Transcripts For SFGTV Public 20240703 : vimarsana.com

Would. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting id. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then to raise your hand to speak, press star three. Unless you are speaking under general Public Comment, please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed first. If commenters do not stay on topic, the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda item at hand. We ask that Public Comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. Please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. The public is always welcome to submit comments in writing via our email address of public works Dot Commission at sfpd. Org. On behalf of the commission, we extend our thanks to govtv Building Management and Media Services staff for helping make this meeting possible. Chair post. Thank you. Before calling the next item, are there any requests from the commission to amend the order of todays agenda . Hearing no requests, we will move on to the next item. Announcements by chair. I do have several today since our last meeting there were a couple of news articles regarding Illegal Dumping in the bayview neighborhood, which of course weve heard about before at the commission. One article was discouraging, one was encouraging. I thought the discouraging piece described the breadth of the dumping breadth of the dumping problem and San Francisco public works heroic work to address it. In an effort to give residents and businesses a neighborhood in which they can take pride while there is Illegal Dumping. In every San Francisco neighborhood. The problem is worse by orders of magnitude in the bayview area. The article referenced the cameras the department will be installing to help identify perpetrators in trim. Director short, what is the status of the camera project . When can we expect the cameras to be installed. Good morning, chair. Post commissioners carla short interim director for the camera project excuse me, has been a little bit challenging. We had a identified vendor who knew we were in the process of entering into a contract with that vendor and then during that period of time they were purchased by another company who then basically, i guess, eliminated that function that they had. And so it took some time for us to find a new vendor. We found a new vendor that can do the same basic work. And i am looking for my cfo. We have run into a snag with a new vendor as well, so im going to ask bruce to describe that because i dont want to get the details wrong. Good morning, commissioners. Bruce robertson, cfo for public works. The overview from interim director schwartz. Absolutely correct. We have run into an issue where with the new vendor that weve identified, theyre not currently a city vendor. So were really just going through that process of making sure that they comply with the various ordinances. Um, i dont have a timeline at my fingertips, but we can certainly report back. I do know that this is a priority for our Contract Administration team. And alex burns, the contract manager, is personally working with the vendor and our partners in oca. The office of Contract Administration, to make sure we can get this up and running as soon as possible. So let me get the exact date and timeline and then well certainly report back. But thats really the holdup at the moment. Its just making sure that they meet all of the city requirements. Thank you very much for that clear explanation. Well look forward to updates on the program as i mentioned, the second news report was encouraging. It profiled Brian Johnson on a resourceful bayview resident who was designed and built a drone Flight Program to identify garbage hotspots in his neighborhood and in the mission. And this more quickly deploy Public Works Department resources to clean the areas up rather than relying on 311 calls. Mr. Johnson is partnering with public works to run a pilot of his system. Interim director short, will you please tell us more about this Drone Pilot Program . All so if the pilot is successful, will our colleague, commissioner turner suggested this might be a very good program for Workforce Development whereby young people would be taught to fly drones and learn related technology skills. Is this something the department will consider. Thank you. Chair post carlos short, interim director. The Pilot Program is basically using this technology. To alert our crews to where we have debris to pick up in the bayview more quickly than relying on neighbors to call 311, although we will still track the work through the 311 system. Mr. Johnson has actually been doing this independently for some time and has found that his technology can identify the debris and call it in and then weve been responding pretty effectively to that. So hes been weve had a couple of meetings with him to talk about specific areas that we would like to have him fly more frequently rather. So basically , you know, looking at operationalizing this to get the best possible data, which will then also allow us to identify potentially when people are dumping and we may be able to follow up and try to prevent that dumping from happening. And or catch people in the act. So in terms of Workforce Development, i think the technology hes developed includes, you know, some built in ways to ensure that were not identifying people, that this is focused on garbage. So i think we would need to explore the possibility with with the developer about whether theres, you know, its a fairly lean operation at this point. And the city also has these rules around the use of drones. And we for this project we did present to the Citys Department that reviews that and explained know they want to ensure how were protecting public privacy and things like that so that were not identifying individuals. So i think those would all need to be kind of worked through. But certainly if the if the if the developer of this would would be interested in teaching folks the technology, then we would thats an interesting idea that we would be very happy to pursue. Thank you. I realize its early days here, but never hurts to start thinking about these things early. Good. Thank you very much. Recently there have been media reports on alleged illegal actions by the director of the citys Community Challenge Grant Program and the head of a local nonprofit who was awarded city contracts for public improvement projects. S does it . The Public Works Department have any contracts with Rj Enterprises or any of its affiliates and how do we work with the citys Community Challenge Grant Program . If we do . Thank you. Chair post carla short, interim director. As this is an evolving investigation, we are working with other city departments and the City Attorneys Office to review the complaint that was that was issued against Rudolph Dwayne Jones and lanita enriquez. We will continue to review contracts and grants that may have been implicated by mr. Jones and miss enriquez. We did learn through the just released indictment that there are a handful of additional business names that may have been used. So we are going to be reviewing our contracts for those as well. And then were exploring and pursuing all appropriate remedies and enforcement actions. I think ive been advised to be rather general in comments this morning as the were still reviewing with the City Attorneys Office, but but we are looking at all of those grants and contracts that may have involved those individuals. Thank you. I felt thats a very satisfactory answer. Could you just explain for a moment, does the Department Work with the Community Challenged Grant Program in the past . We have worked with with the Community Challenge Grant Program and that a number that that program serves communities as as the name indicates. But eight city departments would along with public works potentially send funds to the Community Challenge grant to support those community initiatives, says thank you my final announcement on a cheerier subject is to highlight the august edition of in the works. The departments newsletter. It comes out every month and can be found easily on the departments website. This recent issue highlighted two Capital Projects that weve had presentations on previously at the commission, the Historic Mission Library Renovation and upgrade, and the castro Muni Muni Metro station, elevator and plaza renovation and upgrade both of these projects show off the talent and skill of the departments architecture and design teams, and well be hearing about both of them again when we receive annual updates on significant, significant Capital Project contracts that the Commission Approves in the works also highlighted the departments clean corridors program, an initiative that each week provides a deep, clean and sprucing up of a select commercial corridor in the city. The first phase of the better Market Street improvement program, which is upgrading the streets and sidewalks of the citys signature boulevard and the july love our city neighborhood beautification day, which took place in the sunset district. We do any commissioners have any questions on my announcements . Do any commissioners have announcements of their own today . Hearing none. Secretary fuller, please open this item to Public Comment. Oh if possible. I have a couple of announcements. I beg your pardon. Please continue. Oh, so my announcements are very brief. The sanitation and streets Commission Meet the next sanitation and streets Commission Meeting will be monday, september 18th and their august meeting was canceled. But the next meeting will include performance measure reports from the bureau of urban forest and Street Environmental Services is on a different note. Ill be surveying commissioners with potential meeting dates and times for the 2024 calendar year. It being september 1st, were already looking at the new year. So commissioners, please look for a message coming from me in the in the next week or so. And then also to point out on the calendar that we do have a special meeting of this commission that has been scheduled for wednesday, september 13th at 8 a. M. To hear a person matter in closed session. And that meeting will take place in city hall room 400, which is not our normal meeting room. And all of this has been posted to our website and notice has been posted and at the library as well. And that concludes my announcements. Thank you. Now please open this item to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item one. The announcements by the chair, commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall furthest from the door if you are in the chamber. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to be to be recognized and in the chamber we do not have anyone who has approached to speak on this item and govtv is indicating that we. Have one caller in the queue and please go ahead and please go ahead and mute that, unmute that caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and i will provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. The great can you hear me now . We can hear you. Excellent. David paypal i hope i havent expired, although my time may at some point so three brief comments on this item as to the drones issue. Just wanted to remind the department and perhaps the commission that the city has a Surveillance Technology policy that requires a Technology Like drones to be approved by both the committee on information technology, fauci and the board of supervisors. And theyre kind of way behind on approving department requests. So i dont recall that dpw has an approved Surveillance Technology policy for our drones. And if thats the case, then they would have to write one up and get it approved prior to the citys use of drones for these purposes. Anyway, i will let other folks figure more of that out. I did note in the public materials that the advanced calendar is missing. I always look forward to the advanced calendar and hope in the future that it will be included with all regular Commission Meeting packets. And finally there was a hiring memo that said that it was off calendar but was included publicly. Actually, maybe thats under the directors report. Anyway, i found the hiring memo to be very encouraging and wanted to appreciate hr director hill and the work that shes doing and throughout the department on hiring two key vacancies. Those are my thoughts on item one. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller. And that is our only caller looking to speak on item one. So that concludes Public Comment. Thank you. If theres no further discussion on this item, secretary fuller, please call the next item. Item two is the directors report and communications interim director carla short is here to present this report. And this is an informational item. Good morning again, commissioners. Carla short, interim director. I just i have a few brief updates today. Not too extensive. I wanted to start with the hiring update, so we provided the off calendar memo, but a quick summary, as you probably recall, we set a very aggressive hiring target of 250 hires by the end of fiscal year 2023. We were able to meet that hire by having 200 sorry, meet that goal by having 265 hires complete within the timeline. Overall, the hiring has continued with a total of 297 hires, and public works is processing 85 additional new hires. These important employees have already made a significant improvement in our ability to develop, deliver the Critical Services that we provide of the new hires. Theres a combination of positions to the department and internal new positions to the department and internal promotions. I wanted to just highlight a couple of the key areas where weve made progress by our Human Resources bureau. So bureau of Street Environmental Services, one of our most public facing bureaus. Its the bureau responsible for our street cleaning staff, our functional vacancy rate is 13. 9 as of august 2023. However because were in the process of onboarding an additional 41 staff, once they are hired, our functional vacancy rate will be down to 5. 3. I think thats the lowest that weve had in many years. So thats a huge achievement that we wanted to highlight. Another critical position that youve heard a bit about in our meetings is our 9916 Public Service aid, and these are our block cleaners. So theyre the folks you see out in the orange vests with their brooms and their rolling garbage cans, and they are out on the streets cleaning, assigned blocks all day, every day. Thats been a really, really Important Program for us. And they are part of our Workforce Development program as they feed into our apprenticeship programs. In an ideal world. So weve hired an additional 45 staff in this classification. We have another 18 hires all additional staff to the department in the hiring process. So 18 new folks coming in. I also wanted to note our 6230 street inspectors. Weve approached full staffing for this classification when we have a just a handful of vacancies remaining, we have 11 additional hires in this program. So i think we are seeing the results of that improvement. They are responsible for not just looking at street cleaning, sorry, sidewalk conditions and street conditions around the city, but also implementing the illegal vending program which has been, as you know, a challenging program. But having the staff available to be able to rotate through the assignments has really, really helped with that program. So the focus there, as you know, is the mission in particularly un plaza, chinatown , some areas working with partners along the port and then we also have a few of the street inspectors who help with our graffiti program. So notifying Property Owners of their responsibilities to clean up graffiti and also assisting Property Owners to opt in to our proactive Graffiti Abatement Program for commercial corridors. So another really critical all our positions are critical, but wanted to highlight some of the essential positions that we filled. Other essential positions include our Public Comment<\/a>, please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed first. If commenters do not stay on topic, the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda item at hand. We ask that Public Comment<\/a> be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. Please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. The public is always welcome to submit comments in writing via our email address of public works Dot Commission<\/a> at sfpd. Org. On behalf of the commission, we extend our thanks to govtv Building Management<\/a> and Media Services<\/a> staff for helping make this meeting possible. Chair post. Thank you. Before calling the next item, are there any requests from the commission to amend the order of todays agenda . Hearing no requests, we will move on to the next item. Announcements by chair. I do have several today since our last meeting there were a couple of news articles regarding Illegal Dumping<\/a> in the bayview neighborhood, which of course weve heard about before at the commission. One article was discouraging, one was encouraging. I thought the discouraging piece described the breadth of the dumping breadth of the dumping problem and San Francisco<\/a> public works heroic work to address it. In an effort to give residents and businesses a neighborhood in which they can take pride while there is Illegal Dumping<\/a>. In every San Francisco<\/a> neighborhood. The problem is worse by orders of magnitude in the bayview area. The article referenced the cameras the department will be installing to help identify perpetrators in trim. Director short, what is the status of the camera project . When can we expect the cameras to be installed. Good morning, chair. Post commissioners carla short interim director for the camera project excuse me, has been a little bit challenging. We had a