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Tuesday, April 28, 2020
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>> President Yee: good afternoon and welcome to the
April 28th, 2020, regular
meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
>> President Yee: thank you, Mr. President.
Supervisor fewer, fewer, present.
Supervisor haney.
Supervisor haney? Okay. All right.
Supervisor mandelman. >> present.
>> Clerk: mandelman. Supervisor mar. Mar present.
Supervisor peskin, peskin present.
And supervisor preston.
Preston, present. Supervisor ronen.
Ronen, present. Supervisor safai. Safai present.
Supervisor stefani. Stefani, present.
Supervisor walton. >> present.
Can we confirm that it was peskin?
>> Clerk: I'm worried about him.
Supervisor walton, walton present. Supervisor yee. Yee present. And supervisor haney, were you
able to join us? Okay, haney not present. Can one of my staff check on him, please.
thank you.
Mr. President, you have a quorum.
>> President Yee: thank you.
So somebody needs to cut their mike.
It's sounding like there's a lot of bass --
>> Clerk: it sounds like supervisor peskin is trying to
speak but his voice is changed for some reason.
So, supervisor peskin, if you could stand by, a staff member
will check on you.
>> sounds like a boar.
Indiscernible: .
>> President Yee: supervisor
peskin -- you have a new voice. So, okay, thank you. Please place your right hand
over your heart, be you join me
in reciting the pledge of allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the
united states of america.
And to the flag for which it
stands, indivisible,... >> on behalf of the board I would like to acknowledge the
staff at sfgov-tv who record our meetings and make the transcripts available to the public online.
Madam Clerk, are there any communications?
>> Clerk: yes, Mr. President. During the ongoing health emergency board members will participate through video conference to the same extent as if they were physically present in the meeting.
Members of the public are encouraged to participate remotely in this meeting in the
following ways: if you do not have internet, written correspondence can be sent by
U.S. Postal service, please address the envelope to the san francisco board of supervisors,
room 244, city hall, san
francisco, california, 94102. Without internet you can listen
to the meeting on your phone.
The telephone number is 888-204- 888-204-5984.
And when you are prompted, enter
the access code 3501008.
Press pound and then press pound again to join and you will be
able to listen to the meeting in progress.
If you do not have the internet,
submit your written correspondence via -- if you do
have the internet, excuse me, correspondence can be sent via
email to board.Ofsupervisors@sfgov.Org or watch the livestream meeting
online at www.Sfgovtv.Org. Alternatively the meeting is
being cable casted on channel 26. And please be aware that there's broadcast delay.
If you wish to provide public comment, please call in early to
the meeting to get situated.
Public comment is item 14 on on the agenda and it's up to two minutes of live comments with
items within the subject jurisdiction of the board and the number to dial is the same
telephone number stated earlier, 888-204-5984. And once public comment is
closed I will repeat this
information again. Best practices are to call from
a quiet location, speak slowly and clearly, turn down any television or radio around you and address the board as a whole and not individual members of
the board, and, Mr. President, i would like to offer a giant
thank you to director adrian pond today for assigning three of her staff to join our board meeting who will conduct
language interpretation for us.
And to the interpreters, I'd
like you to as I introduce you to please share in your language
that you are here to provide interpretation services and to which community.
We'll begin with agnes lie.
Indiscernible: .
>> Clerk: supervisor peskin, if you could hold for one moment, we're just going to have
the three interpreters announce themselves and that they're providing interpretation
services to the public.
To my operation staff, is agnes
lie on the phone?
>> yes. .
[Speaking Foreign Language].
[Speaking Foreign Language].
>> Clerk: thank you, Miss Li.
And now for espanol. Arturo, are you available? >> yes, can you hear me?
>> Clerk: yes, we can hear you. >> excellent.
[Speaking spanish] Okay.
>> Clerk: thank you.
And for filipino we have fay
lacani alou. >> hi, can you hear me?
>> Clerk: yes, we can hear
you.
>> [Speaking Foreign Language]
Language].
Okay, thank you.
>> Clerk: thank you so much.
Mr. President, that concludes my communication.
>> President Yee: thank you,
Madam Clerk, and thank you for
the three people joining us to
give the interpretation services
to our viewers.
So before we get started just a
friendly reminder for all of the
supervisors to mute their microphones when you are not
speaking to avoid audio feedback.
Next we will have supervisor
safai to share an update from
the emergency operation center.
Supervisor safai, are you here?
>> Supervisor Safai: yes, I am.
>> President Yee: all right.
Floor is yours.
>> Supervisor Safai: thank you, President Yee, and thank
you, colleagues, for allowing me to give this update. Today I'll provide updates to
the board as the board liaison who worked with supervisor fewer
last week at the emergency operations center.
Tim holt from my staff and I had the honor to be there with
supervisor fewer and her team.
And as you all know she's been stationed there for the past three weeks. Along with her entire staff.
To start off, the city's priorities have not changed. We have been moving vulnerable
population into alternative housing sites, scaling up those sites through a bidding process with hotels. And continuing to create and
scale up our food security
programs accessible to the 311, and containing the spread of the virus the best we can.
The data dashboard available on
D.P.H.'s website is updaded to provide new metrics for all ofous a daily basis.
As of today, san francisco has
1,458 confirmed cases, and 23 confirmed deaths.
As of this morning, 29
individuals are in I.C.U. And 58 are in acute care. And yesterday mayor breed announced her plans to extend the stay-at-home order to the
end of May, as many of you know. I know this has been a hard time for so many of our families and individuals living in the city and our numbers show how well the city and the bay area are responding to this crisis compared to other major cities in the U.S. And around the world. So we have to continue to stay
strong and continue to show resolve. Thank you to everyone out there listening today for your
patience, your endurance and all of the hard work that it's taking to continue to keep our
numbers low in this trying time.
Since last tuesday, we've moved
54 first responders and 132 vulnerable individuals into
hotel rooms and we have a total
of 2 -- excuse me, 2,156 rooms available.
And 1,130 that are unoccupied.
And we continue to scale up our
capacity for our vulnerable population to be housed as
safely and quickly as possible.
They will now provide covid-19
testing for all non-sector and non-profit employees in san francisco.
And any san francisco resident who cannot access test category go. As of today we're also doing
mass testing at skilled nursing
facilities in the city. the city launched a pilot partnership with the salvation army to make and to deliver meals to people experiencing
homelessness and those living in encampments. The goal of this program is to provide food to the unsheltered
community and minimize covid-19 exposure. Through the program the salvation army will make and
deliver more than 1,300 meals
daily to about 365 people living
in unsheltered or encampments across 40 locations in the city.
In addition to the meals the
salvation army will distribute hygiene materials and dog food for those with animals.
The city also launched another partnership with the salvation
army to make and deliver meals
-- sorry -- lastly, this past
week mayor breed and sfmta
director jeff temlin announced the program that many of you are
aware of, "slow streets," to limit the through traffic on selected areas of the city.
"slow streets" is to give walking and biking for essential trips while still allowing the local vehicle traffic. People walking or running will be allowed to be in the street
as permited by california law. Implementation will occur in phases and will be based on the streets that could supplement
the reduced or suspended routes
with improved bicycle access to essential services.
As of today a portion of J.F.K.
Drive in golden gate park and
the drive in mcclaren park is
closed to vehicles 24 hours a day throughout the duration of the stay-at-home order. Like all of my colleagues before
me, I want to offer sincere
gratitude to the thousands of disaster workers and service workers staffing the E.O.C., the emergency operation center, the
hotels and to deliver groceries
and the outreach teams passing out personal protective equipment and safety signs all over the city. And the numerous tasks to
mobilize every resource that our city has at its disposal to contain the spread of this virus and to minimize the loss of life.
While those of us working from
home and at the E.O.C. Are able to maintain relative comfort and safety, many essential employees do not have that privilege. We thank you for stepping up and
for helping to make our city safe. Finally, I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the board and the staff in the E.O.C. To ensure that all urgent needs are met
for the duration of this crisis. Thank you, supervisor fewer and
her team and supervisor mar and alan wong for being present there this week. Thank you, Mr. President.
>> President Yee: okay, thank
you, supervisor safai. Colleagues, today we are
approving the minutes. >> supervisor yee are we allowed
to comment on supervisor safai's presentation?
>> President Yee: no, it's
just an update from him. But you could comment on the roll or something, okay? >> thank you.
>> President Yee: thank you. So, again, we're going to be
approving the minutes from march 10, 2020. The regular board meeting.
And the March 10, 2020, special
board meeting minutes.
Are there any changes to these
minutes?
Supervisor peskin, is that -- supervisor peskin, do you want
to speak on something, on the
minutes?
We can't hear you.
>> Clerk: I know, Mr. President, my staff is trying to work with him to get
his equipment working.
Sorry, supervisor peskin. All right, my staff are reporting that it sounds as
though the speakers on his
system are not working at this time.
Perhaps he can call in, john, if you're listening to me, help him
to do that. We can hear you slightly,
supervisor peskin, yes. Hello? >> Supervisor Peskin:
Indiscernible: .
>> President Yee: supervisor peskin, did you want to make any
comments on the minutes?
>> Supervisor Peskin: no.
>> President Yee: okay.
Then seeing none, can I have a
motion to approve the minutes as presented?
Motion to approve made by -- >> Supervisor Mandelman:.
>> President Yee: mandelman. And seconded by supervisor walton. Without objection those minutes
are approved after the public
comment has been presented. Madam Clerk, let's go to our regular agenda. >> President
>> Clerk: okay.
Items 1 through 3, mr. President?
>> President Yee: yes.
>> Clerk: items 1 through 3
pertain to the special tax
district number 2020-1, and the
rock facilities, and to declare the results of the special election and the direct recordation of the notice of
special tax lien and determine
other matters therewith, as defined here diagnose in.
And item 2, to ratify the
issuance and the sale of bonded indebtedness and other debt in
an aggregate principal amount
not to exceed $3.7 billion and
to determine other matters as therewith, as defined here
diagnose in.
And item 3, to levy the special
taxes within the city and county of san francisco special tax
district, number 2020-1, the mission rock facilities and services.
>> President Yee: so as Madam
Clerk just said, items 1 through
3 are related to the special tax
district, number 2020-1 for mission rock.
The special tax district allows
the city to levy special taxes
on property in a special tax district for possible infrastructure and services.
The board previously called a
special landowner election for the special tax district to be
held on April 27,2020.
So I will first ask the clerk
and the board to report on the
election canvass. So the committee to the board by the director of the department of elections.
>> Clerk: yes, Mr. President. We received from the director of the department of elections a
canvass for the April 27, 2020,
election for the special tax district.
All votes were in favor of the ballot measure.
>> President Yee: okay.
Then the results unanimously in favor of the ballot measure, the
board will now consider a resolution declaring the results
of the election, the resolution,
authorizing the issuance of bonds and other debt for the special tax district.
And an ordinance levying special
taxes in the special tax district. So, Madam -- I don't see anybody in the roster.
Supervisor walton? >> Supervisor Walton:, thank you, President Yee.
I'd like to continue items 1, 2, and 3 into our next meeting on May 5th.
>> President Yee: okay.
So motion to continue.
Any discussion? >> second.
>> President Yee: seconded by
supervisor safai. Okay. If there's no objection, then
we'll continue it to the meeting
on -- is it May 5th, Madam Clerk?
>> Clerk: it is May 5th, Mr. President.
>> President Yee: okay.
Madam Clerk, let's go to our
next item and call items 4 and 5 together.
>> Clerk: okay.
Items 4 and 5, are two
resolutions the first, retroactively authorizing the department of public health to
accept and expend a $900,000 grant from the california
department of public hit, a recipient of the grant award for the centers of disease control and prevention, for participation in a program, entitled, "california injury and violence prevention branch
overdose data to action --
academic detailing," for the
President Of January 1, 2020, through August 31, 2022.
And item 5 is a retroactive authorization to the department
of public health to accept $750,000 from the california
department of public health, from the centers for disease
control and prevention, for a
program "california injury and
violence prevention branch
overdose data to action -- peer
to peer opioid stewardship alliance," for the period of
January 1, 2020, through August 31, 2022.
>> President Yee: supervisor peskin, nod if you can hear us.
Can you hear us? Okay, thank you. Just wanted to make sure that
you don't Miss Anything.
>> Supervisor Peskin: if you can hear me.
>> President Yee: okay.
Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll on this item.
>> Clerk: on items 4 and 5, we
can see you -- hello.
On items 4 and 5, supervisor stefani. Stefani, aye.
And supervisor walton. Walton, aye.
Supervisor yee. Yee, aye. Supervisor fewer. Fewer, aye. Supervisor haney. Haney, aye. Supervisor mandelman.
Mandelman, aye. Supervisor mar. mar, aye.
Supervisor peskin.
>> peskin, aye.
>> Clerk: supervisor preston. Preston, aye. Supervisor ronen. Ronen, aye.
Supervisor safai. Safai, aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay.
Without objection, the
resolutions are adopted unanimously. And supervisor peskin, we heard
you loud and clearly when you said aye. So it seems that we're making
progress now.
>> Supervisor Peskin: I got a new computer.
>> President Yee: okay, you're clearer now.
>> Clerk: thank you, john.
>> President Yee: Madam Clerk, call the next item.
Cloik an ordance to settle
lawsuits against the city with
the millennium tower litigation out of settlement and the tilt
of the tower located at 301 mission street.
The city's contribution to the
global settlement to convain an
easement necessary to construct a seismic upgrade of the millennium tower. And the city's obligation to
convey the easement and our contingence on a number of events, including court approval of a class-action settlement.
And this adopts the proper environmental findings.
>> President Yee: okay.
Madam Clerk, can you please call
the roll.
>> Clerk: on item 6, supervisor stefani. Stefani, aye.
supervisor walton. Walton, aye. Supervisor yee. Yee, aye. Supervisor fewer.
Fewer, aye. Supervisor haney.
Haney, aye.
Supervisor mandelman. Mandelman, aye. Supervisor mar.
Mar, aye. Supervisor peskin.
Peskin, aye. Supervisor preston.
Preston, aye. Supervisor ronen.
Ronen, aye.
Supervisor safai. Safai, aye. There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay, without objection this ordinance
is passed on first reading.
Please call items 7 and 8 together.
>> Clerk: item 7 is a resolution to authorize the issuance and sale of one or more
series of special tax bonds for the city and county of san francisco community facilities
district number 2014-1, the transbay transit center. In the aggregate principal
amount not to exceed $90 million to approve related documents, including an official statement, second supplement to the fiscal agent agreement, the bond
purchase agreement, and the continuing disclosure undertaking and determining
other matters in connection. And item 8 is the resolution to
approve the issuance of the
transbay joint powers authority
not to exceed $315 million in
aggregate principal amount of
tax allocation bonds to finance
certain costs relating to the transbay terminal project as defined herein.
>> President Yee: okay.
Madam Clerk, please call the roll.
>> Clerk: on items 7 and 8. Supervisor stefani. Stefani, aye. Supervisor walton. Walton, aye. Supervisor yee.
Yee, aye. Supervisor fewer.
Fewer, aye. Supervisor haney.
Haney, aye. Supervisor mandelman.
Mandelman, aye. Supervisor mar. >> mar, aye. Supervisor peskin. >> peskin, aye. Supervisor preston. Preston, aye.
And supervisor ronen. Ronen, aye. Supervisor safai. Safai, aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay.
Then without objection the
resolutions are adopted unanimously.
Please call the next item.
>> Clerk: item 9 is a
resolution to approve the levy
on the secured role of ad
valorem and special taxes on
possessory interests on secured
roll, and areas 1 -- 1-1 --
excuse me, that's I-1, and
through roman numeral I through
13, of city and county of san francisco infrastructure financing district number 2 for
the port of san francisco, city and county of san francisco
special tax district nobody 2019-2. pier 70 leased properties and
the special tax district 2020-1, the mission rock facilities and services and making the appropriate findings.
>> President Yee: supervisor walton?
>> Supervisor Walton: I'd like to move to continue item 9 to
the May 5th board meeting. >> second.
>> President Yee: seconded by
supervisor peskin?
>> excuse me, President Yee.
>> President Yee: yes? >> deputy city attorney ann pierson. I just wanted to relay some information that I'm learning from counsel for the port, which
is that this item is time
sensitive and that in order for bonds to be issued this year,
the taxes that this resolution would allow --
>> President Yee: thank you so much. I have a motion on the floor seconded by another supervisor.
I didn't ask for clarification
--
Indiscernible: .
>> I understand that completely. >> Clerk: . >> she's trying to pass it today and he wants to continue it a week.
>> the motion is made and seconded before the board.
The city attorney has not been recognized.
>> President Yee: let me recognize her because I want to hear what she has to say. >> I apologize for the
interruption and I sincerely apologize.
I was just receiving information
from counsel for the port who
asked me to relay this to you that. There's a time emergency to this and in order for these taxes to
be put on the roll for 2021, they require that this be passed today.
And, again, I apologize for the interruption.
>> President Yee: okay, so
thank you for that information.
