervisor peskin i here by ask that you draft the closing of that new poll that i never even knew existed. And i realize that you are the Ethics Commission yourself, and i dont see anyone on here from ethics, but i have to, and my ten colleagues have to, and i think every Department Head has to file their form 700s electronically online. You can find them at the s. F. Ethics website. They are searchable, but what i now understand is there are many other City Employees that have to file them by paper, and theyre not discoverable unless you go down to the department and ask them to produce the form 700s. Generally, when a Department Figures out a piece of software exists ive been using it for years. Ive filed my form 700 every year online its easy to expand that to the rest of the universe. Do you have any idea why this project is taking so long . Its my recollection that the board fully funded this at ethics. Im not a scientist, but if you do it for several Department Heads, you should be able to do it for all employees at not that much more time or cost. Yes, supervisor peskin. Im afraid that i cannot speak for the Ethics Commission on that, but its my understanding that they were planning on making the form 700 Available Online later this year. Supervisor peskin theyve already said that. Well, i cant say any more to it. Supervisor peskin if we have to take more money for it, so be it. But before you guys make a recommendation that the board should fully fund, i think it is incumbent on the Controllers Office to also say in that recommendation whether its been fully funded, what the constraints are for timely performance rather than just saying hey, its on the board, you know . Its not fully funded, so tell us whether or not the Ethics Commission is or is not on the top of their game as it relates to Electronic Filing for all people who are subject to statements of economic interest. Ive got plenty more, but i will stop with that. Supervisor mar supervisor haney . Supervisor haney thank you, and those were many of the questions and points that i wanted to make. I want to thank my colleagues for their leadership and attention on this. I did announce on tuesday that we are working on a number of pieces of legislation, includi including closing the b. F. F. Exemption, so i would love to work with you on that, supervisors peskin and mar. I know both of you flagged just how ridiculous and mindboggling that is, that because you can say someones been your friend for some period of time, that they can give you these huge and unreported gifts. Its just wrong on its face, and there are many things in this report that come up that are unusually problematic on its face. I want to ask a couple of more questions about this deferral of oversight authority. They have oversight on the commission other than from the department of public works, is that correct . Thats correct. Supervisor haney and does the does chapter 6 designate in any sort of way who that authority, in the absence of a commission, can be delegated to . Can it be delegated to anyone . Does it have to be a certain type of authority . How is that defined . What we at least from the public works example that we know, because in the absence of the commission, the mayor basically has the the authority to approve, or the mayors designee. In the office of public works, it was designated to the department of public works director. Supervisor haney so basically because of a lack of a commission, it automatically went to the mayor, and then, the mayor decided to give it back to the director, so the director was their own oversight body. Fox guarding the henhouse. Thats our understanding. Supervisor haney and underscoring the importance of restoring oversight to this department. It creates a huge problem, where this department is uniquely exposed with regards to a lack of oversight, and that makes it, i think particularly in a position where these sort of things can happen because you have to defer to the mayor, and the mayor says, i dont know what to do with this and gives it back to the director, which is totally contradictory to the purpose of having oversight on these commissions. And i know that the report recommends that the the over that the deferral of the oversight be cancelled and given elsewhere. So the mayor cancelled it. Does that now mean that the mayor has oversight again and the final approval . I believe that is the situation, yeah. Supervisor haney okay. And is there any recommendation as to whether thats the right structure for this or whether theres another, you know i mean, could it be deferred to someone else altogether, other than the mayor, or delegated to someone else . Supervisor haney, thats a good question. We dont have a final answer to it. Thats part of our part of our approach, is doing a preliminary assessment to make sure were getting these questions as well as to further consult with the City Attorney on what lemgs lay tiff changes might be needed legislatives that might be needed to define that. Supervisor haney and on a few of these items, it seems like there were far too few checks and balances. Thats on the Homeless