identified vendor who knew we were in the process of entering into a contract with that vendor and then during that period of time they were purchased by another company who then basically, i guess, eliminated that function that they had. And so it took some time for us to find a new vendor. We found a new vendor that can do the same basic work. And i am looking for my cfo. We have run into a snag with a new vendor as well, so im going to ask bruce to describe that because i dont want to get the details wrong. Good morning, commissioners. Bruce robertson, cfo for public works. The overview from interim director schwartz. Absolutely correct. We have run into an issue where with the new vendor that weve identified, theyre not currently a city vendor. So were really just going through that process of making sure that they comply with the various ordinances. Um, i dont have a timeline at my fingertips, but we can certainly report back. I do know that this is a priority for our Contract Administration<\/a> team. And alex burns, the contract manager, is personally working with the vendor and our partners in oca. The office of Contract Administration<\/a>, to make sure we can get this up and running as soon as possible. So let me get the exact date and timeline and then well certainly report back. But thats really the holdup at the moment. Its just making sure that they meet all of the city requirements. Thank you very much for that clear explanation. Well look forward to updates on the program as i mentioned, the second news report was encouraging. It profiled Brian Johnson<\/a> on a resourceful bayview resident who was designed and built a drone Flight Program<\/a> to identify garbage hotspots in his neighborhood and in the mission. And this more quickly deploy Public Works Department<\/a> resources to clean the areas up rather than relying on 311 calls. Mr. Johnson is partnering with public works to run a pilot of his system. Interim director short, will you please tell us more about this Drone Pilot Program<\/a> . All so if the pilot is successful, will our colleague, commissioner turner suggested this might be a very good program for Workforce Development<\/a> whereby young people would be taught to fly drones and learn related technology skills. Is this something the department will consider. Thank you. Chair post carlos short, interim director. The Pilot Program<\/a> is basically using this technology. To alert our crews to where we have debris to pick up in the bayview more quickly than relying on neighbors to call 311, although we will still track the work through the 311 system. Mr. Johnson has actually been doing this independently for some time and has found that his technology can identify the debris and call it in and then weve been responding pretty effectively to that. So hes been weve had a couple of meetings with him to talk about specific areas that we would like to have him fly more frequently rather. So basically , you know, looking at operationalizing this to get the best possible data, which will then also allow us to identify potentially when people are dumping and we may be able to follow up and try to prevent that dumping from happening. And or catch people in the act. So in terms of Workforce Development<\/a>, i think the technology hes developed includes, you know, some built in ways to ensure that were not identifying people, that this is focused on garbage. So i think we would need to explore the possibility with with the developer about whether theres, you know, its a fairly lean operation at this point. And the city also has these rules around the use of drones. And we for this project we did present to the Citys Department<\/a> that reviews that and explained know they want to ensure how were protecting public privacy and things like that so that were not identifying individuals. So i think those would all need to be kind of worked through. But certainly if the if the if the developer of this would would be interested in teaching folks the technology, then we would thats an interesting idea that we would be very happy to pursue. Thank you. I realize its early days here, but never hurts to start thinking about these things early. Good. Thank you very much. Recently there have been media reports on alleged illegal actions by the director of the citys Community Challenge<\/a> Grant Program<\/a> and the head of a local nonprofit who was awarded city contracts for public improvement projects. S does it . The Public Works Department<\/a> have any contracts with Rj Enterprises<\/a> or any of its affiliates and how do we work with the citys Community Challenge<\/a> Grant Program<\/a> . If we do . Thank you. Chair post carla short, interim director. As this is an evolving investigation, we are working with other city departments and the City Attorneys Office<\/a> to review the complaint that was that was issued against Rudolph Dwayne Jones<\/a> and lanita enriquez. We will continue to review contracts and grants that may have been implicated by mr. Jones and miss enriquez. We did learn through the just released indictment that there are a handful of additional business names that may have been used. So we are going to be reviewing our contracts for those as well. And then were exploring and pursuing all appropriate remedies and enforcement actions. I think ive been advised to be rather general in comments this morning as the were still reviewing with the City Attorneys Office<\/a>, but but we are looking at all of those grants and contracts that may have involved those individuals. Thank you. I felt thats a very satisfactory answer. Could you just explain for a moment, does the Department Work<\/a> with the Community Challenge<\/a>d Grant Program<\/a> in the past . We have worked with with the Community Challenge<\/a> Grant Program<\/a> and that a number that that program serves communities as as the name indicates. But eight city departments would along with public works potentially send funds to the Community Challenge<\/a> grant to support those community initiatives, says thank you my final announcement on a cheerier subject is to highlight the august edition of in the works. The departments newsletter. It comes out every month and can be found easily on the departments website. This recent issue highlighted two Capital Projects<\/a> that weve had presentations on previously at the commission, the Historic Mission<\/a> Library Renovation<\/a> and upgrade, and the castro Muni Muni Metro<\/a> station, elevator and plaza renovation and upgrade both of these projects show off the talent and skill of the departments architecture and design teams, and well be hearing about both of them again when we receive annual updates on significant, significant Capital Project<\/a> contracts that the Commission Approves<\/a> in the works also highlighted the departments clean corridors program, an initiative that each week provides a deep, clean and sprucing up of a select commercial corridor in the city. The first phase of the better Market Street<\/a> improvement program, which is upgrading the streets and sidewalks of the citys signature boulevard and the july love our city neighborhood beautification day, which took place in the sunset district. We do any commissioners have any questions on my announcements . Do any commissioners have announcements of their own today . Hearing none. Secretary fuller, please open this item to Public Comment<\/a>. Oh if possible. I have a couple of announcements. I beg your pardon. Please continue. Oh, so my announcements are very brief. The sanitation and streets Commission Meet<\/a> the next sanitation and streets Commission Meet<\/a>ing will be monday, september 18th and their august meeting was canceled. But the next meeting will include performance measure reports from the bureau of urban forest and Street Environmental Services<\/a> is on a different note. Ill be surveying commissioners with potential meeting dates and times for the 2024 calendar year. It being september 1st, were already looking at the new year. So commissioners, please look for a message coming from me in the in the next week or so. And then also to point out on the calendar that we do have a special meeting of this commission that has been scheduled for wednesday, september 13th at 8 a. M. To hear a person matter in closed session. And that meeting will take place in city hall room 400, which is not our normal meeting room. And all of this has been posted to our website and notice has been posted and at the library as well. And that concludes my announcements. Thank you. Now please open this item to Public Comment<\/a>. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item one. The announcements by the chair, commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall furthest from the door if you are in the chamber. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to be to be recognized and in the chamber we do not have anyone who has approached to speak on this item and govtv is indicating that we. Have one caller in the queue and please go ahead and please go ahead and mute that, unmute that caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and i will provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. The great can you hear me now . We can hear you. Excellent. David paypal i hope i havent expired, although my time may at some point so three brief comments on this item as to the drones issue. Just wanted to remind the department and perhaps the commission that the city has a Surveillance Technology<\/a> policy that requires a Technology Like<\/a> drones to be approved by both the committee on information technology, fauci and the board of supervisors. And theyre kind of way behind on approving department requests. So i dont recall that dpw has an approved Surveillance Technology<\/a> policy for our drones. And if thats the case, then they would have to write one up and get it approved prior to the citys use of drones for these purposes. Anyway, i will let other folks figure more of that out. I did note in the public materials that the advanced calendar is missing. I always look forward to the advanced calendar and hope in the future that it will be included with all regular Commission Meet<\/a>ing packets. And finally there was a hiring memo that said that it was off calendar but was included publicly. Actually, maybe thats under the directors report. Anyway, i found the hiring memo to be very encouraging and wanted to appreciate hr director hill and the work that shes doing and throughout the department on hiring two key vacancies. Those are my thoughts on item one. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller. And that is our only caller looking to speak on item one. So that concludes Public Comment<\/a>. Thank you. If theres no further discussion on this item, secretary fuller, please call the next item. Item two is the directors report and communications interim director carla short is here to present this report. And this is an informational item. Good morning again, commissioners. Carla short, interim director. I just i have a few brief updates today. Not too extensive. I wanted to start with the hiring update, so we provided the off calendar memo, but a quick summary, as you probably recall, we set a very aggressive hiring target of 250 hires by the end of fiscal year 2023. We were able to meet that hire by having 200 sorry, meet that goal by having 265 hires complete within the timeline. Overall, the hiring has continued with a total of 297 hires, and public works is processing 85 additional new hires. These important employees have already made a significant improvement in our ability to develop, deliver the Critical Services<\/a> that we provide of the new hires. Theres a combination of positions to the department and internal new positions to the department and internal promotions. I wanted to just highlight a couple of the key areas where weve made progress by our Human Resources<\/a> bureau. So bureau of Street Environmental Services<\/a>, one of our most public facing bureaus. Its the bureau responsible for our street cleaning staff, our functional vacancy rate is 13. 9 as of august 2023. However because were in the process of onboarding an additional 41 staff, once they are hired, our functional vacancy rate will be down to 5. 3. I think thats the lowest that weve had in many years. So thats a huge achievement that we wanted to highlight. Another critical position that youve heard a bit about in our meetings is our 9916 Public Service<\/a> aid, and these are our block cleaners. So theyre the folks you see out in the orange vests with their brooms and their rolling garbage cans, and they are out on the streets cleaning, assigned blocks all day, every day. Thats been a really, really Important Program<\/a> for us. And they are part of our Workforce Development<\/a> program as they feed into our apprenticeship programs. In an ideal world. So weve hired an additional 45 staff in this classification. We have another 18 hires all additional staff to the department in the hiring process. So 18 new folks coming in. I also wanted to note our 6230 street inspectors. Weve approached full staffing for this classification when we have a just a handful of vacancies remaining, we have 11 additional hires in this program. So i think we are seeing the results of that improvement. They are responsible for not just looking at street cleaning, sorry, sidewalk conditions and street conditions around the city, but also implementing the illegal vending program which has been, as you know, a challenging program. But having the staff available to be able to rotate through the assignments has really, really helped with that program. So the focus there, as you know, is the mission in particularly un plaza, chinatown , some areas working with partners along the port and then we also have a few of the street inspectors who help with our graffiti program. So notifying Property Owners<\/a> of their responsibilities to clean up graffiti and also assisting Property Owners<\/a> to opt in to our proactive Graffiti Abatement Program<\/a> for commercial corridors. So another really critical all our positions are critical, but wanted to highlight some of the essential positions that we filled. Other essential positions include our Human Resources<\/a> staff, so our newly created public works Human Resources<\/a> program is fully staffed with 47 positions filled and a functional vacancy rate of zero. So that youve got to hire the people who can hire the people. So were really proud to have that completed. And we also have filled several key leadership positions, such as our finance manager, our new Housing Delivery<\/a> coordinator, and our Performance Program<\/a> manager, and then one last kind of category of positions i wanted to highlight are our analyst positions in march of 2023, the citywide vacancy rate for the administrative analyst series was 32. 3 and for Senior Administrative<\/a> analysts, the vacancy rate was 16. 5 and we had similar vacancy rates within public works for these series. Since january 1st, weve hired 14 new staff into these two critical classifications and there are another seven positions in the hiring process. And as you know, well be providing a more detailed overview at an Upcoming Commission<\/a> hearing. But i did want to highlight those great achievements by our hr team. Um i also wanted to let you know that starting next week actually we and continuing through, through the week through september 8th, public works will be undergoing the final step of reaccreditation by the American Public<\/a> works association. Apwa is an independent. National organization of professionals with a mission to support those who operate, improve and maintain public works and infrastructure for through advocacy, education and member engagement. A accreditation provides public works, formal recognition that the department complies with the current recommended National Practices<\/a> that are established by the epa for the re Accreditation Process<\/a> helps our department make continuous improvements to better support our mission of providing the best possible service to San Francisco<\/a>, its residents and visitors. Public works was first accredited in 2010 and accredited in 2014 and 2018. The 2022 assessment was postponed due to the pandemic and uncertainty over proposals to split the department to prepare for the current re accreditation. More than 100 people in every division and bureau of the Department Spent<\/a> more than a year conducting a complete review of our procedure manuals to ensure that our practices are updated to current standards and for the past two months, weve created document station to submit to apwa, showing how the department follows more than 280 individual apw practices. Next week. The apwa evaluators will conduct virtual visits with the Department Leadership<\/a> to examine our processes and audit our procedures to ensure that we meet the highest standards of performance. Re accreditation is expected to be achieved by the end of september. And i should note that while we spent more than a year, that was clearly not full time, these procedures are really a good way for us to validate our workflows and make sure that theyre up to date and that were taking into consideration new technologies and so its a good exercise for us as a department chair. Post. As you noted, we celebrated the groundbreaking for the major renovation of the Historic Mission<\/a> branch library, the library at the corner of 24th and bartlett streets is one of the citys seven carnegie libraries and steeped in history in San Francisco<\/a> lore. Built in 1915 and designed by and funded by the philanthropist and industrial at carnegie, the Public Works Team<\/a> has been working with the San Francisco<\/a> Public Library<\/a> and Community Groups<\/a> to redesign this beauty of a building. It received landmark city landmark status in the early 2000, even though the building was renovated in 1997 to make seismic improvement and accessibility upgrades. The makeover led to the loss of some of the librarys most recognizable features, including its historic entrance and monumental stairway. Now, more than two decades later, public works architects, Landscape Architects<\/a> construct managers, project managers and engineers are looking to restore the showpiece reading room and the rest of the Historic Building<\/a> to some of its original glory. While adding much needed upgrades to transform the facility into a less cramped, more accommodating and more climate resilient space for staff and patrons. Public works also handled regular affairs, Site Assessment<\/a> and remediation between providing a 100 Person Community<\/a> room, constructing a dedicated teen room, restoring the main entry to its original location, and replacing the lost historic main staircase. Building additional restrooms and adding a fenced courtyard and sustainability features such as rooftop solar panels and air conditioning. The project packs a punch, an array of robust improvements that have fit together like a jigsaw puzzle for construction, which just started in august, will cost 23 million and is expected to wrap up by fall 2025. Until then, a temporary branch for the Mission Community<\/a> will continue to be housed nearby at 1234 valencia and the renovation is being executed by sj amoroso construction company, a San Francisco<\/a> based company. The construction project generated roughly 2 for art enrichment funds, which helped the San Francisco<\/a> Arts Commission<\/a> hire. Celebrated bay area artist Juana Alicia Araiza<\/a> to create a new public artwork in the form of a large fuzed glass window for the main reading room. The design called nopal de la mision, features a monumental prickly pear cactus nopal with flowers and fruit that symbolize resistance, sustenance and regeneration. When we actually got to see one panel of this at the groundbreaking and it is just stunning, its going to be an incredible feature. Public works and the San Francisco<\/a> Public Library<\/a> have been long time collaborators on Capital Projects<\/a> to upgrade the citys network of 27 neighborhood branches and work on the Mission Library<\/a>, supported by the Library Preservation<\/a> fund, which was overwhelmingly passed by voters last november, as well as a 5. 