Agency and support. Or triggers is one of the indicated in attendance. When a student is 10 , that student will be red flagged and well alert the other agencies. We are not using it yet. We are still meeting. This has been years and years in meeting but we are on the homestretch and well address that soon. Let me press on this one a little bit now. The homestretch is around the block . I dont know. Your guess is as good as mine. What are the barriers at this point . Is there something we can do from this seat . I really dont know. Its language. Im sitting here and i have heard similar discussions years ago and im, you know, you are frustrated, im frustrated. Frustration by itself doesnt do anything. What is it that we need to get this moving. We cant be sitting around and having more kids fail. We need to share with the Community Members and they need to be doing their part in this. Its really frustrating to me that we are not there yet. Supervisor yee, i agree that frustration goes no where if we just sit here and hearing the presentationarily yes, sir, it gives us a sense of urgency to do something. I have to say through your leadership in developing the childrens and Families Council really is that leverage for data agreement work forward. Now we have a piece of legislation to point our City Attorneys to to say look, its in the charter. We have to do this. Whatever it takes to move and to move past our separate institutions, thats what they are working on. You know, its understandable that each City Attorney on each institution trying to make sure the best interest of children at the end of the day is protected. So, i think we are moving forward and unfortunately taking a little bit more time. I have to say through your legislation, 2 years ago that is really helping to kick this a little further. One other question about the, i know that it wasnt presented, but we also know that there is quite a few that are in the category of having high percentages of chronically absent students. Correct me if i am wrong, currently there is 12 high schools, 67 of them have chronic absenteeism rate above 11 . And when you look at elementary schools, 29 of 72 of schools have it above 11 . One of the more disheartening information i have gotten that one of the schools has 39 of the kids chronically absent which is 6 years ago there was one school that has 39 , close to 40 . Is that 40 of the students that be chronically absent and now we still have not maybe one school. This is really frightening that we still have a school with th high rate. Is the Data Available and then, no. 1, to really specifying. The purpose to date for me is i would like to see if there is any improvement over all. Yes, i think the Big Development each schools chronic absenteeism is recording that data that staff is pulling there. And it is part of the schools report card. We used to have something call the the api, the academic performance index. The new index is now the sqii which addresses the chronic absenteeism and also looks at the subgroups. We are in a much more accountable era for attendance. What you are seeing there, is we are looking at it as a baseline. Because we now have all of this new data system potentials to address the students individually and also support individual schools with individual intensive plans which is our intention. What i want to just add is yes, we have the numbers now. We have percentage and data, but we need to move beyond that. We are supervisor london breed when we look at the children that we are having challenges with, i see one of the districts supports is home visits. We know that not every kid has possibly the best home environment, and i know that can be challenging and especially now more than ever with the passage of peace and the Childrens Fund and all of this new money thats being poured into the School Districts and services we have to do a better job at being more aggressive when we know these children are having trouble in their home environment, that is no. 1 and no. 2, we knew in many instances these children were in unhealthy environments and we brought in School Districts, social workers and even the police to help that child grow and thrive in school. There was just really no solution, no real possibility of somehow getting that child into a better environment or no link between getting a child in a healthy home environment to getting them into a healthy home environment. I remember one situation where there was one of the women who had children, somebody i grew up with and there were just some real challenges around her children being used to commit illegal activities by her, by the mother. The bringing the mother and family in and trying to correct the behavior and help her with a job opportunity, help her with social services and getting her on the right path, the follow through was not there. My grandmother raised us and my brother would skill school all the time and spent his whole life in and out of jail and hes still incarcerated right now. My grandmother did her best, but she couldnt control my brother, but there was no one really knocking on our door saying why isnt he in school. We would get phone calls. Eventually he never even graduated from high school. So, i would like to see a little bit more of the folks who work for the School District adding more people to do home visits, to meet people where they are and be committed in their faces. The reason why i did well was because i ended up working for the mayors Youth Employment Training Program and i had these mentors and i didnt why they were helping but they were in my face all the time and holding me accountable and i had these grown ups who cared about me and asked me about my life and what was going on and working with me and my grandmother and eventually i did okay and i even went to college. What im saying here is we need more adults who are handson with our children, and who are not just picking up the phone and making the calls, but nothing on the doors and people who really care about focusing on these individual children and just doing a real wrap around Service Support to get them on the right path. Its not a perfect solution, but working with one kid and i will give you an example. I had, when i was at the African American art and culture complex, there was one kid, grandmother was raising him but she was drinking and had problems and eventually i had him come stay with me. I worked with the grandmother, i made sure he had tutors and got him on the right path. He graduated from high school and now working on a program for the city and doing clean up and graffiti abatement. The point is these kids need an advocate and doesnt have just someone showing up because its their job but because it is an advocacy. We need more people and social workers to do this job. It is a hard job and you dont get a lot of praise for it but hopefully these kids end up doing well and they can take care of themselves and they dont end up being locked up. I just want to really target them early and make sure that there is compassion, that there is support, that there is consistency and we dont let up. Elementary school is easy. Once they get to junior high and high school, we are talking about another ball game. We should be just as persistent and supporting them. I want to make sure that we add those components to what we are doing when we talk about home visits. Mayor edwin m. Lee thank you, supervisor breed. Supervisor breed, you hit the nail on the head. I have to say that sometimes it really takes our personal experiences to realize what works and what doesnt work. Certainly one of my Early Experiences as a teacher for a Public School where kids were bussing from the mission, none of the parents showed up for teacher parent conference and i didnt just say, oh, its too bad. I went to visit them in the evening on my own town and it made such a big difference. And years later, when it was my organization, we had the largest number of parent liaison doing Home Visiting in any organization in San Francisco, and so, yes, i really do support your notion in this and at the end this hearing, i will ask for an action plan for this. I want to bring up the rest of the community. Sorry to keep you guys waiting. Thank you very much for your presentation, mr. Gravn. Maria su and ocof and ocff. Because you are part of the School District, this is not public testimony right now, but you are part of the School District. Presenter thank you supervisors for allowing me to speak right now. Im from the San Francisco board of education. I would like to thank you for bringing up this topic. Its a call for action for us and how its so directly related to the academic achievement of our students. We had a presentation on the African American achievement and chronic absenteeism as one of the challenges. Im glad that we are Getting Better data and i want to. That it disproportionately affects a Certain Group of children, and we are talking about our African American and latino children. Its a few things that are in common. It is the responsibility of our district and the city to address it in those terms. We are talking about schools and how its concentrate in certain schools. We look at those schools and they have the highest concentration of those populations and uncredentialed teachers and the highest concentration of turnover of teachers. They also have the highest concentration of students that do not show up. We promise to the families to give them a high quality consistent education. We are now facing an unprecedented teachers and substitute teachers. They are underpaid and they are not showing up and they are affecting the education of these students. We say to the parents everyday that a day your child is not in school is without instruction. I think that is a partnership we should work on between the city and also our School District. Then we can talk about families and the younger grades and when we get to the older grades that is a different story. So what are we doing with the older grades for those in school and why are they not making this successful and in the lessons that they are learning and also in the courses that we are teaching. Are they relevant to their lives. I think those are the things that we should be looking at because it is also, i have also asked that we look at, our African American students actually shift around a lot from school to school. That is unusual among other groups. So i just ask for the School District to look into how this shifting from school to school transferring 23 schools, how does that affect a childs education. Do the Services Following that child. Are they immediately enrolling into school and immediately a lifetime. I know that every time that her family situation was not as supportive with the family, and i know that every time that the school said to the parents that her mother would shift to schools and there was a time in between leaving one school and enrolling into the next school. Can we capture that time and follow those types of things. Our promise also to the parents are if you get them to school, our promise is we will educate your child. Their support is on our side. On the citys side, we need to look at these groups and heavy transportation and not so much for the school system. We know that transportation in the city is not distributed. And for those that never show up. That is an issue also. This is a continuous problem. Which means once we get our family on board and they are sending their child to school, we could not give up. We could not disregard that family and say now they dont need that service because these children will fall back into chronic absenteeism. Thank you for calling this, supervisor yee. It is a call to action and every time we talk about this and also when we see the data. Thank you very much, commissioner feuer. It is a pleasure sitting on the board of education with you because it were one of the commissioners that knew what i was talking about when everybody was looking at me like i was crazy. Thank you for being here. Maria sue. Presenter i just want to thank supervisor yee for calling this hearing and apply president breed for moving the item forward. To me its very very helpful. So as you have already heard from a lot of our speakers. Chronic absenteeism is a huge issue and we need to understand the consequences of chronic absenteeism on the families and on the system. In looking forward to the support services, we need to address the legal system, community, families, social services as well as faith based communities and other leaders in our community to help our students and young people succeed. I do believe that it is our responsibility as a city to ensure that all young people are equipped with educational and knowledge to be successful. Promoting School Attendance is an important part of our responsibility and one of the goals of our department. I want to highlight a couple of key initiatives that our department is doing and then yield the rest of the time to some of the other departments that will actually share a lot of the initiatives that president breed mentioned like Family Support and coordinated Family Management which i believe are the right strategies to support chronic absenteeism. I want to start by highlighting violence prevention in Case Management programs. Between july 2012june 2014. We have 28 programs that offer kid Management Services and it was for 3078 people. The majority services they provide is support for education attainment. A lot of these young people are at risk for entering the juvenile Justice System and most of our case managers provide a lot of support and to our School District to the Justice System and through their peer relationships and their community. 2 quarters of youth show risk in the years prior to or in the years their in Case Management with our cbos. Out of 1719 youth of that data, 76 had school risk meaning they are at risk of getting a d or f or dropping out of school. Another thing i wanted to highlight is tours at the Resources Center and in full partnership with the School District, the d. A. s office, juvenile Probation Department and cbos. Served 120 students last year and report 88 of students that received services through tarp received more than 100 hours of Management Services to reengage them into their schools. The other initiative i want to highlight is a new one that we got funding from the department of justice. The juvenile alternatives to suspension program. We are running this initiative out of valley middle school. Thats primarily because we really acknowledge there is a shortage of programs and support for our middle School Students. This initiative is in partnership with juvenile probation, School District and our cb o provider, rock, real opportunities for kids. Its a school base Behavioral Health program and once again its there to support our middle School Students at visitation valley to engage in school and to participate in a more full manner at school. The last couple of initiatives i want to highlight are our Summer Transition Program which is intended to compliment academic instruction that the School District provides at the school year in summer months to support the students to transition and support middle School Students to transition to high school. And then our last two our teen program and Wellness Programs. Of the teen program and Wellness Programs the majority of those programs serve young people who have academic needs and need academic support to stay engaged in schools. We truly believe that in order to address chronic absenteeism we need every person in the village to come together an Work Together because it is multifaceted. There are issues ranging from the young person not feeling great in school and the parents being involved. Every child that doesnt go to school, that child doesnt learn. We know its very important for that young person to go to school and its important to be a part of multicollaborative efforts to move this forward. I once again thank you supervisor yee for calling attention to this very important issue. Thank you, dr. Sue, you aligned a few initiatives. Im just curious. I know you also go through your planning process in terms of whats going to be part of your accomplishments for the upcoming years and spending your plan. Im just wondering, how is chronic absenteeism being developed into the community needs. Of all the resources and funding we can talk only one. Similar to what president breed was mentioned before, we are very fortunate that dcyf received not only in our extension in the departments life but also decreasing in the life to our department. We have been in the last year or so, engaging our Community Partners and actually convening Community Meetings at all districts and well continue to do that for the next several months to talk about what are the needs out there to support our children and youth and families to be successful. The things that we are hearing a lot are Family Support. So, its great that over the past several years, dcyf has prioritized and creating more access for people and creating quality proclamation. What we have not done enough of is supporting their parents and supporting their guardians and caregivers. Like first five and the Human Services agencies is how do we provide that level of support for our families and caregivers. Also in terms of conversations with our School Districts is how do we create a continuum of learning for young people that not only tarts starts in the school day but continues in communities after school hours and now its more intentional what that looks like. Both of these lead to addressing some of the issues that leads a young person to be chronically absent. Supervisor norman yee thank you very much. Supervisor breed . Supervisor london breed thank you, ms. Sue, for all the work you do to support the programs. I know its really challenging and i want to make a few comments and ask a few questions. When i think about all the money thats being spent on a lot of programs in our city and whether or not those programs are actually delivering, thats important to me because we are talking about the difference between life and death when we are allocating funds to an organization and that organization is responsible for working with our children and they are not effective, they are not serving our children effectively. I want to comment that i appreciate all the work that you have done to work with organizations and to hold them accountable. I know it is hard to take away funding from programs, but i want to make it clear that a case to be made if a program is not supporting our children properly that it is appropriate to stop funding because there are other programs that need money. There are other programs that are serving a lot of children that dont have the capacity to serve our children and we should not award them with our dollars. I also want to talk about stipends and other programs. With i was 14 not too long ago, almost anyone who wanted a job who i was growing up with, we knew that as soon as we turned 14, we were going to be able to get a work permit to get a job to start working. That is so important because, you know, i grew up in poverty. So we didnt have money and my grandmother, she didnt have money to always give me for lunch or other things in high school and its tough when you cant buy the latest fashion or go somewhere