Supervisor walton does that
change or change your --
>> Supervisor Walton: just for clarity, why today -- why is today the deadline?
>> President Yee: you're asking the deputy city attorney --
>> Supervisor Walton: the
deputy city attorney or the city attorney that she was in consultation with.
>> President Yee: okay, deputy city attorney, would you like to answer that? >> I don't know the answer to that question. I'm happy to consult with counsel for the port. I literally heard from her 45 seconds ago about this item and the time emergency. So she's explained to me that
it's related to the timing of issuing the bonds which requires
putting these taxes on the 2021 secured roll which needs to be done today. I don't know more information about that timing or that
deadline than that.
>> President Yee: supervisor
-- supervisor mandelman?
>> Supervisor Mandelman: and
what's the reason for the continuance?
>> Supervisor Walton: part of
this item is in my district and there are some things that we
still need to iron out.
>> President Yee: supervisor peskin?
>> Supervisor Peskin: so through the President To the
deputy city attorney pierson who
is contacted by a party and I'm
willing to wait to later in the
meeting, but are you saying and representing, or is your fellow
counsel for the port representing that in this
environment that these bonds are
going to be sold in this market imminently?
Is that the representation?
>> President Yee: deputy city attorney? >> that is not. I'm being told that this is a matter of state law.
But for me to give you a more in-depth answer I would need a couple minutes to confer with her and we're happy to do that. Again, this has been brought to
my attention only a minute ago.
>> President Yee: supervisor
walton, would you entertain
delaying the vote on this for your motion to continue until we can get more information?
>> Supervisor Walton: I am,
but I want to make sure that it stays on record and when we come back to this item that it is continued upon the fact that we have a first and a second.
>> President Yee: yes, none at all. I mean, that's still the proper thing. It's just that we're going to delay a vote on this at this point.
Just move it into our next
agenda item.
>> so I have not yielded the floor, Mr. President. So presumably what the
representation is that we'll hear later from counsel who is a
specialist in this area, is that
insofar as these are possessory interest taxes, they would have
to be on the secure roll and that would be a function of timing as to when they can get on the secured roll.
Is that the issue?
>> that is my -- my limited understanding of the issue related to timing. But once this item is continued until later in the meeting I
will consult with her and get you a fuller answer.
>> so then I really think that
I'm less interested respectfully
through the President To deputy city attorney pierson who is
supposed to be this body's
advocate in hearing from counsel
counsel, and I'd be more interested in hearing for the
counsel for the assessry reporter or the treasurer tax
collector than from the
interested party that is a quasi
city agency.
>> President Yee: so there's a
request from supervisor peskin.
Can we see if we could get these
attorneys from those offices to come into our meeting at some
point pretty soon? The meeting is probably not going to last very long.
>> Clerk: Mr. President, we will certainly endeavor to reach
someone in the city attorney's office for the tax collector.
>> President Yee: okay. And at that point when we have
this item come up again, if they
happen to not be here or
present, then we will continue -- not continue on it -- but we will proceed with the
vote of the motion.
>> Clerk: okay.
>> President Yee: okay, let's
go to item -- sorry, I lost
track -- number -- the next item, 10.
>> Clerk: item 10 is a resolution to declare the intention of the board of supervisors to change the street
name of willow street between buchanan street and laguna
street to earl gage Jr. Street
to honor earl gage Jr.'s legacy and the impact on the san
francisco firefighting community.
>> President Yee: okay.
I see -- supervisor --
Indiscernible: . >> thank you, President Yee, and I want to thank my co-sponsors
on this resolution, supervisors
peskin and ronen and walton and safai. And I want to recognize the san francisco black firefighters association and especially their President Sherman tillman for his leadership on this.
And for working so closely with
our office to move this forward. And also thanks to some folks
who spoke up. It's been supportive of this,
including in committee, and that
includes local 798 President
Shawn beauford and the firefighter, and the
representative keith baracca,
and member gloria barry and the many other firefighters and the community leaders who have spoke
publicly in support of this effort.
I also want to recognize jen
snyder and preston gilmore on my
staff who led the community
outreach. We're very eager to move this forward and we hope to have your support.
And earl gage Jr. Moved to san
francisco in 1945 and graduated from berkeley and was drafted
into the army. And he was hired by the san francisco fire department and he
at that time became the first black firefighter for the city of san francisco. For 12 years he remained the city's only black firefighter and he continued in service in
the department for nearly 30 years.
Throughout his tenure at the
department, earl gage Jr.
Diligently worked to have inclusive and equitable
processes for the san francisco fire department recruitment and the integration of the department. Prior to his department from the
fire department in 1983, he
served as a department director of community services and adopted progressive hiring policies that increased the racial diversity within the department.
He passed away on July 30, 2017, at the age of 90.
And his legacy of staunch
dedication to the defense of civil rights and the people of san francisco continues to shape our city to this day. The resolution before you today
will memorialize this local icon
by changing the name of willow
street, and between buchanan and
laguna street to earl gage Jr. Street and it has strong community support. I urge the members of the board of supervisors to join me in honoring the memory of this civil rights hero by supporting
the resolution to re-name willow street for earl gage Jr.
Thank you.
>> President Yee: supervisor mandelman.
>> Supervisor Mandelman: thank you.
I am a co-sponsor.
>> President Yee: supervisor mar.
>> Supervisor Mar: I thank supervisor peskin for bringing this item forward and I would
like to be added as a co-sponsor.
>> Clerk: thank you.
>> President Yee: Madam Clerk, can I have the roll.
>> Clerk: yes, on item 10,
supervisor stefani.
>> Supervisor Stefani: aye. I would like my name on the roll
to be 5ded as a co-sponsor, thank you.
>> Clerk: stefani, aye.
Supervisor walton? Walton, aye. Supervisor yee. Yee, aye.
Supervisor fewer.
>> Supervisor Fewer: aye and please add me as a co should have sponsor too.
>> Clerk: thank you. Fewer, aye. And supervisor haney.
>> Supervisor Haney: I would
like to be a co-sponsor.
>> Clerk: thank you. Haney, aye. Supervisor mandelman. Mandelman, aye.
Supervisor mar. Mar, aye.
Supervisor peskin. Peskin, aye. Supervisor preston. Preston, aye.
And supervisor ronen. Ronen, aye.
Supervisor safai. safai, aye. There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay. Without objection the resolution
is adopted unanimously.
Madam Clerk, please go to our next item 11.
>> Clerk: a resolution to approve the list of projects to
be funded by the fiscal year
2020 through 2021, road maintenance and rehabilitation account funds as established by
the california senate bill 1, the road repair and
accountability act of 2017.
>> President Yee: okay. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll.
>> Clerk: on item 11, supervisor stefani. Stefani, aye.
Supervisor walton. Walton, aye. Supervisor yee.
Yee, aye. Supervisor fewer. Fewer, aye. Supervisor haney.
Haney, aye.
Supervisor mandelman. Mandelman, aye. Supervisor mar. Mar, aye. Supervisor peskin.
Peskin, aye. Supervisor preston.
Preston, aye. Supervisor ronen. Ronen, aye.
Supervisor safai. Safai, aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: without objection, the resolution is adopted unanimously.
Madam Clerk, let's go to our committee report.
>> Clerk: item 12 was considered by the rules
committee at a regular meeting
on monday, April 27th, and it was forwarded as a committee report. It was recommended as amended with a new title. Item 12 is a motion to approve
the mayor's nomination for
reappointment of cristina rubke, for the municipal transportation
agency board of directors, term ending March 1, 2024.
>> President Yee: please call roll.
>> Clerk: on item 12, supervisor stefani. Stefani, aye.
Supervisor walton. >> Supervisor Walton: redirect.
>> Clerk: okay. Actually you cannot do that, supervisor walton, when your name is called you have to state
yes or no or aye or no.
>> Supervisor Walton: it's moving too fast. I'm sorry, dealing with all of this technology.
I would like to move to continue this item to next week's meeting.
I'm sorry. >> seconded.
>> seconded.
>> Clerk: Mr. President -- you can rescind the vote. There's a board rule which the board has not yet suspended which is that the roll call vote May not be suspended, but given
the fact that we have new
technology and we are working to provide a grouping of rules that
we would like to retroactively
suspend, I am happy to write the motion made by supervisor
walton, seconded by supervisor peskin, is that correct, okay?
>> President Yee: so there's a
motion made and seconded. The roll call on the motion.
>> Clerk: just to be sure that I have the date right,
supervisor walton is that May 5th?
>> Supervisor Walton: that is right, Madam Clerk and thank you so much.
>> Clerk: okay, thank you. And you're welcome.
>> President Yee: hold on. Before we take the roll call,
supervisor mandelman?
>> Supervisor Mandelman: this is item 12 that is being -- we're talking about continuing now?
>> President Yee: yes.
>> Supervisor Mandelman: if I could just ask the maker of the motion briefly why are we
continuing this?
>> Supervisor Walton: I
haven't had a chance to get
information and I have a meeting
with the candidate.
>> Supervisor Mandelman: got it.
>> President Yee: okay.
Go ahead and call the roll.
>> Clerk: okay.
On the motion to continue to May
5th, supervisor stefani.
Stefani, aye. Supervisor walton.
Walton, aye. Supervisor yee. Yee, aye. Supervisor fewer.
Fewer, aye. Supervisor haney.
Haney, aye.
Supervisor mandelman. Mandelman, aye. Supervisor mar.
Mar, aye. Supervisor peskin. Peskin, aye. Supervisor preston.
preston, aye. Supervisor ronen. Ronen, aye.
Supervisor safai. Safai, aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: so the motion to continue this item to
May 5th is passed unanimously.
Madam Clerk, let's go to roll
call for introductions.
>> Clerk: supervisor
stephanie, you are up first.
>> Supervisor Stefani: thank you, Madam Clerk. I have a few things today.
With my co-sponsor peskin, I'm introducing a resolution to
recognize the 150th birthday
of apgne and to declare May 6,
2020, apnge day in san francisco. This is what I hoped would become a beginning of a renaissance in the understanding
around the life and legacy of this incredible man. He's a giant in the community and in san francisco history. Many people May already know that he founded the bank of
italy which would grow to become the bank of america. But most people, myself included, did not know the depth of his support for women,
immigrants and all san franciscoians. He started the bank of italy in 1984 and from the start he welcomed people who had been excluded from the banking
system, including immigrants, farmers, small businesses, minorities and women, to tremendous financial success. Shortly after women won the right to vote, he started a women's banking department which was directed and staffed entirely by women.
This is 1904 and provided women
with blending -- no -- not 1904 -- but a long time ago.
With the involvement of their husbands and checking accounts for women had not been in the united states. This anniversary is special and
not only his 150th birthday but because his life held so many lessons for exactly the kind of crisis that we're experiencing today.
Just two years after founding the bank of italy the great earthquake of 1906 struck and the fire that ensued destroyed much of the city. He rose to the occasion and put
a wooden plank across two
barrels on the van ness avenue so that customers could make deposits and withdrawals. For weeks after the disaster he
was almost alone in refinancing
the rebuilding of this city.
Without this, san francisco May not exist as it does today. It's exactly this moment when our city has been paralyzed by yet another disaster and we all struggle to rise to the occasion that we most need to consider the lessons of his legacy. How do we emerge from this disaster and learn from it so we're more resilient than before? How do we make sure that the benefits of our actions are felt by everyone, even those who are hardest to reach?
And how can we build a city today and go through a crisis that 8 still be here in another
hundred years stronger than ever? One last accomplishment that I want to highlight is the
creation of the foundation which he founded on his 75th birthday in 1945. The foundation was created to support innovative research in
medical science and has funded
over 900 post-docker
-doctorials in research. And it's the very best that the next generation has to offer. And he had the foresight to know that we would need their help.
I want to thank this idea for being brought forward and I want to encourage everyone to take the opportunity on May sixth to explore the life and the lessons of this tremendous san francisco
historic figure.
Also today I'm submitting a
letter of inquiry to the city's administrator's office to ask
for the status of appointing a county veterans' officer for san francisco.
And each state in california has a veteran service officer who
advocates on behalf of the county's veterans and is often the first point of contact for accessing senses. In san francisco, however, this position has been vacant for
over a year, though the veterans' affairs commission asked in February that this position to be filled on an interim basis. The city's response to the covid-19 pandemic has
necessarily slowed all unrelated city business. But it would be a mistake to
consider filling this role unrelated. The veteran population in san francisco is represented in confirmed cases as well as deaths caused by covid-19. and our veterans, health care and service providers, have been strained by a lack of personal protective equipment and an increased need for services.
We need greater coordination to track and plonittor the spread
of the virus among our veteran population and we absolutely must make sure that our veterans have access to every resource available to them during this difficult time.
At the very least, we must fill this position on an interim basis to help our veterans to
navigate, local, state, and non-profit resources as we gapel with the covid-19 while the city
works to recruit a permanent veterans' service officer. I look forward to looking forward to work with an individual of the highest calibre to fill this position as soon as possible.
Our veterans deserve no less. Finally, I want to recognize that our community has stepped up to help the most vulnerable among us in many ways. In March, for example, my
neighbor ryan reached out to ask
how his company could help to stop the spread. We worked together with mayor breed to coordinate a delivery
of 60,000 surgical masks and
34,000 gloves and 2,000 surgical
gowns and 50 thermometers to support our frontline health
care workers in response to the coronavirus. These along with texts and calls and emails from other neighbors asking how to help inspired me to launch a virtual call-in program to reach out to district
2 neighbors directly and to check on everyone. i want to thank all of the volunteers who helped with that project and as we work together
as a city I'm also asking myself what lever I can personally pull
to confront this pandemic head-on. And some of the most harmful aspects have been the severe and lasting impacts on our local economy. This has hit the independent contractors and small businesses especially hard. And federal support has quickly
dried up.
We combat this issue today and I
have reallocated $49,000 from my resiliency and economic development fund to buy food from local small businesses for those experiencing food insecurity and for our health care workers and first responders. Our small businesses are
struggling more now than ever and this will give a lifeline to those corridors that desperately need more business. I'll announce more details in the coming weeks.
This is an extremely difficult time and it's affected all of us in different ways but we're in this together and we'll get through it together.
And the rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor stefani. Supervisor walton.
>> Supervisor Walton: thank you so much, Madam Clerk. Colleagues, this afternoon I
have two resolutions to present today. In light of the new data that
has been provided about covid-19
cases, by zip code and deaths
and by rates it's become more imperative that we concentrate on areas where the most cases exist and how to address them.
Today I am introducing a resolution calling for the
department of public health to prioritize populations most
affected by covid-19 and to step
up the care of our people of color. We have been working hard to
give real-time data in san francisco on the number of
covid-19 deaths by district, zip code and by race. From the department of public health and from the emergency operations system. The data demonstrates that there
have been 23 coronavirus deaths in san francisco.
And we know that out of 23
deaths that over 78% of them are
people of color. Why is this important? This data provides insight as to
how people of color May not be proactively receiving the information and the supports
they need as the more vulnerable populations.
In addition, we want to save lives and to be proactive about the spread in our community.
We know that the most vulnerable
communities that are susceptible to the virus should be prioritized and protected. Therefore, we demand that the
city provide us with implementation of pop-up testing sites throughout the zip codes
with the highest rates of covid-19 cases.
These sites should test asymptomatic residents to avoid the spread and to prevent the
increase of cases and deaths. Two additional field care clinics in the areas with the
highest numbers of covid-19 cases in order to provide
necessary medical treatment and urgent care supports.
Three, the deployment of proper personal protective equipment for employees and the members of
the community and areas with more vulnerable and susceptible
to contracting the coronavirus. Four, increase the resources for
outreach and education in areas
that need a more concentrated
and culturally competent and
effective strategy to inform
people about the latest health orders.
And imperative updates in order
to increase compliance in hotspot areas. Five, immediately provide testing to our homeless population and congra conagree
congreate
systems, and to test unhoused people.
Six, to place homeless people
who are capable of caring for themselves into hotels to prevent transmission in an already vulnerable population. Secondly, colleagues, today I'm
introducing a resolution urging the san francisco sheriff's department to implement virtual visits for children with incarcerated parents.
I would like to thank my co-sponsors, supervisors haney and peskin and ronen and
preston, fewer and mar and safai.
We applaud the work that the
district attorney and the sheriff's department has done to decrease
the number of inmates in our county jail in light of the covid-19 crisis.
And as of today we have 728
inmates in custody.
All county jail visits have been suspended in order to protect people in custody and this includes suspending children
from visiting their incarcerated parents. Children with incarcerated parents already face a wide range of challenges with very few services, specifically
designed to support youth with
this unique but widespread experience.
The maintenance of family ties during incarceration is one
possible means of lessening the
negative impact of incarceration
on families and children and most incarcerated parents. They need to and they must maintain a relationship with their children, including with
their education. And in 2003, the san francisco
children of incarcerated parents
partnership published the parents rights which includes a right to not be judged, blamed or labeled because of a child or
a parent's incarceration.
And a right to support
children's struggle with their parents' incarceration and a right to a life long relationship with their parents.