3 million grant from California State Library<\/a> building forward initiative. We are designing this renovation to be leed gold certified to align with our Climate Action<\/a> plan goals to achieve net zero Greenhouse Gases<\/a> gas emissions by 2040. It is going to be a stunning project. Im very excited about it. As you can see by my lengthy report out. Lastly the sunset district, as you noted, chair post, we had our love our city neighborhood beautification day on a foggy, chilly morning in the sunset district, but we had quite a great turnout. About 100 volunteers joined us. We worked on on sunset boulevard. We did medians, planted trees, us spread mulch. We also worked on sloat planting new cypress trees and the youngest amongst us were able to dig and prep soil for new plants. So we do want to thank Sunset Elementary School<\/a> for hosting our kickoff and providing some of our enthusiast volunteers. The mighty team of neighborhood stewards wrapped up the saturday event. Seeing and feeling that they had made the sunset more beautiful while strengthening our community ties. And next month, our love, our city neighborhood beautification day will be in north beach, chinatown, russian hill and other district three neighborhood boards and that will be on september 16th. We hope to see some of you there. That wraps up my report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Interim director short. We congratulate miss hill and the department for these great hiring news. We look forward to the more detailed presentation when we see her for her regular presentation. This fall. Im sure your report was music to commissioner zombies ears. Also we wish you the best of luck on the apwa audit next week for the reaccreditation. It does sound like it was probably a useful exercise and that the department is well prepared to pass that. So let us know what happens. We will. We will update you. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions for interim director short . Its not really a question, but a comment. So i had the privilege of serving on the Arts Commission<\/a> Civic Design Review Committee<\/a> when the Mission Library<\/a> was under design. And i did want to share with everyone in the community that its going to be a beautiful addition. Rio addition, if you will, to our community. Other cities might have taken that beautiful edifice and sold it and turned it into private housing, which would have been an easy reach. But San Francisco<\/a> kept one of the most beautiful buildings in the Mission Neighborhood<\/a> is renovating it, bringing it up to current standards and current needs for the community. Its going to be an incredible reedition back into San Francisco<\/a>, cityscape and intellectual scape. So i just wanted to highlight the wonderful things that San Francisco<\/a> does for our our community. And just a remark on that. And i hadnt seen the final art because they were still looking at artists when i termed off the Arts Commission<\/a>. So thats exciting news here. Here commissioner zarb. I want to start by wishing everyone a happy labor day and thank you for the report today. Coming giving us let us know that because to me, i really felt its a huge priority to get all the vacancies filled out. So thank you. And good luck with the reaccreditation. Thank you. Please open this item to Public Comment<\/a>. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item to the directors report may line up against the wall furthest from the door. If in the chamber. If youre calling in. Dial 415 a6550001 where you use te meeting number access code. Of 26622546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to be recognized. We do not have any inperson commenters at this time and sfcv is also indicating we do not have any callers interested in speaking on this item. So that concludes Public Comment<\/a>. Thank you, secretary fuller. Please call the next item on the agenda for item three is general Public Comment<\/a>, which is for the public to comment on topics under the commissions mandate but not related to a specific item on todays agenda, members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general Public Comment<\/a> may line up against the wall furthest from the door here in the chamber here, or if youre calling in dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access. Code 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to be recognized. And we do not have any members in person who have approached to speak on this item. But as govtv is indicating, we have one caller. Please go ahead and unmute that. Caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and ill provide you with a 32nd notice when your time is about to expire. Great. David pilpel, you can hear me again. We can. Excellent. So i mentioned at the last meeting a brief comment on the refuse rates impact on dpwhs budget and i believe the board, the refuse rate board acted yesterday to adopt the new rates. Little ambiguity on some things there. But assuming that it settles either yesterday or soon, i believe that will have some impact on the dpw budget. Moving a few things around. So i once again suggest a memo or update to this commission in the future that might actually require an amendment for all i know. So i assume that Deputy Director<\/a> robertson is all over it and getting it right. So anyway, just wanted to be sure that that gets caught at some point. Thats all for general Public Comment<\/a>. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller and that is our last caller under general Public Comment<\/a>. Thank you. Please call the next item. Item four is the consent calendar of routine matters. Includes the minutes from the august 18th, 2023 meeting of this commission and two contract awards. Both contract awards are eligible for the consent calendar in accordance with the contract delegation policy adopted by this commission. Please note that corrections for clarity have been made to the draft minutes to items. 154j6s, 7n8 and nine, and all consent calendar items can be heard individually upon request by a commissioner, staff or the public. An adoption of the consent calendar and all resolutions contained in it is an action item, and i wanted to inform the commission that Department Staff<\/a> has requested a postponement of item four c to a later date and so suggest a motion for that separately from the adoption of the consent calendar. Thank you very much. I will move to postpone item four c to a later date. Second secretary fuller, please open Public Comment<\/a> on the motion. On the motion to postpone item four c members of the public who wish to make comment on that motion. If youre in the chamber, you may line up against the wall for this from the door. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use that sae meeting. Access code. Of 26625460028. And then pound, pound and star three. And we do not have any callers or we do not have any members of the public in person wishing to speak on this. And an sf govtv is also indicating we do not have any callers on this motion either. Thank you. Please call the roll on the motion on the on the motion to postpone. Item four c please respond with i or nay. Paul wolford. I fatties rb all right, warren post i we have three votes in favor of the motion to postpone item four c so the motion. The motion passes. Thank you. Before entertaining a motion on adopting the consent calendar, i did have a question on item four b interim director short. I dont know if you could answer it. There may have been a typo in the staff memo. Is this project expected to be completed by summer of 2024 . Do you know . Or if anyone in the audience knows us, i think it is us, but in the cover memo that i saw, it didnt say completion. Im sorry. I dont know that off the top of my head, but we can certainly double check and let you know. Thanks to clarify, i actually did pose that question to the project manager and they did clarify that the construction completion would be summer of 2024. Yes thats what i expected. Thank you. That was updated on on the document posted to the website. So perfect. Thank you. Are there any questions on the consent calendar from the commission . If not, is there a motion to adopt the consent calendar . So moved wolford ill second, please open this item to Public Comment<\/a>. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item for the adoption of the consent calendar and all resolution is contained within it. Aside from item four c may line up against the wall for this from the door. If here in the chamber, if youre calling in. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 266 a2546002 8 pound poun. And then press star three to raise your hand to speak and we do not have any members of the public who have approached to speak about this item in person. Sfcv tv is indicating we do have one caller wishing to make Public Comment<\/a> on the consent calendar for please unmute that caller and caller. Youll have three minutes to speak and ill provide you with a 32nd notice. Great thank you. David pilpel. So yes, on item four, b on page three of the Public Document<\/a> that i downloaded this morning, it does have construction completion of in summer of 2024, near the top on item four, a the minutes i have a number of nonsubstantive edits. Ill run through them quickly and i can review them with secretary fuller after the meeting on the top of each page it indicates a recording of this meeting is available at a website address. I would only include that once, either at the beginning or the end of the minutes. I dont think it needs to be on each page on page one, the chairs report, the sixth bullet says chair asked interim director short i would insert post so it reads chair post asked. Interim director short on starting on page three, i gather that there were a few divided votes, but the way the votes read is a little confusing. So i think i would reword that somehow. So it indicates that there was a motion and a second and then the votes in favor and against. Im not sure that it needs three lines for that one for each. Commissioner, i think you can just say, you know, the ayes and the noes and whether the motion passed or failed, there was Something Else<\/a> related to voting. No on page five, item seven, Deputy Director<\/a> of finance, Financial Management<\/a>. I think it should be Financial Management<\/a> and administration. Bruce robertson so substitute and for the comma after management and i cant remember if there was Something Else<\/a>. But anyway, if i see anything further in the nonsubstantive department, im happy to communicate that to secretary fuller. But i think clarifying the minutes, particularly as relates to the votes, is important for the record that is all i have on the consent calendar. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller and that that is the last Public Comment<\/a>er on the consent calendar. Thank you. If theres no further discussion from the commission all in favor of adopting the consent calendar, please say aye or yes. Aye aye. The consent calendar is passed unanimous. Secretary fuller will post the corrected minutes and the pertinent resolution to the commissions website. But mr. Fuller, please call the next item. Item five is the award of the pit stop Workforce Development<\/a> agreement with mission hiring hall. Warren hill, assistant manager of central operations, is here to present the Grant Agreement<\/a>. And this is an action item. Thank you, mr. Hill. Before you come to the podium, i have a few comments since the motion to approve this item and the other grant award on the agenda today did not pass at our last Commission Meet<\/a>ing. These items were continued to prepare for the reconsideration on the commission asked public works staff to provide answers to a number of questions. Commissioner turner raised regarding Department Grant<\/a> rfp and awards. Id like to thank the Department Staff<\/a> for answering commissioner turners question and providing the Additional Information<\/a> he requested. Those answers and information will be posted to the Public Works Commission<\/a>s correspondence log. Also, between our last meeting and today, commissioner turner and i had a lengthy discussion with public works manager of Contract Administration<\/a> alex burns and deputy City Attorney<\/a> Yadira Taylor<\/a> to discuss public works contracting and competitive selection period policies in general. Commissioner turner and i found this session very helpful and even more of our questions were answered in the weeks ahead. All of us on the Public Works Commission<\/a> look forward to a deeper dive into the departments grant making function and the Workforce Development<\/a> program that is being scheduled for a regular Commission Meet<\/a>ing later this fall. Regarding todays agenda, since we heard presentations on these two grants two weeks ago and the presentation options have not materially changed since then, i would like to suggest to my colleagues that we forego the same formal presentations today. The presentation materials are posted on the commissions website and we have all reviewed them. That said, commissioners or commissioner wolford, do you have any questions on this item . The pit stop Workforce Development<\/a> grant award before we entertain a motion on it . No. I also have no questions. I will move that we approve the pit stop Workforce Development<\/a> grant award. Is there a second . Ill second it. Thank you. Secretary fuller, please open the motion for Public Comment<\/a>. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item five, the pit stop Workforce Development<\/a> Grant Agreement<\/a> may line up against the wall for this from the door. If here in the chamber. If you are calling in, please. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting access code. 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to raise your hand to speak. No members of the public have approached to speak on this item in person. Sfcv is indicating that we do have one caller who would like to speak on this item as if govtv. Please go ahead and unmute that caller and caller. You will have three minutes to speak and ill provide you with a 32nd notice. Uh, great. David pilpel again, so im not particularly concerned about this or the next item, but nor did i listen to it at length at the last meeting. But i did note in the page one of the item five memo, it says, since the august 18th meeting, in response to questions raised about this grant recommendation, staff have provided Supplemental Information<\/a>. And i think i just heard from chair post that that Supplemental Information<\/a> will be posted to the website with with the commission correspondence for the next meeting. The problem is the public has not seen that Supplemental Information<\/a> and that might be material to approve all of the this item and the other item today plus commissioner turner is not present and i for one, would be interested in commissioner turners views publicly on whether the on the Supplemental Information<\/a> and how it responds to his concerns that led to his vote against so i think i would respectfully request that these items be continued again to the next meeting when commissioner turner is present and that Supplemental Information<\/a> is available to the public. I think it does a bit of a disservice to only share that information with the commission and not have it publicly be available in connection with consideration of the items, however important these Workforce Development<\/a> grants are. Those are my thoughts and that applies to the other item as well. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Caller and that is our last Public Comment<\/a>er on this item. Thank you. As i normally dont respond to Public Comment<\/a>, but i will hear i do appreciate the callers concerns and apologize that the information was not posted prior to the meeting. I would like, though, to be very clear that i was very conscious about not having an end run around our colleague, commissioner turner. He and i have discussed at length this vote and i feel confident that i dont know how my colleagues will be voting, but i feel confident that my vote will not betray commissioner turners views on the matter. All right. Theres no other discussion. I know there are people here who have taken the time and trouble to attend the meeting. Mr. Hill, or if anyone else in the audience wants to comment on this motion , please feel free to come up. Otherwise, well get to the vote. All right. Secretary fowler, please call the roll on the motion on the on the motion to approve the. Pardon me . On the motion to approve the pit stop Workforce Development<\/a> Grant Agreement<\/a>. Please respond with yes or no, paul wolford. Yes commissioner wolford votes yes. Fatty zabi yes. Vice chair zogby votes yes. Warren post yes. Chair post votes yes. With the with three votes in favor of the motion pass. Thank you. The resolution awarding the pit stop Workforce Development<\/a> grant award to and hiring hall will be posted to the commissions website. Secretary fuller, please call the next item. Item six is the tree watering Workforce Development<\/a> grant award with the San Francisco<\/a> conservation corps. Acting superintendent Nicholas Crawford<\/a> is present to present this item and answer any questions. And this is an action item. Thank you. I have no questions. Are there any questions from the commission on this item before we open or before we take a motion on it . Um, no questions for me. I actually have just a comment. We did go through, um, i had a meeting also with, um, a director, carla short, and we discussed, we talked at that, that this is a marathon. Its not a sprint. And i would like to, you know, i requested that, not requested. I thought it was a good idea just to have more conversation, more with the commission about the process itself, because i felt that the process is the one that caused the confusion in the. But other than that, i dont have any more questions about about this item. Thank you. I will move that we approve the tree watering Workforce Development<\/a> grant award to the San Francisco<\/a> conservation corps is there a second . Second wolford thank you. Secretary fuller, please open the motion to Public Comment<\/a>. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item six, the tree watering Workforce Development<\/a> grant award may line up against the wall for this from the door. If here in the chamber, if you are calling in, please dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access code. Of 26625460028. And then press star three to raise your hand to speak. And we do not have any members of the public who have approached in person to speak on this item. Sfcv is indicating let me just check that. Oh, sfcv is indicating that we do not have any callers on this item either. So that concludes Public Comment<\/a>. Thank you. Before voting on this motion, is there anyone in the audience that wishes to address the commission or speak on the on the item . All right. I dont see anybody. Secretary fuller, please call the roll on the motion on the on the motion to approve item item six, please respond with yes or no. Paul wolford. Yes commissioner wolford votes yes. Fatty zogby. Yes vice chair zogby votes yes. Lauren post. Yes chair post votes. Yes. With three votes in favor. The item passes. Thank you. And secretary fuller will post the resolution regarding the Workforce Development<\/a> grant. San francisco conservation corps to the commissions website. Secretary fuller, please call the next item on the agenda, item seven seven. Is new business initiated by commissioners. And this is an opportunity for commissioners to suggest business for a future vendor for a future agenda. This is an informational item. Thank you. Do any commissioners have new business to initiate . Commissioner zarb i um. Thank you. Chair post. Um everyone. I mean, whoever knows me and knows my background as a lot of it is being involved with the Business Community<\/a> of San Francisco<\/a>, especially the very small Business Community<\/a> like moms and pops, i serve on the board, served on the board for a long time on north beach business association, which automatically got me, you know, made me a member of the council of merchants, been working, worked with the chamber of commerce of San Francisco<\/a>. And i just wanted to remind everyone of the sacrifice that Small Business<\/a>es did during our recent pandemic back in 2020 when they had to shut down and, you know, the source of income took a took a long break. Weve had businesses that never closed in the past 50 years that First Time Ever<\/a> they had to close for the sake of the community and to be part of the whole pandemic emergency rules. And if everyone remembers when we when the city reopened at 25 capacity for businesses and businesses started and a whole process of outdoor seatings where they they were they put tables and chairs in the Parking Spaces<\/a> in front of their storefronts and they had to also, you know, get it to a point where its comfortable for their clients. They built those structures and now were going through a process of permitting , permitting some businesses they decided to keep to either keep or rebuild, remodel and get a permit and do everything legally, which was which was great from the city of San Francisco<\/a> to allow those Small Business<\/a>es to keep that at shared spaces or or we call it parklets. But in the past couple of in the past meetings, weve been weve been approving projects in in the consent calendar to repave certain streets. And i wanted to see what is what is the department doing in coordination with the permit process and the repaving thing from, from talking to a lot of Business Owners<\/a>, Small Business<\/a> owners tell them we ask them, what do you think about that, you know, shared space outside . Are you going to keep it or are you not . Theyre all thinking theyre all scared about getting the permits built wing it, which is right now after the pandemic is costing over close to 100,000. And then. And then, you know, public works will come and say, we need to pave that street. Now i will. I wanted to just bring it to the table here to at least have a conversation, have a discussion on about what is the department doing to coordinate these and, you know, prevent businesses from getting permits, spending the money and then having to do at their own expense, having to remove it for the street to be paved. Um thats a very interesting question. Do you want to respond to today interim director short or do you want to look into it with Deputy Director<\/a> coe and get back to us maybe at the next meeting, the september 15th meeting on it sounds very worthwhile that that were repaving, but then i guess Business Owners<\/a> are going to have to pull these permits pretty soon and dont want to, of course, do it if theyre going to be repaved maybe next year or something. So its an interesting question id like to hear the answer to. Sure okay. Carla shaud, interim director, i can make just brief comments now and then we can get you more information at the next meeting. So we do do our best to work with businesses when the paving projects are upcoming, we notify the businesses that have shared spaces and ill use one example from your neighborhood where we adjusted the paving schedule to accommodate the use of the shared spaces during their highest time of year around the holidays. And then the businesses indicated that they it would be more convenient for them to remove the parklets during their slower period, which is just after the holidays. So the original plan was to basically pave november, december, we postponed that to try to accommodate the best time for those businesses. Many of the parks hits are not entire rebuilds. Theyre modifications ones to the existing structures. So i think there there is not a like theyre down to zero and then they build a new thing and we come through and pave right after that. Having said that, i think our goal is always to provide sufficient notice. Thats why we have a five year plan. We while things change, you know, we want to make sure that we give people notice of our intent so they can plan around it. The permit applications were actually already due and, you know, theyre actually supposed to be completed by september 27th. We have received quite a few permit applications. Were in the review process. Some of them still need modifications. So theyre not 100 necessarily code compliant yet. But were working with them on that. So those are my general comments. But we can certainly look at if there are ways to improve our our notifications or coordinations. I think certainly anyone who has paving coming up should have already gotten notices about that because of our our efforts. To let people know the notices of intent of intent that go out fairly early in the process. Yes. So i dont know how easy it will be to overlay, but it seems like thats something we can do. We have a map of where these applicable zones are. We know where were going to be paving. So we could try to do a little bit of extra outreach in those areas. Thank you. Um, i would, i would. You said that there was incidents where you had to postpone. Were there will there be any consideration to expedite a street that has permits that are ready to go just to get it out of the way . I mean, we would happily look at that. I think the challenge is, you know, if its an as needed contract, that might be possible. Part of the challenge is that we have of course, are getting our contracts approved, getting things done. You know, through through the commission process. So it all depends on where we are with the contracting capacity and then mobilizing for the contractor. Obviously, there can be additional costs if were pulling them from one side of the city to another. But we absolutely want to work with our Small Business<\/a>es so we can certainly look at that. If theres a case like that and if its possible to expedite, we certainly would do that. You know, i would like to follow up on that and just say if its a permitted parklet, youre not parking there anyway. So it does call into question the reason for paving underneath it and destroying the parklet. So perhaps there could be just one more layer of scrutiny and investigation into that, because if its a permitted parklet, no ones going to park in the space. It might it could be a green space for all that matters, you know . So it would be really important because those businesses that are doing that are hanging on, as we all know. So the last thing we want to do is, is kill another local business because of wellintended policy. Certainly i think we can and do look at that option as well. There are there are a lot of complications, as im sure you know, with your experience in terms of, you know, being able to have the pavement hold you know, drainage issues there are a lot of complicating factors. But i know that there have been examples where weve looked at just basically trying to pave around the existing structure. Um, how much time i mean, i know its going to, you know what, september 27th is the, the, the cut off for, for approving all permits. Do you think we can get back to us with a presentation beforehand or after or how, how much time would we need. Um in terms of approving all permits. I think the city is working through its an iterative process and so theres a lot of back and forth with applicants. So i think there its likely that all those permits will not be 100 finalized by the deadline. Um, were working as quickly as we can with the applicants, but a lot of times we need we need more information or things are correct on paper. And then when we go out and inspect, theyre not actually built to the exact same specification. So its, its ongoing in terms of when we can come back to this commission on, um, i, i am looking at our Deputy Director<\/a>. You think two weeks is sufficient. He seems to think we can come back for the next Commission Meet<\/a>ing with a brief presentation on on what our findings are. Thank you. That would be great. Thank you. All right. If theres no other new business, please open this item to Public Comment<\/a>. Members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item seven new business initiated by commissioners may line up against the wall for this from the door if present in the chamber. If youre calling in. Dial 415 a6550001 and use the meeting number access. Code 266 a2546002 8 pound pound. And then press star three to be recognized. And there are not members of the public in the chamber who have approached to speak on this item and govtv has also indicated we do not have any callers on this item. So that concludes Public Comment<\/a> on item seven. Thank you. And we can forego item eight, isnt that correct . That is correct. We did not exceed the 15 minutes of general Public Comment<\/a>. And item three. Thank you very much. Our next regular meeting will be on friday, september 15th at 930 am. Five minutes over where i promised wed be out. It is 1035, but we are looking forward to giving everyone an early start on the Labor Day Holiday<\/a> weekend and wish you all a very nice one. As commissioner zogby expressed earlier, we are adjourned and. My name is bal. Born and raised in San Francisco<\/a>. Cable car equipment, technically im a transit operator of 135 and work at the cable car indiscernible and been here for 22 years now. I grew up around here when i was a little can i. My mom used to hang in china town with her friends and i would get bored and they would shove me out of the door, go play and find something to do. I ended up wandering down here when i was a kid and found these things. [ music ] fascinated by them and i wanted to be a cable car equipment from the time i was a little kid. I started with the emergency at the end of 1988 and drove a bus for a year and a half and i got lucky with my timing and got here at cable car and at that time, it really took about an average five to maybe seven years on a bus before you could build up your seniority to come over here. Basically, this is the 1890s verse ever a bus. This is your basic Public Transportation<\/a> and at the time at its height, 1893, there were 20 different routes ask this powerhouse, there and this powerhouse, there were 15 of them through out the entire city. I work at the Cable Car Division<\/a> and bunch with muni for 25 years and working with cable cars for 23 years. This is called the bar because these things are horses and work hard so they have to have a place to sleep at night. Joking. This is called a barn because everything takes place here and the powerhouse is thats downstairs so thats the heart and soul of the system and this is where the cable cars sleep or sleep at night so you can put a title there saying the barn. Since 1873 and back in the day it was driven by a team and now its electric but it has a good function as being called the barn. Yeah. I am the superintendent of cable car vehicle maintenance. And we are on the first and a half floor of the cable car barn where you can see the cables are moving at nine and a half miles an hour and thats causing the little extra noise were hearing now. We have 28 power cars and 12 california cars for a total of 40 revenue cars. Then with have two in storage. Theres four gear boxes. Its gears of the motor. They weigh close to 20 tons and they had to do a special system to get them out of here because when they put them in here, the barn was opened up. We did the whole barn that year so its difficult for a first of time project, we changed it one at a time and now they are all brandnew. Engineers room have the four monitors that play the speed and she monitors them and in case of an emergency, she can shutdown all four cars if she needs to. That sound you heard there, thats a gentleman building, rebuilding a cable. The cable weighs four hundred pounds each and they lost three days before we have to rebuild them. The cable car grips, the bottom point is underground with the cable. Its a giant buy strip and closes around the kab and they pull it back. The cable car weighs 2,500 people without people so its heavy, emergency pulling it offer the hill. If it comes offer the hill, it could be one wire but if it unravels, it turns into a ball and they cannot let go of it because it opens that wide and its a billion pushing the grip which is pushing the whole cable car and theres no way to let go so they have to have the code 900 to shutdown in emergencies and the wood brakes last two days and wear out. A lot of maintenance. [ music ] rail was considered to be the old thing. Rubber tires, cars, buses, thats new. There were definitely faster and cheaper, theres no question about that. Here at San Francisco<\/a>, we went through the same thing. The mayor decided we dont need cable cars indiscernible , blah, blah. We can replace them with buses. They are faster and cheaper and more economical and he was right if you look at the dollars and cents part. He was right. Back in 1947 when they voted that, im surprised base of the technology and the chronicle paper says cable cars out. That was the headline. That was the demise of the cable cars. indiscernible came along and said, stop. No. No, no, no. She was the first one to say were going to fight city hall. She got her friends together