else and do the things a lot of kids can do. Especially when you are a teenager, Employment Opportunity is very important. So having this fund and all the additional dollars that we have on the table, is it possible to get a commment from the department of youth and families to ensure that every teenager especially in our Public School system will have the opportunity to work once they turn 14 especially in the summer and possibly yearround . Yes, its possible. The mayor has made it very public that jobs and Employment Opportunities are a priority for him. And hes directed to us partner with the office of economic and Workforce Development and with the Human Services agencies to think about how do we provide appropriate Youth Employment opportunities for young people. Its not to say that every young person is ready for a job right off the bat. You, supervisor breed, might be, but other young people would need a little bit more support such as barrier removal. Believe me, i was a problem child. I have gotten suspended. I talked back and i was at the principals office. I went through my challenges too, and again, having an opportunity and working with my first job at 14 was at the family school. And it was for women who were over 18 who had children who needed child care and working to get their ged. All of a sudden im getting paid and im getting responsibility and im having these adults talking to me and telling me about life and telling me about my future and potential things that could help change my life. I get what you are saying because i have had those same kids who were not ready to work for me at the cultural center. They werent ready, but it wasnt about whether they were ready, we were ready to making sure they were going to be ready for us to work with them. Getting those children into an opportunity where they are getting paid is so important especially when they dont have Household Income that can help support them especially at teenagers. I just want us to do what we can to do better. It just takes making sure we are identifying locations that really care about working with our kids so that we can and then making it a little bit easier for them to do the paperwork associated with getting reimbursed with all the other thing that you have to do to get funding. Those are the programs that i want to support, the ones that are effective and roll up their sleeves and work with our children that have challenges and work with stipends and jobs as an option. I think we have to make a commitment and make that a priority. I get the truancy issue that can be a problem if they are msing school especially if they have an opportunity to get a job yearround and get paid to be part of a program somehow. I think that makes a really big difference. I wanted to also say that and thank you for your work. Thank you very much, supervisor breed. Supervisor norman yee right now im going to move it along and bring up dr. Skolari from ocf, the our children and our familys council. Presenter thank you very much. I would like to acknowledge you supervisor yee for our support of our childs council. You may recall there was an initiative from proposition c in 2014 to align the city and county initiatives with the School District and the community. So the goal of it overall is to improve outcomes for all of our children and families throughout the city. With the em assist on those with greatest needs. The council itself is cochaired by the mayor and the superintendent. There are 13 county leaders from the School Districts from the mayor that sit on this council and come together to address issues such as chronic absenteeism. There are over 15 individuals participating on working groups actively working to addressed all the issues that are outlined by the council itself. I would like to give you a copy. I have a few copies here from the outcomes framework recently released. Its 180 pages. I hope you have the at some point to look through it at some point. For our children and families there are deliverables. The first is to look at the outcomes framework that you have before you now. It was adopted by the council on january 28th of this year. That framework itself outlines the milestones that the ste a School District and Community Want all children and all families in San Francisco to reach. So, for the council has come to gather to create this framework itself that we can align our priorities as a city together. Now that we have that framework created, the next phase of the work is to create a 5year plan to create that do you document. That plan as to how to make this come to life and how to make the changes happen for youth and families across the city. The third one is data sharing. Now as mentioned by dr. Sue, we have an initiative written into legislation that says we must share data, we must figure out how to share data across the School District and the city and we have a convening workgroup cochaired at the Mayors Office and john burr at the School District and 25 individuals who work on data across the city and get to the issue. Why cant we get the data sharing agreements together. They are stuck in legal is what we hear. We are bringing together 25 leaders coming together to finally address this issue in a form of a working group. The first data deliverable is the Service Inventory to create a citywide online one stop shop for all services for children and family youth across the city. We are starting this summer by organizing all of the Summer Services on a summer piety on line that goes live tomorrow and the coming year well add all the services across the city. I would like to point you to the outcomes framework on page 17 on the larger document that you have or it is in the shorter powerpoint. The outcomes framework itself outlines five major goals that we have come to agree as a city that we need to reach. The goals and there are 19 measures. We have 5 major goals an 19 measures. Within one of those goals is School Attendance and thats when we get to the issue of chronic absenteeism. What we know is that you cannot address the issue of School Attendance without looking at the whole child. So its important to connect whats happening around chronic absenteeism to the larger goal which is if we want students to thrive in a 21st century learning environment that the child must attend school regularly and looking at the whole child. We also need them to live in a nurturing environment, we need them to obtain economic stability and housing security and we need to make sure they are physically and emotionally and mentally healthy and if we can get them to attend school regularly they will thrive in a learning environment and e, they will succeed in post secondary education and able to earn a wage in this city. We are looking at the whole, all of these initiatives. It was brought up earlier. The goal around our children and aligning all of these Services Together but with a particular focus on equity. The powerpoint that you have in front of you is bringing up the issue around chronic absenteeism and which are the groups affected by absenteeism. We know that African American and islanders of the school are the once with the most problems around attendance. We need to look at it in other lenses. What we are pushing for is to look at are there equity gaps around neighborhood of residents. Are there gaps around primary language, grade level, crossreferencing the issue of chronic absenteeism and all other issues of lenses of equity. Thats a basic overview so you can understand how chronic absenteeism list these 19 measures overall. Supervisor norman yee thank you for your presentation. The report framework that you are talking about. The framework is what i had hoped for in terms of incorporating beyond just children in the services. As you mentioned and as supervisor breed will understand, this is not just about the services of children and Everything Else that impacts them whether its housing, Employment Opportunities. Im glad this is in here. I hope you flush out chronic absenteeism in a more visible way. I would love to see some wordings in there. This is only the basic framework. The next phase is a 5year plan which will be created around july and you will see more around that goal, d, we will have a working group coming together to talk around the four measures that sit within goal d including regular School Attendance. We will have more content to share with you. Thank you very much. Keep up the good work. Right now i would like to bring up the first five, raymond lane to do a short presentation. I would like to mention at the time 6 years ago when we were talking about this, the preschool level was not part of this description. It wasnt ready. Im glad to see that now we are ready and im a believer that its not just at kindergarten when we need to get started. We need to get to this much earlier. The floor is yours. Presenter thank you for including first five in this important discussion. A lot of the patterns that we see in our elementary and secondary Education Systems establish themselves much earlier as the children enter formal education. In San Francisco in part to your leadership, education starts before kindergarten. We have 83 of the children going to the district now have an chance to go through the school system. Im going to speak about the care and education aspects of chronic absenteeism, but im going to ask shelly and to speak more on the first four department side and address the issue holistically. We are currently serving about some where between 5,0006,000 children a year in San Francisco. We have had a very strong focus on making opportunities available to children to go to these programs, but also to improve the quality of the programs so children are getting the most they can out of it. The research has been very clear and more is better in the area of early care and education. Full day programs are better for children and park day programs. Children that participate for 2 years in a Quality Program benefit more than children that only attend for 1 year. It stands for reason that a child that attendance regularly is going to do better than one who only attendance sporadically. The School District has been making these opportunities to making high quality Education Programs available to as many children as possible. I thank katie chang for bringing this to our attention years ago that we should be paying attention to these patterns because it speaks to maximizing the benefits for children especially those African American and latino children who is outcomes are certainly not there in terms of our k12 program education. Until very recently, it was very difficult to sort of get any kind of information about attendance in early care and Education Programs. Most of the programs are operated by small nonprofits or sort of Small Business owners in the case of family care homes. So you dont have Big Information Technology departments backing these programs or data analyst. So about 8 years ago, first five wanted to improve the capacity of these programs to look at their own data and we created a system called coco which is used among 50 plus sites around the city that are participating in preschool for all. About 23 years ago we actually started trying to think of ways that we can start to system some of the education around. We have eight sites around the city piloting a program where they drop off their kids they sign off on a tablet computer much on when you go get a cup of coffee and when they do that, the system logs their child as being present and over the course of the year you have a data base that contains a lot of information about children with attendance patterns and why they maybe absent. Now, this is all very preliminary, and so, i cant really sort of speak to this as being a pattern of the city across the whole but this is working on children of color and southeast part of the city as well as the mission district. Thats where the major thrust of this work has been. I can tell you there are really no surprises here, but the problem of chronic absenteeism does start as early as preschool. We have children alarming numbers of children that are missing 20 of the days that they could be there and that is going to have a very dramatic effect on their readiness as they enter kindergarten. What i can also tell you is that the reasons for absence are 99 times out of 100 is going to be something related to illness either of the child or the parent affecting the childs ability to go to school. Im not sure yet without digging a little bit deeper and having greater conversations with these programs how many of those cases are legitimate illnesses and if they are, i think we have a Public Health issue we are going to have the address in the community. The other issue we might be dealing with and this is something that maybe more within the realm of Care Capacity of programs to do something about which is preSchool Attendance not mandatory. Im not saying that it has to be but i think we can maybe do a better job message to go families that whenever a child is in school that is contributing to that childs readiness. Missing a day no matter what the reason is, is a lost opportunity. So, i think that as we explore the data further and dig deeper to talk to the teachers and the administrators that work with the children in our universal preschool programs will get a better handle on what exactly the root causes of the absences are. Those that we have within our control we have to do something about, and those that speak to broader issues with Public Health or Chronic Health issues i think we are going do have to talk with our Community Partners. Supervisor norman yee thank you very much. You mentioned Family Support. Presenter thank you supervisor yee. Im with Family Support. I wanted to let you know that we are also concerned around chronic absence. We run a jointly funded family Resources Center initiative along with cyf and Family Services. We have programs all throughout San Francisco and the impacted neighborhoods and populations that have been spoken about today, all have one if not more Family Resources in the neighborhood includes Case Management, Parent Support groups and developmental screening. As we know some of the reasons why parents are not able to get their children to school especially at the young ages is because of barriers and issues in their lives. Family support services that we provide are designed to address that so that kids can have success in school. Supervisor norman yee thank you very much. So next up is hope sf. Presenter good afternoon, supervisors, and meof the public. Im with hope sfchlt. Im here to work with health and wellness with education and housing stability. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to present today on this important issue of chronic absenteeism. Excuse me while i just pull up my slides. The work is the focus on the rebuild of the hopes sf sites. There are many things that make the work of hope sf unique in the world of Affordable Housing and Public Housing which is our drive to take an equity approach to this transformation. As you can see from these latest select statistics hope sf residents and communities have experienced this in revoking trauma and see this across all areas with experience. Particularly relevant to todays discussion we see the data that 53 of our students attend sf usd schools will complete school. We have partnerships to improve these outcomes. Housing and infrastructure alone will not resolve the challenges and repairs of these neighborhoods and it will take more than these programs to address this challenge. We believe this requires an integrated Systems Approach. As such, in addition to the physical rebuild of these communities, hope sf holds ambitious capitals and integrated care and education support. This epitomizes the practice to our work. With a began as a pilot for a systems strategy with public investment. Im proud to say that our City Departments are represented here. As well as our cbo partners some of who are members of the public today. This slide at the end here represents this integrated Systems Approach to our work. Hope sf has worked with sf usd to integrate housing developments. This is the hope sf schools. Those eight schools on the outside and you will note their relationship to the neighborhoods. Hunters view and potrero and sunnyvale. Each hope sf site has targeted partnerships with two hope sf schools represented in the outer circle. Each one has one full time liaison, two with the centers. They are responsible on programs that focus on reducing chronic absenteeism through a dual family generation approach. They are Staff Members of resource centers, funding by dcf and acts as a conduit between the housing and school sites and partner with schools and help families navigate services and school systems. Because they are located within the system, they are able to connect families to the plethora of dual services some of which were mentioned today and the Parent Child Services offered and our other cbo partners. Through the support of sf us d include the sites. The activities include but not limited to attending iep meetings and engaging families in teacher parent conferences and enrolling students in programming and attended families at the housing site, operating Walking School buses, things of that nature. In addition we know that student attendance is linked to parents ability and working with families to connect to additional Case Management, support and services that parents ed nein addition to support. In addition to potrero, the services wide is working to create a Pilot Program to support education and the overall objective of this work. Finally the hope sf education approach includes the tables at all intersections of this model in front of you. For shared professional development to family and strengthening approaches and the knowledge needed to address Public Housing. This needs to increase their understanding, their steps of understanding. They used the terms cultural competence. I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done to really have our schools understand the needs of Public Housing residents and to bridge that divide. We have these two placed based services if you will, we have housing in the community and we have schools in the community. They currently arent connected. They are not talking and they dont understand each other. If we want to improve our rates of attendance, that connection, that understanding is very important. That relationship on bridges is really an important piece of this as well as to train the family liasons around this important issue. This work is challenging and to the dedication and partnerships from the partners, we have seen great success. As an example, at griffith we have 28 students at risk factors working with an education liaison working to improve Educational Attainment and we have seen great work through the principal and work through the family which is being reviewed by the work and its continuing to evolving and we appreciate the many partnerships in this room that have come together to make this work possible. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your work. We have a public speaker. The Division Director at the Neighborhood Centers. Public speaker good afternoon. Thank you norman, thank you supervisors for calling this. Youve heard from the departments, youve heard from some of my colleagues, youve heard from the interest that the City Investment has made on the chronic issue that we continue to have with chronic absenteeism. I serve the Southeast Community and we need to make sure that we are talking about absenteeism linked to poverty and the stresses that we understand have been communicated today by framework to strategies, interventions, policies, dollars that we need to invest in the 2generation support. I serve predominantly latino communities and the African American and Samoan Community and others. These communities in some instances are marginalized to housing complex that sf hope just spoke about and we see huge disparities of linkages with schools. We have been working with first five and with attendance works now and we have a model of head start and staep supported programs and that allows us to have staff that not only are teachers, but staff that are Family Service are advocates. They do Case Management. So what weve begun to identify in terms of strategy is to look at the families not from a deficit perspective but from a positive spin of intergenerational support with them. We are hosting apparent cafes parent cafes to talk about this and for them to do their own sign in when they come through stars and recognize children who have not had any absences. We have seen increase in attendance because of the short and small intervention. Supervisor norman yee i know your type time is up but i want to ask you a question because i know your program does good work. What supposed would benefit your staff in working with the families . Thank you for the question. I think that one of the things that we all lack here together is a more coordinated effort of messaging. Every year i transition 240 children approximately out of my system to either unified or to of charters or the private catholics. We are arent messaging together the value and the importance of what chronic absenteeism does and how it unfortunately builds in lack of skill sets at they move along the school communities. I think the second thing is, it would be important for us to, i really appreciate, though it was a lengthy conversation, i really appreciate the different players that are here and how can we come together to coordinate our thoughts, strategies and investments to ensure the messaging is getting done correctly to both the parent and to the staff that operationalize this. Supervisor norman yee thank you very much. Next up and one more speaker after that. Good morning. You have love this. You target the families and teach them how to write a grant. When the family itself is targeted and you teach them how to write a grant. That means all of these little dots are granted by billions of dollars. This might be a curriculum idea. Start teaching early on each individual family how to write a grant. You understand what im saying. If you have one grant writer in the family, then that family can become its own nonprofit. Think about that because then the funds wouldnt have to come from school. I have been doing it a lot around the schools in the city and including universities. Learn to write a grant. You can do it right here. You can write each individual family, a family can become a nonprofit. Think about that and this city wouldnt have to pay a dime of its own money because that comes from a bunch of different money. For example, rent Freeze Foundation is called angels. She has billions of dollars waiting at the World Foundation grant center. Correct . What do you think of that idea . Each family becomes its own nonprofit. That is something to think about. That wouldnt cost the city a penny. Ask me a question about that. Its pretty good. Anyway, i love america. Think about that as a new curriculum idea for the schools of San Francisco. Supervisor norman yee thank you. Youre welcome. You ms. Breed, have a great day. Youre welcome. Public speaker good afternoon, supervisors and public. My name is betty canton for potrero housing. The opportunities to speak to share with you the experience about what is happening in the neighborhood. The potrero Housing Project through hope San Francisco and ymca, what its doing is Building Support in the community thank you. Last speaker. Public speaker to learn to something good. Yes. Tell me that you like to learn. Yeah. This time i know good luck youre going to stay. Good luck. I hope you are going to stay. Cmon now. Come see about school. Thank you. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Supervisor london breed i can looking forward to getting the breakdowns. With a we didnt talk about is our kids who are homeless and living in shelters and the absenteeism and what we are doing to connect those families with services. I want to make sure we are looking at the number of students we are talking about and taking a holistic approach to providing that support and doing everything we can to connect those families to resources working to get them signed up for housing and getting with our neighborhood preference legislation folks who live in a district priority in terms of Affordable Housing for those particular homeless families and when we build more Affordable Housing in the southeast sector and other parts of this city that we are working with them to try and help get them into housing in someway and making them a priority. I want to make sure that we are just taking things a step further. That we are not only supporting and taking care of our kids who are thriving and doing well and that they are not neglected. But we are looking at the ones that need more wrap around services for them an their families and how we can do a better job collaborating to support them so they can support and thrive. Because sometimes when we are helping the kids and working with the kids, there are still a lot of wounds at home and challenges at home. We want to make sure we remove as many barriers to success as possible and thats just a lot of work. Im grateful to the voters of San Francisco who are supporting this fund and making sure we are invest negative investing in our future. I would like to thank the providers for working on this solution to get rid of this problem once and for all. Its sad in california in terms of our investment and some of the issues we deal with, we are one of the wealthiest cities in San Francisco and california is one of the wealthiest states, and we are in the bottom ten in performance of our kids. Im glad we have committed folks at the table helping us move things forward. Im committed to support your efforts, support your plans. I was one of those kids who was problematic and thanks there were a lot of programs and adults and i am here today. As a result, im president of the board, but my brother wasnt so fortunate. This is the difference it makes. We hope our kids dont end up in that situation. Thank you, supervisor yee for holding this important hearing and hopefully we can get some results out of this and changing the situation now to better. Supervisor norman yee thank you very much. Thank you for your patience. I want to thank all the Department People and all the individuals who have come out to this hearing. I know its been longer than what i anticipated. But its to me and obviously to you a really important issue. If we dont address this issue and tax those kids and the families lives in the future. It was 83 that students that are chronically absent in kindergarten do not read at grade level and Research Shows that students are more than likely to drop out if by third grade they are not reading at third grade level. We have data and continue to see trends that really to me arent new. Many of the same schools in 2010 are still showing the highest rates of chronic absenteeism. San francisco unified School District only presented some of this data. Im hoping to see more of it. The first five is collecting preliminary date at the younger age. Thats really one of the more refreshing data that i have heard. I know the connection between the younger age and kindergarten. The population that we are failing and the most vulnerable are the African American children and latino population. We have programs in the City Departments on this issue. Through prop c we have strengthened and increased our citywide planning bodies. The ocof which we heard today was passed unanimously in january. Close out chronic absenteeism and as a key measure for youth and transitional youth need to be addressed. We are going to have it thrive in the 21st century and discussion with the Neighborhood Centers for preschool programs working with educational liaison through first five and families who are connected to hope sf. We really need to continue to support these efforts but create a district and across the board systemwide collaboration to address this. Our data must be sound which it seems we are being, we are taking that as a first step and strategies must be developed. For this reason, sometimes we just end up hearing about things and thats the end of the hearing. Im willing to take this a step further and i hope supervisor breed will join me. I want to create an ad hoc group under the ocof and come up with a plan within the next 6month. I would like to be comprised of attendance works, sfusd, first five, oece, its going to be under them, dcyf. The ad hoc workgroup will develop a comprehensive plan for strategies for policies and implementation to reduce absenteeism in Public Schools. The plan should include programmatic activities to support not only the students but parents in school sites and Research Intervention and starting prevention in preschool effective to addressing School Attendance. We also know to successfully address this issue, we must use the multiprone approach which includes our citys agencies, our School District departments and Community Based organizations and our thought leaders. It was mentioned today, one of these that we should talk about is this common messaging that we should have so we are not all talking about different things. In our approach we should consider more staff that is working with parents where there is parent liasons based at the school sites or Community Based organizations. We should discuss the what are some incentives that can get our parents to focus on bringing the children to school everyday. Sometimes, i remember when i was with the San Francisco foundation focused on one particular grant across the bay and it was really talking about this issue. They didnt know what the words were but somehow the parents are not coming to school and we dont have enough people to talk to these parents. When they do talk to them, sometimes the issues are very very serious and complex. But sometimes they are issues that are not that serious and complex and once we talk to them, we found out what it is. We found out these parents werent bringing the kids to school when its raining. Why are you not bringing the kids to school when its raining . We dont have money to buy umbrellas. Or i work in the evening and i cant get up. Im just too tired to bring my kid to school. So the parent liaison arranged for some of the neighbors to pick up the kids and help out. We need to do that. I want to create this workgroup and hope everybody will join in this effort. Im committed to also look for resources thats going to fund this effort. So thats my commitment and again, i thank you for being here. Is there a motion to file this hearing. So moved. Okay. Any objection . This hearing is filed. This matter is filed with member of peskin being absent. Yes. Anything else on the agenda. That completes the agenda for today. Supervisor norman yee thank you very much. This meeting is adjourned. [ meeting is adjourned ] speaking foreign language. shop and dine in the 49 promotes local biz and challenges the san franciscans to do their shop and dine in the 49 within the by supporting the services we help San Francisco remain unique and successful and vibrant so where will you shop and dine in the 49 San Francisco owes itch of the charm to the many neighborhoods people coma greet and meet it has an personality these neighborhoods are economic engine seeing the changes is a big deal to me especially being a San Francisco native and it is important to support the local businesses but also a lot to over here it is nice not to have to go downtown i think that is very important 0 for us to circulate our dollars the community before we bring them outside of the community for the time we have one dollars in the community is the better off we are it is about Economic Empowerment by apron ingress the businesses that are here. 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Shop and dine the 49 challenges residents to do theyre shopping with the 49ers of San Francisco by supporting the Services Within the feigned we help San Francisco remain unique and successful and rib rant where will you shop the shop and dine the 49 im e jonl i provide sweets square feet potpie and peach cobbler and i started my business this is my baby i started out of high home and he would back for friends and coworkers theyll tell you hoa you need to open up a shop at the time he move forward book to the bayview and i thinks the t line was up i need have a shop on third street i live in bayview and i wanted to have my shop here in bayview a quality dessert shot shop in my neighborhood in any business is different everybody is in small banishes there are homemade recess pesz and ingredients from scratch we shop local because we have someone that is here in your city or your neighborhood that is provide you with is service with Quality Ingredients and quality products and need to be know that person the person behind the products it is not like okay. Whogo. Shop and dine the 49 promotes local businesses and changes san franciscans to do their shopping and dooipg within the 49 square miles by supporting local Services Within the neighborhood we help San Francisco remain unique, successful and vibrant so where will you shop and dine the 49 recall all right. Goods morning. Welcome to the march 24th 2016 rules comeet i am katie. To my right is [inaudible] were joined today by supervisor to my left. Our clerk is eric erches and we want to thank jen lowe and jesse larsen. Mr. Clerk. Do you have any thing to say is this. Please silence all cell phones. Items acted on today will appear on the april 5th board supervisors agenda. Can we call item one. Motion approving the direction of stephen [inaudible] for the Fire Commission january 5th ending 2020. Do you have any comments . I do. Thank you supervisor tang. I call this hearing today because the board of supervisors has a role to play. The San Francisco Fire Department is over 300 million entity and one of the largest departments and up with of the most important departments to Public Safety in the city and county of San Francisco. When the mayor a ports commissioner, directors, commissioners or board of appeals, entertainment, police or utilities commissioners, the board of supervisor holds hearings and has a say in that meart matter. For whatever reason our city charter does not afford the Automatic Process for Fire Commissioners. Yet theyre very important issues happening in the Fire Department and serious concerns from labor and the board should have an opportunity to discuss this with our Fire Commissioner. In the four years let me go back a little bit. And say from the onset that i support commissioner hardiman and commissioner nikagio 100 percent. I served with them as a Fire Commissioner. Steve is a with distinguished Public Servant. Mike hardman has given years offer is service to San Francisco and is equally an institution in the labor community. This is not about opposing or second guessing the appointments of mr. Nakagio or mr. Hardiman. If my hearing sthawg, i do apologize. For all the people that came here to speak in support of the commissioner, i a shiewsh you you dont have to convince me. I squalled for the challenge not to challenge commissioner nakagio or commissioner hardman, this is simply an opportunity to address concerns in the department. So, whatever reason, as i said before, our city charter does not afford an Automatic Process for the Fire Commission. There are serious concerns that i have. And id like to spend this time addressing the concerns and asking the important questions. In the last four years since commissioner na consideration argues gio and hardman were appointed, weave experienced a dramatic increase in call volume, spikes in Response Time and conflict between the administration an members. We made great progress on many issues and others remain unresolved. This morning is an opportunity, once we get only every four years for the board of supervisors to hear directly from the Fire Commissioner and members of the department and public to raise concerns they would like commissioners to address. So that is my hope for this hearing this morning. Again, my intent is not to oppose commissioner hardman or commissioner nakagio or put anyone on the spot. My hope is to have a productive conversation among the pyre Commission Board of supervisors and Fire Department. Feas aits an opportunity top to have a better understanding of what is happening with the department. With that, i will welcome mr. Nakagio to the podium. It looks like supervisor mauer has some comments. I was going to thank supervise bree for. Apologizing. Commissioner hardman, tremendous support for labor stacks of letters but n nakagio for all the immigrant communities. Im glad we have this comment not just to question the records but to celebrate the can accomplishment in the communities and Fire Department. I want to say the outpouring of support for steve nakagio that came through all our offices is a testament to mentoring so many people like me. Letters from rich hashimotoo to cathy and ester leon. But also broad expect sectors of the citywide communities show the support for these two hard working commissioners. I wanted to say that im glad were using this time not to question their records or work on the Fire Commission, but to look at how we move the Fire Commission forward as well. Those are my opening comments. All right, thank you very much. Now we will a call up mr. Nakagio himself. Good morning supervisor mauer. President bree, good morning. First ever all, i want to extend appreciation for the unprecedented comment of apology. Myself understanding the prerogative of each supervisor within the realms that you narrated. I feel that this process is a process you have and the board of supervisors has to to quick commissioners being appointed in this case myself, questionings or subject matters pertain to is that. I wanted to, if i may, madam chair, pass to you, and i apologize, you only made three copies not knowing if you were going to be attending today. But the package and since supervisor cohen is not here, perhaps the president might be able to see that or handouts. One egg segment of handout is accomplishments by Fire Department 2013 2014 with a page attachment that goes to 2014 2015, the last two years. Also attached is a Public Safety hiring plan that talks about the commission and goes down to budgetrelated reinforcement to personnel within the Fire Department, which is a major, major issue. Major issue in terms of acknowledgment this year that is significant is the fact that the Mayors Office and caitd howard has sphepped up to help us in the