please call the roll on item number 15. >> clerk: on item 15. [roll call vote] >> clerk: item 18 is a motion to schedule board of supervisors to sit as a committee of the whole on january 4, 2022. that is today during the regular board of supervisors meeting to

hold a public hearing on the mayor's december 17, 2021 local emergency relating to drug overdoses in the tenderloin. >> president walton: thank you, so much. colleagues, as we all know, over the break we held a very long special meeting on the mayor's emergency order for the tenderloin. we heard from various departments speaking on the plan and we also heard robust testimony from san francisco residents in support and against the plan. ultimately, our board voted 8-2 to approve the motion to concur with the emergency order. at the time of the meeting, we had not received a written plan from the department of emergency management or the mayor's office. it was promised to us the following week. last tuesday, a plan was e-mailed and submitted to the board of supervisors from the director of the department of

emergency management. we want to appreciate director carroll for sending us the written plan. we know that there are additional questions and concerns on the emergency order. we will devote this committee of the whole to get unanswered questions about the actual plan and next steps. i want to let the public know what the committee of the whole is going to be focused on as we move forward. seeing no one else on the roster, please call the roll for item 18. >> clerk: on item 18. [roll call vote]

there are 11 ayes. >> president walton: this motion is approved unanimously. madam since item 18 has been approved, please call our 3:00 p.m. special order committee of the whole. >> clerk: item 9 is a public hearing of the board of supervisors' convening as committee of the whole, today january 4, 2022. to hold a public hearing on the mayor breed proclamation of local emergency relating to drug overdoses in the tenderloin. >> president walton: thank you so much. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you. thank you all colleagues for indulging me in this request for a second visit with regard to

the emergency declaration and apologies that i was not able to join all of you on december 23rd. although, my staff did watch all 10 1/2 hours that meeting have thoroughly briefed me and i want to appreciate all of you for your stamina and excellent questions that you asked the staff and the administration. as i said in the letter, i wrote from mexico, it is obvious to all of us who work at city hall, adjacent to the tenderloin to myself as the supervisor that has uppermost portion of the tenderloin in his district. t.l. has been in crises for quite some time and even more so during the pandemic. whether or not it has gotten

worse in the last couple of months is arguable. i checked with the chief medical examiner office today earlier today about the number of opioid related deaths recently as compared to over the last two years. actually, there's no apparent spike. that is not to say that there's not a crises. it is not unforeseen. it is not unexpected. having said that, whether declarations of local emergency use are in order or not, i personally am pleased that the mayor and all of us are focusing on this and i would like to work collaboratively with the administration productively and use this as an opportunity to reverse some human misery that we all see in the t.l.

having said that, i want to salute supervisor ronen for her work around mental health s.f. which i think -- i don't want to put words in her mouth -- it's been off to a frustrating start. perhaps this emergency declaration can be used and discuss this more to speed that up. i have some fundamental questions about linkage to what? navigation centers to navigate to where? these are some of the questions that we should ask and continue to be involved and continue to monitor and to continue to collaborate. i've been thinking about that over the last couple of weeks. i do have -- none of them are silver bullet so to speak. some thoughts that i would like

to explore particularly with department of public health. to the extent that we view this as a public health crises, which i think is the right lens to look at it as a behavior health crises. i continue to be concerned about the lack of public health detail in this -- i guess it's called a plan. i would call it more of an aspiration document than a plan. i say that with sincere gratitude and respect for the director and her leadership around the covid and covid command center and the endless covid emergency. i also understand that d.p.h. is dealing with covid as well. i think that we really need to

focus on behavioral health and talk to the head of mental health s.f. who is prepared to talk to us today. yesterday, i had a long productive conversation with the head of our department of public health, grant colfax and raised the idea and communicated with dr. warren browner that there are two hospital that are approximate to the tenderloin. st. francis, which has made efforts to involve itself in the community and this crises. frankly, cpmc, has been less of an active participant. i actually communicated with dre

to engage cpmc in seeing what they can do with behavioral health specialists with clinicians, with beds to be part of the solution to this crises. i like to add that we have quite a number of shelter facilities in and around the tenderloin that because of covid, have been at 50% of capacity. when we are talking about linkage to capacity that is under utilized because of covid, there are answers there that we need it get serious about and explore. particularly, given that somewhere around two thirds of the homeless population is vaccinated, that we can utilize, shetter sites -- shelter sites

more efficiently. to that end, i have a few questions for our city attorney and i apologize if these were asked at the last hearing on december 23rd. given that on top of the public health crises with covid, this is an additional strain on our public health facilities on d.p.h. i would like to ask deputy city attorney, pearson, why we can't -- why by law the mayor and or the chief health officer cannot introduce or can they introduce additional supplemental proclamations to the covid state of emergency to ensure that staff and resources are not being taken away from covid by