Services streamlining services as well as the contractor pool, so we will need to tighten those in various ways and correct for some of the major issues that existed with them. I want to ask you a couple questions about the Whistleblower Program because in light of what supervisor peskin brought up of how we expect its one thing to correct the laws, which and the loopholes and all of that is hugely crucial, but how do we expect that our government can adequately, in the lack of a better word, police itself, so how do we know this is happening . This has been going on for years from director nuru. It could have been going on longer than that because we only have whats come out recently. Theres no reason to believe this sort of behavior wasnt happening 15, 20 years ago. Can you explain, there were 284 whistleblower complaints so far in 2020. How does that compare to other years . And i dont know if you are able to say so, but i also know that there are 54 that went to the Public Integrity tip line. Supervisor haney are you able to say how many of those went to public works or how do you categorize these . Yeah. To the very first supervisor question that you had, the number of complaints that weve been fielding, the number has been increasing over the last few years. Part of that effort that we have been very proactive in terms of a program of continuing to communicate to the departments our existence and what we can do with the information that they have. In terms of the specific Public Integrity line that we started, you know, in response to the nuru investigations back in february, we basically fielded them. Theres 50plus 54, i believe, complaints or tips that we gathered. We provided the City Attorney with all of the tips that were necessary for them to continue to provide more leads into their investigation. Some of them that we fielded in the Public Integrity hotline were whistleblower complaints not only related to the nuru investigations. Well get back to you on the other breakdown in terms of how much of that is public work. Were actually issuing our yearend annual report in the next few weeks. Supervisor haney and did it is it fair to say that theres a lot more investigation and analysis that needs to be done on these topics . Were learning more information every day, supervisor. Thats the important of the tip line as well as the Public Integrity tip line, and our report will give you a breakdown of the large departments, so happy to talk to you about that as soon as we publish it. Supervisor haney are there specific topics that you identified in this report or more broadly that your office has identified as a need for a lot further investigation . And with that, what are the next steps for your office . I mean, one of the concerns that i have and i understand that we have, you know, recently been through a pandemic, and im sure you all are being pulled in all sorts of different directions. But it has been, i guess, about five months since this process first started, and theres a lot more that needs to be investigated and analyzed and reported on. What are the next steps for your office, and what topics are you going to be working on . How can you possibly do all of this . Yeah. Thanks a lot, supervisor. If i may, mark, were learning a lot more every day. What we know so far is that the additional work product related to outside accounts and friends of organizations in particular, as well as what the ethical standards are for Commission Contract approval processes, including contracts at s. F. O. Will be one of the next areas, as well as the awarding of contracts through d. B. I. It is a great deal of work. We do have folks that are able to do much of this skilled work and investigation. Some of this does include onsite review of materials. We take this very seriously, and this is part of our duty and our service to the city, and so thank you for all of your support, as well. And just quickly to add to that, the first two that todd mentioned that were working on, the assessment as well as the airport, ethical standards surrounding commissions, we started the field work on those two way before covid, so those two are actually far along in terms of our report writing, and those are going to be upcoming and forthcoming in the next few weeks, with the friend being the next one to be publicly available. Supervisor haney great. Well, i do appreciate all of the work, and its a huge amount. I want to underscore a large part of the reason why i think theres a couple of levels of additional oversight and investigation that is required to make sure we go through all this and correct all the loopholes and problems in how the systems work, you know, we are i put forward, with a number of others and supervisor mar around a special investigator to be able to really follow up and go deeper on some of these things that i think your office has really uncovered in really important ways, but we need to go further, and i do think that looking at what has come in front of us, this is really underscoring the need for that. And also, the two proposals that are in front of us, which is a commission