The san francisco sheriff's department currently operates a program called "one family" in which inmates are required to enroll in parenting classes and then assigned a case manager to
work with the family to ensure a
therapeutic and meaningful
relationship is built through parent-child visitation.
This program currently serves about 40 incarcerated parents in our jail system.
During this covid-19 crisis, the san francisco sheriff's
department has systems and technology in place allowing the virtual court appointments and
virtual visits with attorneys. Extending this to allow the virtual visits between children and their incarcerated parents will allow our children to continue to build on their relationships that were established prior to the pandemic without further interruption and the fact that
we are conducting visits for court appointments as well as visits with attorneys, we know that we have the technology to
provide visits for families to
come and see inmates. On behalf of the board we would
like to urge that the sheriff's department implement virtual
conferencing for inmates to have the opportunities to connect with their children and continue
to strengthen the parent-child
bond in accordance with the children's bill of rights.
The rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor walton.
Supervisor yee.
>> President Yee: thank you, Madam Clerk.
Supervisor walton, please add me
as a co-sponsor to your virtual
visitation with the inmates with children.
>> Supervisor Walton: thank you, President.
>> President Yee: today I'm introducing a resolution urging
support for assembly
constitution amendment 5, which
is also known as aca5.
To place a measure on the
November 2020 state-wide ballot
to repeal proposition 209.
For those of you who May not
remember, in 1996, our governor
at the time pete wilson
spearheaded the help behind 209
to get ready of affirmative action institutions. In comparison with other states
who continue to have further
action policies we have seen
women and people of color in california fall further behind losing out on the government
contracts and job opportunities
and dropping to the system.
And it is important that the community stands strong behind this effort and I want to thank my colleagues, supervisors fewer
and supervisor mar, for their co-sponsorship.
In 1996, the campaign for prop 209 used the asian community to drive a wedge between the communities of color.
As we have seen in our current
pandemic, this community of
color suffer a disproportionate negative impact.
If we are to have an equitable
recovery, we must be able to
respond in a race and gender
conscious way.
Prop 209 hinders our ability to direct resources to the communities that need the most help.
Now more than ever it's time to
repeal proposition 209. I urge all of my colleagues to
join me in sending a strong
message to our california
legislators now to approve
approve aca5
to place a repeal of proposition
209 on the November ballot.
Two, I'm introducing a
resolution to re-opening the treasurers office. So coal
colleagues I'll introduce
this along with supervisor safai, a resolution on re-opening the treasurer and the
tax collector office to the public.
Property taxes were due on
April 10th, but they're not to
the shelter-in-place order, but
due to the shelter-in-place order and the subsequent closure of the city -- city hall to the public -- we closed the treasurer and tax collector's office. The city administrator will be
amending the previous order allowing members of the public
to access city hall for specific purposes, including essential businesses with the treasurer of tax collector.
Therefore, the treasurer and tax collector's office will be set
to re-open on friday, May 15th
15th, 2020, for regular -- for
regular business hours.
So that the taxpayers who have
not paid yet and they May do so
online, by email or in person at
city hall by this date.
May 15th, will be the new deadline.
If the taxpayer has any
challenges due to covid-19, they
May request a penalty waiver for
later payments after May 15th.
And we are working with the
treasurer -- with the treasurer
to ensure that taxpayers receive
notice and assistance.
I also am introducing a resolution along with supervisor
ronen, fewer, walton, peskin and
mar, that urges governor newsome to have a universal set of
election reforms in advance of
the November's presidential election. I think that
thank the coalition of organizations including san francisco rising, who are
leading this advocacy effort. While the cautionary measures
need to be taken to ensure public safety during the
election, we cannot allow
democracy to be undermined by
counties and by county discretion.
We need a universal state-wide
vote-by-mail option and also alternative ways to vote in
person that are substantial and
equal across the state for people who are unable to vote by mail.
We urge for more protections for voter access, especially those
who have been infrequent voters in the past.
And massive public education on how to vote in November and
ensuring that the equity in any
model that we implement so that elderly people, and people with disabilities and young voters
and others have fair and equal access. We want to provide that for everybody.
And, lastly, I will be
introducing a series of resolutions or ordinances
regarding the balboa reservoir legislation. Today I introduced the legislation to initiate the
city's review process for the balboa reservoir project that
has been in discussion since 2015.
And with ordinance on the
development agreement and the
establishment of a special unit
district. I'm sorry, a special use district.
This project is located on
17-acres of P.U.C. Land adjacent to city college of san francisco.
And with proposed with a housing
project that includes 50% of
affordability of the units,
which is a huge -- really a huge
win for the community.
Nearly four acres of the publicly accessible space would
be included and there will be
buildings of a child care center
that would accommodate 100 children. When discussion first started,
there really was not a process
as robust as the one that we've
created here for this project. And this is because we had
created a balboa community advisory committee that helped
to really shape the principles and parameters and the guidance for the potential project. I'm really commending the work of the committee members, the
staff, and the economic workforce development and planning and the community members for making this possible.
Today's introduction is a start. In order to allow the public and
the community to fully engage in
this next phase it's important
for us to have the department or
the development agreement, and the special legislation available to the public for review.
By no means are these final documents. It is a starting point.
And I want to emphasize that to
the community that's been engaged. I am also introducing
legislation to extend the life
of the committee, the community
advisory committee, to July 1,
2021, so that it can continue serving throughout the process
and beyond the project's potential entitlement. I think that community engagement is key and I look
forward to ongoing public discussions about these
ordinances as they go through the planning commission and back
to the board of supervisors.
This will take place over a few
months so I do want to emphasize
to the public and to you, my
colleagues, that I welcome your feedback and I look forward to working with you to bring the best possible project forward
and to bring much-needed family housing to my district. The rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, Mr. President.
Next up is supervisor fewer.
>> Supervisor Fewer: yes, thank you, Madam Clerk and President Yee. We are grappling with the challenges of housing for our unhoused population, even before the emergence of covid-19.
While we continue to prioritize
that there's more hotel rooms to
house our most vulnerable, we recognize that all of our unhoused neighbors are vulnerable and need a safe place
to shelter-in-place, even if
they're unable to obtain a hotel room.
I thank supervisor mandelman for bringing forth the resolution
which I co-sponsored in support
of safe encampment sites. To build on this resolution, supervisor mar and I are working with the city attorney
attorney to open up suitable sites, including
land owned by rec and park for
the purpose of establishing safe encampment sites. 70% of the golden gate park is in my district. And I have identified specific
areas which would be perfect for safe encampment sites. These sites would have bathrooms
and enough room for tents to be
placed up so that residents have access to the hygiene and the social distancing practices necessary to prevent the spread
of covid-19 which is a top priority. Though this is not a permanent solution to homelessness and not as good as a hotel room, it is certainly better than leaving
our unhoused folks on our sidewalks. Look forward to exploring this further with supervisor mar and the city attorney and I hope to have resolution ready for introduction by next week. The rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor fewer.
Supervisor haney.
>> Supervisor Haney: already.
I have one item on resolution that I'm introducing today in
support of our resident physicians who are on the front
line of our hospital systems testing, treating and saving the lives of our communities that
have been diagnosed with the covid-19.
As we're all aware, the national shortages of P.P.E. Have left
many of our frontline workers exposed, but in addition to that the resident physicians and
their residency training don't always enjoy the same rights as full-time staff. Nationwide they have been fighting for child care, mental
health services, paid leave, as
well as disability insurance and protections for especially
vulnerable physician whose May be immunocompromised.
And they're fighting to make sure that there are not any
changes in rotation or missed
time due to covid-19 that could
lead to the extension of the residency training and for them
to complete their time as a resident. Last week the union representing resident physicians, the committee of interim and residents, sent a letter to the accreditation council for
graduate medical education through the accreditation authority to hold the leverage to ensure that the hospitals and employers are taking appropriate precautions to keep the resident physicians safe while they are
treating covid-19 patients.
This open letter to acgme asked for 10 points to ensure that the hospitals put measures in place to promote safe and healthy working conditions so that the
resident physicians can continue to help patients and communities. It expressed solidarity with
resident physicians and strongly
urges the acgme to create standards that address the 10
points in the open letter of our resident physicians. As you all know, resident
physicians play a critical role
in our hospitals here in the city. And they're asking for our support. And I hope that we can have their backs. The rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor haney. Supervisor mandelman. >> Supervisor Mandelman: submit.
>> Clerk: okay, thank you.
Supervisor mar.
>> Supervisor Mar: submit.
>> Clerk: thank you.
Supervisor peskin?
>> Supervisor Peskin: thank you, Madam Clerk and colleagues.
Today on roll call I introduce a suspension of the vacancy tax.
As you all recall a very short
time ago on March seventh, san
francisco voters overwhelmingly
approved a tax throughout the city and districts. As an odd marker of time that less than two months ago that the coronavirus was not even part of the conversation because just one week after that
election, our way of life was
fundamentally flipped on its end. So today I'm introducing
legislation that would suspend
enforcement of the storefront
vacancy tax for the entire
calendar year of 2021, but I
want to be clear that the impetus for the legislation that
the voters voted for by a super
majority remains intact, and that we're expecting the best behavior from the commercial property owners relative to
helping stabilize small businesses.
And if we get the hint that these property owners are using this pandemic as an opportunity
to evict and displace residents and small businesses, we will
change our tune with regard to
the vacancy tax accordingly. Secondly, I'm also introducing a
resolution opposing assembly bill 2261, which would permit
the governments almost unlimited use of facial recognition technology which flies in the
face of the groundbreaking legislation that this board overwhelmingly passed last year to prohibit the use of that technology.
Not only does this undermine our
local law and the work of a vast
coalition of groups across the area but it undermines the residents and the visitors here in the city of san francisco.
This also has no basis in
response to the current emergency. We continue to have powerful interest groups exploit this public health crisis to
insidious ends, whether it's big oil undermining environmental
protections or in this instance,
big tech trying to expand into mass surveillance. I look forward to your support of this resolution when it comes before us next week.
And I want to thank my staff lee hepner for his constant work on this and feel free to reach out to me or him if you have any questions.
We will, of course, submit the
text of ab2261 with this
resolution, the rest I will submit. Thank you, Madam Clerk. >>
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor peskin.
And now supervisor preston.
>> Supervisor Preston: thank you, Madam Clerk. Colleagues, today I'm
introducing a resolution in
support of representative ilhan
omar's rent cancellation act
2020, and along with supervisors
ronen, supervisor haney, mar,
walton and fewer, and I'm calling upon california's leadership at the national level
to join us in support of this critical measure.
We know that even before the coronavirus state of emergency,
thousands of san franciscoians were struggling to make ends meet with estimates showing that the average renter was already paying nearly half of their monthly income on rent.
And as we enter this seventh week now of the
shelter-in-place, we know that this already dire situation is only getting worse. And I know that many of you,
like me, have been responding to calls and emails from constituents who are deeply worried about how they will
survive the coming months and
years as we weather this crisis and its aftermath.
This is a time for elected
leaders at all levels to step up and to take bold action and I know that my colleagues on this board have heeded that call. I want to thank in particular
supervisors ronen and haney for leading the charge with their resolution to urge state and
federal governments to cancel
rent and mortgage payments, a resolution that passed
unanimously by this body on March 31st. Representative omar's bill
introduced on April 17th is in
part a reflection of the growing grassroots call across the
country for rent and mortgage relief. Activists nationwide and particularly across california
have been working tirelessly to
make this happen, including organizations and alliances like
right to the city, homes for
all, homes for all california,
tenants together, the democratic socialists of america, housing
as a human right and pico
california. Particularly across california they have been working
tirelessly to make this happen, including organizations and
alliances like right to the city, homes for all, homes for all california, tenants together, the democratic socialists of america, housing
as a human right and pico california. The rent and mortgage
cancellation act of 20 -- [No
audio] -- is for renters.
It is imperative that we urge our representative at the
national level to locally to support this measure,
particularly speaker pelosi whose support will be so
important to make sure that this legislation moves forward. And I want to encourage all of
my colleagues to approve this
legislation without delay.
In closing, I want to thank
representative omar for
sponsoring this old bill. Also I thank the democratic socialists of america, both the
san francisco and the national, for their organizing and support of this effort.
In particular peter gowan of D.S.A. For his work in drafting
this measure with representative
omar's team, and jen snyder of my office who have been working
with them and advocates on this effort. And all of my colleagues who
have joined as early co-sponsors of this resolution. The rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor peskin.
Supervisor ronen.
>> Supervisor Ronen: today I'm
introducing a resolution urging mayors and the department of public health to the department of homelessness and supportive
housing to adopt five specific
actions to address the disproportionate incidence of covid-19 in the mission district
and within the latin population.
Last week when we received geographical data it confirmed
what my office had been hearing. The mission district in
particular the latin ex
community is suffering disproportionately from covid-19.
Up to 1,424 confirmed cases in
san francisco, and D.P.H.
Reports that nearly one-third of those in the entire city are
identified as latin, and that the 94100 zip code where the
mission is located has 182 covid-19 positive people, the highest of any neighborhood. There are shocking and sad numbers when you consider that the latin ex community after years of displacement now
comprises only 15% of the city's
total population.
Latin x san franciscoians are affected at twice the arrest of the population in the city. And current conditions with the extreme cost of living in san
francisco has forced many latin
x people, newly arrived
immigrants, into congregate
living settings, where often multiple families share one or
two rooms that are unsafe
unsafe. And the people who also work in essential industries such as food cultivation and production
and retail shops with food and supplies and transportation are unable to shelter in place increasing their chances of exposure. And, of course, it doesn't help
that the current white house
administration has made its central focus to restrict the rights of immigrant and their access to covid-19 relief and it has created a climate of fear and distrust where the immigrants question whether to seek medical care at all. In response and in conjunction
with my office and the latin x
task force on covid-19, I'm urging the city to have a five-point plan to, one, to establish a communication and
outreach programs specifically
to reach the mission latin x community.
With a special messages
regarding immigration, consequences or the lack thereof if they avail themselves of public assistance during this time.
Number two, create a robust food and miscellaneous expense security program that allows for flexible purchases at local markets and shops to support families with positive covid-19 cases. Number three, develop a rapid referral and response program to monitor and to assist covid-19 positive patients and their families to ensure that quarantine and isolation are
quickly and safely obtained.
Number four, increase covid-19
testing capacity within the
mission by resourcing trusted community clinics and health care providers with tests and personal protective equipment. and, finally, number five, to
commit to relocate any san
francisco resident, given there
are so many homeless people
living in the zip code where the
majority of covid-19 cases have
been found in the city, to
safely isolate in hotels immediately. This past weekend my office partnered with the latino task
force on covid-19, along with an amazing group of community volunteers to launch a comprehensive testing program
open to all in one system. And to understand the extent of the virus' spread in our community. But even with the data that we have so far we know that we
cannot afford to wait any longer
to protect this community.
I also just wanted to make a few
comments about supervisor
preston's resolution supporting
the new legislation authored by ilhan omar and I thank supervisor peskin for taking a lead on this resolution.
As you all know several weeks ago we unanimously passed a resolution that supervisor haney and I authored calling upon the state and the federal government to take action on rent and mortgage cancellations. Since then we have been working
with other progressive electives and advocates and it's a relief to see the momentum that is building on this issue around the country. Thankfully representative omar along with a number of new progressive leaders in congress have the heart and the guts to take on this fight.
With much of our economy shutdown, the reality is that people simply cannot pay rent and mortgage. There are reports that something like a third of renters didn't pay on April 1st. With May 1 1 approaching we know that number will grow.
It's clear to me that rent and mortgage cancellation must go hand in hand to protect the homeowners and the landlords and renters.
We cannot have people paralyzed under crushing debt.
If we do not tack them now we're heading to a humanitarian crisis. It's the responsibility of government to act and I'm relieved and impressed that representative omar is showing the strong and responsible leadership that we need right now.
I urge all of my colleagues to add their names to this resolution so that we can send a
strong and united message to our own congressional representatives.
And the rest I submit. Thanks.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor ronen.
Supervisor safai.
>> Supervisor Safai: thank you, Madam Clerk. I have a few things they want to clarify.
First, I definitely want to be
added to President Yee's urging
resolution repealing prop 209.
That's a wonderful piece of legislation.
I would also want to be added --
and I have already let them know
for the vote-by-mail and
clarifying the voting process for the fall.
to not have impediments to voting getting in the way of
that during this covid crisis.
And then also I want to say
thank you to supervisor walton
for introducing his legislation on urging the department of public health to implement additional measures, particularly about looking at the zip codes. This is building on what supervisor ronen just talked
about, but we have the second highest number of cases in my
district by zip code in the city. One of the highest populations -- the second highest population of the latino community in my district that
needs that extra level of
testing, that extra level of engagement, and resources. So I really appreciate
supervisor walton for putting --
urging resolution forward and
absolutely a co-sponsor of that. The other thing that I'd like to talk about, and thank you supervisor ronen for your words and your legislation, we look forward to working with you on
what you just introduced, so it
can also encompass my district, the second highest population that you just talked about.
And then, finally, I'm asking
the city attorney and asking her today, our city attorney and
their office to focus on non-judicial closures.