and they started from a group called the save the cable car community, 1947 and managed to get it on the ballot. Are we going to keep the cable cars or not . Head turned nationwide and worldwide and city hall was completely unprepared for the amount of backlash they got. This is just a bunch the city came out and said basically, 31, if im not mistaken, we want our cars and phil and her group managed to save what we have. And literately if it wasnt for them, there would be no cable cars. People saw Something Back<\/a> then that we see today that you cant get rid of a beautiful and it wasnt a Historical Monument<\/a> at the time and now it is, and it was part of San Francisco<\/a>. Yeah, we had freight back then. We dont have that anymore. This is the number one tourist attraction in San Francisco<\/a>. Its historic and the only National Moving<\/a> monument in the world. The city of San Francisco<\/a> did keep the cable car so its a fascinating feel of having something that is so historic going up and down these hills of San Francisco<\/a>. And obviously, everyone knows San Francisco<\/a> is famous for their hills. [laughter] and who would know and who would guess that they were trying to get rid of it, which i guess was a crazy idea at the time because they felt automobiles were taking the place of the cable cars and getting rid of the cable car was the best thing for the city and county of San Francisco<\/a>, but thank god it didnt. How soon has the city changed . The diverse of cable cars when i first came to cable car, sandy barn was the first cable car. We have three or four being a grip person. Fwriping cable cars is the most toughest and challenging job in the entire city. I want to thank our women who operate our cable cars because they are a crucial space of the city to the world. We have wonderful women come on forward, yes. [cheers and applause] these ladies, these ladies, this is what its about. Continuing to empower women. My name is Willa Johnson<\/a> is and ive been at cable car for 13 years. I came to San Francisco<\/a> when i was five years old. And that is the first time i rode a cable car and i went to see a Christmas Tree<\/a> and we rode the cable car with the christmas worker and that was the first time i rode the cable car and didnt ride again until i worked here. I was in the medical field for a while and i wanted a change. Some people dont do that but i started with the mta of september of 1999 and came over to cable car in 2008. It was a general sign up and thats when you can go to Different Division<\/a>s and i signed up as a conductor and came over here and been here since. There were a few ladies that were over at woods that wanted to come over here and we had decided we wanted to leave woods and come to a Different Division<\/a> and cable car was it. I do know there has been only four women that work the cable car in the 150 years and i am the second person to represent the cable car and i also know that during the 19, i think 60s and women were not even allowed to ride on the side of a cable car so its exciting to know you can go from not riding on the side board of a cable car to actually grip and driving the cable car and it opened the door for a lot of people to have the opportunity to do what they inspire to do. I have some people say i wouldnt make it as a conductor at woods and i came and made it as i conductor and the best thing i did was to come to this division. Its a good division. And i like ripping cable cars. I do. I think she just tapped into the general feeling that San Francisco<\/a> tend to have of, this is ours, its special, its unique. Economically and you know, a rationale sense, does it make sense . Not really. But from here, if you think from here, no, we dont need this but if you think from here, yeah. And it turns out she was right. So. And im grateful to her. Very grateful. [laughter] three, two, one. [multiple voices] [cheers and applause] did i i did that on purpose so i wouldnt. [ music ] its great to see everyone kind of get together and prove, that you know, building our culture is something that can be reckoned with. I am desi, chair of Economic Development<\/a> for soma filipinos. So that [ inaudible ] know that soma filipino exists, and its also our economic platform, so we can start to build filipino businesses so we can start to build the cultural district. I studied the bok chase choy heritage, and i discovered this awesome bok choy. Working at imarket is amazing. Youve got all these amazing people coming out here to share one culture. When i heard that there was a market with, like, a lot of Filipino Food<\/a>, it was like oh, wow, thats the closest thing ive got to home, so, like, im going to try everything. Fried rice, and wings, and three different cliefz sliders. I havent tried the adobe yet, but just smelling it yet brings back home and a ton of memories. The binca is made out of different ingredients, including cheese. But here, we put a twist on it. Why not have nutella, rocky road, we have blue berry. Were not just limiting it to just the classic with salted egg and cheese. We try to cook food that you dont normally find from Filipino Food<\/a> vendors, like the lichon, for example. Its something that it took years to come up with, to perfect, to get the skin just right, the flavor, and its one of our most popular dishes, and people love it. This, its kind of me trying to chase a dream that i had for a long time. When i got tired of the corporate world, i decided that i wanted to give it a try and see if people would actually like our food. I think its a wonderful opportunity for the filipino culture to shine. Everybody keeps saying Filipino Food<\/a> is the next big thing. I think its already big, and to have all of us here together, its just it just blows my mind sometimes that theres so many of us bringing bringing Filipino Food<\/a> to the city finally. Im alex, the owner of the lumpia company. The food that i create is basically the filipinoamerican experience. I wasnt a chef to start with, but i literally love lumpia, but my food is my Favorite Foods<\/a> i like to eat, put into my favorite Filipino Food<\/a>s, put together. Its not based off of recipes i learned from my mom. Maybe i learned the rolling technique from my mom, but the Different Things<\/a> that i put in are just the Different Things<\/a> that i like, and i like to think that i have good taste. Well, the very first lumpia that i came out with that really build the lumpia it wasnt the poerk and shrimp shanghai, but my favorite thing after partying is that bakon cheese burger lumpia. There was a time in our generation where we didnt have our own place, our own feed to eat. Before, i used to promote filipino gatherings to share the love. Now, im taking the most exciting filipino appetizer and sharing it with other filipinos. It can happen in the San Francisco<\/a> mint, it can happen in a park, it can happen in a street park, it can happen in a tech campus. Its basically where we bring the hardware, the culture, the operating system. So right now, im eating something that brings me back to every Filipino Party<\/a> from my childhood. Its really cool to be part of the community and reconnect with the neighborhood. One of our largest challenges in creating this cultural district when we compare ourselves to chinatown, japantown or little saigon, theres little communities there that act as place makers. When you enter into little philippines, youre like where are the businesses, and thats one of the challenges were trying to solve. Undercover love wouldnt be possible without the help of the mayor and all of our Community Partnerships<\/a> out there. It costs approximately 60,000 for every event. Undiscovered is a great tool for the cultural district to bring awareness by bringing the best parts of our culture which is food, music, the arts and being ativism all under one roof, and by seeing it all in this way, what it allows san franciscans to see is the dynamics of the filipinoamerican culture. I think in San Francisco<\/a>, weve kind of lost track of one of our values that makes San Francisco<\/a> unique with just empathy, love, of being acceptable of different people, the out liers, the crazy ones. Weve become so focused onic maing money that we forgot about those that make our city and community unique. When people come to discover, i want them to rediscover the magic of what diversity and empathy can create. When youre positive and committed to using that energy, valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. The first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the Mission Neighborhood<\/a> extending from market to mission street. It is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. From 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. The mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m. T. A. To put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four months time. [ ] valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in San Francisco<\/a>. It has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. We promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. Valencia is our mission fits our mission perfectly. Our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. Whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. I have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. During that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. We have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber taking folks to concerts at night. One of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. The most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. We kept all the passengers the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. Most people arent actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. Half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6 00 p. M. , so could be used for fiveminute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. The five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be. One of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. We worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. On this lot, there are a few schools. All these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. To address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings railings that channel channeled a designated crossing plane. We had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons . I do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. We have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the rightofway so they can cross the roadway. This is probably one of the most unique features. During the planning phase, the m. T. A. Came out with three alternatives for the long term project. One is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. A twoway bikeway. The third option is a Center Running<\/a> twoway bikeway, c. Would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. Earlier, there werent any enter lane designs in San Francisco<\/a>, but i think it will be a great opportunity for San Francisco<\/a> to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesnt exist already. With all three concepts for valencias longterm improvement , theres a number of tradeoffs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal infrastructure. When he think about extending this pilot or this still this design, theres a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. The pilot is great. It is a nobrainer. It is also a teaser for us. Once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. What were trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. The Pilot Project<\/a> is one of our first major improvements. We will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. This fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. By spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about longterm improvements. I appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the Community Workshops<\/a> associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. We want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. Theres a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. We will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [ ] weve United States<\/a> of america and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Somebody is going to start it. Good evening. This is the Fire Commission<\/a> regular meeting, august 23rd, 2023. The time. Is 509. This meeting is being held in person. Members of the public may attend the meeting to observe and provide Public Comment<\/a> at the physical meeting location or by. Calling 140156550001 and entering the meeting id. Number 2664941732520. The webinar password is 1234. Please ensure you are in a quiet location. Speak clearly and turn off background sounds, televisions, phones and radios. Wait for the item you would like to address to be called when prompted. Press star three to be added to the queue. The system will notify you when you are in line. Callers will hear silence when waiting for your turn to speak. Operator will unmute you when prompted callers will have the standard three minutes to provide Public Comment<\/a>. You may also watch live at nsf. Gov tv. Org. Item one roll call president steven nakajo has been excused. Vice president ami morgan present commissioner catherine feinstein, president commissioner marcy frazier has been excused. Commissioner Paula Collins<\/a> present and chief of department Janine Nicholson<\/a> present Vice President<\/a> morgan will now read the land acknowledgment. Okay San Francisco<\/a>. Thank you, madam secretary. The San Francisco<\/a> Fire Commission<\/a> acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone<\/a>, who are the original inhabitants of San Francisco<\/a> peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone<\/a> have never ceded loss nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place , as well as for all people who reside in their traditional territory as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects and acknowledging the ancestor ancestors, elders and relatives of the Ramaytush Ohlone<\/a> community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Thank you very much. Item two general Public Comment<\/a> members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes on any matter within the commissions jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. Speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or Department Personnel<\/a>. Commissioners are not to enter into debate or discuss or discussion with the speaker. The lack of a response by the commissioners or Department Personnel<\/a> does not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during Public Comment<\/a> at this. Is there anybody in the room that would like to make Public Comment<\/a> at. Color would you like to make Public Comment<\/a> . Yes hello. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Petrelis<\/a>. My surname is spelled petty r e. L. I. S and i spell out my name so that your minutes will accurately reflect on who spoke today. I am greatly concerned about the fire season here in california. We see a worsening of fires across our beautiful state. Um i believe the fires are are fueled pun intended by fossil fuels and. Canada, other places around the world. Are burning out of control. Um, what i am calling for is on i would like for this commission to consider a response in california, one of our us senators, senator dianne feinstein, is up to the task of delivering all of the resources that we need. Um, to first of all, fires that are raging right now and also to prevent future fires. Unfortunately. Has announced that she will only retire at the end of this term. In my opinion, to resign can appoint a replacement for the rest of her term until the next election. The issue here, as ive been noted in the press, is that the senator does not have her full faculty has limited power of attorney over the senators affairs. Also the senator has sued the estate of her husband for elder abuse. These two factors, as boost my argument that she is not up to the task to serve as our senator and make sure we are getting all the federal resources we need on to deal with the fires across the state. So i hope that, um, catherine feinstein. And help ease her mother into retirement for the sake of the senator and allow her to exit her storied career with grace. Thank you for listening. So madam secretary, is there any other Public Comment<\/a> . Public comment. Okay. Public comment. I guess is closed. Item three approval of the minutes discussion and possible action to approve Meeting Minutes<\/a> from the regular meeting on august 9th, 2023. So this is Vice President<\/a> morgan. To the other commissioners. Are there any questions about the minutes or for Public Comment<\/a> . Okay theres nobody approaching the podium, no Public Comment<\/a>. Caller would you like to make Public Comment<\/a> on the minutes . Yes hello. This is Michael Petrelis<\/a> again. And i want to say that it is a great benefit that the secretary keeps very detailed minutes and ive gone over the minutes from the past few months of your meetings. Ive not been able to tune into the meetings, but being able to read the minutes is a great help to city hall watchdogs like myself. So that is my Public Comment<\/a> on this matter. Thank you. A comment i would move that we adopt the minutes. Second, i vote i the motion is unanimous as item four chief of departments report report from chief of department Janine Nicholson<\/a> on current issues, activities and events within the department. Since the fire Commission Meet<\/a>ing on august ninth, 2023, including Budget Academy<\/a> special events, communications and outreach to other Government Agencies<\/a> and the public, and report from Administration Deputy<\/a> chief shane kialoa on the administrative divisions, fleet and facilities