over at d. P. W. , which obviously is a huge, glaring gap in oversight at this department. I think this is wonderful work that youre doing. Its way more than what we thought needed to be done. As i said, ive started the process on tuesday to address some of these things, including putting an investigation around the contractor pool and streamlining. And in addition, one other thing that didnt come up so much in this report but has come up in the last few months oh, and also, the grant piece, which i think is particularly important with d. P. W. , but also, the donations to, like, shell nonprofits that are really behested payments that are never reported, and then kickbacks with these required donations to to nonprofits, some of which are not even real nonprofits by contractors at the behest of bureaucrats is a huge problem. I hope when you look at the friends piece of it, thats also a piece of what you look at. Its not just that theyre getting people to donate to friends of. Theyre actually getting people to donate to friends of, like the lefty odoul charity, which then turns around and donates to the department, as well. There are a nb umber of things that we can do to investigate better on our behalf, and we can put a number of things in place. Supervisor mar supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin i assume were going to have a presentation by the City Attorneys office, as well . Supervisor mar yes. Supervisor peskin ill hold my questions until after that. Supervisor mar why dont we go to the investigation by the City Attorneys office. Id like to welcome deputy City Attorney ann pearson. I would like to note that unlike the structural review by the Controllers Office, the City Attorneys office is looking for evidence for potential crimes or charges, so because of that, they may not be able to be as forthcoming as we would like. With that, deputy City Attorney ann pearson. Thank you. Im joined by deputy City Attorney andrew shen, who would be happy to answer questions pertaining to ethics. [inaudible] a former commissioner of the immigrant rights commission, balmour fernandez, and walter huang, whos a contract official. The Law Enforcement tools that are used to uncover these crimes included search warrants, secret grand jury subpoenas for bank records, and require taps that allowed the f. B. I. To listen in on conversations between coconspirators. Based on the allegations against mr. Nuru, we interviewed tom hui, whos the former director of d. B. I. We reviewed his emails and report reported our findings to the mayor, who immediately recommended his removal. This took place before the shutdown in march. Because of the pandemic, many of our interviews were delayed for about two months, but since the beginning of june, weve begun working with various departments to direct employees to participate in interviews by video. The City Attorney has three priorities that i want to talk about. Identify employee misconduct to support the removal of unethical employees and officials, and recovering illicit gains for the benefit of taxpayers. Now there are strict limits to what can be disclosed publicly about public individuals while charges are pending. There are things today that i cannot say. Employees have privacy rights and personnel actions, and any compelled statements made by an employee as part of a personal investigation could jeopardize the integrity of any investigations by city officials. Firs let me talk a little bit more about the three priorities that i outlined before. The first one being official misconduct and employee investigations. Criminal allegations are not evidence. Criminal charges standing alone will not support terminations of an employee or termination of a contract for cause. The City Attorneys office has begun the difficult and prolonged work of developing independent evidence to support the release of employees involved in misconduct. So to date, mohamed nuru resigned as he was about to be terminated. Tom hui resigned as he was about to be terminated. Linda creighton with the airport resigned, and Florence Kang has been removed. We are focusing our efforts on gifts and bribes from improper sources and improper contracting positions. With the help of the Controllers Office, our office has reviewed every contractor grant with an entity implicated in the criminal allegations to see if theres a basis to terminate the contract or debar the contractor. The citys contract with nick bovis for toilets, for example, has been terminated. The p. U. C. , with the citys help, has determined azulworks to be disbarred for a contract it is now seeking. Az azulworks would be entitled to an appeal hearing. The City Attorney is looking at the debarment process for a number of contractors, but absent a conviction, it can be difficult for the city to show willfulness misconduct. Our third priority is recovering illicit gains. In light of the announcement that walter huang is pleading guilty in his involvement with the city, we are reviewing every contract that he had a part of with the city and bar those entities from doing further business with the city. As part of this