Fire Department with our personnel needs. Again, there are multiple yiewrs in any big City Department, one of the issu was an issue of mandatory overtime that talked to personnel and experience and relief and through the process, weve been able to do that by stepbystep processes in this accomplishment plan specifically and there might be references through the Vehicle Replacement Program. Let me begin first of all and again in the spirit of education, and the spirit of shared resources, i was appointed by willy lewis brown junior mayor of San Francisco in 1996, i was appointed with soroka. Rose marry if he were dez ted solas we wered up the u. S. District Court Consent until the department could imcomplement strategyings to end discrimination in the hiring and promotion of minority and women, firefighters. We worked extremely hard with the Administration Department to then as newly appointed chief rob rd demonds. From that time in 1996 through this year of 2016. The San Francisco Fire Department is a very different place. In the series of can be accomplishments not singularly to myself, the commission is made up of five appointed commissioners by the mayor. In year 2002, the department and the Commission Adopted the candidate physical abilities test called a cpac. This was a potentially difficult decision in the aspects of the time coming from members of the union wells members in terms of appliances both in the physicality level, protecting the lives of citizens and health and safety of firefighters, recognized broadly by the San Francisco firefighters and local 798, we adopted this particular program. As another narration or example with then president paul conroy, we adopted a policy of a Vehicle Replacement Program on march 9th wednesday morning i was sworn as a Fire Commissioner reappointed by mayor lee, this basically would have significantly added to the participation that this would be my 21st year of certify certifys have. In 21 years of searching as a commissioner to the Fire Department. Ive gained special knowledge and expertise regarding operation budget and administration. I have a keen historical Institutional Knowledge. I felt that my oversight and responsibility was to provide stability and reliability to the department. My philosophy was to be hope to all employees groups and membership and officers on any issues that were pertaining. My personal goals within the Fire Department within 2 years was too take care of business, the order of business to attend meetings on a regular, balanced measure in the sense of consistent attendance. At a point of information in 2010 i had cancer. I had surgery, i had chemotherapy and during those two months of recovery, for look at the record of attendance, i also participated in the various meetings. That is nothing about talking about what one deck cates ones to. Thats called taking care of business. We try, myself to attend as many participation, events, parades, drills. I think a twoalarm fire is significant to a threealarm or fouralarm. A car accident. Anything that is related to the accomplishments and responsibilities of the department, ri try earnestly to participate within that. There is a hard responsibility in terms of maintaining objectivity and subjectivity when they choose to do an appeal case to the commission rgs, that we act within that role, particularly to provide fairness to the rights of the membership, but also taking everything into consideration. I pride myself to disagree to disagree. I pride myself to act in a civil, professional manner with respect to we can try to accomplish the business of the department. Most Exciting Program beyond all the excitement of the support is our present e. M. S. 6 program which talks to the homeless, chronic users in the streets of San Francisco. With the tone of council men of services for the Homeless Population of San Francisco, the Fire Department is doing its share within that program. Ill stop at this point because i know there is Public Comment. There are many individuals who have come today to voice their participation and i would lake to respect that. Thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate the detailed run through of all the accomplishments, given your time serving on the commission kidd think youve answered quite a few of my questions through that. I think supervisor bree has some comments or questions. Thank you for being here commissioner nakagio. As i said before, there snow need for you to impress upon me the importance of making sure you continue to serve on the Fire Commission. Was an honor to serve with you. I lerved learned a lot from your comments and questions and i appreciate all that youve done to serve the city and county of San Francisco. Not just in your capacity as a commissioner, but in your capacity as an important part of saving japan town and so many other Amazing Things you continue to do for the city and county of San Francisco. When i first served on the commission the first year, one of the most frustrating experiences is that you and i both shared was the lack of driefers diversity in the department. After 10 years we finally had a new class that we were able to hire and in that class, there wasnt one africanamerican man that was in the class of i think over 20 individuals. You and i raised concerns with the chief in the lack of diversity in our frustration, we continued to voice that concern over the years. Can you tell me what is happening now with the department . I mean, as you know, weve dealt with lawsuits and we continue to deal with complaints of harassment and other issues that continue to persist in the department. I just want to know your feedback on what is going on with the department, your perception anded what are you continuing to do to address the situation of issues aroun of discrimination within the department . Im one member of a fivemember commission. Diversification is a high priority. We in or policy role do the best we can to point that out to the chief and administration. The class that we had recently with the approval of the Mayors Office is at least as you may know, being a former Fire Commissioner, the first time in many years that weve had repeated classes within that. Within the change of the department in terms of women, folks. Candidates of color. Weve been an advocate for those numbers. As you look at that, youd see those individuals. In terms of the particular cases you talk about, im privy to it only in the discussions as Fire Commissioner. Those issues were addressed at training, at one point in innuendos or charges of Racial Discrimination or harassment, our present chief rowena williams, chief of the Training Division is an africanamerican woman. Not to say that a woman haven cant have oversight but thats a good indicator that were trying to pay a lot of attention to that particularly. The other issue is the issue of again, being able to have funding to have classes. That really has helped a lot with the operation of the department and the increasing numbers of diversity that we continually, admittedly need to play an oversight within that but that is something were trying to work hard on and be part of that. We recently got a correspondence that the city and county and Chiefs Office is going to be one subject matter that was chosen nationwide in terms of that discussion on the question of diversity. I think part of what i found frustrating as a former commissioner was just, you know, ultimately, the chief does decide who the individuals are that basically are finally chosen for those particular classes. And, again, you know, there has been a lot of frustration on those decisions. From your perspective, you feel based on your feedback you do teal that its Getting Better in terms of the decisions on selecting a Diverse Group of candidates for the new classes. I do. And im sayin saying that there is still an ongoing process of oversight on that. When youre a member of Fire Commission, president breed, there are situations where applicant poll was numb tbrers 6,000 to 7,000 the class was a class of 36. A class was offered once every three or four years. We have a factor now that applicational process is a National Test. So the National Test increases the candidates countrywide. Anyone can apply for entry within the San Francisco Fire Department. In the 20 years of being a Fire Commissioners in terms of who chooses the candidates for the h2 class, as far as i snow by the charter, by the rules for everything that i asked in previous years, it is the prerogative of the comeef. Withi chief, within that framework. We try, us the commissioner, everyone else. We had a recent hiring of recruitment personnel within the department that is going to keep the focus within those communities of diversity and try to bring it back. The more classes we have, the more opportunities. One more other factor, in those classes that we have now, which numbers have increased, were tacking certain number from station 49 which are made up of paramedics to give them an opportunity of a promise made years ago that paramedics would have an opportunity to serve as h2 suppression. I want to ask another sensitive question. After members of the united employees group which is all the employees group that serve with the Fire Department, voted no confidence in the leadership of the department. The mayor placed the responsibility to act opt commission. Can you tell me the steps the commission has taken in order to act and what the feedback has been in resons to that particular group of individuals on what you have done as a commissioner . Or what the commission has done as a whole to address that issue . President breed and welcome supervisor cohen, i want to be able to reiterate that i like to share this withs much information as im allowed to share. Allowed to share, peen means if its a personnel type of issue, im not able to disclose that. Ill candidly because i was a member of the commission at that time. Pretty much the consensus is by at that action of no confidence and the diversification and communication of local 798 and the first time of a coalition of employ i dont thinks group, i as president initiated an evaluation. In the 149 years of the San Francisco Fire Commissioner, the commissioners have never pro vieted an evaluation on the chief. In order to learn how to do it right, in communication with hr and communication with the City Attorneys Office Getting guidance within that, i wanted to find outhe gros process of evaluation with the chief is previously. I found out that hr with the Mayors Office has an evaluation format that has been in practice for years. Again, president beed breed. Many of us, i will address it, werent privilegey that during that evaluation period that we didnt have a checkoff or a mechanism or process, but thats the way the practice has been. I as president and the support of the rest of the commissione commissioners with the cooperation because i wanted us to get real about this, the mayor of San Francisco who is the mayor and chief executive officer of the city and county, i wanted his input as to the process of evaluation that we first time will conduct. Not wanting to make any errors at all. In that, mayor approved the mayor said basically orders of the day was a fair and professional evaluation. With that, we took many, many different evaluation forms from hr and reduplicating the process over and over again. Part of the challenge was we needed a crumb for this particular issue on closed session. So we had numerous closed sessions with the City Attorneys office as to conduct ourselves within process and at least i can share with you we agreed upon one form that was consistent with the form that hr has been using with chief. We conducted an evaluation. President breed, we conducted the evaluation. Weve had two or three closed sessions on that dialogue. Im not going to be able to talk about anything in there, because of privacy rights and is up of personnel, but we did conduct and had lively discussions, i believe it was during the wh holidays, there was effort to get some decision mechanisms done the holidays of 2013 and 2014. It went beyond that, as we concluded, what hr instructed is we take our evaluation and send it up to the Mayors Office. We did that. I asked mayor lee to meet with every one of the commissioner to get our individual feedback beyond our summary. I, as president. Pushed for im president , a significancemonth review. The sixmonth review because our leadership is collective, even though i was president then, the Vice President had the prerogative on her plate the sixmonth review was conducted. Therthere were benchmarks set up in order to make the six month review obtainable, doable, make some sense of it, we put down their expectations and went over that with the chief in a closed session so that will would be evaluational benchmarks. That now has moved to the president currently, president francine cohenson. The last order of business with the six month review might have been with two months ago, we concluded that particular component. What happens next is the prerogative of the president. So, tell me what you think the additional, i think over 34 million that we added to the Fire Departments budget last year, do you think that has helped significantly with the operations of the department and how do you think that helped . It has significantly helped the department. As you know, our department, during the deficit years cooperated with then mayor newsom and we took a lot of cuts. Some of the prams programs were just starting to restore. The personnel issue are the men and women who come into the department, talking about the ambulances, vehicle replacement, talks to that, dollars to the training department, talks to the h1s. H2 paramedics, e. M. T. Technicians. Talks to again, we have a bond issue on station 49 which is the headquarters that we would like to establish toward paramedics. We are mow looking at concluding again a combination of resources. The easter bond 2010, 2014, district station five renovation is coming up. For us, its being able to restore some of the cuts to the various areas of operation to the department but add personnel. Personnel costs dollars even within our analysis of i. M. S. 6, youll see more ems6. When you were with us president breed, when it came to budget requests, most of our time different from what it was and currently now, what we asked for is what we know we knead need in terms of operation. Wed rather have the board of 150u7 visors in office know what its going to cost in San Francisco to operate a Fire Department on all levels of suppression and Emergency Medical Services and a population that will soon be 1 million people. With that, we know that additional dollars has definitely helped, but the complaints continue to persist. There are issues around morale with members of the department. Do you think that the relationship between the chief and the members can be repaired . I hope so. I hope so. I pray for it. I hope. Pray and hope are words that are futile. I want to Work Together with the members of the union, Chiefs Office, Employee Groups and look at what we need as a department in terms of operation and funding. The issues of morale, i hear it and see some of it, but i see a lot of support as well. If terms of whatever needs to improve in the department, im of the being that you Work Together to try to improve the problems. Thats what im hoping for. And to be quite frank, president breed and members of the rules committee, my reappointment for another four years, by the charter, is with the dedication and goal toss improve those kind of issues you talk about. If youre not at the table, you cant contribute to solving the problem. Being outside is being outside. And i just, again, my frustration has a lot to do with the fact that as i served on commission, and as im now on the board of supervisors and as these problems continue to persist, civil grand jury reportoureport outlined a number of issues and i continue to be the person that a number of meps reach out to about specific situations that they think put not only their colleagues in danger, but threaten Public Safety in certain scenarios including recent situation that happened, the fire im sorry its escaping me right now. There was a situation that happened recently where they didnt have the appropriate equipment to pry individuals out of a particular scenario and there continues to be issues of that nature. The fleet replacement and other things that we need to do not only as a city, but as a department, losing out on grant opportunities and things like that, there are continued scenarios where the ball sometimes is dropped and ultimately even if its not directly the chief per se, its the chiefs responsibility to manage the department well. And make sure that things are running in a way that doesnt jeopardize Public Safety. And im committed to supporting the department regardless. I always have been to the point of pushing for additional support. But it is really frustrating to me when that support may not be used properly or pushing for new hires doesnt mean that those new hires are africanamericans or that, you know, there continues to be issues around discrimination and issues with the department. I mean, its frustrating. I would hope that, you know, anyone who is in charge of department whether its the commission or the chief that they are focused on trying to build bridges, develop relationships and demonstrate by example that they care about mending the fences and dealing the challenging issues but also that theyre capable of dealing with these complex issues. Thats my concern and why, as a said to you before, i wanted to host this hearing as an opportunity to have the hard discussion. We cant just pretend that the problems dont continue to persist. We do need to have these kinds of conversations in order to try o fix them and make things beter for the department as a whole. As i told you before, im committed to that. I appreciate you being here and thank you for answering my questions. President breed and supervisors, i as a commissioner welcome any of your questions, any of your concerns. Anything you hear because we dont hear it all, part of it for myself is a road to try to be accessible for what is going out there. Please keep that line of communication open to us and i welcome it. Thank you. Thank you, supervisor mauer. I wanted to respond that i dont think this should be about, [inaudible] record. It shows the Fire Commission because of outpouringal records of support for commissioner hardiman and nikagio and i think it recognizes the importance of the Fire Commission. I want odd give a personal story. I think steve nikagio was talking about taking care of business. My house burned down on Second Avenue and clement. My mom and i were out on the street. Steve came by right at the same time as we were trying to figure out what to do with our lives. I think its an example of taking care of business but also treating service on the Fire Commission seriously. I think the evaluation of the chief is a good thing. There has been a lot of amazing accomplishments that you and the other commissioner have made on the commission. Im glad that president breed from the Firefighters Local 798 that are in the room as well stlg commission, i did want it say also that commissioner hardiman has 30 years on the executive bored and there is