the behavioral health crises. i don't know if i articulated that well. we now have more than two emergencies. we have a covid emergency by the mayor with 41 supplemental proclamations, a covid emergency by the chiefly health officer and now a local tenderloin emergency. i don't know if you understood my question. if not, i'm happy to repeat it. >> deputy city attorney ann pearson. let me describe the powers of the mayor and board and the health officer and emergency. may be i'll answer your question and you can repeat it and i can answer it more directly. obviously the mayor declared an emergency. when the mayor asked declare an

emergency, she may take actions that are necessary to address that emergency. similarly, as we've seen in the past year and a half, the board of supervisors also has emergency authority. to the extent that the policies that are included in the legislation are necessary to address the emergency. those really -- those are the main limits on the authority. the things the board may do and mayor may do the things that are necessary to address the emergency. if you can rephrase your more specific question, i'm happy to try to address that. >> supervisor peskin: my specific question was really around ensuring that one emergency does not undully reduce capacity from the other emergency. what our abilities are to

dictate that? >> again, i can describe generally what the power is of each person. it sounds like that you're concerned one emergency might take away from resources. i assume that there's some effort to try to make sure that resources are made available both for people who are suffering from covid as well as those in the tenderloin. if you can give me a specific example of something you're thinking about, it might be easier for me to address that. >> supervisor peskin: may be i will ask that. obviously, the covid contagion requires different set of players and skills within public health than the opioid emergency. may be i'll follow up with d.p.h. on that. let me move to the next one,

which is why can't we use the emergency proclamation to ensure that expedited and streamlined implementation of mental health s.f.? can we use the local t.l. health emergency to streamline, expedite supervisor ronen's mental health s.f. hire? [please stand by]

>> can we do relative to involving and obtaining additional capacity and human resource from the two approximate hospitals c.p.m.c.

and saint frances? it would be easier to react to what you propose than to recommend policies to engage the services or resources of those pro entities. i don't know what type of partnership you are imagining with them. >> supervisor peskin: well, i was very pleased this morning to receive from dr. colfax a list of half a dozen or more items that he thought those local hospitals could contribute to this effort that would be meaningful in making some substantial progress. i am happy to share that list with everybody. it's a public document. deputy city attorney i will share it with you and forward to

you right now and you can mull that over and give me some advice offline or online when we next hear this. i think we will continue to check in and collaborate as the three month period winds on. with that, i was also reflecting on the fact that early on at the emergency operations center when the covid emergency was declared, one of those supplemental proclamations allowed for streamlining of hiring for hundreds of nurses. kate howard and greg wagner were involved in that. greg is available today. how many thursdays were actually hired for the covid emergency. we went far and wide. we may have gone internationally

to procure nurses. i believe we offered hiring incentives and bonus pay and supervisor safai was involved in that effort. i am curious how many we hired, if they are still in the system? given we are still in the covid emergency, when that winds down if there is potential to move them to the system to support the behavioral health needs in the declaration emergency the mayor issued in december. maybe that is for mr. wagner, who i believe is present. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. we have mr. wagner available. mr. wagner. >> thank you. greg wagner chief operating officer for the department of public health. supervisor peskin, i was not expecting that question. i will get you the number of

nurses hired. i will send a text to see if i can have it momentarily. generally, that hiring practice has been very successful. we have hired hundreds of nurses under the covid emergency order. many of those nurses are still with us, and we continue to hire through the expedited processes in place under covid. certainly, to the extent that there is programmatic overlap, those individuals hired under the covid process can contribute to the work directly or indirectly that is happening related to the tenderloin. there is and i suspect you may be going there. there are some types of positions that we have the authority and ability to hire under the covid emergency declaration. others we have not.

there is some overlap but not universal overlap 2009 the hiring through -- hiring through covid and hiring to do the work that we need to in the tenderloin. if you have a moment of patience i will text and try to get the numbers on the numbers. >> supervisor peskin: i appreciate that. maybe while you are doing that i can turn to dr. hillary, our behavior health director who joined us mental health sf director who joined half a year or so ago to help understand how dph is involved in the tenderloin emergency and what their role is so if you are available good to meet you and

good afternoon. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. we have the doctor available. >> thank you and good afternoon, board of supervisors, i am dr. hillary cunnan director of behavior health services at san francisco department of health. happy to speak and answer any questions. the board has. since proceeding and then since the declaration of this public health emergency, the dph has been partnering with director carol, the department of emergency management and entire family of city departments to plan and begin implementation of our response to the emergency.