investigation, we are identifying areas in the citys gift laws. Were looking at issues now, and well be reporting back to the board of supervisors on our findings after we have a better sense of where their rules might be best revised to strengthen improper contracts through gifts and favors. Id also like to note in the midst of all this, our offices separate investigation into building and check fraud by former Building Commission and president rodrigo sanchtos ledo criminal charges against him. He was charged with multiple counts of bank fraud for stealing funds from clients intended to pay for city permits. These allegations, as well as multiple allegations of permit fraud were included in a civil lawsuit that our Office Brought against mr. Santos. So with that, i will conclude my remarks. I am available for questions, as is deputy City Attorney shen. Supervisor mar thank you very much, deputy City Attorney pearson. I just have, like, one question before i allow my colleagues to speak. I was wondering if you share more on the construction or process of the city work that you just described. Many of the complaints coming to light now date back years or, in some cases decades . So my question is what could have found these out earlier or prevented them, and what steps of the county attorneys investigation . Well, we unfortunately lack some of the investigation tools that the f. B. I. Has. We dont have the ability to listen in on conversations and get the wiretaps, but we do look into every complaint thats filed, either through the whistle blowers office or thats filed with our office, and we will continue to investigate every complaint that comes to our office. Supervisor mar so this basically, this the City Attorneys investigatory work on this type of conduct are complaint driven . They are complaint driven. We lack some of the tools that i mentioned. We have the ability, though, to, through departments require employees to discuss with us whats gone on. We have subpoena authority, civil subpoena authority, but we lack some of the tools that assist the f. B. I. In this instance. Supervisor mar thank you. Supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin thank you, chair mar. Miss pearson touched on everything i was going to ask. But there is, within the city and county of San Francisco, two agencies that have other authorities. One is the Ethics Commission, and the other is the district Attorneys Office. Your office is a civil office and has certain duties and powers relative to the civil side, but on the criminal side, we do have a d. A. S office, and the City Attorney has been within the bounds of what is legal and appropriate, been working with the u. S. Attorneys office and federal bureau of investigation without compromising or releasing your internal investigations. In what circumstances does this Office Report to the City Attorneys office for this time of crime . I don id be happy to follow up with you on that information. Supervisor peskin and i was actually having this conversation with one of my colleagues the other day, and in this particular case, and in my 20 on and off years on the board, when wrongdoing is found that is either short of criminal wrongdoing or because we dont refer a case to a d. A. Or the d. A. Doesnt take the case or the case isnt Strong Enough or they dont charge the case, what happens is the wrong doer disappears into the night, and we never hear anything about it again. Tom hui would be an example of that, although it was more public and covered in the press and whathaveyou. This Committee Meets in private closed session to settle lawsuits, and often in those closed sessions, one of us says, well, what happened to the City Employee who had, unbeknownst to us weve got 35,000 employees and a few are bad apples unbeknownst to us had a long history of Sexual Harassment or workplace behaviors, and occasionally, the Department Head or City Attorney says that individual no longer works for us. But theres never any ill use the word, overt punishment short of having at the top it let [inaudible] supervisor peskin so at any rate and i realize all of these are protected and under personnel confidential matters that are covered under state, federal, and local law. Supervisor mar supervisor haney . Supervisor haney thank you, and can you, deputy City Attorney pearson and all of the folks in your office who have been doing extraordinary work to investigate this even without some of the tools that obviously the federal government has. Its just been doing so much to unearth a lot of the issues here. I you know, one of the things that im concerned about, and i want to know how you all approach this. When you have people that have engaged in conduct like this on the private side, there are often a string of victims who they have left behind that have lost some things, in some cases, irreparably. In these cases, would we go through and try to look back at each of these instances of wrongdoing as a way to look at what type of support or repairing or whatever it is could be done for the people that were harmed, and in some cases, they were harmed potentially due