4156550001. Enter access code dial 14156550001 access code 2594 606 8619 password sfgov speak clearly. I will now call the roll. President ahn . Here. Vicepresident , wan . Commissioner stephenson . Here. I will start with the land acknowledgment. The commission of the environment acknowledges the homeland and recognize the mother earth and as well as all other people who reside in their territory. We recognize we benefit from living on their land and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors and elders and the environment of the community. We must embrace indigenous knowledge around how we care for San Francisco and all its people. Thank you for attention during this important acknowledgment. Welcome to tonights meeting. We should know that the worlds meteorology cal report according to the forecast there is a 98 chance that one of more of the next five years will be hotter. We simply adhere to Sustainable Practices and make sure we continue our mission here at the department of the environment on commission and be sure that residents lead by example. Today we will hear a number of items related to this including grants, contracts and programs and commercial Reuse Program which will provide 500 to transition away from single use food ware and towards reusable and to lowering cost and lowering refuse rate. We will hear about this in todays hearing. Being green is economic cal to be sustainable. The truth is adopting Sustainable Practices is a cost saver at the end of the day. Its up to us at the department at the commission to promote these opportunities to ensure that all san franciscans have the information and resources to get involved. Before we get started, i want to note this is our first meeting without our long time commissioner johanna wald. We will hold a service for her sometimes later this summer, and this marks the final note of commissioner stephenson and its been a pleasure working with you and well learn more about your record in a meeting. Well go to Public Comment first. Are there any members that wish to speak, if so, please come forward and speak clearly into the mic. We will have general Public Comment on item 4 on the agenda. Seeing none. Members of the public who wish to make a Public Comment press star 3 to be added in the speaker queue. Those on hold, please wait until your turn to speak. Seeing none, Public Comment on this item is closed. Thank you, next item. 3. Approval of minutes of the march 28, 2023, commission on the environment meeting and approval of amended minutes of the march 7, 2023, commission on the environment special meeting. Explanatory documents march 28, 2023, meeting draft minutes; and march 7, 2023, special meeting amended minutes. discussion and action commissioners, in addition to the minutes, we are asking the commission to approve a change to the minutes of the march 7th meeting, the administrative code requires those persons attended the session to be included in the minutes and this is here for your consideration. Any changes, commissioners . If not, can i have a motion. Motion. A motion from commissioner wan, second from commissioner stephenson. Public comment, please. Are there any members present that wish to speak at this time, please come forward and speak into the mic. Seeing none, well seek remote Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to make a Public Comment on this item, please wait to speak to your item in the queue. Those waiting to speak, please wait for your turn to speak. We have one caller in the queue. Hello, caller, your three minutes begin now. Public speaker can you hear me . Yes. I have no issues with the march 28th minutes. Thanks very there are no other public speakers. Roll call, please. Clerk [roll call] with that, it passes. Next item, please. The next item is item 4. 4. General Public Comment. Members of the public may address the commission on matters that are within the commissions jurisdiction and are not on todays agenda. Well begin with Public Comment here in the room and then to remote Public Comment. Are there any members from the public here in the room wishing to speak, if so, please come up one by one and speak into the mic. Public speaker hi, my name is alara and i was here two months ago and a neighbor wants to turn a business into a park and another into a parking lot. Since i was here, we won an appeal hearing monkey brains who falsified a permit application in order to put up an iron gate in order to Start Building their unpermitted parking lots on lands that they have legal rights to. Because of this, our supervisor is finally paying attention to and requested the City Attorney to look into this property that is being taxed, assessed, but the fcc is a company that was involved years ago. I want to share some statistics with you of the general plan specifically about the Mission District that the mission has a deficiency of open space serving the neighborhoods. Analysis reveals that a total of about 4. 