We found out about a non-judicial foreclosure happening on the backside of
city hall, on the steps of city hall, in the midst of this crisis. To the point that many of our colleagues have made today, there are a lot of individuals that are dealing with so many different aspects of financial crisis.
The idea that we would allow
under a very narrow area -- and, yes, it is the emergency order allow for residential real estate transactions to take place.
But we want to close that loophole. My office, my staff went outside, we helped to break up the foreclosure proceedings that were happening. An individual came on behalf of one of the clints trying to get the court to temporarily to enjoin the sale of their property, but because the courts are shut down and so backed up they were not able to do that. I believe that it's unconscionable at this moment to allow
allow foreclosures to happen on
individuals, particularly under
this condition. We'll ask the city attorney -- either we do it through our own
emergency resolution or we will work with the mayor's office to
amend their upcoming next emergency order so that we would not allow under any circumstance
during this health crisis,
whether it's in person or via remote non-judicial foreclosures and the foreclosures that are happening in this county.
And the rest I submit.
>> Clerk: thank you, supervisor safai. And Mr. President, I don't believe that there are any names
on the roster. That should include the introduction of new business.
>> President Yee: thank you, madam clerk.
Why don't we go back to just check on item -- I think that it was item 9.
>> Clerk: item 9, yes.
The possessory interest on
secured roll pier 730 and special tax districts. I believe that an
ann pierson and ready and available. >> yes, thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you so much for continuing the item to give me the time to consult with my colleagues. As I indicated, I have been advised by port counsel that this resolution needed to be passed today in order for the -- or to implement the board's decision to place the taxes on the secured roll within the time required under state law. Which is required to make the
bonds marketable.
If the bonds were to be pulled
before any time before March 31, 2021. And we had time to confirm with
the assessry office to still
comply with the one-week continuance. This actually does not authorize the city or the port to sell bonds and only places the taxes on the secured roll in
preparation for those bonds.
>> President Yee: who from the
assessors office?
>> it's deputy city attorney
carol rore.
>> President Yee: could we --
could we get her on the line?
>> she is not connected to teams, so she has dialed into a
number that was provided to her. And I know that she's dialed in and I think that there's a time
lag for those who dial in as opposed to participating on teams. But she's advised me that she has dialed in.
>> President Yee: is there
anyone from the port? >> wyatt from the port is available.
>> President Yee: so we have
deputy city attorney
representing the -- I guess the
city assessor's office, carol ror -- >> hello, can anybody hear me?
>> President Yee: yes, but hold on. We're not asking for you yet. >> thank you.
>> President Yee: we have
wyatt, what is the last name,
wyatt? Donoway. Available from the port to
answer any questions.
Does anybody have any questions
for these two?
I'm trying to figure out who has
their name first.
Supervisor walton, is that you?
>> Supervisor Walton: yes, thank you so much, President Yee.
And thank you so much.
Please Stand By: >> okay. And Mr. Donald?
Are you concurring with that?
>> as long as the assessor's
office is able to place the
taxes on the secured role in a timely manner in accordance with state law to get them on for
July 1, 2020, then we would be
able to move forward with bonds next fiscal year.
>> President Yee: thank you.
There has been a motion made by
supervisor walton and seconded
by supervisor peskin, I believe.
Continue this item to the May 5th meeting.
madame clerk, can you take the roll?
>> on the continuance of item 9
to May 6, stefani no.
Walton yes.
Yee aye.
Fewer aye.
Haney aye.
Mandelman aye.
Mar aye.
Peskin aye.
Preston aye.
Ronen aye.
Safai aye.
There are 10 ayes and one no,
with supervisor stefani in dissent.
>> President Yee: there is 10-1
vote to support the motion to
continue the item to May 5.
Madame Clerk, let's go to item
14, public comment.
>> Clerk: item 14 is public comment, is the opportunity for the public to provide their live comments for up to two minutes.
If you dialled in early and you
haven't already done so, then
please press 1, then 0, to be added to the queue. You should only do that one time and wait for the system to prompt you to speak. For those of you just now
calling in, the telephone number
is displayed on your screen.
888: 204-5984.
And when prompted, enter the
access code, 3501008 and press
pound and press pound again to join the meeting.
Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to
the queue and wait for the system to prompt you. Once your two minutes are concluded we'll move you out of
the speaker line, but you'll
still be able to listen to the meeting. We have individuals on hand who
i'm going to ask to present themselves and they are standing
by from the office of civic
engagement and will be able to
interpret your public comment for you.
Miss Lee, can you begin? >> hi.
[Speaking Foreign Language]
[Speaking Foreign Language]
>> President Yee: Madame Clerk?
>> Clerk: thank you.
[Speaking spanish] Thank you.
>> Clerk: thank you.
And next. >>>
[Speaking Foreign Language]
[Speaking Foreign Language]
>> Clerk: great. Thank you very much.
And now to our callers.
For those callers who have
already dialled 1 and then 0,
are there any callers ready to speak?
>> we have callers in the queue.
Let me queue the caller.
>> Clerk: all callers are welcome.
Thank you.
You'll each have two minutes to speak. >> you have 14 questions
remaining. >> hello. I'd like to take this
opportunity to endorse adam
co-cash, the head of the party. Former san francisco district attorney famously remarked the
first casualty of war is -- I'd
like to use my two minutes to fame to speak to power because the -- [Inaudible] -- we're expected to believe
there is a health crisis the
same day they furlough 14,000 health care workers.
What is really going on?
the chronicle isn't going to
report that china reported an ultimate um
ultimatum. They're not going to report that
there is currently a fleet of
oiler tankers idling outside the golden gate.
The chronicle is not going to report that the U.S. Generals
have not gone to the bunkers.
They're not going to report that
the reason the bay is targeted
for stay-at-home is the --
reverend amos brown and others
are being paid directly by the department of homeland security. There is a shortage of jail staff because of the activation of pentagon reserves. The chronicle didn't going to
report there is a rollout and
there is was a black out.
The real reason for ventilation
is the casualties on west coast.
Will you please be honest with us? Thank you. >> you have 13 questions
remaining.
>> my name is francisco.
I strongly feel that public
comment should be taken in the beginning.
You all need to adhere to the
people, because as I have said
many times, maybe two or three
of you all are really concerned with the pandemic and have your
hearts in the right place.
Our citizens and others
shouldn't be living 14, 15, 16
in a one-bedroom.
You all know what happens.
And we need to bring, Dr. Grant colfax
colfax, harland kelly, and
others who no nothing whatsoever
about insulin management.
in fact today we don't have a
toxicologist, a well qualified toxicologist.
We do not have, as I said many
times, an experienced incident
management commander. We have lackeys.
It started with somebody saying,
I'm from the board of
supervisors and we do this and do that.
That's all B.S. Our people are suffering and our people are dying. I think the time has come like
the previous caller stated for
us to have this city charged.
Crimes against humanity.
Crimes against humanity. You supervisors by large measure
are not educated on issues.
And only one or two or three of
you have your heart in the right place. Thank you very much. >> thank you. Next speaker. >> you have 12 questions
remaining.
>> good afternoon, President Yee and supervisors. A couple of comments.
First off I wanted to thank you for the remote access.
I hope when you get back to city hall, it will continue. This has been very helpful.
I would agree with the previous caller that public comments
could happen at a set time so we don't have to sit here for an hour waiting for our turn.
And then secondly, I want to
thank mayor breed for her
leadership in this pandemic.
It's been amazing and an inspiration.
I wanted to talk about the safe sleeping sites.
While I support the notion and
the idea of getting these
unsheltered people off our
sidewalks and befuddled why we allowed them to pitch their tents there to begin with, that
said, I do support collecting them into some safe sleeping
sites which I guess could be urban refugee camps. But I also am concerned that
this needs to be done carefully.
I know there is a ton of -- in
support of middle school, as a
reminder, there are people
living around middle school, so
we might be taking them off the
front porches and putting them on the back porches. I get woken up in the middle of
the night by the four or five tents out from front.
If there is 50 or 200 in the back, what about yard views and music at night?
You know, concentrating these
people outside our homes is problematic, so I would suggest we look at this carefully and make sure we select sites that
are appropriate like tennis courts and inside parks that don't have residents.
Thank you so much.
Good afternoon.
>> Announcer: you have 13
questions remaining.
>> what a happy surprise to hear
I have so many reasons to be proud.
But I was really proud to hear
you all assert that we needed to
get all of the people who are
living in the streets out of the streets and into the vacant hotel rooms.
As you know, cara, strongly supported your doing that.
I was really alarmed to see what the administration's response
is, and particularly these
ludicrous notions of making it
a -- you know, a huge profit making things for the empty hotels. I checked in with our legislative director today, who
is one of the other people
charged with getting our positions known to you, got her
letter and so did the mayor, and
we agreed it makes no sense
whatsoever to do the kind of
contracting that was proposed. I'm a federal employee. I realize it's not that the
people in the city are stupid,
it's just they haven't done this
kind of contracting before.
I said we needed to get the controller involved and the city
attorney. No government agency pays $79 to keep rooms on hold let alone
when you don't expect to have
hoards of japanese tourists to arrive by plane.
Even I used to arrange conferences, they held the rooms. The federal government had a certain amount they would pay, even in the best of time, take it or leave it.
And the hotels that normally would pay a lot more to charge other people, that's what they charged us.
We also -- not I --
contractors -- pardon me contracting offices leased
entire motels and so on, especially when I went through
courses in the army and so on
that might last for weeks or months.
I suggest you get a federal contracting officer -- >> you have 11 questions
remaining. >> hi.
just a momentum.
I'm going to start my timer. Hello. My name is michael.
I'm a public advocate and I have
three items to discuss.
The first is again I plead with
you, supervisors, especially
those who say you're
progressive, make public comment
before your roll call introductions. It would be great if we had a
fixed time for public comment. It would show respect that I
feel is lacking right now when
you put yourselves first to
ramble on without any time limits for roll call introductions while we, the people, are waiting to offer public comment. I have to say one good thing
that has come out of this terrible covid-19 epidemic, we no longer have to spend all the time to come down to city hall
and wait in the hallways to make public comment. Now we can do it from the
comfort of our homes.
Please make public comment at a
set time and make it before roll call introductions.
My second item is, I am calling on the four supervisors who currently moonlight in the second elective office as
members of the dccc.
It is really outrageous that you
four supervisors are taking time
away from our city hall duties
to engage in partisan politics.
I want you to resign from the dccc as soon as possible. My third final item is I'm
asking that you pass a
resolution calling on our member
of congress, Mrs. Pelosi, to
immediately start remote voting and virtual hearings for the house of representatives.
It is terrible that the house is not in session during this epidemic.
Thank you.
>> Announcer: you have 11
questions remaining. >> yes. Hi.
This is peter warfield, executive director of library users association. Thanks for all the work you're doing.
I want to point out there is a
very unfortunate assumption that
seems very widespread in city
government and beyond, that everyone has one or more
computers with access to the internet.
This is simply not true. The best information that we can get at the moment from the
library based on census bureau information is that 14% of san franciscans do not have access
to the internet.
That means 123,000+. And we believe that minorities,
the poor and the elderly are the hardest-hit.
It is a huge mistake therefore
to treat libraries as anything
but essential to the public. Both for those who have no access to the internet and for
those who do have access.
Of course, we would like all
people and library workers to be safe.
That's a given, but we do think that you supervisors and san
franciscans should see to it
that our well financed library
works toward safe and if necessary alternate nonelectronic service for the public.
this could include limited entry, books by mail, phone request pickups, expanded reference service and not the
shrunken time now provided from 10 to 5 only on monday to
friday.
We, now more than ever, need the benefits of the library, the
value of services, including trusted and reliable information.
Thank you.
>> you have 10 questions remaining.
>> hi, supervisors. District 8 tenant.
I'm so happy to listen to roll
call and hear that supervisor
dean preston has introduced a resolution to support the federal rent and mortgage cancellation act.
And that supervisors haney, mar,
I believe fewer and ronen are
among those who are supporting it. I think everybody should get on board and support this resolution.
In fact, I sent a one-pager to my supervisor mandelman. He read it.
I also sent a copy to scott wiener.
Supervisor mandelman answered me
back and said, sounds great.
So I hope he signs on because
this would be wonderful to have
this kind of solution.
There are 44 million renters in the united states and this is necessary.
Thanks.
>> Announcer: you have nine
questions remaining. >> hello.
I am a parent of someone who is incarcerated inside san francisco county jail and I'm also a grandmother.
The situation of not having
access to video conference has
affected my family on many levels.
My 3-year-old grandson has not seen his father in two-and-a-half months. You can imagine what that young
little boy is going through,
being very confused of what is going on.
It was already hard enough to
parent for my son who is suffering severe asthma.
I urge you board of supervisors
to urge the sheriff to make these visits happen. Every surrounding jail in the
bay area is doing it. I don't know why san francisco has to continue to be behind.
They have to come up with a
solution to support having these visits with children.
There are 40 inmates like supervisor walton said. Let's make it happen.
I urge you to support.
And let's stop this. Give opportunity to men and women to continue to parent their children while they're inside.
Thank you. >> thank you. Next speaker, please.
>> Announcer: you have 8
questions remaining.
>> my name is the charles head.
I'm the President Of the coalition for all san francisco neighborhoods. Not some, but all. We have watched the homeless crisis develop for a long time
and now we're watching the covid-19 crisis develop in
conjunction with that. Unsheltered people cannot
shelter in place. We're under shelter in order
places -- excuse me, orders.
The fact is that we have herd immunity, none of us do, but to ask people to shelter in place
on streets is unconscionable. It's like telling covid-19 to
call the herd and kill as many people as they can.
The mayor has resisted the ordinance to take care of the problem.
It was mentioned in "the chronicle" today.
Supervisor haney was quoted saying this was a unanimous
vote, this is big, this is huge.
Two of our groups have held
public meetings to form a
coalition of rescue S.F.
To take care of this problem,
which is great and we look
forward to suggestions about
everett middle school for places where people can shelter in place.
But this is going on for the end
of May and what about after that? Are we going to shelter in place? What is going to happen to the
people who are in hotel rooms,
who are in everett middle school, whatever? What has to be done? You need to think about that. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
Next speaker please. >> you have 7 questions
remaining.
>> this is randall sloan.
I was born by your body 2019 to represent -- on the san
francisco department of building
inspections S.R.O. Task force.
-- tenants to be -- board of
supervisors, the S.R.O. Task
force has been an hiatus for six months.
I'd like to raise the issue of
mayor breed's eviction
moratorium, written notifications. I'm lucky enough to have
consistent access to a smart
phone, while I know that many
S.R.O. Tenltsz do not.
To issue written notification
with supportive documentation to
invoke the moratorium is an
undue burden on S.R.O. Tenants.
I'd like you to shift the burden from tenants on the landlords
and operators and off the
shoulders of S.R.O. Tenants. Respectfully, randall sloan. >> thank you for your comments.
Next speaker.
>> Announcer: you have six
questions remaining. >> hello.
My name is -- I'm speaking on behalf of direct action everywhere. First I want to thank all of you for continuing to ensure that
peoples' voices are heard.
Also, I want to applaud all of you for your efforts to protect individuals at this time.
We know that the covid-19
pandemic has upended each of our
lives, but despite this, we have hope. We have hope that our community
is coming together and making
drastic changes to help our neighbors out.
Sadly, we do know that covid-19
is only one example in a long
history of human interactions leading to pandemic disease.
Three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases in
humans are from animals.
We know that additionally,
domesticated animals are bridges
where wild animals can transmit.
And we know that factory farms are providing ideal conditions
for these to mutate and spread
rapidly.
While we don't know that this is
going to be the only pandemic,
we know that it's imperative to address immediate issues
happening right now, but we must
not forget that it's really important that we are proactive
in trying to prevent future pandemics.
We can be certain that our
current system of animal
exploitation is creating opportunities for viruses to
jump from animals to human. And the flu viruses have the potential to infect billions of
people in a short period of time.
So it's clear that to prevent future pandemics, governments and institutions need to lead
the transition to a kinder, safer food system.
And one way that we can do that
is to change food policies.
>> thank you for your comments. >> you have five questions
remaining.
>> yes, this is david elliott lewis.
Longtime tenderloin resident.
Trying to see what we can do to facilitate the implementation of putting our unhoused residents in hotel rooms. I know the board passed unanimously.
The mayor has not signed it, or
is not willing to implement it.
Maybe something the board can do
to further encourage the mayor's
office and city to accept this, is to add an additional
component of sort of house rules and work requirements for
gaining these free rooms. So on occupant, in addition to the rules already provided by
the hotels, would have to agree to additional good-neighbor agreement. Not partying in the rooms,
things like that.
And maybe even give back time to
keep the building clean,
protected, safe. And that kind of stewardship of the space has been advocated by
other groups and I think it
might make the mayor's office
more willing to implement, if they feel that the property will be protected.
I see it every day, the
worsening conditions on our
streets, the increasing tents.