tremendous support. But the two of you holding the chief and the department accountable, im appreciative of that. And the good communication with the Mayors Office and others as different challenges to chief hayes white has come up. The pishts speak for themselves selves. The letters speak for themselves selves. I wanted to acknowledge that bob hamakuchi and alice [inaudible] had letters of support as well. I would associate myself with the comments he made and i think that when we look at any department and department head, well probably see that its not all 100 percent, you know, positive. All the time. As we would wish. I know that certainly because were involved with Public Safety departments that they tend to have a lot more light shined on them. To me, im looking for people who really take their job seriously as commissioner. Or Committee Members. And that they attend meetings. That they do what they should be doing to ensure accountability. That they are committed to moving the department forward. And the Extensive Community involvement looking at your resume, i dont know what you have not done yet in your life. And i think this those are the values and traits that im looking for if a commissioner. Its not about position or sides being taken, its are you doing the job. Ive heard time and time again that you are one of those commissioners who actually goes out on the scene more often than not. Again, to truly understand what is going on, thank you for your service after all these years. If there are another other economies or commence im going to open it up to puck lk comment. I thank you again supervisor mauer. Im talking about when that fire occurred with yourself, when i was in 8th grade growing up in San Francisco, my house was arsonned. We had a fouralarm fire. Im the guy that in the family yelled fire fire and watched everyone come down the staircase. My mom was the last up with coming down. She made it, but everything got burned on her hair. As a person who went through that experience, watching the department and even god bless the red cross, anyone who provides for that kind of comfort, that was the extension of convert comfort i wanted to extend. Madam chair, what is the process that occurs after this rules committee . Does it so today, our committee will be takes action in terms of, there is a motion to approve or reject the mayors reappointment. The Committee Members will make a motion to either approve or reject. And the board needs to vote on that . Do we know when that is calendared . We dont have a Board Meeting next week but its thursday so april fifth. April fifth to the full board. Thats correct. Thank you. I bring supervisor breed. I wanted to invite tom oconnor who is the representative of the united can employees group up to make some comments. Can he speak during Public Comment . I wanted ill invite him to come up during Public Comment. I wanted him to speak separately from Public Comment. I can invite him first. At this moment the person to speak is mr. Nikagio. So im going to call um tom oconnor. Any members that want to speak on item one. I have some comment cards. Good morning supervisor im tom oconnor president of the San Francisco firefighters 7098. First ever coalition comprised of every Employee Organization within the Fire Department. We represent the asian firefighters soargs. Black firefighters association, paramedic association. E. M. S. Officers association. Fire chiefs association, our newly formed lgbtq group and united fire service women. Together weve joined to form this group as an organization dedicated to Public Safety and Public Policy. Our goal is it to improve the services for San Franciscos in fire and emergency services. Foad were not here tone gauge in political theater or fight the nomination of these two fine men. But i guess there was a rumor of drag down or battle. Is they we marshal a broad coalition. We hate to dispoijt disappoint everyone but were not here to do that. Rather than play politics or pop laition later we want to address Public Policy and safety. This is an appropriate time to raise concerns to the honor member of this committee and the two commissioners who will soon be repientd to new terms. The bard of supe supervisors heard about the problems within the department. In towrn the members of the Fire Department took a vote of no cched in our chief. These results were overwhelming with more than 806 of our firefighters voting and 87 vote nod confidence in the chief. Every single Employee Group within our Fire Department agreed that the lack of leadership was having a negative impact on service ot people of San Francisco. Nothing has been done to address these issues. We hope that as these commissioner embark on another term they take a much more aggressive stance in improving the San Francisco Fire Department. Thank you, madam chair, can you please finish your statement. Thank you. In july of 2015 just a few months after ow noconfidence vote the civil grand jury of San Francisco releets leased a report the San Francisco Fire Department what does the future hold. This state what had our firefighters were saying fer several months and continue to say that the San Francisco department has a lack of leadership. No strategic plan. Lack of paramedics and ambulances and a fleet on the edge of crisis. The chiefs response to this report would say the department was doing better and everything is fine. The chief was partially correct. Weigh spons times have improved but theyre nearly double that of city likes los angeles. We received more ambulances but our fire trucks and engines are breaking down on a regular and routine basis. We are a currently working on a strategic plan, but this is only at the urging of former former commissioner erchs and its a bizarre process that i 2350e8 were doing the work of an executive who should know how to meept the changes of a growing city. The leaders of the groups are here to join 1500 other firemen and paramedics to say everything is not fine with the San Francisco Fire Department. Thanks to the leadership of the board of supervisors including the members of this committee, our Fire Department has gotten Additional Resources over the last year an were starting to hire the people we need. But the lack of leadership and the direction in the Department Remains. Here are some of the facts facing our Department Today as mentioned before, our ambulance Response Times are double that of other major american cities. For point of reference, the lax lags Fire Department has a Response Time of 5½ minutes and were half that. The lack of ambulances, there is 50 of our fleet exceeded a 10 year lif lifespan and our engines and trucks are breaking down september 1319th of last year we witnessed the if sfsd chose not to respond to what became the second worst fire in our history madam chair, we are dweating off topic. This is about the appointment of two commissioner. I appreciate that im not sure if this is the right forum for this. I think it is the right forum. Okay, excuse me, this is Public Comment. I know there are issues about the Fire Department that qeed like twed like to address. We continue to hold hearings on that. Today weigh need to focus on the commissioners before us. Right now were on steve n irgs kagio. If you can please line up owe over here for the comment cards. Sebastian wong. Kirk niwaka. Marion erickson. Supervisor mauer, supervisor tang. Cohen and president ever the board, im sebastian wong, i am a member of the board of directors of selfhelp for elderly. Im here with my executive director annie chong. I want to voice my support for the reappointment of commissioner nikagio. Ive known him for 20 years. Hes been a person of integrity and certifys have to the city. Im proud to count him as a friend. I hope as you move his resolution forward to reappoint him to the board, that the board also take note of his distinguished commitment to the Asian Pacific Islander Community and his numerous contributions and will vote him in as a member of full board. I deeply appreciate president breeds concern and interest in the workings of the Fire Department and thank you to the board for caring so much to make our Fire Department better. Thank you, next speaker please. Thank youer in opportunity. I was very surprised o to hear of what i thought was a challenge. But im glad to hear its not a challenge on mr. Mikagios abilities. He has much more to provide for San Francisco and members of the Fire Department. Thank you. Next weeker please. Good morning supervisors, im sandy morey speak not only for myself but for my husband jeff who couldnt be here today. I will defer nie comments. I think all the accolades for mr. Nikagio has been given and i trussennen trust youll move forward. I forward. Annie chupg, nicole jurychovac. Im mary ivasaky, im a priet citizen recommending myself as much today. All the accolades have been said with steve and he is a person that has gone through adversity. Both personal and with the Fire Department an commission. I think i think he listens hears and acts necessarily when these bad moments come. I think if were looking for changes with the Fire Department, well see them from him and from the other commissioners. Especially hearing what youve said and on the reports that have been made. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Supervisor im bob homohamaguchi and im here with the board of directors with the town task force and join me in sieping our letter of support for mr. Nikagio. We should yield this to more important business of the board, but we urge that you continue forward with the appointment recommendation to the board and thank you for the opportunity to be before you. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to support steve nikagio and all hes done over the years and we continue to pray that he can serve for the commission. And help the city of San Francisco to improve their services. Next weeker. Good morning fair woman tang. Supervisor mauer. I am o. J. Leonardo. Thank you. Can im speaking on behalf of asian firefighters association. And we support commissioner nikagios reappointment 100 percent. 100percent. He takes action on his community and prepares and mentors the next generation for the future as noted by supervisor mauer. Commissioner ni can kagio has dedicated his life to his community and city. Hes a Living Legend in the Asian American community. Weve seen it im and again, you see it in his eyes and his smile on the streets of china up to. You see it in the Cherry Blossom festival and know it by the countless youth who follow miss example by volunteering and working in their community. We are urge you to reappointment mr. Nikagio to the pyre commission. Thank you, next speaker. Good morning, supervisors on behalf of japanese from japan, i would like to express our support for the appointment of dmitioner initiation ikagio. Hes not only a great leader for japan town but immigrants. I have a 2yearold son who never sleep with me but sleep with fire cars. Such a firefighter, such a hero for children. Its great for us to tell uncle nikagio is helping for the Fire Department in San Francisco such a beautiful diverse city. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you. Thank you, a couple more mark jonson, richards nas nashmotto. Im angie chung and im here to speak about mr. Steve nikagios reappointment for the Fire Commission. I want to share two sfis is it sticks, one is statistics. One is San Francisco is reaching 19 Elderly Population. I feel that ive worked ive known and worked with steve for over 0 years. Hes a solid citizen. Heart of gold and very, very dedicated to the Fire Commission or else he wouldnt have served on this commission for over 20 years. Today as reappointment is about steve, the work that we did and hes still doing. The Fire Department is a big huge depth. Huge huge departm. Hes working through all these issues in his own way. I know with him representing our community on the Fire Commission, i feel safe. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good morning, im nicole im here to speak on the issue concerning steve nikagio to the Fire Commission. Im a product of San Francisco having grown up in the West Division like view supervisor breed. Im a 19 year veteran and the fire chief. Ive known commissioner nikagio since i was a kid. My own 77yearold mother has been a recipient of many hot meals in japan town where she still resides. The commissioner not only helps to feed the Elderly Population for many, many years but provides them with a social outlet where they can have contact with others. The commissioner has a platform by which many fire science students at city college of San Francisco engaj in various Senior Center activities. As an instructor, both the faculty and i appreciate this very much as it builds in our students all of woman wish to be future San Francisco firefighters and all of whom who represent the stiff San Francisco and give them a strong sense of Community Service and giving back which is the crux of being a firefighter. I understand there are concerns about commissioner nika gorksios reappointment. I trust and believe hes a man who strifes to do the right thing and is a man who is capable of reflecting on what he did well and what may have left a little bit to be desired. I trust he can and will reflect on his time on the Fire Commission and what occurring now and improve on the things he could have done better. Thats is what a leader does, not because he has to but because he ultimately cares about people and this will be Fire Commissioner nikagios opportunity to do that. Thank you. Next speaker please. If i didnt call a comment card, please free to line p up along the wall there. Im richard has hashmotho. Mr. Nikagio should be an example to the entire city of San Francisco. I sore mr. Nikagio and the Merchants Association supports him. Next speaker. Madam chair, members of the committee, im mark johnson im the battalion chief and president of the San Francisco black firefighters and. While we do support the reappointment of commissioner nikagio and hardiman, we have our frustrations about the broken areas in the San Francisco Fire Department among which is the promotional process which im here to talk about this morning. I dont need to spend a lot of time on the dismal history when it comes to promotions. It was monitored by a federal court. Once the decree was lifted, the department went backwards. Its still a disgrace as it stands owt today. Gone are the days when the rank and file could be fooled into thinking the Testing Process was legitimate and that it was only a few angry black guys complaining about it. The through the lawsuit, the truth has come out. There are several protective orders from lawsuits. The tests have been called invalid and the scoring with a bad an manipulated. The members of the Department Members from every group have joined together to fight to demand change. Ap example of the vote of no. C. Wins thawins that are hardfought but where was the commission to take the lead to make some of the changes in the Fire Department thats been required to get the tests fair, its been the work and the hard work of firefighters and our lawyers, highest to bring about change. What i would lo like to say is we hope the commissioners do use this time to make changes to the Fire Department. Next speaker, please. Good morning, im audrey moi. Audrey moy. Im adding on to what everyone else said. I think the commissioner nikagio has been concerned about the safety an wellbeing of everyone. The fact that three mayorss had appointed him, its obvious they think highly of him. He has honored and received numerous commendations and awards from various organizations. Asian association, San Francisco dict Attorneys Office for elder abuse and several local tv stations. Hes respected as a leader and wellknown in the community for the work hes dn and continues to do so. Steve nikag quo has stated i like all aspects of being a Fire Commissioner. Most importantly the interaction with the men and women who make up the department and administration that says a lot. I would like to add a little historical note in 1880, was the first year of the appointment of five commissions that are started the San Francisco Fire Commission. 136 years later, the appointment of steve nikag quo to the Fire Commission added diersity to the organization. Good morning im norm cob im the president of the asian firefighters association. On behalf of the afa, wed like to express our support for commissioner nikagio. Hes not only a pillar of Asian Community with you one of the most respected leaders. I know hes fought for our community as far as back as the late 1970s. Hes a he been a long time member of the commission. His tomorrow on and ge get along is part of what made the afa what we are today. Weed aid like to applaud super vieder breeds efforts to make our Fire Department better. It lets you and other leader know about the issues. You know about our vote of no confidence for the chief. This is a primary problem because of the of trust, it allows no cooperation to get anything done. All our other issues are related. You have all been given a kitchen the report. I urge you to read it in detail. Here is a partial list of what they found, issues they found. Us vur versus them he he atmosphere. Lack ever Response Time, staffing equipment. Disaster preparedness. Lack of officers lack of routine incident analysis. Missed grant funding. After all the years ofg, i doubt the Current Administration can solve these problems. The problem now is the mayor will not listen to us. He needs to mac a change in the Fire Department administration. I hope you can help with us that. Next speaker please. Good afternoon, supervisors and rules committee. Steve nikagio lost his home to fire in the city and that was no easy task and i want him to get back get back to where he once belonged get back get back get back to the Fire Commission and pleads . Td keep i and keep it strong get back steve next speaker, please. Can. Supervisor im mike hooley, im a paramedic captain with the city of San Francisco Fire Department. Im the senior captain and im the president of the e. M. S. Officers association. I do highly support commissioner nikagios reappointment. As he may not remember. Several years ago he rode with me during one of my shifts to see what the current status was at that time. I would encourage him to come back and ride with me again or one of my fellow paramedic captains so he can see what the overall tenor is in the field. Often times we we hear from our administrators may not accurately reflect what happens in the field. Commissioner nikagio has continued to be supportive, but i strongly encourage him to put boots on the ground with us again. Next speaker, pliez. Siem jeff. Ive been with the Fire Department 26 years. Presently the director of training for the department. Ive take than role recently. Prior to that was the department of inservice training. I want to say what a big help to me in my last two roles commissioner nika imrgsio has been. Every time i see him, he wants to know what youre doing and how its going, what he can do and it makes the position im in work that much better. While ive been working with the commissioner, my staff has put a Training Facility on Treasure Island and were proud of that. I think our recruit classes that we put out now are bar nonwith their backgrounds and diversity and commitment to the city and community, im proud of that and not to mention my staff at that makes that happen. I cant say enough for the commissioner and what hes done for me and the training and department. I would guess every person thats gotten up here with the Fire Department would agree with that and our training staff. Thank you very much. Can i ask a question, madam chair. Yes. What are our plans for, i know we have to leave Treasure Island in the next couple of years. What are our plans for a new Training Facility . Were looking at sites now. We dont is a Long Term Plan to address the issue . Our plan is to find a new site. Were aggressively looking at new sites now. Ive been working with chief lombardi and workin working with Companies Like pg e to find a new site. Ive been told by meetings on the island we have until 2021 or 2022 that will happen. Next speaker please. Im cathy gilbrait. Thank you president breed for bringing this to the table. I support commissioner nikagio and ive been on the Recruitment Team for many, many years. Hes invited us to meeting to advise him on our recruits and possiblies. Its been a pleasure to see his concern that our Department Remain diverse and strong. What id like to see in the future with the commissioner. We talked about coming to the table and communication between the supervisors and mayor, but to have the commissioners have a place where they can bring united Employee Groups to the table and have that discussion. Until 2014 it was an awkward time when the department had a split in ideas or visions of where we were going and since that time, ive been to Many Commission meters where theyve asked for updates and been proactive in trying to get the information. As Vice President of the united fire certifys have of women, we havent been asked to that table. Since it was a discussion that we initiated bag then, i think it might be somewhere where we could lerp something from. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker and again, if anyone would like to comment on item up with, please step forward. Mark gonzales San Francisco resident. Ive been with the Fire Department 27 years. I want to back commissioner nikagio and commissioner hardi 3457b. The hardi hardiman. They compare about the citizens and the Fire Department. I feel this rules committee has veered off course today. I think other people use this as a sounding voice for Something Else. Theyre made to feel uncomfortable going through this. I dont think that should happen again before the full board. What i hear is 100 support behind them from everybody pretty much. Id appreciate it on their behalf they doesnt have to go through this comen. Theyre great commissioners now an theyll go forward and still be great commissioner. Last thing i want to address is regarding diversity. I brought copies from the u. S. Department of labor. After reviewing information collected, they selected our department as one of five in the nation to be profiled to identify prems and practices among diversity of first responders. Thats a reflection of where the Fire Department is and where were going. Next speaker, please. Can i ask the chief one thing. Thank you for being here. If its related to the appointment. Its related to his comments on diversity. Do you have from the letter you provided us, do you have the specific numbers . I can get the specific numbers exactly. Because that would be helpful to uns that and can you tell me, i know youre deputy chief of 07 raitions and your responsibili operations and your responsibility is not necessarily address the kind of challenges that exist with the department in terms of issues around drim destination with testing and hiring practices and other things like that. Does that fall in your jurisdiction . Testing and hiring is done by dhr. So the selection is done by the chief. She does a good job. She interviews all the people that come in. Its a laborious process. I believe she does her Due Diligence in that respect. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good morning. Super voorses. Im keith baracca. Im a 20 year member of the San Francisco Fire Department. I became a recruiter, before that i was a driver at ening gin 2 is rand engine 6 and searchandrescue on station 18. This is in regards to the commissioners. I dont have anything on both the dmairgs here that woor commissioners that were here to talk about today but its important to bring up the commission as a body. It speaks to their independence. How can the commission make independent decisions when theyre all appointed by the mayor . The issue that you should think about is how we can make this body more independent. I think you have to think about given someone else their responsibility of appointing commissioner. They cant make independent decision if theyre politically bound to the Mayors Office. Obviously they have support here today. I think what is important is that they havent been ail to analyze the department in a way that gives them independent because ter afraid of political ramifications. I think thats a real key point here. I think the supervisors should have a role in collect slecting the commissioner. Thank you. Any other members of the public who wish to comment on item one. Public comment is closed. I wanted to correct in terms of what i said in terms of the action we have before us today. We can amend it to approve or reject. Eye teps one and two could be tabled by this committee and all at appointments will stand pursuant to charter section 3. 100. So i just wanted to, again, correct what i stated earlier. Supervisor cohen. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. I want to recognize the leadership of commissioner nikagio and commissioner hardiman. Thank you very much. 20 years is a long time of service. Perhaps us up here will be fortunate enough to serve San Francisco that long. I want to recognize that i have heard something in the Public Comment that has been unifying. And that is anove an overwhelming support for commissioner nikagio. I think thats a testament to his leadership. Leadership is not a cookie cutter form. I want to support president breeds leader higship for bringing an item that speaks to a larger problem with some of the underlying ap frustration within the Fire Department. I think that there are legitimate concerns and a ton of coverage and a ton of grand jury reports and several investigative reports and as you know, there have been legal challenges to the Fire Departments practices also dhrs practices. I think it would be unfair to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesnt exist. All of this which has happened under the 20year commitment of service from mr. Nikagio and mr. Hardiman. There are issues for call to service Response Times. Ive been concerned about the recruit pt, retention and promotion and cancer issues that exist within the Fire Suppression industry. I want to make sure that we as a city are providing all the resources and support needed to our people that are, when there is trouble, most of us one other way. We have a set of brave men and women running towards a problem. I want to affirm that ive heard what mr. Keith baracca said particularly what hes calling into question is how independent can an oversight body be when there is one entity that has sole appointment power. That is a legitimate question. One that this board has grappled with as well as previous boards of supervisors. You see the same thing happen in the m trgs a commission where they have one sole authority. Therefore, commissioners are not really held to the same accountability standards that we as elected officials are held to. This is also a concern within the police commission. There are four appointments that the Mayors Office makes as opposed to three with the board of supervisors. I just want to affirm to the folk that was come for Public Comment that ive heard your concerns are. Particularly those that are in the Employee Groups. Im sensitive to the working conditions that youre working under and will continue to work with you to get some changes, muchneeded changes so that the environment youre working in is safe. I also want to let you know i will be supports mr. Nikagio this afternoon and commissioner, thank you very much for your service. And i also will be supporting commissioner hardiman as well for when we get to item number two. Thank you, supervisor breed. Thank you. I will be asking the rules committee to table the two items. Because ultimately, my goal as i said before, was not to question their service but more porm little use this as an opportunity to discuss some challenges with the department. Commissioners play a role in terms of making decisions about the department. They are in essence, a part of the leadership of the department. I think it is important that when we are appointing or approving any commissioners that serve the city and county of San Francisco, we of course show our appreciation for their leadership, for their service and dedication. More important, we ask the tough questions because we should never be so content or complacent that were not trying to do everything we can to make all of our City Departments especially our Public Safety department as safe and secure as possible. And, again, i want to express my appreciation to commissioner nikagio who i consider an outstanding Public Servant and i consider a friend and i appreciate many of members who have come out here to show support to him and. At this time i want to ask tom oconnor just a couple of last questions regarding the appointments specifically. If you could come forward to the podium. And i unfortunately have to leave shortly soy want to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible. What is it you want the commission to do . Can you be specific about that . I can be very specific. I was on my way o wrapping it up before i was cut off before. There is a nexus between what the Fire Commission does and what we read in the paper. A continual manage the of the Fire Department by reacting to crises and headlines. Valley fire, inability to cut people out of a crushed tour because with equipment that is 10 years out of date. There is a distinct pattern here. If the commissioners were tasked by the mayor of San Francisco with evaluating the chiefing executive of the Fire Department, that performance appraisal, that analysis should be made public. That view point of a critical City Department should not be done behind closed doors. Would he arent here to speak speek about pay or benefits or retirement packages, were here to talk about the citizens of San Francisco and the ability to do our job better. We dont want to be cut off at the microphone when we make a case that there is a crisis and we have concerns. If the Fire Commission is tasked with this Important Role madam chair supervisor mauer okay this i want to talk about i account you off at the microphone. If i let you speak here for addition duration of time. I can call you up the other individuals of Fire Department to do the same. I have to be fair. Im not trying to do this to you or any other individual. If the this were another item i would do the saimed and supervisor breed would be upset that someone else had additional time to speak on an individual. Im trying to be fair here and i gave you more leeway to speak out of Public Comment time. Thats why i cut you off. Okay. There is a nexus between the renomination and Public Information as who how a head of a department is evaluated. The vote of 1500 San Francisco firefighters to improve service to the citizens should not be met with silence. Ask that the Fire Commission please reveal that information. It is simial. Simial, sus spingt. I want to say that i welcome tough questions being asked of our commissioners and their role. I think thats a good thing to do. I dont think that there is anything bad about calling commissioners before us asking questions about their role and what it is that we hope they should achieve. That is fine, the open dialogue. In terms of going into details about other issues that will take longer to address, again, you have called hearings before on this and we can continue to do that. I dont want it Commission Meeting that is about a an appointee to be dominated. Youve seen how the rules committee is run. When we have commissioner up, we have them make their presentation and we have Public Comment. Supervisor mauer. I just wanted to appreciate chair tang as a former chair of the rules committee, its challenging to keep pro fussed on track record of our commissioners. There is a thin line to talk about legitimate issues but there are other forums to do that. There is a thin line when its crossed. Its so disrespectful to the commissioners when this happens. I appreciate our chairs ruling on it. I wish it didnt have to come so such conflict in this room. I just wanted to steer us back and i think the motion to the table are improper because youre not a member of this committee. I did make a i didnt make a motion. I made a suggestion. To support mr. Nikagio and mr. Hardiman. We need to address legitimate issues that make sense here but also as keith baracco mentioned, the shared appointments of commissioners and i support what he said as well. I will say that i would be okay with tabling the i items because that would stand pursuant to the charter instead of it being sent to the full board. I dont know if you want to consider that. My motion is to support the reappointments of steve nikagio and Michael Hardiman. Okay. Supervisor breed. I want it to be clear that i suggested the Committee Table the items. I didnt make a motion. I made it clear that my intention of this hearing was to continue, of course, 100 percent of commissioner hardiman and commissioner nikagio. But as i said, their role of commissioners is vital to the success of the department. This is definitely as far as im concerned, an appropriate discussion. Its interesting that there are supervisors who use so many things as a platform for their own agenda. When im trying to bring up a legitimate issue that has a Significant Impact on Public Safety in our department, and we have these discussions, weve had similar discussions request appointments for police commissioners. Why is this any different . We have all said clearly that we support these commissioner. We have all said clearly that we want to make sure this department has all the services, all the support, all that it needs to be the best Public Safety department anier. Thats not the question here. But lets not pretend there arent issues with the department. My desire as a member of the board of supervisors is to ask these commissioners to take a strong leadership role and support some of these concerns and to help as much as they can make change to the department. Thats the goal here. And so, it it is what it is at this point. As i said, im asking that this body tables the items so that this doesnt have to come to the full board and be heard, but if there is an opportunity to use something as a platform in order to make improvements to a department, so that we can ensure public that they are safe, so that we can ensure the members that they have support from this body, then im going to do everything that i can to make sure that platform is used properly. So thank you all for being here today. Thank you to the men and women who serve our department. Thank you to commissioners nikagio and hardiman to your service. Unfortunately i wont be able is to stay for commissioner hardimans Public Comment. But i want to be clear that i wholeheartedly support these two commissioner and i appreciate this opportunity to have this really challenging discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor mauer had made a motion to amend item one to approve the mayors reappointment. Could we have a second . Supervisor cohen . I do not plan to second the motion. Id look to make a motion to table items one. Do we have a second on that . Im okay with tabling it. Again, because it would confirm the appointment. Do we want to role call . Role call vote. Can you just call the motion that youre going to be roll calling voting . Roll call motion to table item one as maud by supervisor cohen and seconded by chair tang. Supervisor mauer. No. Viewp visor cohen. Yes. Tang. Aye. We have two ayes and one no. Item one is tabled. Item two, please. Item number two is a motion approving or rejecting the mayors reappointment of Michael Hardiman to the Fire Commission for the term ending january 25th, 20203 2020. Eye a lieb to cal id look to call mr. Michael hardiman. Im sad to put you through this. But i commend the supervisor breed on her motive to get information out and to talking about a subject whether its supervisor mauer says in the proper context. But any way, president of the board breed, chair tang, supervisor cohen, supervisor mauer. I think im going to cut this short. Thank you for your comments and thank you to people from the San Francisco Fire Department including deputy chiefs, officers and rank and file that spoke on my behalf. Mainly i want to thank 798 and the united Employee Groups for not opposing my appointment. Because im the labor guy in activation. Believe me, it is something that i mentioned to my wife marina sitting in the audience. Maybe i dont deserve to be on this commission any more. This came up just before the mayor was going to reappointment me because i dont want labor to feel i let them down. But i think i made the right decision. Theyre not opposing me. I think president nikagio described the situation how complicated it is adequately. We have a fiveperson commission who had no guidelines. Mo performance analysis. Analysis. Then we have president nikagio getting this request as a leader of the Commission Setting the agenda. We have to call in council and talk to the mayor. It was a complicated process. Im very sad that you have to go listen through it and its still going on. But we hold the chief accountable. I have a list of dozens of different items presented to this commission a year and a half ago. Not every tie testimony is covered but its remarkable where this department has gone. March of 2014 we had 60 civilians. March of 2015, 1480 uniforms. Today march march this month we have 1601 uniform. Thats from 1452, and 6 civilians. The mayor has been phenomenal. Hed been trying to do everything. We have 90 new plans. Last night we were notified that nine more are on order. When deputy chief two Mark Gonzales spoke about the viefersity, this is the most diversified department around. I certainly dont want to take any credit for that. But im proud to be on this commission. When we were selected, this is just one of the top five Fire Departments in the country, this is the thousands and thousands of highway patrols, sheriffs, police, all different first responders. Five were picked for the department of labor as being the models. And this department is one of them. So were going to be interviewed. The paf staff will be in attendance and theyre looking at how this was done. Commissioner breed, supervisor breed, you will be amazed when you see the diversity, most women in the United States in any department, . Rx. Its not even close. I think minneapolis might be a couple belows. With you thats it. Im going below us. But thats it. Ive been on a number of commissions. No commission has worked harder than this