3 acres of new space should be provided in this area to accommodate expected growth. The mission has family households with children nearly 50 which is highest in the city. In addition to that, Second Street which abuts one side of this parcel is designated a slow street which is right where monkey brains is expected to have their entrance exits. In addition to that, there is this Development Proposal for six story 19 Apartment Unit building on the other corner. And in addition to that, we have up to this point now more than 2,000 signatures in favor of the greenway with commons such as the Mission Needs more green space and monkey brains can go eat a brick. [ laughter ] i want the greenway to be a reality. I live across the street from parcel 36 and have desperately wanted something beautiful done to this for the last 16 years. This should be a park, not a parking lot. Im a lifelong resident of the mission and we need this open Space Available now. Hopefully more this summer is going to happen and well have more answers from city officials regarding the future of this parcel. Thank you for your comment. Are there any additional members from the public in the room who wish to speak on this item . Seeing none, well proceed to remote Public Comment. Members of the public remotely who wish to make a Public Comment on this item, please hold in the queue for your turn to speak. You have one caller in the queue. Hello, caller you are unmuted. Your three minutes begins now. Public speaker thank you. My name is paul and where we get our hetch hetchy water. I pointed out that the sf puc has terrible policies related to stewardship to the Tuolumne River and in a state of a delta. Finally in my comments that pulled out that you have study sessions with the sf puc and i thought that was a great idea and i wanted to encourage you to consider doing that. A very timely issue being considered now. Its called the Tuolumne River agreement by the agencies and for the water control plant which the state water board adopted and have yet because of lawsuits from sfpuc. The voluntary agreement was ruled out in the past. It just didnt cut it. The science did not back it up. But our governor, mr. Newsom is adamant that it be studied again. We are wasting precious time. The sfpuc without its own analysis keeps touting it even though the science doesnt show it. I would like you to join the discussion with the sfpuc on the water plant. We need judges to rule where the science stands, and who is more accurate about what needs to happen to restore the Tuolumne River and the bay delta. The sfpuc has manufactured a practice and they have never left in four years and put water in storage. They are planning for the design drought, a mega drought that the recent Climate Change study that put the 1100 years of data and 25,000 assimilated model runs could not produce the drought as severe drought but they are sticking with it. I have made my request and appreciate all that you do. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Seeing no additional cards in the queue, Public Comment on this item is closed. Thank you. Next item, please. 5. Presentation of the commission on the environment Environmental Service award to commissioner heather stephenson. discussion vicepresident wan, the honor yours. I am so honor to recognize my colleague mr. Stephenson. It comes 12 years to the day after first appointed to the commission on the document back in 2011. After three terms as a commissioner, has had a long Lasting Impact on the commission in San Francisco. A long time member at the Operations Committee which i had the honor to serve with you for i dont know how many years, i actually lost count. As an enter entrepreneur and professional and instrumental in building and sustaining the processes on business organizations. On the Operations Committee, she has also helped the department to bring clarity to the annual budget process which is not always so fun but definitely has a huge impact. Heather as Commission President coinciding with the covid19 pandemic and as we transitioned to virtual Public Meetings and helped the department continue its progress on initiatives from Green Business and essential working right to the Climate Action plan. Heather also facilitated the Department Racial Equity Plan and indeed equity and opportunity for women have been central theme in heathers approach in her service and leadership. This only partially captures heather who has not only been a business and environmental leader, but a true friend to everyone who has served on this commission and im so proud to be alongside with them. And filled with enthusiasm and compassion for all. A tireless and momentous advocate and true happy retirement and we will miss you. [ applause ] heather, we would like you to speak. Commissioner hunter . Heather, i would like to say thank you and you have an amazing leadership style and you lead with empathy and focus. At the end of the day, those are the two most important things that a leader can have. You care about staff and all of your fellow commissioners that truly care about the city. If everyone cared like you do, we would be a better city. Its been a pleasure serving with you. I will chime in. I remember when i joined the commission some years ago, heather was one of the commissioners that it was just really clear based on her experience here on the commission and enter entrepreneur that she was an adult in the room and just really made me want to emulate her on the commission. In addition to that, just a lovely person. Its really tough to lose you after all of these years and hope to live up your future. [ laughter ] commissioner stephenson, please grace us. I have notes in case i forgot. Thank you for that, that was really beautiful. I really appreciate all the words. When i joined the commission 12 years ago i had no idea what i was doing at all. I came here because i had a business and mentioned where i was doing climate work in any other daytoday life and sold that business and as i was getting enrolled in another part of the walt disney company, i didnt know how to get involved in the environment and then when i put my name to be a commissioner and when the mayor gave me this position, i sat down