Anything we can do to encourage
the city and mayor's office to
move homeless into hotel rooms I
think will benefit everybody. Thank you for your time. >> thank you for your comments.
Next speaker.
>> Announcer: you have four
questions remaining. >> good afternoon, everyone.
My name is rocky chow from the animal rights organization direct action everywhere and I'm a resident born and raised in san francisco.
I would like to thank the board of supervisors here managing and providing us the updates we need to weather this covid-19 outbreak.
Especially in helping our
vulnerable propositions.
I populations. Although management is great, what is missing from this conversation is how we can prevent the next pandemic from
happening again.
According to the united nations environmental program they said
75% of emerging diseases such as
ebola, H.I.V., zika, sars, covid-19, comes directly from exploiting animals.
This is due to the continuation
and extension of animals encroaching into forest or other habitats of animals. Managing this crisis is essential, but prevention is key
to ensuring we do not have to face the economic and public health crisis we're facing today and in the near future, or in the future in general.
As ben franklin once said, an
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I as a constituent call on you to join the environmental public rights and health organization
to develop a link between animal
culture and outbreak. I thank you for your time.
>> thank you for your comments. Next speaker.
>> Announcer: you have three
questions remaining.
>> hi, my name is curtis
stanford, I'm a longtime tenderloin resident. There is so much I could talk about, but I want to raise a couple of key issues. One, you know here we are, another week has gone by and there is no testing going on in
the tenderloin neighborhood.
We already know it
disproportionately impacts tenderloin.
-- even the folks from the
shelter got counted as part of a different neighborhood. I know we're being unrepresented.
Folks in the tenderloin, we don't have the -- getting a test and running up there. we don't have health insurance or little health insurance. We're more likely to sit in the room and weather the sickness and never get tested.
So we need wider spread testing in the tenderloin.
Secondly, the government needs
to -- social distance, but
provide with the appropriate services and hygiene services especially, and food. And we have the resources and the means to do that. We could do that tomorrow.
There is a chance -- I three is
right now 75 tents on the street
in front of city hall.
No rest rooms or hand-washing stations. It's remarkable how little help
is provided to our in-house residents.
The street on J.F.K., in the middle of the park, the wide
open space, you need to close another street so folks have
room to social distance, yet they refuse to close streets in
the tenderloin where it's overcrowded.
And there is absolutely no way to practice any social distancing. Yet -- >> you have two questions
remaining.
>> hi, my name it cheryl. I moved in san francisco
district 8 for 40 years. I support resolution of
supervisor mandelman asked about
to create sanctions, safe
shelter options for those
persons, many who are currently living in tents on city
sidewalks using public areas
like city parking lots is a solution during this emergency. We need to recognize that the
ongoing situation of tents and encampments cannot be tolerated. It's putting all of us in danger.
We can't walk down the street without -- and practice our
isolation that we need to, our six-foot, because all of the tents in the streets.
This is just disgusting.
Thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. >> you have three questions
remaining. >> yeah, hi.
My name is jill.
I'm a nurse at city emergency here in san francisco general.
I want to thank you guys for
doing all the work you're doing
on the public health outreach. It's pretty amazing.
We had a meeting at the G.A.O.
On March 5th, about eight weeks
ago, a bunch of you supported it
because -- disaster and violence training.
Unsafe -- and ultimately questioned the management
practices.
We've had eight weeks of
planning -- [Inaudible]
-- one nurse for 100 people and a few other staff. A little bit more now.
But there has been very little
people what they're expected to do. And how to do it.
How is one nurse going to help
people sent there rule out covid patients? 100.
Um, stories I'm hearing are pretty horrible. The other thing I'm having a
problem with is people in the emergency department. they're either complaining of
the calls, they come to the
E.R., they want to go to P.L.
It's a tragic on this people.
3% budget cuts actually a month ago with a big fat budget and
trying to cut a lot more staffing and they're already short staffed and the community
is going to be in even greater need.
So I beg of you to -- the
help -- the covid hotels and
also to -- emergency rooms or san francisco general [Inaudible] .
Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> Announcer: you have two
questions remaining. >> hi.
My name is jessica layman. We have a lot of concerns about seniors and people with
disabilities facing this crisis.
We want to see our unhoused
people moved into hotels room.
And given P.P.E. And the ability to self-isolate as needed. And I wanted to comment specifically about nursing homes
and other congregate facilities
where news is starting to come
out of the huge impact of
covid-19 and we fear that
disabled people, disabled
seniors, are being neglected.
And there is a lot of questions from the department of public
health, around what kind of
P.P.E. Is being provided? What testing is happening?
What is the number of cases and deaths?
Why aren't these reported? The county website is not including these currently.
And why are people who are covid-positive transferred to
nursing home and putting other people at risk? So I've never seen this level of lack of transparency in san francisco.
And we hope that you all, as the board of supervisors, can act and make sure we get answers and that we protect our folks.
Thank you. >> thank you for your comments.
Next speaker.
>> Announcer: you have one
question remaining.
>> yeah, this is marshall --
action -- I really have to
say -- outrage at this situation
in nursing homes.
Doing a lot of -- lot of --
about it and it's happening here
in san francisco. There is so much uncertainty about how much testing is going
along, what kind of testing is
being done, who is being transferred where?
How much of people who are vulnerable being put into hotels?
But the one thing that is
absolutely certain is that the
transferring covid patients into nursing homes.
And this is outrageous.
It's like putting a match in fire.
The nursing homes are already filled.
They can't ensure there is
complete separation between this
covid that is devoted to covid patients.
There is staff that goes in and out.
There is no way it's possible to
have them really isolated.
And I think the bigger picture is that there is still hospital
space that could be used for covid patients, but hospitals
are out to make money and the
acute care is always -- pays more. San francisco is neglected
smith's and others congregate facilities for senior -- for people with disabilities. And they're also made to have
more home care for people.
So the board of supervisors really needs to -- >> you have four questions
remaining. >> hi.
This is -- action.
[Inaudible] Also michael ryan, we worry
about what is happening right now. Especially at the facilities
that -- hello?
That are being -- that are
being, um -- um accessible now
for, um, people that are, um, covid positive.
I think that is very high risk
that we need to make sure that
skill facilities are a priority
in getting tested.
And they should not be receiving
patients that are recovering or
in danger of being infected with this. So, please, do more for our seniors and people with disabilities.
Thank you.
>> Announcer: you have three
questions remaining.
>> hi.
My name is small and I'm an organizer at senior and disability action.
I live in district 9.
I'm also very concerned about the high rate of covid-19
infection in nursing homes and congregate living environments
for people with disabilities and elders and the high rates of death.
There was a recent article in "the guardian" that highlighted how many people have lost family members, that haven't even been
able to say goodbye to them, didn't know they were even near death. The horrible working conditions
that a lot of the workers in nursing homes are working under,
that are also deadly for patients.
With lack of P.P.E. And lack of
even time to wash their hands between patients at times.
And I would really like to see
the city of san francisco be
transparent about who is getting
tested, to demand that if a
person at a nursing home tests positive, that everyone living
and working there is testing. And not to have people who are positive with covid-19 into a nursing home as long as there is
troom treat them in the -- room
to treat them in the hospital
where they're less likely to pass it on. Please do what you can and
ensure that adequate testing and reporting is undergone immediately. Thank you.
>> thank you for your comments. >> you have two questions
remaining. >> hello. I'm an organizer, senior disability action as well.
So I'm also calling about
nursing homes and other
congregate facilities, because I'm really concerned about
underreporting which is putting disabled people and elders at risk.
And even broadly, it's having a serious impact on whole communities of people and
they're losing their loved ones.
People are dying right now and they have a right to be known
and remembered because their death should prevent further deaths.
By not taking action around nursing facilities and long-term
care facilities and other
congregate settings, living settings, the city is basically
doing the same injustice as what
is being done to unhouse people
for a very long time now, ever
since the beginning of the pandemic. And saying with people and
prisons and jails who are in so
much danger right now. -- same.
This -- I'm hoping there is going to be more information and more direct action from the city around this issue.
Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> Announcer: you have two
questions remaining. >> good afternoon, President, and members of the board of supervisors.
My name is caroline kennedy and I chair the neighborhood association.
I'm here to endorse item 20. With increasing numbers of
homeless people in the castro delores park areas, community
group leaders have worked with supervisor mandelman and city representatives on alternatives
to camping on our sidewalks and other spaces. Camping on our streets is not
safe, not healthy and not compassionate.
And even more so during the
covid-19 pandemic. Homelessness is a terrible human tragedy. It's complex and difficult to solve.
So I focused on implementing
commonsense changes in my own local area. The resolution before you today is just that. Using areas like the parking lot to shelter those sleeping on the streets.
Today there are 30-40 tents
within three blocks of that school.
It's a simple proposal. Set up a safe site with bathrooms and other services for those sleeping nearby.
It's a relevant and urgent need.
Right now we have people in encampments who need protection
they're the lowest priority for hotel rooms.
This is another alternative to on the sleep treating during the pandemic and beyond.
I ask you on behalf of my neighbors and those sleeping outdoors, to vote yes on item 20. Thank you.
>> thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. >> you have two questions
remaining.
>> hello.
My name is -- and I'm a
volunteer with animal rights organizations, compassionate bay
and direct action everywhere.
And I was wondering if city
council members would be willing
to consider initiatives that
demonstrate not only our
willingness of citizens to help
animals, to take some action, but understand the pandemic,
also acknowledge that a big
contributor to infectious
diseases is animal agricultural. bacteria that are antibody
resistant, they're in factories,
farms and the country can have a
next epidemic and there is a
bird flu that causes 60% for a bird flu strain.
However, that bird flu strain is
not easily transmittable from
human to human, but I'm
highlighting the danger of animal agriculture. We know it also contributes to climate change.
So I was wondering if we can do something on a city level that
will show we as citizens want to take action in all these areas. And have some sort of commitment
to become more of a plant-based
city and that way it's a model
later for california because san francisco is so progressive and
be a leader in that. And perhaps leader all of the united states and hopefully, eventually, all over the world.
So I'm just asking to consider these big broad questions.
And we, in our animal rights
groups, we're actually a leader approach the members of the
board of supervisors with more concrete suggestions, so hopefully we can have dialogue about the issues. Thank you so much. That's all.
>> thank you for your comment.
>> Announcer: you have two
questions remaining. >> hello.
My name is betty trainer. I live in district 5.
I'm just one block from central
gardens, the convalescent home where there was at least four
deaths and over 60 residents and
staff that were positive for the coronavirus.
And I'm also urging that there
be testing at all nursing homes
in san francisco, both staff and
residents as well as the other congregate facilities where we
have seniors and people with disabilities living there who are truly the most vulnerable people for the virus. And I don't know what -- I know other people have brought this up earlier and I don't feel that
it is -- has been that transparent. We really don't know what
facilities have been tested, but
my main concern is that all of
these facilities should be tested as soon as possible. And only positive cases should be -- especially as they're getting more placed in the hospital.
Thank you very much.
>> thank you for your comments. >> you have three questions
remaining. >> you have two questions
remaining. >> welcome, speaker. >> hi, good afternoon.
My name is terry lewis and I'm
calling in support of the
measure by supervisor walton for
the custody -- sorry, the online
visiting for the inmates in the county jail right now.
I currently work there and I'm
just -- I just want to say it makes a huge difference for people to be able to connect with their children and for the
children to connect with the parent as well, even in that situation. It makes a big difference.
And I'm completely in support of that and I hope we can pass that. Thank you.
>> thank you for your comments.
>> Announcer: you have one
question remaining.
>> welcome, speaker.
To the speaker, if you can hear me, press 1 and then 0 to be
entered into the queue.
So, if you can hear me? Is the individual needing
assistance on the line? Welcome, speaker, if you're there.
>> appears that caller has hung up.
That concludes the queue.
>> Clerk: okay.
So Mr. President, in case the individual is going to dial back
in to provide comments, I would
just like to say every week we
do look at our public comment procedures. We sprint from meeting to
meeting to make sure that we are
improving our processes and
bringing better service to you and members of the public.
I want to thank director adrian
pond from the office of civic
engagement and immigrant affairs to provide language access. Although it's possible the
individual dialled in and Mr.
Coup will let us know. We May not have used their services this week, but it's
possible we'll be able to do so during future meetings. We're grateful for their
attendance here today. Did anyone dial in? >> yes, I have two additional callers in the queue.
>> okay. Please move them into being able
to provide their comments. >> you have two questions
remaining.
>> hi, my name is angelica. I'm from san francisco and I work with the community.
i wanted to just say that I support the virtual meetings
with those who are incarcerated
and the virtual meetings with their children.
It's very important, especially during these times that they
still get to interact with those
children because it's good for
both the parents and the -- >> you have one question
remaining.
>> yes, I live about two blocks
from everett middle school and I fully support the resolution that you'll vote on later.
I would like to link that with
the registration that was passed several weeks ago which has not yet been implemented by the
mayor to fully adapt the empty hotel rooms and use them. The thing about the resolution
is that it is another tool in
your quiver to fight the devastating losses that we'll
see with the shelter-in-place ordinance against the whole community, but especially for those homeless. The everett school proposal seems fine for me.
I think it is worth getting a
unanimous vote from all of the supervisors in support of it.
I thank you for the time. >> great, thank you very much
for your comments.
>> Announcer: you have zero
questions remaining. >> okay.
Mr. President, thank you so much. That concludes public comment.
>> President Yee: seeing no other speakers, public comment
is closed.
Let's call for adoption without
committee, agenda items 15 through 23.
>> Clerk: okay.
For items 15 through 23, these
items were introduced for adoption without reference to committee. A unanimous vote is required on
those resolutions introduced on
first appearance today. Alternatively, a member May
require a resolution to go to committee.
>> President Yee: okay. Colleagues, anyone like to sever
any items? Did somebody --
>> Supervisor Peskin: thank you, Madame Clerk. I'd like to sever item 15,
please.
>> President Yee: supervisor mar?
>> Supervisor Mar: thank you, President Yee.
I'd like to sever item 20 and
22.
>> President Yee: okay.
For the rest of the items,
Madame Clerk, could you take the
roll?
>> items 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 and
23, supervisor stefani aye.
Supervisor walton aye.
Supervisor yee aye.
Supervisor fewer aye.
Supervisor haney aye.
Supervisor mandelman aye.
Supervisor mar aye.
Supervisor peskin aye.
Supervisor preston aye.
Supervisor ronen aye.
Supervisor safai aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay. So those resolutions are adopted
unanimously.
Madame Clerk, let's go to item 15. >> item 15, resolution to urge the disclosure of additional
data sets related to the well-being of homeless san
franciscans and residents of single room occupancy hotels.
The number of hotels rooms, the
geographic origin of confirmed
positive covid-19 cases, zip codes of residents for each
covid-19 death, and the date of the covid-19 test specimen
collection and commending the interdepartmental collaboration which resulted in the publication of the covid-19 data
tracker.
>> President Yee: supervisor peskin?
>> Supervisor Peskin: thank you, President Yee.
And thank you, colleagues, for
adopting last week and continuing it.
As you know, for the past month,
actually longer than that, I've
been pushing for as much transparency as possible with
regard to the city's response to this pandemic.
And we've all advocated for
additional information, not only
for us decision-makers in the media, but particularly for the
public who need to see the same
level of information that we're seeing.
I want to thank data S.F. And D.E.M., department of emergency
management director carroll and
the controller for the progress
that has been made on April 7.
We reached a significant
landmark by publishing a public
data dashboard which people can find at the website with information about the numbers of
confirmed cases, the numbers of
deaths and limited amounts of demographic data.
And as you'll recall, in the early weeks of the pandemic all we were able to receive was the
number of confirmed cases and
deaths, so this is greatly expanded information. The resolution before us requires additional data sets to
be added and I'm pleased to say that the city has already made
some progress by adding information about hospital
capacity and occupancy, but particularly we're looking forward to additional data in
what will be a housing tracker
on the same website which will
show the number of confirmed
cases originating in the
homeless shelter network, as
well as in single resident
occupancy hotels. Inasmuch as this data is already available, I think all of the
members of the board are
receiving the hotel data every morning as to what is occupied,
what is not occupied for first
responders and covid-19 cases
getting that up as quickly as I
see feasible is very important.
And then I'd also like to note
that we can, without violating
patient confidentiality, do even
better by showing S.R.O. Cases,
by zip code location, and that
data has been available to us as well. As a matter of fact, "the
chronicle" tweeted about that today.
And hopefully we can do better
than zip code data.
At least we should get to census
track geographic data, because
the zip code data is large in size.
The information that D.P.H. Has
is much more specific. I know this will improve in time
and thank you for your unanimous support.
>> President Yee: Madame Clerk,
can you take the roll.
>> Clerk: sorry?
On item 15, supervisor stefani aye.
Walton aye.
Yee aye.
Fewer aye.
Haney aye. Mandelman aye. Mar aye.
Peskin aye.
Preston aye.
Ronen aye.
Safai aye. There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay. So this resolution is adopted
unanimously.
Madame Clerk, let's go to item 20.