commission. I will say commissioner evans, covington, nikagio, dynamos. My 11monthold grandson ive been wrapped up with. I dont think im more deserving of this commission than anybody else. If im appointed and if you decide to keep me going, we have the new fire boat three on the way for the 150th celebration. Well be 150 years old this year. Fire boat three is in the water. Pretty soon well have our fire boat. There are a bunch of things i want to say. I thank you, i hope youll give me the same support. If youre hear to speak against me, i hope you dont, but if youre hear to speak for me, they have a long agenda. I dont know if i need it. Any questions from the committee . Surprisingly, no, im going to open it up to Public Comment. Anyone who wishes to speak on item two please come forward. The only person i have is mark johnson. Please come on up. Michael hardiman,. Here is comes Fire Commissions son here somes the son here comes the son and i hope to i say i hope you see the light i hope you see the sun and light for mike 12349 make it turn out right here comes the Commission Fire son id like to reiterate what i said about commissioner hardiman and commissioner nikagio again. Commissioner hardiman shows up to a lot of our pyres. He has our concern when it comes to safety. I gave you the statistics that president breed requested. Next speaker. Seeing no other speakers. Public comment okay. Seeing no other speakers, Public Comment is closed. So the reappointment of Fire Commissioner Michael Hardiman, is there a motion . Sir, id like to table item number two. The motion is to table can we have a roll call. On the motion to table, made by supervisor cohen, seconded by supervisor mar. Supervisor mar. No. Supervisor cohen. Yes. Supervisor cohen yes. We have one no and one yes. I make a motion to approve Fire Commissioner hardiman. Thats my motion. Supervisor tang, really quick, we have a motion on the floor. Supervisor mar made a motion to move forward. Supervisor commissioner hardiman. We just took a roll call vote for a motion. We kneeled a second on my motion to approve Fire Commissioner hardiman. Im going to be consistent with my motion or my support on item one which is to table item two again to reconfirm. Let at appointment stand. So there is no second to my motion. Now were back to item two still. May i make i motion to rescind the previous vote to table the item. Item two. There is a second for that motion . Second. All right and if we could do a col call on tabling. Supervisor mar. No. Supervisor mar no. Supervisor cohen. Yes. Supervisor tang. Aye. Item two is now tabled. Id like to ask if we could call up item four out of order only because item three and four are about the mta board of directors. But for item three, miss rubkey is not available. Item four is reject or appointment to mr. Heinke. Mr. Heinke, please come forward. Good morning. Thank you, supervisors. You may proceed. I may proceed. I will try to be brief if you have questions, but i have had the chance to meet with supervisor tang and i did have the chance yesterday to meet with supervisor cohen, staff member and i might offer a compliment. Meeting with her is wul. Shes smart and articulate and it was great to talk through some of the items with supervisor tang. This is my third full term. This will being my third full term on the mta. And so ive done this before. Ill be brief but wanted to cover three points and answer any questions you may have. First, id look o cover what ive a seen. I realize that the mta is a slow turning ship. But i think the agency has turned a corner. I have seen improvement in the way the agency is functioning as you a board member an ive seen improvement as a rider and i do ride the system every day. Its my primary form of transportation. But that change is coming slowly. I did sit in a 30 minute train delay this morning due toy mechanical issue. I did want to report to the board because we dont get o often speak directly and puck lkly to you that i think the agency is on the improvement ond our cuss more polling suggests that. I think thats due in large part to one key change and that was bringing in director riskin and our new director of transportation. Hes fantastic. Very dedicated, very professional and someone i enjoy working with. Where were going as we head into this next what would be a fouryear term for me, there there are two items i wanted to specify for you all that i see going on. First, i think being one of most if not the most senior board member, i would bring some Institutional Knowledge and experience that would be helpful on some of the things that would seem more mundane to the public but are important to the agency. For example, well start Union Negotiations relatively soon. That is something youve been worked through before. With staff. And in addition, there are Financial Issues well confront. One is the issue of the fund reserve and the fact that i was a board member when service was threatened by state budget cuts. The fund reserve was critical to our maintaining service. Those are the sorts of things i look forward to using my Institutional Knowledge to help the board with particularly as we transition chairs. It is my hope that when tom nolan our current chair is turned out, our current vice chair and my friend Sheryl Brinkman will become the chair and i hope to help her in that transition. Im not suggesting shell need my help, but i look forward to helping her. Finally specific projects going forward. It is important for each board member to identify projects that they focus on particularly and like to see forward and as i discussed with supervisor tang recently, i do villea great affinity for our taxi industry. I think its important that our board work with our staff in the industry to help it through what is a difficult time right now with the competition from the tncs and i will continue to dedicate myself to doing that particularly through regulation relaxment and Traffic Control if expanded red carnts and taxicabs will help them, ill support that. And ive been a strong proponent for expanding the ban on public cars. Private cars, excuse me on market street. That is something i would like to see go forward and really be sort of a paradigm or example for other transit improvement throughout the city. Ive tried to cover what ive seen and what i plan in the small and big picture, with that, supervisor tang ill stop and say its been a pleasure to serve on the mrgs ta. I value my colleagues on the bored and staff. Its an important job and i appreciate the trust the mayor and you will place in me here. And i did enjoy our conversation prior to the rules Hearing Committee and appreciate your service on the board. This is just a general comment about the mta board of directors. Weve had at least a particular vacancy for a while. This is not really directed at you, but in general, its important to have that balance of perspective on that board, people who ride Public Transportation on a regular basis. People who ride and walk and drive as well. We havent had someone who has represented for example the families on the west side with children or seniors. Who may need to drive. So, i really hope that the mayor will make an appointment soon. For that particular roll. Because i think that these decisions that you have to make, theyre often challenging and in our push to really encourage people o ride Public Transportation, there has to be that careful weighing of the needs of different types of communities. Again, i just happen to represent be districts where a lot of people rely on cars for various reasons. We have a high population of seniors and families with children. So i hope youll have a new colleague soon who can represent some of those views. As ive a said before im a Firm Believer transit first. But that doesnt mean drivers never. We want to make transit as efficient as possible. I cant appoint the new mta member. But as we live close to where you live, my wife does drive our three children a fair amount. I am definitely sensitive to the needs of the drivers and while meg, my wife is not on the board, hes a good advocate and has my er ear. I agree thats an important voice and i hope that there is comfort at that may family represents a part that have constituents si. Supervisor mar. I wanted to say, commissioner heinke, i think the mta commission is one the most thankless. You put in so much work and there are so many benefits to the city. I wanted to thank you and say that im strongly supportive of your reappointment as well as commissioner [inaudible] as well. First of all, youre welcome and second all, thank you for saying that. Its a thanks that comes slowly. But we see the system Getting Better. I think the six of us take pride in that, but your comments are appreciated. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from this committee . Seeing none, were going to open up item four to Public Comment thank you, supervisor. Good afternoon, im Sheryl Brinkman i serve as the vice chair of the board of director and im here o support the reappointment of director heink representing and rupee. What we have in common on all the boards and commissions is a desire to see this city be the best it can be and a deep love of city. Were so fortunate that two people like christina and malcolm will take time from their lives and families to guy the mta and push us to be the best we can be. I know already fellow Board Members and mta staff appreciate the knowledge and dedication they bring and i hope youll agree that theyre important members of the board and support both for reappointment. I would like to echo what director heinke said in the deep pride and sense ever accomplishment in seeing the agency move forward and we do take the needs of all of our citizens into account when we make decisions about the transit agency, about policy and goals that we have. I know that i hear it from my coworkers downtown. When they talk about their commute on muni around town. One of betion things we can do to help out car drivers, because Everybody Needs though drive at some point. I droof myself occasionally when i cant do feg to avoid it. The best thing we can do is to continue to move people by bike, muni and trips on foot. Id like to ask for the support of these two fabulous directors. Thank you. I see mr. Paulson. Hes going back to the mta board ear he comes hes going back to the mta board because thats where he belongs he rolls his wheels with great traction hes going back to the mta board no hes not gone going back to keep it strong thank you very much. Any other members of the public who wish to comment on item four . Public comment is closed. Colleagues, im very supportive of director heinke. I think he should continue and hes done a wonderful job in his role as director. If were going to talk about things that the department can improve, there is lots to talk about with mta but there is already a lot of improvement. Do we have a motion to confirm to amend the motion to confirm the mayors reappointment of malcolm heinke to the board of displerkts looks like there is a second. We can take that without objection. Congratulations. Now well call up item well move three to last since director rupee is not here actually yes, supervisor cohen. Lets take item three since director rupee is not here any way. Item number three motion confirming or rejecting the appointment of christina rupee to the term. Director rupee could not make it here today. I did meet with her to talk about what shes done in her role. Colleagues, if you have anything to add, if not we can open up item three to Public Comment. Please let the reappointment be let it be let it be there will be an reappointment let it be thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public on item three . Public comments close. Do we have a motion on item three . Id like to make a motion that we reappointment to the municipal transportation board of directors chris rupee. Seconded by supervisor mar and take that without objection. Thank you very much. Thank you and just for the public, those are recommended as amended to confirm. Exactly. Thank you. All right, item five, please. Item number five si hearing to consider appointing two members terms ending april 10th 201 2017 and march 10th. We have if any of you are here, please come forth and make a presentation. When you come forth state your name. Amy landgraph. Im amy land graph, i have the great privilege of managing the contracts one of which is the largest public contract. Wave installed 1100 shelters in the city of San Francisco and 850 new racks. With such a large footprint in the city, we are apart of the fabric of the community. We have 60 employees out on the frontlines every day to work hard to keep our streets, furniture in firstrate condition. Preventing and abating gra petey. I bring value to this position as Clear Channel outdoor and orchestrate the cleanup efforts and work with the Operations Team to ensure that gr graffiti is removed within 24 hours. We hope to work closely with the Community Partners and members that come up with Creative Solutions to address graffiti vandalism, raise awarenessened gain support of community to work with lawsuit to combat the challenging street be behave yore we deal with evermachine behavior we deal with every day. We keep San Francisco graffiti free. A quick question, i know the goal is to remove the graffiti within 24 hours. I dont know if you track it, is that occurring . Yes, we track it. We have monthly narrative reports we provide to fsmta and show that we do that. If the next applicant would like to come forward, i dont see any questions or comments. Im lord. Amy is replacing me. I no longer work for clear dhanl. Im applying for see the 18. I am currently the vice chair of graffiti Advisory Board. I served with them eight years. Im very involved with multiple cham programs that were working on including the huddle conference on may fourth where Community Members, city officials, businesses come together to discuss best practices, what is working and what is not working and what we can do going forward. Also, i will be at the public representative for the board going before the chamber of commerce on paip 19th to present what ee do, how they can help us and one other thin thing, i cochaired the First International antigraffiti vandalism conference if the world held here in San Francisco in 2012. Finally, both larry stringer Deputy Director of operations who is also my partner and chair of the board wants you to know he supports my application c18. And finally, i just love San Francisco so much. I want it to be a beautiful city. To me, its the most beautiful city in the world. I want to keep working to make it beautiful. Thank you so much for your consideration for my application. I know we have a couple of questions here. One thing i wanted to ask is that especially given your previous experience, what are some of the things that we can do more proactively to make sure vandalism, graffiti that we try to prevent as much as possible . One of the things that the board does, we have a subcommittee called education. We have two programs that were involved with street smarts and where art lives where we go to elementary schoolsened educate fourth graders an fifth graders on the importance of keeping our city beautiful, showing them the difference between vandalism and art. The difference to us is permission. Do you have permission to put whatever you put on a wall . Or is this just your taking advantage of someones we work with that were proud of is cameron moberg. He used to be a graffiti vandal now hes a revered graffiti artist internationally. That is some examples of what we can do. The other is and d drgs w is doing a stand up job to attack vandalism right away. If you get it off the are street as fast as possible, that detoured future vandals because they get frustrated. 150u7 viso supervisor mar. I wanted to thanks for the eight years of service on the task force and also all the muni shelters you built. We built nearly 1200 shelters. By the time i left we only had three left. It was a wonderful experience and mta was great. They helped us stay on top of things and 311. That is Something Else we work on, we work with 311 to figure out best Solutions Like the u. S. Post office. We ironed that out as a board. The u. S. Post office werent getting the 311 reports for some reason. And the mailboxes werent getting cleared off. We went directly to the post office and 311 and were able to integrate them together. It took several years to make it happen, but it finally happened and were proud that have as well. Then, just to clarify youre vacating see the 17 because you correct. For your appointment to see the 18 there is Gregory Dillon vying for that see the. But your eight years of experience and other work helped with continuity on this body. But i want to thank thank you for your service. Thank you. Supervisor cohen. Thank you. So i think in your last my question was for what reason do you want to continue to serve on this body. The last sentence you said was that you loved San Francisco and want to continue to make it beautiful. I noticed you need a fee waiver . Residency. Residency waiver . Atlarge member is a reses densey waiver seats. There are two residency waiver seats 17 and 18. So you dont live in San Francisco. No, but my family arrived in San Francisco . 1904. Thats okay. There are real reasons why people dont live here. I dont want to put you on the defense. But i do just want to acknowledge that i think its a priority to appoint people that are living here in San Francisco. And i say that is incredibly important. I look forward to hear mg mor ing more discussion. We have one more applicant. Mr. Gregory dillon. I did want to add, greg has been awesome as a public participant. He comes to our meetings an has valuable recommendations and input. We have been trying to figure out awe way to get hem him on the board for a while now. Even though were both vying for the same see the, i look forward to himming to be involved in the board. Would you be willing to step aside and let him serve . No. Lets let mr. Dillon come up first. I have a lot of things on the plate that i have ee been working on and i love the group people that i work with. Its a wonderful experience. Thank you. Im greg dillon, good afternoon supervisors. Im applying for see the 18 on the graffiti board. The Advisory Board is to advise the board of supervisors and mayor about graffiti in San Francisco. Theyre supposed to provide a report to the mayor and board of supervisors every six months. That hasnt been happening. You know, so im going in there and the see the 18 is a new position. It was opened up because mta, doesnt go to the meetings and there are issues with mtas performance on graffiti. They have the parking meters and signs and things and theyre not getting cleaned up. Tales a reason to connect with the board because someone needs to push mta to show p you and it doesnt team that dpw and the board has been ail to do that. Also, i am a resident. Although i think she has been a great asset to the board and behaves reasonably, i agree that its not a requirement of the see the. There needs to be a waiver for that. It says the charter says there is no explicit way. If you threek legislative mystery, it doesnt say anything like this is a see the that youre supposed to be a resident. Youre supposed to be a resident unless no one else wants the see the. So where i live in San Francisco is important in this. I live on the west or the mission edge of district eight. Its been a very heavilygraffitied area. Its ground zero for graffiti is. It gives you a feeling of what graffiti is to San Francisco than living in a different suburb does because you talk to your neighbors about it. You sphee it gets cleaned up what. If it doesnt get cleaned up, it stays longer. Youre in a part of the city where there are other crimes. You git the discussion with other people. Should the police be prioritizing fra feet graffiti more or less . Should we prioritize graffiti higher . Or is it something that in effect doesnt matter so much . I think like thats wiercioch the things that living there in an area of high graffiti that i bring diversity to the board. Im afraid too much of the mind set of the board is its too much of a police matter. And yet, its a police matter, but if you look during the meeting today, i got a tweet of an article coming in. Woman who had a 200,000dollar thing, shes out there still graffitiing police cars and stuff. There is only so much the police can do no matter how good they are and the judges, they see everything. They say we cant just fine people more for this. I think a lot of is the people of San Francisco having the same point of view. Its not really a view of the efficient hearing on the board. There is too much of going there. The other thing i want to say about myself is i made myself an expert. Im probably the top expert in going to the sfone or data portal and getting all the informatio information out there. So last year, there were 58,000 graffiti reports into the 311 system. 