to things we should have known, and ill given a story here of rodrigo santos. There were hundreds of checks that people had written to him that were, in many cases, intended for d. B. I. Or for others that he basically just pocketed, which means that there may be hundreds of small property owners, small businesses, and others who maybe lost their homes or lost their businesses because they gave a check to rodrigo that they thought was going to d. B. I. , that they were in violation of some sort of repair that caused them to lose their home. Im not saying that as a hypothetical, i think i actually know an elderly filipino couple who lost their home because rodrigo somehow got involved in helping them with repairs, and they dont understand really what happened because they thought they handled everything and did everything they were supposed to, and rodrigo probably stole their money. They lost everything, so how do we actually investigate to help the people that were harmed, not just to hold the back folks accountable . Supervisor haney, thats a great question, and it does not surprise me that the consequences of this behavior is felt far and wide, and that the damage is not just to the city but to provide individuals who may have lost money, who may have lost contracts, all those things. We will follow these investigations where they take us. We represent the city and county, and we will act on behalf of the city and uncover money lost to the city and look into what action we can take on behalf of individuals in the city who have been harmed. Supervisor haney i appreciate that. Im just concerned that were sort of as you said, were in kind of a tough place there because were uncovering individuals who may have harmed people outside of the city which candidly, could create some liabilities for the city for not putting a stop to that. And connected to this, for d. B. I. , hundreds of checks that were intended for d. B. I. That went into the pocket of somebody who was the most frequent flier at the d. B. I. Office, and the fact that they didnt know that is, like, hard to believe. So i think following it in terms of im sure youre following it in government, and even though they may not have liability, what sort of checks should be there to connect the sort of to be able to identify bad behavior as its happening. If youve got 30 people who come into your office and say, well, i paid, and i did it through rodrigo, and now, i need repairs, you should be able to put a stop to it without it going this far, and that doesnt seem to have happened. The other thing i wanted to bring up, if you could clarify the process by which somebody forfeits their pension. I was shocked to find out that, essentially, you have to be convicted of a crime of moral terpitude to forfeit your pension, and are there any other processes that we have to and it has to be related to your job. Can you clarify what that is and what options the city has when it comes to somebodys pension for somebody who may have been stealing from the city . Youre exactly right, supervisor haney. There are provisions in the charter that govern the circumstances under which someone is required to forfeit their pension, and those circumstances are very narrow and do require a conviction for a crime involving falsity thats committed in the course of your job. And once that conviction occurs, then, there are administrative procedures to proceed for the forfeiture, but it is very narrow, and that exists in our charter. Supervisor haney and thats the only way. You have to be convicted, and then, we have to go and seek for it to be. Okay. Supervisor mar supervisor haney, are you done . Supervisor haney im all done. Thank you. Supervisor mar well, thank you, deputy City Attorney pearson. Thanks to mr. Ridestrom and mr. De la rosa for engaging in the discussion and your really important work into the investigation into this widespread and pretty outrageous and disturbing misconduct and corruption here in the city, yeah. So this has been a helpful hearing just to get an update on the investigation that were doing here in the city to not only rid out the misconduct thats happened but take really bolder and proactive steps to keep this from happening again. Why dont we go to Public Comment. Mr. Clerk, are there any callers in the queue . Mr. Qu, please let us know if there are any callers in the queue. For those in the queue, please wait until youre prompted to begin. The system will tell you your line has been unmuted. For those watching on cable channel 26 or via streaming line or sfgovtv, please call in by following the instructions on your screen. Dialing 4084189388, enter the meeting i. D. 1460991337. Press the pound symbol twice, and then press star, followed by three to speak. Mr. Qu, do we have any callers who have connected to our meeting . Operator yes, there are currently four callers in the queue. Clerk caller, go ahead. Supervisors, im very, very interested in the title of this hearing which said investigations into public interruption. I would like to bring to your attention that any person here has access to some of the public avenues that