status and updates finance support services , Homeland Security<\/a> and update from Anthony Boone<\/a> of the Environmental Occupational Health<\/a> and safety office. Chief nicholson, the floor is yours. Thank you, Vice President<\/a> morgan. Commissioner feinstein. Commissioner collins. Sister marine command staff. Fire chief Janine Nicholson<\/a>. And these are this is my update. Uh, since our last meeting on august 9th, i want to thank those of you who command staff and commissioners that showed up for the piston event a couple saturdays ago. Always love celebrating different cultural events in the city. So thank you all for showing up. It is all apec all the time in our city, especially for chief erika artasyrus brown and some swat for chief sandy tong as well. The Asian Pacific<\/a> economic. Uh, i never remember if its conference or whatever it is thats coming here in november. I know theyve been in multiple meetings with the secret service and, and weve also been in meetings with the Mayors Office<\/a> and we are having a meeting tomorrow as well in person and looking forward to that. Uh, Labor Management<\/a> happened on the 15th. All went as expected. There we are in a good space right now with local 798. Uh, thank you for coming to the meritorious awards. For those of you that did, it was a good event and hopefully we well do this more regularly. We kind of got backlogged because of covid. But rescue captain beth goodrow has really, really got some some coverage in the in the media after this, which i think is great since that was such a special rescue that she was involved in. Ive had two meetings with mayor london breed. I brought simon pang to one of them. It was a Street Crisis Response Team<\/a> briefing the mayors concerns. And simon, of course, had all the data and answers and i was really grateful to have a chief pang there. And we are following up. Chief pang and i are following up with chief and we will also follow up with homeland homelessness and Supportive Housing<\/a> and our counterparts there to remove any barriers to care and services that still remain. Friday, the 18th i went to an event for womens equality day that was put on by by well, the department on the status of women. Kimberly ellis was there, as was our speaker emerita. Nancy pelosi. Chief mao was able to attend as well. And it was a really it was a really good event. Um i have been meeting with sean buford and some others, hashem anderson and others in terms of theyve gotten together a list of people who have who went through the Panel Interview<\/a> process to become an h two firefighter and theyre going to whittle down that list for people to be interviewed by myself and other command staff for our next class in january. Uh cd two, three and four and adc miller had a meeting with brian strong of the department of Capital Planning<\/a> and resiliency to talk about the status of our projects and our need and sort of the bond cycle. We will likely not see another bond for Fire Department<\/a> until 2028. And when we do, it will likely be shared with police, with and with our emergency firefighting water supply system , which is what the puc works on. So we are going to really have to get a head start on that and advocate for ourselves because of how much money is getting used up in this 2020 bond for our Fire Training<\/a> facility. We still need station seven and we still need we still have a whole host of other needs. And were looking for creative ways to get some of that money, whether its state feds. Et cetera. But that is the next bond for the Fire Department<\/a>. So its quite a ways off on this past sunday, i went to two events. I went to the fire velo bike ride. Folks came across the Golden Gate Bridge<\/a> from marin to station 51 in the presidio. And it is part of a group of folks that ride their bikes from here to los angeles to raise money for Cancer Prevention<\/a> in the fire service. And we honored two of our fallen members, jerry murphy and brock wells and their families were there to take part in that. It was a nice event. And then i went to Treasure Island<\/a>. There was a womens boot camp on Treasure Island<\/a> on sunday. A lot of young women out there being sort of led and trained and mentored by a lot of our women in the department. And so its really nice to see all our young women out there getting involved with this, with this event. And then as you all may know, i have been there have been a whole lot of interviews with the press regarding Autonomous Vehicles<\/a>. And i dont think that we could have predicted it any better than we did when we spoke with the california puc and just that friday night, we saw the failure of quite a few cruise vehicles in north beach. And it was also out by outside lands and they just stopped traffic dead in in its place. And since then, there have been a number of incidents, including a crash with truck three in the tenderloin, as well as multiple other incidents. I get Text Messages<\/a> of links almost on a daily basis about issues that are happening. So ive spoken to a lot of different agencies cnn, newsnation, bloomberg, forbes. I cant even remember, but and we just continue with the same message. The consistent message that it is about Public Safety<\/a>, period. And you know, it is thats all its about. And thats thats the drum that we will continue to beat. And you know, whether it impacts our response times or our actual access or ingress or egress or what have you, we will keep up with that message and i know that chief lautrup has been working hard from his perspective as well. To try to figure out some solutions with the different companies. But im just very grateful that the dmv actually saw the need to step in and slow things down. For now. You know, as ive said, the city and the Fire Department<\/a>, we are not antitechnology. We are pro Public Safety<\/a> and we hope to be able to, you know, come up with solutions, as with cruise and with waymo. I think theres a lot of smart people on both sides and we just need to come together and put our Heads Together<\/a> and we can figure it out. So that concludes my report for today. Thank you, chief nicholson, for your excellent report. Are there any questions from the other commissioners . Want to start, mr. Vice. Any questions . Thank you. Okay mr. Collins. We well, im pleased to hear some incremental progress is being made. Im interested in hearing the response from the companies that manufacture for the these cars, because i think thats, as you have said, is where the solution will lie. And while i have the mic, i want to also thank chief darcy for a wonderful tour of the Fire Department<\/a>s. He was in here. Hes gone. Did he leave . Well, somebody tell him thank you. Just here. It was just here, huh . Yeah, i. I saw him. It was a great tour of the facilities at sfo. And for our new commissioners like me, for seasoned commissioners like you , i sense that. See i didnt embarrass you that much just by saying thank you and i was just saying, chief darcy, that the time you took the time your colleagues took was incredibly valuable because theres some things you can only understand by seeing them and looking at those facilities and appreciate seeing the difference. Firehouse two, firehouse. So thank you so much. Thank you for the wonderful lunch. And well be back and if i may respond to your av comment in terms of, um, uh, uh, the companies, um, ive been saying that, uh, uh, what weve seen thus far is no acknowledgment that there is a problem. Um, and just a touting of their Safety Record<\/a> thus far. And and, you know, so im hopeful that they will come to the table and admit there are some challenges his that remains to be seen. And then i think we can really come to some solutions. But you know, things dont change unless theres some sort of awareness or insight into, uh, the issue. So we will see. All right, madam secretary, i forgot to ask, was there any Public Comment<\/a> for after chief nicholsons report . Theres nobody on the Public Comment<\/a> line and nobody approached the podium. Okay, great. All right. Well yeah, well, thank you for your report, chief nicholson, and thanks for all the great work youre doing with the interviews and with the autonomous Autonomous Vehicles<\/a>. Thank god dmv stepped up and did something because, you know, i think the state cpuc committee should have taken more heed to you guys warnings and now they learned the hard way that, you know, you guys werent crying wolf, you know, with all the incidents that happened right after to their vote, you know, so thank god dmv, you know, stood up and did something and maybe you know, we can reel them in a little better and, you know, go on with we need to go on with if theyre going to carry on with less vehicles, thatll probably be safer for everybody. For now, i know we cant avoid the future, but we do want it safe. So so we appreciate your help with that. And you totally have our support. And i also want to thank chief darcy for a great tour at sfo and a good time there. And chief lathrop for their tour at sfo. We had a learned a lot and it was very informative and i didnt know how big that place was. So a lot of security too. You know, so thats a good thing. So so just want to say thanks again. It was an excellent tour. Thank you. Thank you guys for showing us around. And thats all i got. May i ask . Im sorry. Yeah. I realized that that you did call on me. I just was curious. Chief, are our members still doing unusual occurrence reports . Yes, in situations that involve these Autonomous Vehicles<\/a>. Because im just seeing them all over the place and i think, as we have discussed, just, you know, nearly we saw a couple of weeks ago, them one just go right through a marked crosswalk and nearly hit a young couple that was carrying a baby. Um, just right, right. Just right through. And earlier this week go right through a red light, which they say they never do. But i saw it with my own eyes. And im just making sure we really documenting everything we need to document. So we can present the strongest case for some kind of modification or elimination or something to that effect. This is not the city to test these cars in. Yes thank you, commissioner. Yes our members are still filling out. Theres a particular form now in our arms to fill out for these incidents. And i have seen a yes, i still see them coming up and i still see incidents happening. So and that message has been pushed out by cd to our Division Chiefs<\/a> and to everyone in the field and to chief tong has has pushed it out through ems and Community Paramedicine<\/a> as well that thats what we expect. Thats what we need and thats what the city needs. So, yes, im still getting those reports. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Can i have one more question . So, chief, how does this what argument is made for how the city and or the state benefits from Autonomous Vehicles<\/a>. How did they get how do they get the votes that they get at the puc, for example . What argument is put forward . Well. You know, the governor puts the puc in place. I know the governor is very supportive of Autonomous Vehicles<\/a> and technology in general. So but i think that the argument that certainly cruise makes is that this will be much safer than human beings driving and, you know, people wont be driving drunk, people wont be speeding. Its cetera. Et cetera. That is much of the argument that i have heard. And you know, there are so many billions of dollars behind this now. Its really a Freight Train<\/a> that, you know, is going to keep on rolling our cities, our cities, rewarded financially for allowing their streets to be used in this way. Not that i know of. There is no regulation. Theres nothing wrong. So i dont know how the taxing of these vehicles works or any of that. I dont i couldnt answer that. But you know, there there are no regulated options. And so there needs to be either some type of legislation or something so that there can be some regulation of these vehicles. I mean, we regulate everything else. We regulate lyft and uber and taxis and so, you know, there needs to be some regulation and some transparent in terms of the quote unquote, data. You know, they show us only the data they want to show us after they have , you know, smoothed it out or what have you. So but the. The arguments i hear are that it will be safer ultimately and that it you know, its just a you know, Great Technology<\/a> and that San Francisco<\/a> is an innovative and creative place. And you know so and i know the mayor is supportive of technology. Shes not happy with the way this was rolled out. But i know that she is supportive of new technologies. Okay. Well, the database that commissioner feinstein was referring to of these incidents would certainly conflict with the notion that these vehicles are safe. So, yes, i would agree. Weve got that data. Yes and im sure we have some natural allies in promoting safety on the streets. Yes we do. Okay. And were working with them. So, yes. Okay. Thank you, chief nicholson , for your report. And responses. So i want to move on with the agenda so chief kyle, are you ready for your presentation, sir . Ready. All right, lets have it. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening, Vice President<\/a> morgan and commissioners feinstein, collins and chief nicholson, marine command staff. I am shane kialoa , deputy chief of administration and this is my report for the month of july 2023. Well start with Homeland Security<\/a> under the assistant deputy chief, erika artasyrus brown. Were highlighting fleet week this week, but i just want to highlight all of the things that chief artasyrus brown does and one is what the chief mentioned apek all the time. And that takes up a ton of chief browns time. But she does a fantastic job in coordinating and planning at those meetings, among all the other events that happen throughout the city. And exercises some that just passed, such as lions end. It was lions end. Yes. No yeah. That one outside lions outside lands. And i just want to thank her for her work there and her planning and coordination along with operations in the fields. Chiefs and all the other folks that attended and assisted with that event. It was fantastic. What you see in this slide is fleet week and the disk planning, which is the Defense Security<\/a> cooperation agency, we this is a coordination between the civilian and military. And this years event is communication coordination, which is why you see chief cannon in the right lower slide. And next we move on to north. They attended the sfpd National Night<\/a> out along with mayor brown and District Attorney<\/a> brooke jenkins. What i did say, mayor didnt know mayor breed. Next is the department of equity and inclusion under assistant deputy chief sean buford. What were highlighting here under the dio among all the other things that they do is the summer summer internship with the mission high school. This is a internship over the summer that happens five days a week where we had seven students enrolled. One did drop. We had six go through. They are enrolled in ccsf and they attend emt schooling. This is the culmination of that effort. After that training, we have five of the six of those students that have passed National Registry<\/a> and were confident that the sixth will theyll be applying with amr and other amr Ambulance Services<\/a> to gain the hours that they need and hopefully move to San Francisco<\/a>, Fire Department<\/a>. But what you see here is the culmination of those efforts and a celebration with with lieutenant bendo, who runs our Flame Program<\/a> and a great fishing trip with with fish caught. Next up, we have health and safety battalion chief matt albin. Matt is involved with many initiatives with the 30 and 30 out part of our health and Safety Committee<\/a>, as well as the cancer champions and many others to ensure that our folks are happy and healthy. Here is the interaction for the month of july ran by captain heather buren. We had 81 contacts for a total of 313 67 hours and by group the highest was suppression, followed by emt, paramedic at station 49. The next slide just shows that time broken down or where their time is spent at and the slide after that are the contacts by stress factor. These slides do not tell the story of the blue and the good that they do on the streets, specifically in the past month, with the loss of firefighter Megan Franzen<\/a> and as well as our incident on fourth and king, the great work these folks do to ensure that our folks are healthy and have the resources that they need to keep mentally and physically healthy. And i cant thank captain buren enough and her team for all the work that they do, literally reaching out one by one, holding debriefings at the stations, multiple briefings at different locations to help our folks be happy and healthy. This is the new lighthouse app. We have a cortical health app that was sfd. Were moving to lighthouse. This app has more. Capabilities that fit our needs. And so what you see here is just a snapshot shot of what were able to see in the lighthouse app, which is important to us as some of the analytics piece. Its important to note that our members can opt out of the analytics, but its important for us to see because it helps us improve, it helps us to understand what is working for our members and where we need to grow. Next is the office of Employee Health<\/a> under doctor brokaw and our and Stephanie Phelps<\/a> and the month of july, we had to return to work modified duty of 39 individuals, promotion and probationary testing of seven total numbers of Workers Compensation<\/a> claims filed was 62. The office of Employee Health<\/a>. We have brought together the health and Safety Committee<\/a> just recently, we have integrated ems and suppression together into that committee. They were separate before, but chief tong and the leadership at ems and ourselves feel that its very important that were together operating as one and being able to give each other insight on some of the issues that were seeing both in ems and in suppression and how we can better work to create initiatives to help our individuals under the Investigative Services<\/a> or isp. Captain todd wedel continues to assist with the onboarding of our h two and our h three level one, two and three. Onboarding theyve created a new process to create efficiencies. We have just not tested that process over the last week. They had approximate only 25 individuals and our time to processing is 10 to 15 minutes per individual or the processes that they have started has created efficiencies where we were having issues with some of the documentation that was being completed correctly and were still in work or i shouldnt say we. Captain wedel is still in work with his team on that, but is making great strides. They also started the department of transportation fireboat testing is now random testing and is added to the list that is pulled every day from dattco services. And so they are now on that mandatory testing background investigations. I just spoke of that with that background packet. Actually, this is part of what i just spoke about. Theres a new background packet that was developed to also help us be efficient that was floated through the City Attorney<\/a>s and were ensuring that were working with our stakeholders, such as chief buford, office of Employee Development<\/a> director davis and other stakeholders to ensure that were headed down the right path and that were all on board before we move forward. Captain wedel continues to training because, as he loves the field, like us all, and so he wants to be ready to meet the mission at any time. Captain wedel went through the waymo vehicle training and also our wildland training as captain wedel used to and still may deploy with our resources to federal and state fires around california under support services. Assistant deputy chief mike mullen is busy with many, many initiatives. This is just highlighting what has happened over the month. But really, chief mullen is working towards creating those efficiencies and great gaining value data to help us improve on or in support services for the month of july, a total of 150 requests for service were initiated during the month. 