this includes, as you have referred to, working to set up a linkage center as well as partnering and coordinating outreach and engagement efforts in the tenderloin. our goal is to reduce overdose deaths, reduce public drug use, and to provide ready access to care and treatment for the people of the tenderloin. we very much see this as part of our life saving work at the department and we are welcoming the chance to act with urgency and using every resource we can use of the city. supervisor peskin, i want to address the question around shifting resources and diminishing the ability to

address the covid pandemic and the current surge which is extremely important to the city, department, and we are aiming to not divert resources and to very much maintain and respond to the current challenges that the pandemic is bringing us. >> supervisor peskin: i am not trying to be too cute. this is something i am trying to get my hands around. you referred to a declaration of public health emergency. maybe this is -- i am glad to hear you consider it such. that is not what it says. the fact that demversus dph is the lead doesn't seem to indicate that to me. you seem to think that, which i

think is a good thing. the chief health officer has not said this is a public health emergency nor has the mayor, although public health is involved, but not as the lead. you understand what i am trying to get at? maybe you can tell me how you guys are involved. to that end, what services dph is providing, whether it is on the, you know, the physical health side or the behavioral health side in the lincoln center. >> thanks for those comments, supervisor. i appreciate just pointing out that my public health lens led me to insert public health into that emergency. that is certainly the way that

we are collaborating across the city departments, thinking about each department bringing their own expertise, as we know. we are -- it takes multiple strategies and kinds of intervention to solve complex problems such as in the tenderloin. from the public health point of view, we are taking the view that we want to use this opportunity to expand, develop, be creative about the approaches to save lives. our work is to provide program design at the lincoln center, to shape and help coordinate all of the outreach work that is going on, and very much relies on our own dph staff expertise as well

as our community partners and providers with whom we are be beginning and will continue to collaborate. >> will there be dph staff with medical or mental health services on site at the lincoln center? i am not clear on that. >> we are still working out the specific details about the staffing. by dph staff, i will use that broadly to say dph staff or contracted providers who will be on site at the lincoln center providing both and on site expertise where appropriate and/or linkage to provider based or dph based expertise where appropriate and feasible. >> supervisor peskin: relative to linkage, not just to expert

tease but to other services or to beds, in a temporary facilities or midterm facilities or hospital beds, can you tell us what the plan is to link to what and where? is there sufficient capacity? >> yes, by expertise i should be more concrete. services and linkage to care. the expert tease available in those care settings. we are intending to use really our whole system of carry evaluating where space is available on a daily basis. we are working to facilitate where to create space if we need to. we know that there may be instances where we run into

capacity issues. we will actively problem solve them because we have a team at the ready who is available to coordinate care, move people into care where appropriate, to assess needs, and to be creative about when and if there are capacity issues how to address those absolutely. i just want to point out that for the number of people who might not be ready for formal treatment or formal programs, we also intend to design a program for people to make positive behavior change wherever their stage of readiness where we use that. we see this as also helping

motivate people to seek care and to pull them into care with all of our skills and expertise. that is part of the on site staff. >> supervisor peskin: relative to my earlier comments about what some of the local private hospitals could provide, that would be helpful to this effort this morning dph provided a list of those. i think you were involved in the creation of that list. can you tell us ways that c.p.m.c. and saint francis or any ear provide -- any other providers might be useful and what you might suggest? >> i would be happy to.

the principal is as we need a whole city response to challenging behavioral health and other problems, we need a whole of healthcare response to challenging behavioral health issues whether they are substance abuse, addiction or mental illness. we offered a number of ways in which we would be very welcoming of collobbarration including hospital and emergency department based and enhanced social services for folks coming to the emergency room but who may also have a behavioral health need. i can see i was frozen on the screen. i am not sure you can hear me. >> you are going in and out a little bit. >> maybe if you turnoff the

camera it may be helpful. >> let me try going off-camera. enhanced social services and service coordination in private hospital emergency departments. support and commitment to both assessing and coordinating care for patients in emergency departments who might be eligible or even voled in conservatorships. we are also really looking to expand access to addiction treatment, particularly something that emergency departments are doing across the country is initiating country with morphine for those with overdose or opioid addiction and hoping private hospitals will

consider expanding use of that in the emergency department. we are very hopeful of working with the nearby private hospitals to receive emergency department data among visits made by people in the tenderloin to understand the impact we are having and help target or taylor responses as needed. finally, in the near term we would be very welcoming of support in the provision of medical van to include nursing or or physicians, particularly at night. people with physical health needs as well as behavioral health needs. let me stop there to see if you