they take. For some reason, our Sunshine Task force does not work, and if you look at the commission, you all can dive into it. It does not work, so the taxpayer goes to the Controllers Office, and you can do all the heavy lifting and provide it to the Controllers Office, and the Controllers Office works with the City Attorney. And i say you can do all the heavy lifting, which i mean empirical data, and it takes years. And as one of you alls supervisors stated, you could ask the District Attorney, and in the past, we did not have a good District Attorney. Weve got a new District Attorney now, and some of you are very familiar with him. [inaudible] clerk thank you for your comments. Do we have the next speaker, please. Hello. Is it my turn . Clerk yes, it is. Im calling to ask for a moratorium on ficus trees removal. Clerk could we pause the speakers time for a moment. Speaker, at the moment right here, the government audit and Oversight Committee is hearing a matter of public corruption in the city. Its the hearing on progress on an investigation into public corruption. That is what were taking comment on right now. Are you still there . Yes, yes, i understand. Thats what im talking about. Clerk okay. Im talking about nuru, and the order for these ficus trees to be removed came from nuru. It did not originate from the bureau of you aurban forestry, did not originate from the public. Ive lived in this neighborhood for 14 years. Weve had no problem with our ficus trees. This neighborhood is being ravaged. This directly contradicts the information from arbor pro, the city paid 500,000 to do an inventory from our tree and make a recommendation. They recommended for one ficus tree to be removed and the others to simply be groomed. Right now, theyre decimating our neighborhood, and it doesnt make any sense. Buck is saying that these trees pose a danger, but ive lived here for 18 years. There has been no issues with the ficus trees, and these trees are 40 years old. It takes 40 years to replace a 40yearold tree, and the reasons theyve given makes no sense whatsoever, and this came from nuru sometime in 2019, this order that thousands of ficus trees thoroughout the ciy needs to be removed. San francisco has one of the smallest tree canopies in the city, and were losing massive amounts of our canopy on an order that came from nuru. We cant wait for an investigation because the trees will be gone. So im really urging you to look into this. Theres no reason for these trees to be removed, and it is a huge loss. Additionally, d. P. W. Isnt following the proper notification processes. Theyre supposed to put notices on the trees 30 days before removal. Theyre not doing that. When we objected earlier this week, they said nothing more would happen until late july clerk thank you for your comments. Mr. Qu, can we be connected to the next speaker, please. Hello. [inaudible] can you hear me . Clerk yes, we can hear you. Your time begins now. Okay. [inaudible] with regards to tree maintenance and right lane viet n nam removal, id like to know what sorts of experience arborists are required to have. [inaudible] in last nights boathank yo. Mr. Qu, could we have the next speaker, please. Linda chapman. By the way, remember months ago, i warned you when our urban canopy which was planted by nob hill neighbors that was destroyed . Thats not what i called about, nor did i call you to tell you about how i lost my home due to the corruption of d. B. I. , my second home on nob hill, art deco home that i loved. Any way, what i really called about was the appalling results of the hearing that you that you held on april 30 of the contracts, the crazy contracting that was done with the hotels and that were then left empty. And, you know, again, ive said that i believe that the controller, the City Attorney ought to be able to recover some of that money. I want to mention that, you know, what you could do is look at the way the federal government handles contracting, for example. You know, its like hiring. The line managers and the Program Managers, like i was, we dont sign the contracts. I would go to hotels to make arrangements for contracts and so forth, but only the warranted Contracting Officers could do it. Its like Human Resources. They have to protect the Civil Service, similar to contractors protect Contracting Officers who were warranted, who are trained and did an apprenticeship and then are certified are allowed to do the contract. And, you know, just crazy decisions were made on those hotels. You dont pay hotels to hold rooms open. Clerk thank you for your comment. Mr. Qu, do we have anymore speakers . Hello . Clerk yes, your time begins now. Hello, yes, can you hear me . Clerk yes, we can. Yes, well, my names stacey bullar, and first of all, ive been listening to you for a long time, and i dont know how you have the stamina to keep going. My mind is swimming. But any way, im calling because i, too, am concerned about the process thats involved in removing our street trees, and in fact, this weekend, seven trees were cut down on Market Street and octavia street, and it was not really permitted behavior, and we