58,000 its a lot of graffiti for a city the size of San Francisco. The numbers are going up. That was 11,000 more graffiti reports than in 2014. Just three months so far in this year were already 5,500 graffiti reports higher than last year. Can you go to the graffiti advisory report . Theyre supposed to send to the mayor and ask them what is happening . No. The report hasnt happened. Theyre doing good things but the main thing they main task is on page three and five of the packet for you isnt happening. What is happening is its not so much i have the expertise that id like to use. What is happening is the app. On the phone now you can go and put in a report graffiti an the quality of data is so much better than when people call up. Phone calls are calling like 4, 5 and 6 per phone call. Its lower on this. Plus you get g. P. S. And a goat. Whaother things like that. You see a lot of the youtubeer typ the uber tieb thing anububer type of thing. Thats where we ought to be as a graffiti thing putting our efforts into using this great data that is now available through the app and have them cleaned up. And some of the commercial organizations are the worst offenders. Yes, we can look at the graffiti vandals, but we have to look at who are the institutions or large governmental people or the pg e, at t, u. S. Postal offices that have a lot of property in San Francisco and a lot of graffiti and its not cloned up quickly enough. Chairman tang, i wept to your office and spoke with the people trying to say why it is. I heard back the constituents are calling in and saying were reporting the graffiti and its not being cleaned up. Thats where the anger point on this is. That should be another thing that very much the board should be doing. The technology is there. The pictures are there. Its not like before when it was called in and someone would say its new graffiti. If you have the picture and time stamp, its closed. I sent 30 times it was handwritten sent to pg e and it wasnt cleaned up. There are groups out there that are not responding when the graffiti is done. I have this hope, like graffiti and crime is collocating. Maybe its a bit of a dream if you clean up the streets and that, that there will be less crime, but some of it is there. If we keep the data cleaner, we can find out, is it true if you clean up the graffiti quickly, you check that its been cleaned up quickly, tack be done. Im a resident, i feel, ive made myself an expert on it. I believe the res depsy required is there. Jana brings a good voice out there. What she says is correct, but i think i bring another voice that needs to be heard. As a group, the Advisory Board doesnt hear my voice. The people who have my voice live in an area with graffiti afternoo often if you have. Thank you very much. Any questions . Commissioner cohen. Im in agreement with mr. Dillons assessment of priority given to folks that live in San Francisco. I agree that that should be a priority. Given my policy, ive sat on rules committee for a long time and i prioritize those that live in San Francisco. I agree with your assessment if youre outside San Francisco and want to serve an there is no one interested in the San Francisco, it should be given a priority. Im in agreement with mr. Dillon. I am concerned about miss amy landgraph. She applied for the see the but indicated shes never attended a meeting. In past, im uncomfortable appointing someone to a body call on her though answer that question. That has not attended a meeting even developed a deep understanding for the public process. And so, id lick to address that. At the time of the application i hadnt been to a meeting but ive been to a couple meetings so far. So ive been a part of the board and trying to get involved and also a part of subcommittee as well for the fight the blight in may. With all due respect, attending a meeting, a couple of meetings doesnt really give me the confidence about your understanding of the dynamics of how things are ton in San Francisco or the different subject matters this Commission Takes up. President breed has taken a great interest in the Graffiti Task force and has done a lot of work. Passing legislation. Issues penalties around this issue. I at that share the concerns. I represent the southeastern neighborhoods. They are affected by graffiti. I would love to see a more aggressive approach to punishment for graffiti artists that continue to deface both public and private property. I agree with mr. Dillon its not a police matter. Police have their handsful. And its hard to capture and prosecute graffiti artists. That means that the commission becomes even more the commission and task force becomes more relevant and important in this role. Thats all i have. I would say that for see the 17, i hear you soop viers cohen. For see the 17, the callfication is that person must represent the Contracting Agency for Municipal Railway shelters. So its a pretty specific role, although generally speaking wed love to have the previous experience, this calls for a representative from that particular company. Fair enough, but thats you could speak during Public Comment, actually. Supervisor mar. Im in agreement with supervisor cohen on both issues of a local resident for see the 18 though i really appreciate miss lords many years and vice chairmanship and years of service on the body and i agree with chair tang that its basically the Contracting Agency for the Municipal Railway shelters that the appointee for see the 17 and the ep enthusiasm and experience from miss landgraph is appreciated and ill be supportive of you for that. I believe mr. Dillon as the local resident with so much involvement in the mission and a lot of issues that he brought up. I appreciate of your watchdog approach and your g. I. S. And mapping effort to bring that to the body as well. Thank you. So if there are no further questions, im going to open up item five to Public Comment. Thank you. My name is jana lord. Points ever claire if i case and comment. Point of clarification on that large se seat. Mrgs ta had two seats on the board and they were having trouble filling both. We decided t decide consolidate and create. We were talking about a large seat before we discussed the would seats on the boord, then it became an issue they couldnt get a second person. We decided instead of creating an additional seat and keeping two mta seat, we let go of one mta. District that greg is from is represented by a resident of the city of San Francisco. Also, another thing is almost every Single Person on the board and we are ea talking about 25 members seat 17 has always been nonresident because of Clear Channel and seat 18. The board is well represented by residence. We allow everyone from the public to join our meeting. Thats how greg is involved. He comes to the meetings and given the opportunity to speak or provide input that can help us. Hes more than welcome to help us on our sub committees and huddle conference that were having in may. He can be involved, i just wanted to point out the clarification on seat 18. The original purpose was there are Board Members on there are seats on the board that are not necessarily represented by each district. What if that person who has been seriously involved is no longer a member of sfr wed want to retain that person. Academy of arts as well. She is ate reason that we considered the atlarge member seat originally. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. I wanted to say that. Graffiti walls all look the same 12349 only the wright has been changed fix it up like a miracle a true blue spectacle miracle and pick a pick a good candidate wont you any members of public who wish to speak on item five. Seeing none, Public Comment is now closed. If i may supervisor cohen. Miss lord thank you for the explaining the seat at large for seat 18. It was actually it has softened my position. I will be supporting you. The reason why ill support you is because you have strong recommendations from staff. And also, its interesting. If the majority of body compli complies with San Francisco, i think we can take a reverse perspective of diversity from someone on outside coming in toe vied a different perspective. I value that. Its different from my normal thinking. Usually i think san franciscans we have it all and figure it out and do the best. There might be some value in having two outsider, pardon the expression, and amy, i will be supporting your request to be placed in seat 17. Thank you. Supervisor mar. Im shifting, again as first feeling that miss lords continuity of the years of experience, but having two people so connected with Clear Channel, really one of the large corporations worries me. Though i know miss lord has left the organization, i believe. I think we need neighborhoodbased at advocate advocates like mr. Dillon to be represented. Though i support miss lord for seat 17, i would support mr. Dillon as a watchdog and experienced person who has been involved even though hes thot a member. I think its important that we reward his governmen involvement on the body even though tees not a member. It helps to empower him and the neighborhood he comes from as appointing another person from l lafayette on this body. Obviously for seat 17, im in support of miss landgraph moving forward will. For seat 18, i have a preference for mr. Dillon because hes attended meetings for the last would years even being not on the board. Id love for him toen continue on that board. Nothing to take away from miss lord, shes done great things for the board. Its a matter of two seats with three applicants. I move miss landgraph for seat 17 and mr. Dilling for seat 18. We take that without objection. Congratulations. We can call item six now. Item six is a hearing to consider three members ending january 21st, 2019 to the Mental Health board. We had to do a residency waiver, correct . Yes. May we have a vote to rescind the vote for item five. For seat 17 we need a residentsy waiver. I second. Thank you. Now item six. So we have three seats three applicants. Angela wong and Adelle Wilson and [inaudible] are you hear . If you are hear, come on up. Thawmption fothank you for your patience. Thank you for the important decisions youre making. My goodness. Good afternoon, supervisors im angela pawn. Im seeking the appointment to the board as a Family Member of someone who is a consumer. Mental illness. Account the past five years, they have been very eyeopening, challenging, arduous, scary journey. My 27yearold daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And she weve helped her with her struggle to recovery. To survival. Its been, as i said, very frightening at times. So Mental Illness came out of nowhere. With no family history, no no one family history. We had no previous knowledge or education about all the ramifications of a diagnosis like this of Mental Illness. Probably the same for those in the dark. We continue to be challenged as she learns to live under a new normal. Which all the Family Members do. All her friend, all her communities. Networks that shes volunteered a lot for. Namely namy and dbsa who are wonderful networks for us who dont know who to talk to or where to go and theyre wonderful resources for the consumer, for the Family Members and for the community at large. I credit them largely for our sanity. I have no experience, actually, im not an expert in Mental Illness with all that ive tried to learn, what weve experienced. But i do want to say that our experiences, my experience ive gained with her bipolar disorder, her struggles has given me a sensitive perspective about the realm of Mental Illness. So i hope to possibly help however i can. On the board. To positively impact those who also seek guidance and help. I have attended a meeting, and i know a bit of how it works although ive only attended the one so i have to put that up pront. I up front. Im here on behalf of my doctor because she said, mom, you need to be a Family Member on board. Thank you. Supervisor mar. I wanted to thank miss pawn for being willing to serve. Having Family Members that are bipolar, having the groups like nami who are so helpful for families grapplng with Mental Illness. Thank you for sharing your story. Supervisor cohen. Mrs. Pawn, i too have Family Members active in nami. I wanted to ask you if you had any experience with attending previous meetings. With Mental Health board . Yes, maam. Yes i have. I attended one. But it gives me a good inkling into how things work and i hope that i can join some of the committees and try to help to bring along or better the existing projects and maybe bring to the forefront some really needed issues. Projects address the issues. In your application, you list as a very interesting experience that youre retire retired from retire from ciezer in 2015. Your insight into the Psychiatric Department was insightful can you tell us what you saw . It was really ironic in hindsight when i took the transfer to psychiatry, i had no linkling of what was inkling of what was to come. I took it because it gave me 40 hours. I was part time and wanted to go fulltime. What was your role . At kaiser . I was administrative assist tan. Okay. Thank you. I took on challenge not realizing what was to come. And so with what i learned there, and then to be hit with the diagnosis, my daughters struggle, i dont know, it was meant to be, i hi. Was your daughter diagnosed during your time working why the Psychiatry Department . Yes, the latter part part. Then i transferred to determin dermatology. I wanted to go back but things didnt work out. Youre now retired and ready to roll up your sleaves for the second part of your life. I thought what do i want to do when i grow up . I wanted something worthy. Thank you for your interest. Is Adelle Wilson here . Do you want to explain adelles im helen burke and im the executive director. I got a call from adelle. She wasnt feeling well. Show has served a first timer term on the board adds a Family Member and shes a valued member of the team. She chaired a committee in the past year to totally revamp our forms and the way we do site visits to the many programs to make them run smoothly and more effective. I hope you will consider reappointing her to a second term. Thank you very much for letting us know. We did receive word from ulash dunlap who is a constituent. She was not able to extend teand. But i had met with her previously when her appointment was up as well. So, again, we have two people who are not here. At this time i think were going to ep open up item six to Public Comment. Yes, maam. Commissioners, im sending a strong message that the medical team are low grade. Theyre not effective in Mental Health problems. More than ever, the system [inaudible] forcing medications against the will of patients. They lock them up in hospital. And we have further control financially on the Mental Health patients. Im a pi pioneer on eastern religious pathologies who are helping our people with mental and physical wellbeings in addition of the methodologies. I put myself at the street level of chinatown hanging out with the chinese people, chinese folks if chinatown. Almost every one of them fold up my paper [inaudible] of good planning for the improvement formula for body and heart. I will continue my work on this pathway until such new studies will become the central core of applications for the system. One medical doctor in this chinatown, clinic actually [inaudible] my paper to the patient. My words were in chinese only but im trying to translate it into english. Thank you very much. Any other members of public item six. First, you might be up then youre down then you might be all around just like a yoa yo yoyo just like a yoyo there is one thing i want you to do fix those Mental Health blues like a yoyo and ring you can ring adelle ring adelle ding a dl ling youre looking swell adelle we can del make us well pick adelle pick adelle thank you very much. Any other members of the public item six . Seeing none, you be lick comments closed. I move approval of angela pawn for seat 14. Ulash seat 15 and [inaudible] seat 16. Item seven is a hearing to appoint the term ending april 18th 2018. There is one seat and one applicant. Is sufficientlyia deporto here . No. I see silia was hear this morning but had to leave. She had appointments with the judges around her cases. She wrote me a little bit of a note. Shes currently Deputy Director of Family Services division and has been for the last three years. Prior to that, she was the assistant director for children and Family Services. The department of public and soarnl services for riverside county. And then has spent 21 yers in Child Welfare in riverside. While in riverside, sylvia served as a commissioner there for two years. This is an appointed position by the head of aha. We have a an appointed member from Human Services agency from the Public Health department. Her interest to serve is to focus on the development of a robust prevention system for the diversified age groups because she sees this entering San Francisco at high rates. We feel like the work of first five is area aligned what she strifes to do. Shell value added. Thank you for letting us know. Supervisor mar. I wanted to thank the First Five Commission and all the staff for amazing work from preschool for all the help equity work done from firth to five. I wanted to from birth to five. Its hard shoes to fill, but i know that trent roors appointment will be another great person on the First Five Commission. I know supervisor cohen served on first five also like i did. Seeing no other questions or comments, Public Comment www. Well open it up for item seven
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