and joined the meeting and didnt know what my role was to be here. Most of you have probably heard me say this before, in a startup world, you decide what you do in the morning and then implementing the choices to see if it worked and then you iterate on that and i got here and everything seemed so slow. I didnt know what i was supposed to do. I didnt know how to work in this environment. But, you know, i sat here and i kind of didnt speak for two years, roughly and most know thats not easy for me. And when i did Start Talking mostly what i was focused on was consistently asking about where is the city and i was focused on how do we get there faster and whose got the power to get to where we need to go and working on the department on theronment collaborate so much with the city and it was hard to identify where that was. After time, you start seeing how the seeds that are being planted over here start to bloom over here and things come to fruition over time. So i got to see moments where people came up and gave Public Comment and the item would be raised and eventually we would put it on an agenda and would eventually become something we passed in the city and eventually it was part of the dna in the city. I got to see that whole progress and transition happen. And i realized that i think not only this department or this commission is full of teeth, but they were a muscle for the city. That we lift up the city, we are pushing the businesses forward, shepherding the residents to do things and making the departments do what they are supposed to do and using this muscle to build this department and commission to really do that important work. Im really really proud of the work that this commission has done and i have done with my fellow commissioners. Specifically im proud that years ago we got the city to work on the climate plan and working through an incredibly difficult time and there is a path now and that money is coming right now. Im as you opened up with your president s welcome, is absolutely vital that we are moving this work forward and while planting these seeds and using our muscle that we do it really quickly. My request to my fellow commissioners is i want to plant a little bit of my impatience in all of you so you are asking where the teeth are and moving the knife and the progress in this and moving it forward. Im incredibly honored to be able to sit here with all of you and incredibly proud for the award. Thank you very much. [ applause ] any other discussion . If not, maybe well move to Public Comment. Public speaker hi, commissioners, i want to thank commissioner stephenson for your service on behalf of the Environment Department. She served as president of the commission during the pandemic while being a mother. Im a parent, and i know thats no small feat and you are continuing to show up. This is no small feat. We recognize that. In my personal experience working with you around food Waste Production back to 2019 which feels like decades ago. And came to our summit as a keynote speaker and we announced San Franciscos involvement to cut on food waste by 50 . That was a Pivotal Point for us because you came out with this collaborative alongside the state of washington, portland, seattle and oakland and state of california and we have a number of those who have joined and a number of Grocery Stores and producers who have joined to cut waste and food co, raleys, and you really kicked that off and we thank you and we appreciate you, and we thank you for your tireless service. Is there other Public Comments . Seeing there is no additional members proceeding to speak on this item, we will proceed with virtual Public Comment. Members of the public participating remotely wishing to make a Public Comment on this item. Please wait for your turn to speak. We have one caller in the queue. Hello, caller, you are unmuted. Your three minutes begin now. Public speaker great. I too want to say thank you to commissioner stephenson for your years of service. I believe it was a year ago that we would see a very small amount of an iceberg and on the surface and what is below the surface and to how much we see based and [inaudible] we see a small amount of time committed by the members of this commission in public sessions been in fact the time commissioners spend between meetings, behindthescenes, and in departments and with others to advocate for the environment and our shared outings. Commissioner stephenson has and i appreciate her for that and want to thank her publicly. And at a future meeting anyway, thank you very much for listening. Thank you again for your service. Thank you for your comment. Seeing no additional callers in the queue, Public Comment on this item is closed. Thank you. I want to personally thank you, commissioner stephenson. Its rare to find people as a policy maker and i have learned a lot from you. I hope this is not goodbye. I hope that you will be back in many ways and in a role as well. With that, maybe we should pause for a portrait with everybody. Ahn all right. With that, next item, please. 6. Staff introductions. Speaker tyrone jue, acting director. discussion commissioners, this is the fun part of our agenda where we get to introduce the new staff that we are welcoming into our Environment Department family. Im going to call you up at the same time and if you wouldnt mind coming up and introducing yourself and what you are working on, that would be wonderful. We have lena becker man, nick kessner. Hello commissioners, my name is erik flores and joining the San FranciscoEnvironment Department as a coordinator engaging local bu