need to know who was responsible for that. Yes, ficus trees were pinpointed by mohamed nuru while ed lee was mayor. It its long documented about removing them because they say theyre unsafe and they fall down on people, but when you look at the statistics, they are way down the list of dangerous. The ones more dangerous are even more numerous than the ficus trees, so i think its a leftover crink that this order existed. I hope someone will look into it to have it desist. Thank you for your work. Its good to have someone opening pages and looking at it. Thank you for your attention. Clerk thank you for your comments. Mr. Qu, do we have anymore speakers . Operator mr. Chair, that completes the queue. Supervisor mar thank you, operations, and mr. Clerk, hearing no further callers, Public Comment is now closed. Colleagues, i just wanted to thank you, and also the representatives from the City Attorneys office for this robust discussion about hearing about investigations into public corruption in our city. These investigations and public discussions are ongoing, but theyve already led to some important actions, you know, both by mayor breed and the acting director of public works have taken steps to address the issues. Even at the hearing today, Committee Members colleagues, you announced some legislation that youre working on or sponsoring, and then, theres the even bigger proposals for systemic and instructal changes, such as creating oversight, much needed oversight to the department of public works and also on creating a new office of the public advocate that would address these actions more proactively and systemically. So i look forward to continuing these important discussions in the g. A. O. Committee, especially as the Controllers Office released their zshtheir zs their subsequent reports. Colleagues, do you have any more comments . Supervisor peskin thank you for bringing this report and thank you to the City Attorney for their work during this unfortunate chapter. In addition, a piece of legislation that i asked the City Attorney to draft and welcome supervisor haneys desire to work collaboratively on that. I also have requested legislation from the City Attorney with regard to rescinding the sanction that the board was asked to pass and indeed did pass with regard to code section 67. 7 and 21b. Its a pretty easy section to pass, and i hope that we do this tuesday. Supervisor mar thank you. With that, colleagues, i ask that we continue this to the call of the chair. On that motion, mr. Clerk, call the roll. Clerk on the motion to continue the item to the call of the chair [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thank you, mr. Clerk. Can you please call items 6 through 11 for closed session . Clerk items 6 through 11 are items, resolutions, and lawsuits on a closed session agenda. Members of the public who wish to make Public Comment should call 4084189388, enter the meeting i. D. 1460991337. Press pound twice and then starthree to enter the queue to speak. Supervisor mar mr. Clerk, do we have any callers on the line . Clerk mr. Qu, do we have any caller in the queue for this item on the agenda . Operator there are no callers in the queue. Supervisor mar so seeing no Public Comment, Public Comment is now closed. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Clerk on the motion to go into closed session [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thank you. We will now Contact Tracing is clerk thank you, mr. Chair. While the commission was in closed session, they voted unanimously to recommend six matters for consideration. Supervisor mar thank you. I would like to make a motion to not disclose the matters in closed session. Clerk, call the roll. Clerk on the motion not to disclose [roll call] clerk mr. Chair, there are three ayes. Supervisor mar thank you, mr. Clerk. Is there any further Business Today . Clerk mr. Chair, that concludes the agenda. Supervisor mar we are adjourned. This is one place you can always count on to give you what you had before and remind you of what your San Francisco history used to be. We hear that all the time, people bring their kids here and their grandparents brought them here and down the line. Even though people move away, whenever they come back to the city, they make it here. And they tell us that. Youre going to get something made fresh, made by hand and made with quality products and something thats very, very good. The legacy bars and restaurants was something that was begun by San Francisco simply to recognize and draw attention to the establishments. It really provides for San Franciscos unique character. And that morphed into a request that we work with the city to develop a legacy business registration. Im Michael Cirocco and the owner of an area bakery. The bakery started in 191. My grandfather came over from italy and opened it up then. It is a small operation. Its not big. So everything is kind of quality that way. So i see every piece and cut every piece that comes in and out of that oven. Im leslie ciroccomitchell, a fourth generation baker here with my family. So we get up pretty early in the morning. I