122 Service Orders<\/a> were complete and one qv or Quick Response<\/a> vehicle was issued. And we have four new mini pumpers that were delivered to the station and in service. The clothing depot ordered 150 turnouts, sets for the next two to classes under the earthquake. Safety and Emergency Response<\/a>. Our chief assistant deputy chief miller knew jumping in head first and is absolutely running, doing a fantastic job of working on all of our easter projects and one of them being fire station 35 and the hardening of fire station 35 to improve the security there as that house is a homeland asset and important to us, weve hired a new captain jose album and the contracts professional contracts for the Fire Training<\/a> facility have been approved and are moving to the board of supervisors for final in our highlights is i believe the chief mentioned many of the command staff and many of our firefighters attended the firefighter Appreciation Night<\/a> on july 31st. This was a great evening to watch a game the weather was absolutely incredible, but really the highlights were being able to see our firefighters. Bowers and lieutenant stewart, receive awards for an incredible water rescue that chief lautrup spoke about last meeting. Our firefighter, kate boston. As you see in that left corner, saying the National Anthem<\/a> and our sfd color guard presented the colors in that top left picture there. Also, the fireboat gave an incredible water display and local 788 brought out a rescue squad or one of our older rescue squads so folks could be able to look at it and play. And also deliver information regarding our department. We also attended and many of you did the meritorious ceremony august 15th at archbishop reardon high school. Top left is lieutenant mariano elias. He was the emcee for the event. Another great evening with mayor london brown in attendance. Im somebody said that one time and now im saying it. Mayor of london breed was in attendance. It was a great night being able to honor the great work of both of our ems and suppression personnel. All it was fantastic. Um we also attended the sfpd National Night<\/a> out, as i spoke of earlier, and our sfpd Community Outreach<\/a> and Education Team<\/a> was out at the nihonbashi street fair in japantown august fifth and sixth, along with many of our folks from our department, including the rfa and of course, the great team of Community Outreach<\/a>. This this is very important to us. We are a fabric of every one of our communities and this is incredible work that the core group does, uh, and is not highlighted all the time. And so i want to thank them for their work. We do have a strike team out right now at the six rivers fire with five of our type sixes, including our partnership. As you can see, the green, a type six engine that is a partnership between cal oes and the San Francisco<\/a> Fire Department<\/a> to staff those engines and to deploy around california for wildfires. This team is being led by chiefs or assistant chief baker at and battalion chief gehring. We also have two single resources out. Well one at the deep incident in the finance section. And another at the happy camp in the plan section. That concludes my report, and id be happy to take any of your questions. Chief kialoa, is there a public speaking about the report . Theres nobody approaching the podium and nobody on the Public Comment<\/a> line. Mrnas any questions . Anyone like to go first . Excellent one. Thank you. One follow up for you, commissioner feinstein. In the last months report, you had a question about the head injury. There was what, one head injury for the month and we have one head injury this month. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And then, uh. Is there. Mr. Anthony boone, are you ready to do your presentation . Im ready. Can i. Can i. Can i exit your captain. Perfect. Okay okay. Oh, okay. I dont know if this is. The sfd entry. Daca tb introduction. Some of ms. Collins doesnt know me. Scroll down. To the slideshow very, very, very. Do you need help . Yeah. With you. Okay. All right. Good evening, Vice President<\/a> morgan and commissioners feinstein and collins. Chief nicholas maureen, command staff. My name is Anthony Boone<\/a>. Most people here know me as tony and im going to just talk a little bit about what it is i do here at the Fire Department<\/a>, but i figured id start with a little background and i dont know if you can see that on the screen. Okay, good press. Good. Yeah as you can see, i am an Environmental Health<\/a> and safety professional, and ive been in this business for the better part of the last 35 years. I have an extensive background and a lot of different areas, including Industrial Hygiene<\/a>, a lot of people ask what an industrial hygienist does and they give this joke that we clean teeth. We dont clean teeth. We are we are professionals in the anticipation, recognition, evaluation and control of workplace hazards. Thats what an industrial hygienist is. So i have expertise in that, including things like ventilation and radiation, indoor air quality. I also have a background in Emergency Response<\/a> and Hazardous Waste<\/a> management. And i did. Ive done Extensive Health<\/a> and Safety Training<\/a> throughout my career. Next for education, i actually have an associates of science and Fire Science Technology<\/a> from city college in San Francisco<\/a>. And i also own hold a bachelors degree in Public Health<\/a> from San Francisco<\/a> state university. Next, an and to top it off, i am also a us navy veteran. I am a former former Naval Nuclear<\/a> propulsion plant mechanical operator say that five times fast. I served on served on board what i consider the worlds greatest ship ever built. Uss enterprise from 1981 to 1985. And thats what put me in california. Im a native new yorker, and the enterprise put me in california next, i hold four certifications means i am a certified industrial hygienist by the board of global credentialing, which used to be the american board of Industrial Hygiene<\/a>. Im a certified safety professional, which is given by the board of certified safety professionals. Im a certified Hazardous Materials<\/a> manager given by the institute of Hazardous Materials<\/a> management. And finally, i am a certified environmental inspector, which was handed to me by the Environmental Assessment<\/a> association. Next my career background. These are probably these are the places that ive worked prior to coming into the city. I started my career post navy at Lawrence Livermore<\/a> national laboratory. I spent a few minutes at the university of california, San Francisco<\/a>. I spent a bulk of my career at two places, United Airlines<\/a> and a Company Called<\/a> materion matay. Aryan is an Engineering Company<\/a> and if youve ever seen the james webb telescope, you see those nice, pretty shiny gold panels behind those panels. Those are hexagonal plates made of beryllium materion is the worlds leading beryllium manufacture. Where i worked at our company in fremont, where you might have heard of the hadron super collider. We made electron beam pipes for the super collider, and i was a manager over those projects. So next. So what is it that i do here next . Go ahead. I have a lot of different hats, roles and responsibilities here in the department, but my primary responsibility is to provide assistance to the health and safety and wellness chief battalion chief alba. I also review and update had most of our our plans to comply with cal osha and the epa as well. So youll see a bunch of letters there that says iip, rpp, the iip stands for the injury and illness prevention plan. P stands for the respiratory protection program. Um, and then youll see another one, environmental l, that says spcc. That stands for spill prevention control and countermeasures plan, and thats designed to prevent spillage into whats known as the navigable waters of the United States<\/a>. There are two places that have spcc programs within the department station 35 and station one at 1415. Evans another our task of mine is to analyze and review some of the injury data that comes out of the office of Employee Health<\/a> and see if theres any trends and anything that we can do to provide countermeasures to try to mitigate those those injuries. Um, ive done a lot of training since ive been here. Most of that training is under the guise of Firefighter Health<\/a> and safety, health, wellness and safety to most of the recruit class. The last 5 or 6 recruit classes ive done presentations for and i also talk about hearing conservation as well as heat illness and forklift training for our personnel or boe personnel and our personnel. Station 49. Id have to move materials. So next i also have a big responsibility in many of these firehouses have Hazardous Materials<\/a> in them as well to take the burden off of the adc of support services. I took the responsibility to update and keep those inventory and those Hazardous Materials<\/a> inventories in a database called the California Environmental<\/a> reporting system. Thats a its a statewide database and all stations have this database where something called a Certified Uniform Program Agency<\/a> , see basically, which is ssdf environmental inspector for facilities to make sure that were managing our materials correctly last but not least, i just do a lot of wherever im needed. I get called by the office of Employee Health<\/a>. I get called by ems. I just provide died. I speak cal osha speak and i speak epa speak. A lot of the times that when chief albers doing study doing reviews of studies for Cancer Prevention<\/a> they talk a different language. I speak that language. So im an interpreter. Im a im an ass whisperer, you know, so i do a lot of that in the background, too. So next and so just to show you some things of what ive done, we had the health and safety well, health and wellness fair. This was during when they did the cancer screening. So i got on the bike and made some smoothies to help out. I was just just a little. Yeah, its a bike and. And you make a smoothie. Its got a blender on top of it. And so you use leg power to make the smoothies. So i got a little exercise in it. Will one of the big projects ive got going right now is trying to get every member of this department up to speed on fit tested properly for their scbas so that we are not only in compliance, but that we know that the protective equipment assigned to these personnel is actually functioning at its capacity next. And ive done a few ergonomic evaluations. Evans these are just a couple of people i evaluated to make sure that at the workplace fits them, that they dont fit the workplace. Thats kind of what ergonomics is all about next. And here i did some forklift training as well for several personnel, again at boe and actually at station 49 ems personnel. So i took some asbestos samples at at this is a part of the Industrial Hygiene<\/a> stuff. I took some asbestos samples that station seven was worried about. Fortunately none of this stuff came up positive for asbestos, so we were good there. And again, just this is just a slide. Its not that its raw data. It just i just pull some stuff, just kind of look where where the tent poles are to try to analyze. Is there a place where we can do better in terms of reducing musculoskeletal disorders or some other type of some type of injury . Next and this is what you see here, i assist with the underground storage tank inspections where all our fuel is. And also, i actually do the review of the spc, spc plan for our 1415. Evans i took that burden off of boe as well. And so thats me in a nutshell. Ill be happy to entertain any questions that you might have. And there is nobody on the Public Comment<\/a> line or approaching the podium for Public Comment<\/a>. Thank you, madam secretary. Thank you for your report. Mr. Boone. Ive ive asked the commissioners they have any questions. Go ahead, commissioner collins. Thank you, mr. Boone. What would you say is our biggest challenge in the coming year . Im sorry . Say again . What would you say is our biggest challenge in your purview in our in the coming year, our biggest challenge in the coming years is i see its kind of a dual thing. Youve got incoming young firefighters and youve got outgoing aging firefighters, which means you have a lot of loss of experience. So how do you blend that out . Loss of experience with getting firefighters that are new to the job, job to understand how important it is for their own health and safety . I think thats probably the biggest challenge. Feinstein on the first sentence, very good. Yeah thank you very much. So, yeah, one last thing id like your opinion on the new potential Training Facility<\/a> in the bayview. Any concerns about that site . Actually lieutenant or captain . Captain roger. Captain. Captain i ing asked me to take a look. He said he wanted me in on the ground floor. One of the first things that i did do when he started talking to me about it was i actually recommended one thing i did. I recommended that any storage tanks be above ground because theres a lot of underground piping issues, theres a lot of issues with underground storage tanks. I said, if youre going to have storage tanks for fuel, for rigs , for vehicles, have them above ground, its a lot easier to manage an ipcc than it is to manage an underground storage tank. Thats the first part. I havent looked at anything in terms of from an ergonomic standpoint or from another other facility standpoint. But ill ill be involved in that as as we move along. If they ask me, okay, great. All right. Thank you. Mr. Boone. Youre very welcome. Thank you for your. Yes, sure, chief, i just want to say thanks, tony, for all the work that you do on behalf of the department and on behalf of the members as you are truly a valued member of our department. And we appreciate that you look out for all of us. So thank you so much, brother. My new york brother, my honor, chief. My honor. Thanks again. No Public Comment<\/a>. Madam secretary. Item five, Public Comment<\/a> on item six Public Comment<\/a> on all matters pertaining to item six below, including Public Comment<\/a> on whether to hold item six b in closed session. There is nobody approaching the podium for Public Comment<\/a> and there is nobody on our Public Comment<\/a> line. I i will move that. Okay, ill call that item now. Possible closed session regarding personnel matters. Vote on whether to conduct item six b in closed session. The commission may hear item six b in closed session pursuant to Government Code Section<\/a> 54 957 b an administrative code section 67. 10 b and i believe you made the motion to go into vote. I we need a second and commissioner, Vice President<\/a> morgan said i the motion is unanimous. Okay. At this time, were going to is. 710 theres nothing to report on. There was no action taken item to vote to elect whether to disclose any or all discussions held in closed session as specified in San Francisco<\/a> administrative code section 67. 