>> Clerk: item 20, resolution to urge the city to establish safe
sleeping sites for unsheltered people, to encourage social distancing, improve sanitation
and slow the spread of the
coronavirus disease 2019, covid-19.
>> President Yee: supervisor mar?
>> Supervisor Mar: request to be
added as a cosponsor?
>> President Yee: okay. Supervisor preston, you want to speak on the item?
>> Supervisor Preston: I do.
I wanted to thank supervisor mandelman for bringing this resolution forward and with the
city failing to provide
temporary shelter to so many folks homeless on the streets,
we've had increasing calls from
neighbors urging the city to act.
These calls have grown expo exponentially over the last couple of weeks.
And homeless advocates and housed neighbors have raised
really well-founded concerns I
think regarding sufficient hygiene and social distancing during the pandemic for those
living in tents on our streets.
And you know I think folks know,
many of us have been banging the
drums trying to demand that unhoused neighbors be placed into hotels during the pandemic. We have literally tens of thousands of hotel rooms with
owners ego torrent them at -- eager to rent them.
Despite that, the city has moved
at an inexplicably slow pace and
just this week, the mayor
announced she will violate the law.
I want to be clear that our
first choice remains moving unhoused people into vacant
apartments or hotel rooms where they don't need to share facilities.
But hours matter and we need to minimize all risk to the best of
our ability as we work to get people into individual rooms.
So, therefore, out of compassion
with the support of homeless advocates and housed neighbors
who for weeks have been demanding safe sleeping areas,
I'm happy to support this
resolution and I've already been
in active discussions with H.S.H. About a number of
possible sites in district 5. And we're committed to making
one or more of these work on
terms that are acceptable to the community. Thanks again to supervisor mandelman for moving this
forward so quickly.
>> President Yee: please call the roll on item 20.
Supervisor stefani aye.
Walton aye.
yee aye.
Fewer aye.
Haney aye.
Mandelman aye.
Mar aye.
Peskin aye.
Preston aye.
Ronen aye.
Safai aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: so this
resolution is adopted unanimously. Please call item 22.
>> Clerk: item 22, resolution to
urge govern newsom to pardon and
stop her deportation.
>> supervisor mar?
>> Supervisor Mar: I just
request to be added as a cosponsor to this item as well.
>> President Yee: okay.
Madame Clerk, please call the roll?
>> Clerk: item 22, stefani aye.
Walton aye.
Yee aye.
Fewer -- I think fewer said aye.
>> Supervisor Fewer: I said aye. >> thank you, fewer. Can you please mute your mic if
you're typing. Supervisor haney aye.
Mandelman aye.
Mar -- mar? Mar aye. Peskin aye.
Preston aye.
Ronen aye.
Safai aye.
There are 11 ayes.
>> President Yee: okay. So this resolution is adopted
unanimously.
Madame Clerk, can you please read the in memoriam.
>> I have no in memoriams to introduce, to mention that I'm aware of today.
>> President Yee: that brings us
to the end of the agenda. Madame Clerk, any other further business before us today?
>> Clerk: this concludes the
noticed agenda, Mr. President.
>> President Yee: okay. Thank you, colleagues.
We're receiving a briefing from
the deputy health officer Dr.
Susan phillip right after we adjourn this meeting.
Members of the public, you're
welcome to continue watching or tune in.
This is occurring under the
authority of the governor's
executive order which allows
policy bodies to receive updates
from local officials relative to
the declared emergency and to ask questions of such officers
provided that the members of the
policy body do not take action
on or discuss amongst themselves
any item of business that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body. This option would allow the
board to be fully briefed by the
health officer or someone that
asked that can come and answer
questions with a little more authority.
So, with that, members, the board please continue to stay
online as there is no further
business, we are adjourned.
Dr. Phillip, before you get started, I just wanted to note
to the public, I think everybody received the e-mail
correspondence I sent to Dr.
Argon regarding him back to
answer questions.
Let's focus on testing and that we had actually -- I had sent
some questions ahead of time so
that one could ask the
questions. They were listening to them with concerns around this particular issue. They had some other issues also,
but the majority of my colleagues thought this was a good topic to focus on.
So I spoke to every single of my
colleagues to say, do you have any questions?
So what you received or what you
should have received, Dr.
Phillip, was really a summary of the questions that I sent
forward and, again, most of these questions should be able
to be answered and some of them certainly in terms of what the
thinking is behind some of the
actions that we've done in the
city are pretty answerable.
So with that -- by the way,
colleagues, I realize also that
we're having different formats to ask these questions.
We have, I guess, e-mailed questions in.
Getting as many answers as possible.
We'll have the briefing monday,
wednesday, friday, of the board members to ask specific questions.
And so I actually heard Dr. Philip do a briefing.
I'm glad you made time to come and answer these questions.
By far, I felt like from listening to your presentation, I wanted to thank you.
You seemed to have the most authority and was articulate
about the issue of testing. So, Dr. Phillip, would you like
to get started?
What I ask, at least a 45-minute block of time where you can do the presentation. I know everybody is trying to
get -- do a lot of work during
this emergency, so we'll try to
be as focused as possible.
And within those minutes, the presentation, plus whatever additional questions that might
give us a better understanding of testing in san francisco. Dr. Phillip, you're on.
>> so thank you very much. President Yee and to the board for having me. I am happy to speak with you
about testing. It's a very important topic. I'm glad you were able to make the time to listen.
I have about -- probably a 15-minute presentation just to give an overview of testing and some of the background around
how we have been approaching testing in san francisco as the
D.P.H. And then, yes, I know there are several questions, many questions we want to discuss and I'm happy to do that, but I'll get started with the presentation.
I'm susan phillip, one of the deputy health officers at the san francisco department of
public health. So here's just the agenda.
We said we were going to cover briefly some of these areas today and then leave plenty of
time for q&a.
Just as background for testing,
to recall that in the very beginning of this epidemic, before it was a pandemic, we
were sending specimens from san
francisco to the cdc lab in
atlanta and waiting anywhere
from 4-7 days to get a result back.
We've been trying to expand our testing capability ever since we
started testing at our own health lab, grove street, on
March 2, 2020.
then between March 2 and April
26, 15,610 people in san
francisco have been tested for covid-19 and our positivity rate
is 11% of those tests returned positive. There are right now 26 locations
that a person can go to have a specimen collected throughout
the city and this includes city test S.F. Sites.
We'll talk about D.P.H. Alternative test sites and sites
run by private providers and others.
And then our vision overall and I think this is really important is for everyone in san francisco to have access to testing. Universal access to testing. But, of course, we're not going to get there overnight. And this is going to be a process to build up. And quite frankly, it's only
been in the last week that our supplies of some of the essential equipment that is
needed to test, the swabs and
the media that are needed for
the collection have stabilized. We'll talk about that as well.
Happy to answer questions there.
So when we think about testing,
what most commonly comes to mind are the molecular tests. These are the direct tests that
look for the genetic material of
the virus.
Virus's genetic material is R.N.A., so these tests are
looking for that genetic material.
These are molecular tests looking for R.N.A. Of the virus.
This is collected by a flexible swab that goes deep into the nose, all the way to the back of
the nose near the throat, or are collected through the mouth, the back of the throat as well. Those are the most common sites of collection.
There is a whole serious of processes that have about happen
in the laboratory with these specimens. Basically, first to separate out everything that is virus from what is human. Get rid of all the extra
material and then are machines
called pcr machines and others
that amplify, that take the specimen that might have a
couple of copies of that R.N.A.
And amplifies it to the point,
and that is how the infection is diagnosed.
These tests are very helpful if they're positive.
They tell us if a person has covid-19 at the time that
they're being sampled and that
leads to cascade of care,
support services and identifying how we can support the person
and isolate themselves at home so they don't infect other people.
And then to find out about their contacts so those people with quarantine to prevent transmission. A negative test of this kind, however, is less definitive. There are a couple of reasons why. One is that there is no test that is completely perfect.
This test or any other laboratory-based test. Meaning there is a potential that the test itself, because
it's not 100% sensitive to pick
up every single infection, might
be falsely negative.
Sometimes it's because of the specimen, or sometimes it's early the infection and people
are going to develop a viral
load, but they don't have a sufficient amount at the time
the sample is taken. Another reason a negative test
can be misleading and not give
us a full answer at one point in time, these tests are again just
telling us what is going on in the body at the nasopharyngeal at the time the sample is collected. It doesn't tell us what is happening in the time between
when the sample is collected and
it May be in that interview, the
I could have been exposed and
received transmission.
A single negative test shouldn't be reassuring.
It is somewhat, but it does not
tell us a lot of information going forward. For negative tests, that
requires repeated testing, so that raises a whole area of
questions which have not been
fully elucidated. That's a whole set of questions
that need to be addressed about repeatedly screening people who are negative. Our capacity in san francisco is quite good at the laboratory level. We'd always like it to be better, but right now, between
our own lab tories and the
public health, we can analyze up
to 4300 specimens.
The laboratories are 101 grove
street, the zuckerberg general
hospital and then partnership with the laboratory.
But this doesn't include the 4300 number, the 1500 a day that
can be collected at our city test S.F. Site.
These are done in clab wags
collaboration with our S.F.
This includes kaiser, sutter,
brown and toland, 1 medical and
there are others as well. The average number of tests
returned that we can see, has
been running about 500.
It's gratifying to see in the last number of days, that number has increased, but there is a gap between that number and the capacity that I just talked about.
That is a gap we're trying to close. We're taking several approaches to trying do that and making
sure we're taking advantage of the laboratory and collection capacity we have.
As I said, the supply chain for the products that are necessary
for testing, the swabs that are
necessary to do the
nasopharyngeal and the oral
sampling, the media we have to
put the swabs in, has been very
unsteady to get those supplies.
It's only been in the past week
that those numbers have stabilize and we feel what comfortable that for the moment we have the supplies necessary
to try and ramp up testing to meet that laboratory capacity. There is no guarantee in the future this will continue.
As we all heard, we're competing against every other health department, every state in the country, because there is not an organized federal response to this. We continue to be hopeful these issues will resolve and we, right now, are doing everything
we can to collect the specimens
and buy the inventory out we have and we have great people working on doing that. who are we testing? From the beginning, our goals
for providing tests and doing tests have been to do several things that you see here. First to protect vulnerable populations and our essential workers.
Health care workers, the city staff that really provide a
public safety, the officers for
fire and for police, for sheriff. And then also to understand there are other essential workers that are critical. City workers that do
transportation through mta, but
also the essential workers that
make sure we get our groceries
and deliveries come.
All those are essential.
Mitigating outbreaks, so trying
to prevent outbreaks in vulnerable populations.
Testing people we find as contacts as a result of talking to people.
To identify their contacts and
make sure they're can be tested.
And to make specific efforts to understand how much May be in the area.
Because of our limited testing
supply capability, we haven't been able to fully branch into all of these groups as we're doing now and planning to further do, but those have been the goals.
And the testing has been to really prioritize those efforts. To protect those most vulnerable
of sickness themselves and to protect those who are essential
for health and safety of all the
residents in san francisco. So, in addition to those core groups, we have in the past week
expanded our testing criteria. previously we thought about
symptoms as being sort of the
core being fever, cough and
shortness of breath. That's what cdc said and we were following. We're learning more and more
about the virus. I can't emphasize how much of a learning process this is.
In the past 2-3 months we've
learned a tremendous amount and we'll continue to adapt and refine our policies based on that.
But there is much broader range
of symptoms that warrant testing if a person has them.
You can see here the list. Ranging from body aches to a
loss of smell or taste.
Fever and fatigue, congestion, runny nose. They're broad symptoms.
We're encouraging people with
these broad symptoms to seek testing.
We've always emphasized contact.
But in the past we've emphasized symptomatic contact.
We're expanding that.
If you've been in close contact
with someone who has covid-19 for more than 10 minutes, we want to test you even if you don't have symptoms. This is understanding reports from other jurisdictions, looking at medical literature
and the updated guidance from cdc and our public health
colleagues. Congregate living is appropriately a concern.
I know of this body it is a
concern of D.P.H. And the doc as well. I don't have national clear guidelines for testing in congregate settings, but as i said, as we're gaining more experience from colleagues across the country and from our
own experience here in san
francisco, we're learning more and more about what that should
look like and the need for
thinking very broadly about testing. We have conducted mass testing
as you all know in these
environments as dictated about
case investigation and contact tracing. And then we're developing strategies.
We're in the process of doing
that in response to incoming data and the stabilization of
our supply chain to meet the needs of the different communities who do live in congregate settings as listed there.
So I want to talk about general
testing sites and access and how we're looking at this. I heard several times during the meeting today that emphasis on equity and emphasis on looking
at where the infections are and
making sure that there is low
barriers allowing people to be tested, we completely agree with that and those are principles we're following as well. There are 26 locations that a
person can go to have specimens collected throughout the city.
This includes city test S.F.,
S.F.G., U.C.S.F., kaiser,
chinese hospital, dignity health. And then D.P.H. Has community testing sites open to the public.
A as Z.S.F.G., castro mission
health center, southeast health
center and maxine health center. San francisco residents and essential workers who are
experiencing any of covid-19
symptoms who aren't able to get
into their own provider can make
an appointment online at city test using the link below to get a test.
And just to show you, there are
two sites now for city test S.F.
And it's a great collaboration between many parts of the city,
the port and the company of
color and carbon health and one medical in order to do this testing.
So here's a photo of the sites
at piers 30 and 32.
We can test a thousand people a day. SoMa site is 500 a day. I want to emphasize that testing is so important.
We've been spending a lot of
time and energy at the doc and
E.O.C. To thinking about testing, improving how people can access it and ramp it up,
but it alone is not sufficient.
It is one part of an entire strategy. In fact, we can sometimes think
of testing as telling us how
good a job are we doing at preventing infection in the first place?
Those things include staying at home as much as possible. Distancing, staying six feet
apart, covering our facings, washing our hands frequently. All the core things we need to do.
And I think that testing tells
us, are we able to do those things? We know it's much harder for
certain populations to do those things needed.
We need to think about how we
enter and exit public places. how are we supporting environmental cleaning?
How are we supporting spacing?
In a way, testing tells us how good have we done at those things to support prevention for
populations in the first place.
And we have conducted mass testing as indicated by contact investigation in the past. We do believe there is a key role to testing.
And in fact, testing, again, is
one part along the continuum of response. After testing we want to have a robust response in terms of case investigation and then reaching out with contact tracing and we
are actively working on building that capacity.
We think that is going to be another key core requirement
that is tied into testing in
order for us to be successful.
The next phase of our testing will be to expand to people without symptoms and that is
going to include testing in
congregate settings, testing of health care workers, first responders and essential workers and testing in communities
impacted by disparity. I want to pause to note that what I said before is important.
One of the things we don't know
here is how often should we test?
So as we do this work, we want
to work with U.C.S.F. And other partners and staff, research
staff and epidemiology staff, to
be able to evaluate different
intervals and find an optimal
interval for testing. And then finally, it's important to understand that our
discussion about testing will be evolution, just like testing on the whole response. I'm certain in two or three
weeks from now, if we had the same conversation, I'd have additional pieces of information to share.
We do incorporate feedback about
the ways in which the city is doing its work, particularly communities most impacted. The testing science and
technology is rapidly evolving.
We'd love to have rapid tests for covid-19.
And that technology does exist,
but it's incredibly difficult to purchase and get those tests, although we're continuing to
work on it. We think of congregate
facilities, such as the hospital where it would be incredible to have that technology. These things are going to continue to inform our response and strategy.
I want to make one quick note about serology tests. I didn't speak about them in the slides for the sake of time. These are the tests that are not
a direct test for the virus, but
they're blood tests looking for
antibodies to see if someone has
been exposed to the virus and potentially recovered from it.
There has been a lot of talk
about this potentially being a way to understand if someone could have what people have
called immunity passports or
ways they could go back into the workforce or public safely.
I want to make it clear that the F.D.A. Had said that these
tests, the blood tests, cannot be used to diagnose covid-19.
And it's very unclear what having a positive test would mean in terms of it being safe
for a person to go back out in society.
W.H.O. And other public health
and scientific bodies are warning that not it's not clear
that having antibodies are going
to clear us for immunity from a second infect.
Where they can be useful is understanding what has been the exposure of the population to covid? Who has seen the virus?
I think it will be helpful in describing what might have been going on, but I think we'll get a little bit of that information from testing.
And the large testing program
that supervisor ronen described in the mission is another way,
another type of evaluation to get at some of that same information. All that is really important, testing is important for individual care, but it's also important for planning and response as well.
So I think that is all I had for
prepared remarks. I know we have questions to talk through. Happy to do that.
But I wanted to turn it over to
you all to lead that discussion.
I'm happy to participate. Thank you for your time.
>> President Yee: thank you, Dr. Phillip. I have questions.
But go ahead, supervisor haney.
>> Supervisor Haney: thank you.
And thank you, Dr. Phillip. I have a few questions.
Just so I'm clear now, we're
not, as a city doing
asymptomatic testing -- I think
somebody's mic is on also --
we're not doing asymptomatic
testing except as part of
contact tracing or in more one-off ways?