usually start baking around 5 00. And then you just start doing rounds of dough. Loaves. My mom and sister basically handle the front and then i have my nephew james helps and then my two daughters and my wife come in and we actually do the baking. After that, my mom and my sister stay and sell the product, retail it. You know, i dont really think about it. But then when i sometimes when i go places and i look and see places put up, oh this is our 50th anniversary and everything and weve been over 100 and that is when it kind of hits me. You know, that geez, weve been here a long time. [applause] a lot of people might ask why our legacy business is important. We all have our own stories to tell about our ancestry. Our lineage and ill use one example of tommys joint. Tommys joint is a place that my husband went to as a child and hes a fourth generation san franciscan. Its a place we can still go to today with our children or grandchildren and share the stories of what was San Francisco like back in the 1950s. Im the general manager at tommys joint. People mostly recognize tommys joint for its murals on the outside of the building. Very bright blue. You drive down and see what it is. They know the building. Tommys is a San Francisco hoffa, which is a germanstyle presenting food. We have five different carved meats and we carve it by hand at the station. You prefer it to be carved whether you like your brisket fatty or want it lean. You want your pastrami to be very lean. You can say i want that piece of corn beef and want it cut, you know, very thick and i want it with some sauerkraut. Tell the guys how you want to prepare it and they will do it right in front of you. San franciscos a place thats changing restaurants, except for tommys joint. Tommys joint has been the same since it opened and that is important. San francisco in general that we dont lose a grip of what San Franciscos came from. Tommys is a place that youll always recognize whenever you lock in the door. Youll see the same staff, the same bartender and have the same meal and that is great. Thats important. The service that San Francisco heritage offers to the legacy businesses is to help them with that application process, to make sure that they really recognize about them what it is that makes them so special here in San Francisco. So well help them with that application process if, in fact, the board of supervisors does recognize them as a legacy business, then that does entitle them to certain financial benefits from the city of San Francisco. But i say really, more importantly, it really brings them public recognition that this is a business in San Francisco that has history and that is unique to San Francisco. It started in june of 1953. And we make everything from scratch. Everything. We started a you we started a off with 12 flavors and mango fruits from the philippines and then started trying them one by one and the family had a whole new clientele. The business really boomed after that. I think that the flavors we make reflect the diversity of San Francisco. We were really surprised about the legacy project but we were thrilled to be a part of it. Businesses come and go in the city. Pretty tough for businesss to stay here because it is so expensive and theres so much competition. So for us who have been here all these years and still be popular and to be recognized by the city has been really a huge honor. We got a phone call from a woman who was 91 and she wanted to know if the mitchells still owned it and she was so happy that we were still involved, still the owners. She was our customer in 1953. And she still comes in. But she was just making ure that we were still around and it just makes us feel, you know, very proud that were carrying on our fathers legacy. And that we mean so much to so many people. It provides a perspective. And i think if you only looked at it in the here and now, youre missing the context. For me, legacy businesses, legacy bars and restaurants are really about setting the context for how we come to be where we are today. I just think its part of San Francisco. People like to see familiar stuff. At least i know i do. In the 1950s, you could see a picture of tommys joint and looks exactly the same. We havent change add thing. I remember one lady saying, you know, ive been eating this ice cream since before i was born. And i thought, wow we have, too. Good afternoon, welcome to the land use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco board of supervisors for today, monday, june 29th, 2020. I am the chair of the Committee Aaron peskin joined by supervisor safai and supervisor dean preston, our clerk is ms. Erika major. Mrs. Major, do you have i in announcements . Clerk yes, due to the covid19 Health Emergency and to protect board members, to the employees and the public the board of supervisors legislative chamber room are closed. How many, members will participate in the meeting remotely. This is taken pursuant to the state wide sta stay at home ordr and declarations of directives. Committee members will attend the meeting through Video Conference and participate in the meeting to