12. A the. Is there a motion . I move that we not disclose. I second. I vote yay. The motion is unanimous. Item seven adjournment. I move that we adjourn. I second adjourn. This this meeting is adjourned. Well done. Thank you. Commissioner feinstein. [ ] i just dont know that you can find a neighborhood in the city where you can hear music stands and take a ride on the low rider down the street. It is an experience that you cant have anywhere else in San Francisco<\/a>. [ ] [ ] district nine is a in the southeast portion of the city. We have four neighborhoods that i represent. St. Marys park has a completely unique architecture. Very distinct feel, and it is a very close to holly park which is another beautiful park in San Francisco<\/a>. The Bernal Heights<\/a> district is unique in that we have the hell which has one of the best views in all of San Francisco<\/a>. There is a swinging hanging from a tree at the top. It is as if you are swinging over the entire city. There are two unique aspects. It is considered the fourth chinatown in San Francisco<\/a>. Sixty of the residents are of chinese ancestry. The second unique, and fun aspect about this area is it is the garden district. There is a lot of urban agriculture and it was where the city grew the majority of the flowers. Not only for San Francisco<\/a> but for the region. And of course, it is the location in mclaren park which is the citys second biggest park after golden gate. Many people dont know the neighborhood in the first place if they havent been there. We call it the best neighborhood nobody has ever heard our. Every neighborhood in district nine has a very special aspect. Where we are right now is the Mission District<\/a>. The Mission District<\/a> is a very special part of our city. You smell the tacos at the [speaking spanish] and they have the best latin pastries. They have these shortbread cookies with caramel in the middle. And then you walk further down and you have sunrise cafe. It is a place that you come for the incredible food, but also to learn about what is happening in the neighborhood and how you can help and support your community. Twentyfourth street is the birthplace of the movement. We have over 620 murals. It is the largest outdoor Public Gallery<\/a> in the country and possibly the world. You can find so much Political Engagement<\/a> park next to so much incredible art. Its another reason why we think this is a cultural district that we must preserve. [ ] it was formed in 2014. We had been an organization that had been around for over 20 years. We worked a lot in the neighborhood around life issues. Most recently, in 2012, there were issues around gentrification in the neighborhood. So the idea of forming the cultural district was to help preserve the history and the culture that is in this neighborhood for the future of families and generations. In the past decade, 8,000 latino residents in the Mission District<\/a> have been displaced from their community. We all know that the rising cost of living in San Francisco<\/a> has led to many people being displaced. Lower and middle income all over the city. Because it there is richness in this neighborhood that i also mentioned the fact it is flat and so accessible by trip Public Transportation<\/a>, has, has made it very popular. Its a struggle for us right now, you know, when you get a lot of development coming to an area, a lot of new people coming to the area with different sets of values and different culture. There is a lot of struggle between the existing community and the newness coming in. There are some things that we do to try to slow it down so it doesnt completely erase the communities. We try to have developments that is more in tune with the community and more Equitable Development<\/a> in the area. You need to meet with and gain the support and find out the needs of the neighborhoods. The people on the businesses that came before you. You need to dialogue and show respect. And then figure out how to bring in the new, without displacing the old. [ ] i hope we can reset a lot of the mission that we have lost in the last 20 years. So we will be bringing in a lot of folks into the neighborhoods pick when we do that, there is a demand or, you know, certain types of services that pertain more to the local community and workingclass. Back in the day, we looked at mission street, and now it does not look and feel anything like mission street. This is the last stand of the latino concentrated arts, culture and cuisine and people. We created a cultural district to do our best to conserve that feeling. That is what makes our city so cosmopolitan and diverse and makes us the envy of the world. We have these unique neighborhoods with so much cultural presence and learnings, that we want to preserve. [ ] there is a lot of unique characteristics about visitation valley. It is a unique part of the city. We are off in a corner of the city against the San Francisco<\/a> county line 101 on one side. Vis station valley is still one of the last blue color neighborhoods in San Francisco<\/a>. A lot of working class families out here. It is unusual. Not a lot of apartment buildings. A lot of Single Family<\/a> homes. Great business corridor. So much traffic coming through here and stopping off to grab coffee or sandwich or pick up food before going home. A lot of customers are from the neighborhood. They are painters or mechanics. They are like blue color workers, a lot of them. The community is lovely. Multiracial and hopefully we can look out for each other. There is a variety of businesses on the block. You think of buffalo kitchen, chinese food, pork buns, sandwich. Library, bank of america with a parking lot. The market where you can grab anything. Amazing food choices, nail salons. Basically everything you need is here. A lot of these businesses up and down leland are family owned. People running them are family. When you come here and you have an uncle and nephew and go across the street and have the guy and his dad. Lisa and her daughter in the dog parlor and pam. It is very cool. Is Small Business<\/a>es make the neighborhood unique. New businesses coming. In mission blue, gourmet chocolate manufacturing. The corridor has changed and is continuing to change. We hope to see more businesses coming in the near future. This is what is needed. First, stay home. Unless it is absoluteliness scary. Social distancing is the most important step right now to limit spread of virus. Cancel all nonessential gather everythings. When the pandemic litly land avenue suffered like other corridors. A few nail salons couldnt operate. They shut down. Restaurants that had to adapt to more of a take out model. They havent totally brought back indoor seating. It is heartbreaking to see the businesses that have closed down and shut because of the pandemic. When the pandemic first hit it got really slow. We had to change our hours. We never had to close, which is a blessing. Thank god. We stayed open the whole time. We were kind of nervous and anxious to see what was going to come next hoping we will not have to close down. During covid we would go outside and look on both sides of the street. It looked like old western town. Nobody on the street. No cars. It was a hard eight or nine months. When they opened up half the people couldnt afford a haircut. During that time we kept saying the coffee shop was the living room of the valley. People would come to make sure they were okay. We checked on each other and patronized each other. I would get a cup of coffee, shirt, they would get a haircut. This is a generous and kind community. People would be like i am getting the toffee for the guy behind me and some days it went on and on. It was amazing to watch. We saw a perfect picture of community. We are all in this together. Since we began to reopen one year later, we will emerge stronger. We will emerge better as a city because we are still here and we stand in solidarity with one another. When we opened up august 1st. I will not say it was all good. We are still struggling due to covid. It affected a lot of people. We are still in the pandemic right now. Things are opening up a little bit. It is great to have space to come together. I did a three painting series of visitation valley and the businesses on leland. It felt good to drop off the paintings and hung them. My business is picking up. The city is opening up. We have mask requirements. I check temperatures. I ask for vaccination card and or recent test. The older folks they want to feel safe here. I feel like there is a sense of unity happening. What got us through the pandemic was our customers. Their dogs needed groomed, we have to cut their nails so they dont over grow. This is only going to push us forward. I sense a spirit of community and just belief in one another. We are trying to see if we can help all Small Business<\/a>es around here. There is a Cannabis Club<\/a> lounge next to the dog parlor to bring foot traffic. My business is not going to work if the business across the street is not getting help. In hit us hard. I see a Bright Future<\/a> to get the storefronts full. Once people come here i think they really like it. If you are from San Francisco<\/a> visit visitation valley to see how this side of the city is the same but different. This is one place you can always count on to give you what you had before and remind you of what your San Francisco<\/a> 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<\/a> simply to recognize and draw attention to the establishments. It really provides for San Francisco<\/a>s unique character. And that morphed into a request that we work with the city to develop a legacy business registration. Im Michael Cirocco<\/a> 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<\/a> 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<\/a> 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 Francisco<\/a>s 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<\/a> 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<\/a>. 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<\/a>. But i say really, more importantly, it really brings them public recognition that this is a business in San Francisco<\/a> that has history and that is unique to San Francisco<\/a>. 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<\/a>. 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 sure 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<\/a>. 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. I think a lot of times we get in adult lives we are afraid to follow our passions and think life cant be that easy. But i truly do believe i followed my heart this time in my journal in City Government<\/a> i did not know that is where my passion lied. I kept following it and ltd. To great opportunity to serve the city. [music] im katy tang the executive director of the office of Small Business<\/a>. Small business contributes to San Francisco<\/a>s economy. They provide the bulk of employment in the city and employing a Million People<\/a> in San Francisco<\/a>. And roughly 90 of the businesses are defined as Small Business<\/a>es. So, they contribute to the economy but also just the quality of life. Small businesses are more then and there a place of transaction it is a community center. A play where people gather. Know each other and form memories about the city. At the office of mall business i run a team this helps report all mall businesses in San Francisco<\/a> whether they are looking to stfrt a new business or expand or perhaps they are feeling with issues. Our office is here as a point of information for anyone with a business that has 100 or nower employees. I was growing up i had many ideas of when i wanted to do. I wanted to being an olympic swimmer. And i wanted to men be an architect, you name it i had many ideas for what i wanted do when i grew up. And i never anticipated entering in politics. This opportunity came along wh started working for former supervisor carmen chu and she became the district 4 sunset district supervisor. That was my firstent row in politics and government in a different level. And so when i was finishing up my time working for legislative aid i thought, i will go off and do Something Else<\/a>. May be explore opportunity outside of City Government<\/a> what was then approached by this opportunity to also serve as a district 4 supervisor. If not the traditional route that many people think of when you enter in politics. A lot know that is manage than i want to do and run for office. That was not part of my culture and upbringing with manage my parents were wondering why i wanted to go in that role this legislation and important because so many women when have it return to work after having a child feel embarrassed or dont feel comfortable asking their supervisor for will any lactation accommodations. I saw it as an opportunity you could use the position where you have tools creating legislation and pass laws and where people listen to to you help the community and pass cause catharsis important to the city and individuals. My family immigrated to the United States<\/a> from taiwan. And they came here in pronl probably late 20s almost 30. And so, they came also in the knowing english limp barely read or write but had to quickly understand english to i cant haveigate services and find a job in america. I grew up in the San Francisco<\/a> sunset district i spent most of my childed hoo up until i went off to college. So when i started working in City Government<\/a>, i think i had mixed reactions about my involvement working government because for some of our parents generation, there is i bit of distrust in government. I think there are questions about why i was entering in this field of work. I think you know when i went in City Government<\/a> i thought about my parents like so many other who is have to navigate City Services<\/a> and resources english first language and help the individuals both navigate, intercept that is on an application approximate signage. It is fulfilling to mow to help people like my parent and feel like government is there to support them and not to harm them. My parents are happy that i retired early from politics and being a district 4 supervisor i could have continued on for a couple more years approximate decided to leave early. I think that over all they were able to see some of my work appear in the chinese newspaper. Through that they were able to see i was able to help communities in a tangible way. The member of the board of supervisors. Transportation authority. For the city and county of San Francisco<\/a>. Congratulations. I think about one importance when i was worn in as district 4 supervisor. Years ago, and someone actually came up to me during the swear nothing ceremony and said, wow, im traveling here from canada, and i just i could not believe i saw an asian female worn in in this role a leadership role this meant so much that someone would say that and felt they were inspired by the scene. So i hope that as more people see people that look like them and more women coming in positions of leadership than i feel they can doing the same. Person this inpyred me is carmen chu who is our city add administrator but also was district 4 supervisor when i worked with her as a legislative aid. At this point, i too, was skeptical of going in politics. I saw someone who had herself never seen herself in politics. Got thrown into it and put her heart and soul and dedication to serve people. And it gave me the confidence to pursue that same job and i honestly would not have either chosen or accepted or considered serving on the board of supervisors were not for carmen. If you want to make your business accessible. In my role in City Government<\/a> where i have seen the most challenge is people who dont know you and you are here to serve and help them that they classify you as our City Government<\/a> and here to hurt you. So, people will talk to you and and just you know treat you disrespectfully. And sometimes i noticed that they might do more to me as a female compared to my male colleagues. But you know i try to be empathetic. One of the most significant barriers to female empowerment we feel like we have to be 100 meeting all of the qualifications before we think that we are qualified to do a job. If we look at a Job Description<\/a> or an opportunity to come your way well is self doubt about whether you can fulfill the obligations of that role. I think that the confidence is huge and sometimes i think we make up for it by trying to gain more experience. More and more and more in whatever we can put under our belts well feel better. That may not be the case. We might be qualified with when we have already accomplished. I started rock climbing indoors a couple years ago as an activity to try to spends time with my husband and also to try something new and i finds that rock climbing there are so many parallels to life. You know when im on the wall im concentrating and trying to make it to the next piece without falling. There are daying you think im not making progress. You come back and wow, i hit another level. And so i feel like in our daily lives and w we think we are not making enough of i change in the city. And sometimes we have to take out time to reflect every day as long as you try and give it your all and you look back you will have made a significant contribution there is no limit to where you go in terms of rock climbing. I want to reminds myself of that in terms of daily life. Follow what it is you are interested in, what makes you feel excited about wake up every day. You never know and be open to all the possibilities and opportunity. [music] in person in city hall, room 400 and broadcast live on sf gov tv and available to view online or listen to by. Calling 415 a6550001. The Small Business<\/a> commission thinks Media Services<\/a> and sf gov tv for televising the meeting which can be viewed on sf gov tv2 or live streamed at sf gov tv. Org. We welcome the publics participation during Public Comment<\/a> periods. There will be an opportunity for","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia800509.us.archive.org\/6\/items\/SFGTV_20230904_133000_Public_Works_Commission\/SFGTV_20230904_133000_Public_Works_Commission.thumbs\/SFGTV_20230904_133000_Public_Works_Commission_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240706T12:35:10+00:00"}