There is not a larger effort to do asymptomatic testing
currently among any populations? You didn't speak that much about the mission project, but other
than the mission, have we taken
on any larger-scale asymptomatic testing? And when do you believe that we are going to start to do more
testing that is asymptomatic. I listed priority populations. What will that look like? >> yes.
Right now, consistently, who we
are testing is asymptomatic is
our contacts to cases.
And we do have plans to roll out
asymptomatic screening and we know that -- phase that out to
make sure we do that in a responsible way and we have
everything in place for really supporting that work and supporting the ongoing work. Because as I said, if we find people are negative, that means we have to plan for repeated waves of testing. That requires thinking in a
different way, building a large infrastructure. All of these things we can do, but our first area of focus in
thinking about that big picture,
is looking at which populations
are most vulnerable to dying from covid-19 if they contract it.
So we're trying to focus first
on skilled nursing facilities
and what it would mean to do that for staff and patients
there.
>> Supervisor Haney: I'm not finished. Sorry.
there is a cdc report that suggests that if testing is
easily accessible, regular
testing in shelters before identifying clusters should be
considered and testing all
persons can facilitate isolation. Other cities have tested all or
most of people who are in shelters, including people who are asymptomatic.
When will we have a similar effort to test everybody who is
in a congregate setting like a shelter, navigation center, mental health, drug treatment? >> thank you, supervisor.
Yes, I think those populations
are also priority and we will
have to again think of how we
phase in, how we do that work.
They are populations we know
will turn to, will be screening. And we're going to have to sit down.
As I said, it's only a week since we've stabilized our supply chain to understand how
we do that and not fear if I
don't keep testing in reserve
we're going to not have testing to deal with large outbreaks.
So now that happened, we can
really turn to these other --
sorry about that echo -- .
>> Supervisor Haney: so, as I
read, the testing capacity, we
have a capacity of at least 5800
a day ourselves, likely many thousands more than that when we include the private hospitals.
And yet we're testing just 500 a day as a city.
What exactly is the barrier to
testing much more larger numbers
of people quicker, for example, everyone in the shelters, people in vulnerable neighborhoods,
look the bayview or the
tenderloin or SoMa?
It seems we do have a testing capacity for that.
Where is the barrier to do that immediately? >> well, we could do that
immediately if people are able to access the sites.
I think some of the challenge has been making sure that we have people that could go and do the specimen collection.
We have a core group of nurses, field nurses that have gone out
and done this work and done the bulk of it. We're building that capability
and that team, but for people
who can transport and go to the site, such as city test S.F.,
those are options and we're
hoping we see utilization of
those sites by anyone who meets the criteria which is very broad right now. That they are able to use those and we see the numbers increasing. We've seen the number of tests increase in the past few days, but you're correct, there is a large gap still we need to try to close between the number of tests we're doing and the number of tests we could be doing.
So I agree with you.
And for the tests where we're
going and trying to provide assistance to the site, that's
where we need to figure out,
where do we put our power and
we're did starting with nursing facilities, but there are other
important sites as well that you mentioned.
>> Supervisor Haney: right now, people are still hearing they
need to have symptoms to be tested.
They have to make an appointment
that involves -- before it involved having a health care
provider, now it involves the
city test site which requires
having internet access and all of that. People in shelters, on the
streets, in SoMa and tenderloin,
this is not yet accessible or
widely known about or broadcasted, they can have these opportunities.
Even in the city test sites, my understanding is they're greatly
under testing their capacity, so
we seem to have an outreach issue because there are a lot of
people who want to be tested but don't yet know about the opportunities and are able to access them in the opportunity. In addition to what I talked
about with the congregate sites,
communities that are having a hard time like you mentioned
like keeping the six feet,
avoiding large number of people,
need to have on-site accessible testing available to people beyond people who are only symptomatic.
>> thank you.
Yes.
>> President Yee: supervisor preston I believe.
>> Supervisor Preston: thank you, President Yee. Thank you, Dr. Phillip for our all work.
I wanted to just follow up. You touched on some of this, but
just go into the nursing
facilities a little more and try
to better understand that.
My district includes central
gardens convalescent home where four people died and as you know there was an outbreak there.
And we've been struggling to get more information from both the state -- the department of
public health and locally about that.
So in terms of testing, I
understand that there is no
protocol nationally it sounds
like for testing in congregate facilities.
And I also understand some of the practical limits around the supply chain and being able to
do testing, but I'm curious if
either from the state, D.P.H.,
or locally, is there a proposal
or plan for how one decides when
and whom to test at skilled nursing facilities.
Again, assuming that you don't
face the supply chain issue?
Is it the contact tracing or is
it universal, every so often? What are we striving toward in those facilities?
Is there a plan that exists or a proposal? >> thank you, supervisor. I think that the key thing -- I'm glad we're talking about skilled nursing facilities.
Again as I said, this is a key priority for outbreak prevention
work at the doc and the E.O.C. I think the key thing, I know we
want to talk about testing, we
will get there, but the key thing we found from experience
at laguna honda and having our
cdc team coming out and work
with us, the key things that
make a difference are really try to prevent introduction of virus
into a facility like a skilled nursing facility.
And doing a lot of environmental controls, really making sure
that staff don't come when they're sick. There are ways of doing environmental cleaning and separation, having a plan to be able to isolate people. So all of those things have to be in place.
So really working with skilled nursing facilities starts prior
to testing of being able to understand all those things. And I think you're right, by the
time there are cases, that's the
point at which we generally will need to test everyone because we're not sure what is going on.
That speaks to a need of upstream interventions to try to support the staff, the administrators, the residents
there to be as protected as possible.
Before that is needed. And your question of how often should testing happen? Is it a result of testing
investigation or done on a regular interval?
We don't know that exactly. We don't know what the optimal approach is.
But given the vulnerability of
the residents and the likelihood
of it to spread inadvertently
through staff and other contact, most likely it will be some type
of a regular routine screening of residents and staff.
Now what frequency? We don't know.
We have 21 skilled nursing facilities in san francisco.
Our efforts are to reach out to
all of them, assess where they
are on the spectrum of doing the
preventative work and the best practices and supporting them as
we try to gear up and think were the testing and screening efforts. Again, the outcomes of those
also have to be managed, of
trying to safely identify places where we can house people who
are positive until they cover recover. Make sure the facilities stay staffed safely.
There is a lot of consideration
so no one is scrambling at the last minute.
>> Supervisor Preston: who makes
the decision right now -- like
just as a hypothetical -- I run a skilled nursing facility, I have one positive person there, I call department of public
health and I report that, is the
current protocol either from the
state or locally to do universal testing?
Is it to do contact tracing?
What would happen right now if I ran one of these facilities and
reported that today? >> what would happen is we have skilled public health nurses, we
have skilled M.D.S and people that do outbreak response and they've been doing this even prior to covid, so we have relationships with the skilled
nursing facilities because there
is a flu season every year.
And a lot of the protections
we're trying to do now are done then. It's very different because
we've got flu vaccine, we have an intervention there we don't have now.
But to say that people are used to doing this.
What they do is talk with the
administration, talk with the infection control that they are required to have. And understand where was the
resident housed, who are the safe that took care of them and
were the facilities following
the best practices and guidance
that has come out from the state
around trying to limit how staff
roam -- meaning how are things situated?
Is that person rooming by themselves?
Rooming with other people?
It wouldn't necessarily lend to screening and testing. It might.
But in the instance of laguna honda, they're blocked off into
neighborhoods and they have a staffing regiment that means that people are really only on
one or two neighborhoods.
And they really tightened that up even since covid.
So there are lots of things that
are facility dependent, so it
requires a strong amount of engagement with the subject matter and the facility to understand how to proceed.
But we have a very low threshold for saying, let's just do this,
test all the staff and the residents.
>> Supervisor Preston: so all of those decisions are made locally? I'm trying to understand the interaction with california department of public health. The decision would all be made locally? >> we generally will -- we're on
the ones on the ground. We have the jurisdiction. We're there to assist and have the relationship with the facilities. Most of the time what we're doing is talking with the state as well.
The administrators are also talking about their state contacts and licensing.
And we're talking about the
health care associated infections group at the california department of public health.
So we're making sure that the
state is staying informed and
they've been supportive of the actions around these things.
>> Supervisor Preston: thank you.
What I'm hearing is that it's still a contact tracing approach from what you described.
I understand that when there is
a severe lack of supply of tessing.
I just hope our policy keeps up
with the growth in tests so
we're able to perform universal testing when we have a case
given the deadly consequences in these facilities.
One last question which was
about -- if someone tests positive, are people who test
positive being transferred into nursing homes?
And if so, are there
additional -- we've heard
reports there are and I'm wondering if there are
additional precautions or
testing that is occurring for folks who are covid-positive
being transferred into nursing homes?
>> are you saying they didn't
start out in a nursing home, but
were newly admitted to the nursing home? >> I believe that's the situation.
I know from senior advocates had
raised the concern about the possibility where folks who were positive -- that someone who was positive was being transferred and I don't know if they were a previous resident.
>> what I would say to that, the
state is really helping take the
lead there on which facilities
have the capability, the staff,
the plan, the space set up to be
able to potentially do that. And there are potentially
facilities that are able to
safely house a person who has
covid-19 in their period of
recovery if they're medically
stable and don't need to be in
acute care hospital. I think we're going to have to balance the factors and make sure it's never done in a way
that poses a risk to other residents, to staff. And that facilities that take
the responsibility of caring for covid-positive patients are fully supported to do so.
We think this plays an important
role in our overall health care infrastructure, because we want
to make sure our acute care beds, that someone does not
acquire acute care, we need to make sure they're available for people who need that level of care. This is something we're thinking about. And we're doing this in conjunction with the state.
And making sure that it's done
safely when it does happen.
>> Supervisor Preston: thank you, doctor.
I see many colleagues have questions.
I will wrap up.
>> Supervisor Peskin: thank you, President Yee.
And thank you for indulging me
last week and thank you, Dr. Phillip, for being here today,
not only from the board but any
member of the public who wishes to partake of this. I have four questions. I'll try to ask them as quickly
as I can.
Our public testing capacity is 5800 a day?
Our supply constraints have been
lessened, we don't know how
long, but it will become less constrained. And the constraint you're
speaking to is a testing -- is a constraint around staff capacity
if we cannot actually deliver
people or people do not self-present at the testing sites. Do I have that right?
Because right now we're using
about a tenth of our total testing capacity? Do I have that right? >> you're correct, we're using
about a tenth of the capacity, yes.
>> Supervisor Peskin: and you indicated that there is a universal desire that I'm sure
we all share to lessen the
barriers to entry for testing
and that those barriers have
been liberalized and I'm now
looking at your slide.
And they expanded -- the expanded criteria, it's kind of everything.
Why, if we want to lessen the barriers, why not just say anybody who wants to come down
can come down?
>> well, I think that we are doing this incrementally. That's a going question. Thank you, supervisor peskin. That's a good question.
We're trying to do it incrementally because we're not 100% certain of maintaining supply chain.
It's unlikely if we just opened it up to anyone to come at any
time for a test we would be overwhelmed as you're pointing
out, but what I don't know is the ability to maintain that over time. I don't know our ability to enhance preferentially for the
population that we feel most need the test.
So I think that will be a balance.
We're taking a trial approach.
As you said, those symptoms are very liberal.
I don't know any of us that are not experiencing some level of fatigue at this moment, so people would be able to get a test if they really wanted one.
And we want to see what the
uptake is at those sites using those criteria. I think the other thing is that,
you know, this is the start, but
we're thinking about other sites in conjunction with the state that would be helpful. We're always thinking about placing sites where priority population can access them with minimal barriers as you said.
And we're thinking about what it would take to have mobile sites. We know that is an interest of the board, it's an interest of us as well, in trying to see
what we can do to have access
more freely available.
The city test S.F. Sites are wonderful and they're there now and there for people to access,
but we know they're not sufficient.
>> Supervisor Peskin: so this is not one of my questions.
Does that mean that would be less constraint in the supply
chain that we're continuing to
accumulate more swabs and apply
caters on a daily and weekly
basis?
Yes, our stockpile is continuing to grow.
I think we have to expand and we have to see what the reaction of the public is. We have to continue our plans
for expanding other sites for access as well and our routes
for access as you said. Given the delta day to day, which is about 5,000.
I mean basically on a daily
basis, are we accumulating 5,000
a day?
How many swabs and am caters. >>
previously, when it was a much smaller number, we were concerned about a large outbreak at laguna honda or other settings that might need a large
amount of testing and keeping things in reserve. Trying to be conservative. We don't have to conservative in
that way, but I think we have to expand responsibly and see what the uptake will be. Understand the characteristics of the people taking advantage
of testing and augment to make
sure we're reaching priority populations.
>> Supervisor Peskin: that leads me to the second question.
As it relates to priority
populations and areas that are
higher in transmission, is it
safer from infectious disease stoint, do you think, to live in
and test in S.R.O. Congregate
settings where restroom and
kitchen facilities are shared or in populations that live on the
street? And the health orders are
unclear about that. >> we're trying to expand.
We think both of those
populations are a priority. I don't know that we would pick one over the other.
I think both population are ones
that need access to testing and
to screening when needed. So those are both populations
that we're focused on.
>> Supervisor Peskin: what are the near-term plans for that
focus?
>> I think the near-term plans
are to really now again that we've stabilized the supply, that we have these other sites
in place, to see how we can increase testing in other populations is to really understand what is it that will
be needed in order to scale to do more screening? What are the barriers?
What is required in order to do that?
And what type of testing
mechanism would be lowest barrier?
Is it on site testing?
We can't test as often, is it
better to have neighbor located facilities? I think there is planning around how this looks. In parallel, we're trying to think about nursing facilities, which are a priority, but require a different approach to
supporting staff screening and testing. And sometimes requires our
nurses to go there and do it physically ourselves.
>> Supervisor Peskin: and if there is interest in a community that has volunteer and
organizational and logistical resources that want to replicate
what is being done in the mission where asymptomatic
people are being tested, and the
university of california is
participating, say in like chinatown, is there interest at the department of public health
in replicating that setting in
the community like chinatown,
that obviously has a disproportionate number of
congregate living situations? >> I think we're always
interested in gaining more information.
A project that happened with
ucsf was largely organized and
staffed and maintained by them,
which is what made it possible, but we're certainly interested in gaining information about epidemiology of covid in our city.
And we're particularly interested in understanding more vulnerable populations and more
vulnerable living situations as
to what epidemiology might be so
we can better serve the public.
>> Supervisor Peskin: my last
question, not to drag you into
the friction that is existing
between the executive branch of
government and legislative
branch of government around the
acis zigs of hoe -- acquisition of hotels for vulnerable
populations and isolation for
people who cannot otherwise self-isolate self-isolate, is there any
concern that if these types of
asymptomatic testing studies are
undertaken that it will lead to containment strategies that
require isolation in hotels or
other settings that the city doesn't currently have sufficient access to?
Is that any way of a part of D.P.H.'s consideration. That has not been part of the discussion that I've been a part of.
Not as a reason to not do testing.
I think those are important considerations.
I think that the ability to do case investigation and contact tracing on very large numbers of
people as we are trying to build
up the workforce and that
capacity is another situation,
but neither are reasons not to test people that would benefit
from testing.
>> Supervisor Peskin: what do you think the best containment
strategy in S.R.O.S is? >> now you're asking me to go
outside of the testing approach. I think that there are best practices.
I know there are specialists and
subject matter expert teams
working closely with management
and with community leaders to
think about ways of structuring the environment, the physical
environment, the ways of doing
cleaning, the ways of trying to give people as best tools as
possible to try to stay safe in
their own environment. We know that many people want to stay in their homes and stay safely in their homes. Those are important approaches.
As I said, we're continuing to
learn about this virus and what
is and is not sufficient.
We'll have to continually evolve in the face of that knowledge. The resources are one issue, but
I think the science and what we understand to be the public benefit of the approaches is
also evolving over time.
>> Supervisor Peskin: thank you, doctor.
If you have a point person as to
who that is who is linguistically and culturally
competent as it relates to S.R.O. Settings in chinatown, I would love to know who that point of contact is. >> thank you very much, supervisor.
>> Dr. Phillip. We're fast approaching the 45-minute mark, but there are
several more of my colleagues
that I can see on the roster.
Would you be open to getting to these questions? It would be helpful if you can stay beyond the time.
>> yes.
>> President Yee: okay.
Supervisor walton.
>> Supervisor Walton: thank you, President Yee and thank you so much, Dr. Phillip, I'm going to
be brief because a lot of questions I have you covered.
The one thing you said -- first of all, let me thank you for
being responsive to some of the
questions we've had and some of
the demands made to the department of public health because I have not received response from other leadership
for the department, so I do appreciate you.
The one question I do have, you showed a slide talking about you will start providing
asymptomatic testing in communities affected disproportionately. And I didn't get a clear sense
of a timeline for that. And would love to know and try
to lock in a date, something more specific, because this is important to community and I know that testing does not solve
our problems, but it does tell
us whether or not people need to
be quarantined indefinitely, separated from other human beings?
>> thank you, supervisor walton.
Yes, I agree with you that testing is a hugely important
piece of the overall response and overall way we have to respond to this pandemic and this public health crisis. I have listed the groups that we're going to move to.
And I want to iterate again -- reiterate that it's going to
take us a while to get to the
vision of universal access to testing for everyone. But we're focused as we think about next steps.
I talked about this idea of
where additional sources for testing might occur.
We're thinking as we think about what would potentially mobile
sites in san francisco look like?
Starting to have those
conversations.
So the areas that represent -- 10 other areas that are disproportionately impacted --
>> President Yee: excuse me. Can somebody -- can people mute
their mics? >>... Would be the priority areas for those types of
additional services, in addition
to what has been laid out already. An improvement what we have
before in terms of access, but
not nearly where we need to go. I don't have an exact date for
you, because this is relatively new.
In the last week, we think we have a stable supply of the things we need to test, what is
it going to look like to expand testing?
We started just now with saying,
you know, any of these symptoms
will allow us to test.
And we know we have a ways to go in that and it's going to require planning as I said.
And particularly for the
asymptomatic test and getting the right message.
And giving them information about when they should come back. The way we're going to be learning about that is starting first with health care workers because they have among the
highest risk of being exposed to covid in their work and understanding in that way. Starting there and going out to be able to offer that to other
people as well.
>> Supervisor Walton: for the second time, I want to state
it's disheartening we don't have
a time line and when we're going
to provide asymptomatic test
fogging -- testing for the
vulnerable population that have demonstrated higher numbers.
Especially since we've already admitted to having over 5,000 capacity and not testing more
than 500 or so a day, but I won't belabor the point during this conversation and will continue to reach out to the department and push for us to do
the right thing for people of
color and for communities of disproportionately effected by the virus. >> thank you, supervisor.
What I would also say, with the
revised criteria, there likely are more people that would be
able to be tested and the health center is a site where people can go and get testing. And there is capacity for testing there. Thank you very much.
I am taking to heart what you're saying and will take that back
and continue to think about that
and try to commit to time lines. This is very early in the process of thinking there.
>> Supervisor Walton: thank you.
>> Supervisor Mar: thank you, President Yee, and thank you
also, Dr. Phillip, for joining us for this important discussion
about testing our city's testing strategy.
I'll try to keep it brief as well. Just had some questions around
the vision -- our vision for all san franciscans to have
universal access to testing.
I was wondering if you had any
thoughts how far off we are from that?
And what are some key benchmarks
that we're going to need to -- that work towards in order to
have that universal access to
testing in san francisco? >> thank you very much,
supervisor, for the question.
I think it is a goal, it is a correct goal, it's also a large goal. It's a challenging goal.
Which it should be.
And I think that we are a ways off as we've heard from the conversation. There are still many populations, many settings in
which we want to be able to expand testing and screening. We don't have all the information about the best way
to do that in asymptomatic people. And we don't want to do harm.
There is a risk, as a medical doctor, one of the first things
we're taught is don't do any harm.
We have to think through how do
we message what a negative test means?
we can do all those things.
We need to understand that a negative test today doesn't mean
they're at less risk tomorrow or
less risk of transmitting if they develop an infection in the time between the specimen was collected and the time they got the test result back.
I think there is lots we have to
learn and figure out, but there are things we know that we need to be able to make sure, if people are not accessing the sites that we have, we need to understand what the barriers are.
And make the testing -- continue
to work to make the testing more successful. Everything we've been doing to
expand testing has been done
with an eye to reduce the barriers, improve their access
to it and make sure the populations disproportionately impacted and our essential workers, throughout the city,
many of whom I want to say are low-income people, people of
color, think being staffing of grocery stores, delivering packages, that type of work, we
have been taking steps and had a equity lens throughout all of it. We need to start looking at our data and measure the number of people coming through. We've seen increase of the
number of tests over the last couple of days.
We really need to see how can we continue to increase those
numbers of tests that are performed?
I think there is going to be a data feedback loop.
It's so early in thinking about
how to expand, I don't have
concrete benchmarks. I don't have concrete time lines, which I know is challenging. I will tell you that we're committed to continuing to work on that.
And every expansion, even
though it's seems incremental, every expansion is done with the eye to maintain that expansion and build on it for the next
group of people.
Again, keeping an eye on making sure we're putting our person-power and our resources
and supporting the people who
are most vulnerable to severe
illness and death if they become
infected or most vulnerable to congregate settings and
outbreaks and populations that are disproportionately impacted throughout the city.
>> Supervisor Ronen: thank you.
I just wanted to start off on a comment. I don't know if you had the
opportunity to talk to Dr. Have
leer, but the test done in the
mission was done with a lot of volunteers. So it was the community coming
forward and partnering with ucsf. They don't even have a defined budget for the project because
it was done so quickly and in
such cooperation with my office and community that they were
able to make it happen without a budget.
I'm not sure if you've had a chance to talk to her. I would encourage you to, because I think it's an important test that is making
the community feel like they're
cared about and being given attention. it was right in their
neighborhoods, the outreach that happened. It was a model that should be
replicated in chinatown, SoMa, tenderloin. Bayview.
There is no question in my mind. We encourage you to talk to her
if you haven't already. >> thank you. We have been talking with her
and we're eager to hear more
about what their experience is.
It's great to hear that from you as well. Thank you.
>> Supervisor Ronen: I don't
know, just aside from the data,
we'll have access to all of these strategies. The impact of the community
being focused on and how that
makes people feel cannot be calculated. I mean it's had profound impact on the mission.
So I'll just leave it at that. I still don't understand --
you've given the best
explanation to date on why for
so long the entire division, navigation center wasn't tested
after there were positive cases.
So I appreciate that, but I
still don't understand when people are using shared shower
and bathroom facilities, and given what we've learned about
how covid is passed through the community, how they can't be
considered in close contact where they're already a vulnerable community and they
weren't prioritized for testing.
I still haven't gotten that.
Can you explain that a little more?
>> previously at division
circle, we can view that as an
example, the feeling was that in talking with the person that was the case, there was an ability to understand who was in close contact at that time.
And so that -- and that there were environmental controls and
other ways that the facility was
set up to try and limit the contact that might occur with other people. So that was a decision at that time.
But as you know, with the more
recent case, there was a different decision to actually
move people out to do a thorough cleaning and to offer testing more broadly to people.
And I know that seems like it doesn't make sense.
I think some of it is, again, we are learning about the virus.
We're learning about what is and is not necessary as we are
learning from our experiences at
division circle, M.F.C. South here and colleagues in seattle and elsewhere across the country.
I think that there will be an
evolution of how we look at response to this.
And I think we will not always
be perfect in the approach, but we're working with the best data we have.
And we need to take into account
the opinions of advocates, community members. So I don't know that I'm giving you a better explanation, but
I'm telling you that I think
that thinking evolves as the
overall understanding of
infection and transmission, what is and what is not a best
practice evolves over time as well.
>> Supervisor Ronen: I'm not asking this to belabor the
point, but what is close contact for tracing purposes?
How that is defined and
understood by the department.
If the individual just arrived at division circle, maybe never
took a bath or shower. Maybe every time someone uses
the bathroom, it's so thoroughly cleaned before another person that is the reason.
But to me, the shared bathroom
scenario alone -- I mean
division circle, very close you know facilities, people use the
same chairs to hang out on and eat their mails, et cetera.
But that shared bathroom, is
that considered in and of itself a risk for contact tracing?
I know you said being within six
feet of someone who is positive
for 10 minutes, right?
Is what you're considering.
So using the bathroom that
someone who is positive uses
regularly is not considered a person that should be tested for
contact tracing purposes? >> not necessarily. I can't speak to the particular case. I I don't have all of the details of that, but the situation you described, if
there were hypotheticalfully, if there were environmental controls in place where the
resident or the staff were
wiping down surfaces between
uses, et cetera, then that would potentially not constitute a
risk of using the same facility. I don't know if that was in place.
But we've had very experienced
M.D. And nursing experts sort of ask these questions.
Do these interviews and try to understand what was going on, we
are very interested also in trying to minimize ongoing transmission. That is our whole reason that we exist as a department, the whole
reason we do this work. So, again, I have to trust in the investigation that happened at that point. And I will say to acknowledge
your point, I completely agree. I understand why it would be a confusing thing.
I think there could be specific pieces of that particular investigation that led to that decision.
And I think that we're evolving our understanding over time about how we should think about
testing or screening or offering that in those situations.
>> Supervisor Ronen: again, I
just want to be able to share this with my constituents, so
I'm trying to get clear, accurate information.
Sharing bathrooms and showers,
then, is not something that
would lead to someone getting tested through contact tracing if someone who was positive used
that same shower and bathroom?
>> it possibly could be.
I'm giving you a very unsatisfying answer. It depends on the situation. I think in a congregate living --
>> Supervisor Ronen: in a congregate living scenario.
>> I think we have a lower threshold now than we did several weeks ago because our knowledge is evolving.
Which is appropriate.
I think we should worry if our
public health knowledge was not improving. we should consider testing the people in contact there.
I don't want to spend a lot of time defending what wassed decided before, because I don't know the information and second because I think we have a different mindset now and framework now.
I think that is incorporating
scientific information and also incorporating feedback from you
all as a board, feedback from
community, all of which is important and valid.
>> Supervisor Ronen: two more questions.
In congregate settings, where do people wait after they've been
tested before they get their results?
>> that's a good question.
So we want people as they're
being tested and awaiting
results, we want them to be as much as possible in a safe setting. That's why in congregate settings, navigation center, we
have moved people out to await the test result. And we prioritize getting their
tests done in the fastest way possible. Luckily, we've come a long way
in waiting for commercial laboratories to get results back. It's generally not a long amount of time we have to have people
wait, but you're correct, we'd
like them to be in their own space while waiting.
If we're worried enough to test, we should consider them a potential person who has covid
until we can get the test. Again, it's not a complete
relief when we get the negative test. it's only guard that point in
time -- good for that point in time, but we have to make a plan for how we repeat this.
I want to say to the board, it's
not a simple matter of testing everyone once.
It's a plan to do this
repeatedly and support the people necessary after the test comes back, which is what we
need to do as a city and will take work.
>> Supervisor Ronen: last
question.
Who is making decisions about who to test?
>> there is a policy team O.E.C. And doc.
I am part of that, Dr. Baba and
some of the other E.O.C., Dr. Bennett, the commander flight.
There is a group of people that think through the issues and
think through what are the policies that incorporate the public health data, the science data and what we are learning as
we go through this pandemic and incorporate ing new evidence and new data.
We will make recommendations,
but clearly it's Dr. Colfax, the
director of health, hears these
things and he a has a group as well of his leadership that he works with.
There is process of getting
input from all levels and
bringing it up to have the discussions.
This is no different than what
D.P.H. Usually does in terms of
trying to have a data focused approach as Dr. Colfax says, looking at the data, facts and
science and also having a strong
equity focus in how we try and
increase our access to testing
an response capability.
>> Supervisor Ronen: one more question.
Have you tested anyone on the street? >> meaning being able to just
collect the specimen on the street?
>> Supervisor Ronen: yes.
>> you know any doctor gone to -- we're probably getting
close to 100 camps that are growing on the streets.
Has any doctor gone and tested
anyone in those encampments? >> I don't want to say know, because we're working with
street medicine and others. I don't know the exact answer to
that, but I will find out.
>> Supervisor Ronen: okay.
That would be great. It's hard to get answers when
there is not a group.
It doesn't seem like there is a clear -- I don't know -- place
to get all the answers. But appreciate it.
Thank you.
>> President Yee: supervisor safai?
>> Supervisor Safai: thank you.
I just wanted to end on the
conversation around long-term care facilities. We have the second largest long-term care facility in the city and our district at the jewish home.
We've been in a couple weeks, a long conversation about testing of front line staff.
Can you talk to me as you said
about the changes and the think
being testing staff and front
line workers in these facilities? Can you talk about that?
And then secondly, can you talk about, is there training happening for the people that
are actually doing the testing?
We say testing as though we all have an agreed upon standard,
but is the D.P.H., are you
training your nurses, are you having people doing the training
going through a proper quick procedure to have them understand what the procedures
are for train? Those are my two questions, but
mainly wanted to start with the
long-term care facilities.
And we had Dr. Louie come to a town hall.
She's been in those conversations. And to answer supervisor
preston's question, the jewish home has been ordered by the
state, a lot of the long-term
care facilities, have been
ordered to accept covid-positive patients that are not current
residents and it's currently
happened and they're licensed to
do that in a different wing,
different staff, but is the city changing its thinking around
testing the workforce there?
Thank you very much for the question.
Yes, stilled nursing facilities
as I've been saying is an emphasized area. It's a priority. And we are trying to think
through ways of what would it
look like to increase screening? Of residents and staff? And because there is 21 facilities and several of them
are quite large, laguna honda
and jewish home being the
largest, it will take some
operational and logistical
thinking in collaboration with
the facilities to see also what works best for them in doing this. But we do think this is a priority area.
It's a focus area.
So we're working to do work in that area.
Dr. Louie, who came and spoke to
you, is one of the leaders in that work.
>> Supervisor Safai: that sounds like the answer is yes, you're changing your thinking and testing is going to happen, it's
just matter of how it's going to happen. >> yes.
Big picture, we're moving to doing that to support the
residents and the staff.
And, yes, it is more of a question how it's going to happen, not if.
>> Supervisor Safai: my second question, are you training people that are doing the testing?
When I talked to front line understands -- nurses and
different people, you get a broad range of the testing. Whether it's one swab, three swabs. Is the department thinking about doing a simple training to have the people that are actually
doing the testing understand the process and kind of standardizing that? >> yes. And it is confusing because there are lots of different ways
that the cdc says we can collect the swabs.
And nasopharyngeal is the preferred, but if that's not
available for whatever reason,
people can do oral swabs, they
can do mid-nose swabs, they can interior nostril swabs as well. So it can be confusing.
we've had guidance since the
beginning of the epidemic how to
do the collection, which evolved
as the cdc has evolved. And there are written documents
for providers to look at on the
website, the health department,
the communicable disease, prevention and control have those instructions. But could we do teaching?
That's a really good one.
I think as we're thinking about
going to skilled nursing facilities and doing screening, it would be great to have the provider there do their own
screening for their residents and staff. They have medical staff, so there is no reason. That's a good place to start in supporting staff to get comfortable with the procedure for doing the screening. And then we would support that testing in our public health laboratory. I think that is a really good idea.
We'll have to think of other ways to support providers. Perhaps a video or something like that, in-person instruction
is not possible right now.
>> Supervisor Safai: I think that's kind of the subset.
I just want to overemphasize that I think it would be really
important for D.P.H. To have
standardized testing in the way
that you all are training people
do -- to do the test. The second part, we are going to need more people to be involved
in that and to volunteer and participate. So then having standardization
of the process and whether it's video, that will also be very helpful.
>> thank you.
>> President Yee: okay.
I think that's it in terms of my colleagues having questions.
In terms of the questions that I
sent ahead of time, you seem to have covered everything on there.
Really appreciate it.
I know not one person will have all the answers, but you have most of the answers in trying to
explain the thinking, rationale behind every decision that you
guys make.
And it sound like you're the --
the rationale you have May be
different next week as we see things evolve, in particular,
the capacity to make sure that
the supply chain is going to be stable.
One quick question.
I heard that the SoMa site was a
walk-in and that had a closed
dome, so was is -- closed down. Was it closed down. >> it is open now. It was open as of yesterday.
And I think it was -- there was no particular reason other than
just trying to stand up a new
site quickly and the logistical kind of opening issues that had
to get worked out.
There were no problems that were insurmountable and they were able to quickly resolve them and open it again for people to be tested again yesterday.
So we really want people to try
out those sites.
And we hear and understand and completely agree with the concerns this May not be
accessible to people who can't sign up online.
So we're trying to figure out ways to support people and being
able to access the sites even if they don't have access to the
online resources to sign up.
>> President Yee: are there any
plans right now -- and this is my last question -- are there
any plans to work with H.S.H. In
maybe some of the workers that
generally interact with the
homeless on the street? Whether or not they could go
around with computer or laptop
or something and maybe perhaps sign people up? They could assist them in
signing up in the meantime before you figure out other ways do this? >> yeah.
I think that is a really good idea to consider. We have been working really
closely, as you know, with
H.S.A. And H.S.H.
And want to continue that work.
And employ the people or rope in the people on the hot team and others that know communities
well, know populations well that might be unsheltered and offer
that service to them as well. We'll definitely explore ways to get a lot of people access. I think that's a great one to explore. So thank you very much, President Yee.
>> President Yee: sure.
I want to thank you again on
behalf of all my colleagues for
coming here today and getting to everybody's questions. At this point I'd like to let you go.
And I know you have other things to do.
And deeply appreciate your time. So I guess, colleagues, I'm
going to go ahead and end this meeting. thanks for the questions.
I will be in contact with you to see what we could put together
for next week, okay? Thank you very much. Bye-bye now.