have questions. >> supervisor peskin: i very much appreciate it. i don't know if this is for you or mr. wagner. historically c.e.o.s of the public and private hospitals in san francisco county have met regularly. i think mr. wagner may have been the representative on the department of public health to that body. i know there is a sharing of information and i was wondering if any of this is brought up in that setting and if there has been any attempt by dph to involve either one of those or other hospitals in this effort. if so what the response has been. i know that in my communication with dr. brownner from c.p.m.c. today he did not seem like he had been approached about these ideas. i think it would be a good thing to do. i also think and i prefer to do

this with honey rather than vinegar. there are certain things that we can easley date including sharing kind of reporting information that you set forth in that e-mail to me earlier and that you just referred to relative to ed reporting data from the tl. mr. wagner, can you tell us if that body still meets if you are the representative on the city's behalf and if any of this has or is going to be discussed in. >> supervisor, the body still does meet the hospital council. i am not the representative. i know that dr. cummings has had discussions about the opioid crisis in particular, but i would defer to her on the extent to which this has or has not

been discussed with the hospital council. >> supervisor peskin: relative to bed capacity for behavioral health treatment expansion, what do we have? i know that we have a lot that we aspire to and many that have not been implemented. the good news is that we do actually have quite a bit of available funding for this effort. maybe you can give this body an update on those numbers. >> i just transferred to my phone. i caught the end of your question if you don't mind repeating that. >> supervisor peskin: i was asking about behavioral health residential treatment beds. what we have, what is planned, what is real?

>> we do have new resources being devoted to expansion of residential care and treatment. thus far since launch of this fiscal year we have opened approximately 85 spaces or spots in residential care and treatment settings. there are a total of approximately 400 budgeted. we are aggressively moving those forward with some of the challenges as well in some cases acquiring new facilities as well as executing new contracts with providers.

>> supervisor peskin: i will not over stay michael wom. -- my welcome. i look forward to being part of the solution. i will defer to my colleagues. i thank you for your indulgence and apologize for not being available on the eve before christmas eve. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. supervisor ronan. >> supervisor ronen: i have a couple questions rerated to what supervisor peskin finished with. the main reason i supported this emergency declaration was because of my excitement about the fact that 250 or around 250 vacant be behavioral health positions at dph could be fulfilled on a short timeline. something i have been pushing

for for years. i was wondering if you could give any specifics about that hiring process. if you could tell us what are the vacant positions and what is the timeline for those to be filled i will add the lack of case managers is a major, major problem in our system of care. and the lack of staff running an office of coordinated care which is part of mental health sf. those two things make whatever resources are available to us in terms of beds and treatment programs much less successful because often times people are

so sick they need the support of case managers and a coordinated system to enter services and stay in those services. i am so excited to hear about this. i had a hearing request outstanding not just on the tenderloin but on hiring needs to fully implement mental health sf. we are going to hear that in a couple weeks on the government oversight committee. i would love to hear an update related to this plan as well. that can be from mr. wagner or dr. cummings. >> thank you, supervisor ronan. we also view this as an extremely important effort. as you know over the past budget cycles through development of mental health sf and associated

behavioral health programs we budgeted approximately 150 new city positions. in addition to that contracted funds to bring on staff through cbo partners. at the same time we have a historical deficit in our existing staffing and behalf of behavioral health and we are pushing hard to fill as many positions as we can. it is not that the pace of implementation is not fast enough for any of us. we are right now doubling down to make a major push to hire at least 200 positions in the next 90 days wherever possible we will hire through the standard civil service where we have an existing eligible list to use we will use.

we have spent many past months building those lists recruiting candidates. there are 90 positions where we do not have an eligible list and which are critical positions including in areas you specifically just mentioned, supervisor ronan that are key tr efforts in the mental health sf program to allow us to have a public health impact in tenderloin. in terms of what classes those are, there is a list and there are many positions in many different classes. in terms of the emergency declaration that the board is considering and approximately 90 positions that we will be affirming in the next several days some. the bigger category

psychiatric physician specialist, office of coordinated care, health program coordinators are key. pharmacists. epidemiologists, program managers and analysts including those required to bring those contracted services online, the beds and cbo partnerships that are embedded in the budget for mental health sf. we are going to push harder than ever and we are very hopeful and grateful for the assistance to make this push and i think that we have the opportunity here to really make a difference, get ourselves out of our place we are in terms of backlog of hiring and bring on the resources much sooner via this process.

>> supervisor ronen: the addition of 200 positions, aside from the mass hiring of nurses that supervisor peskin referred to earlier in the pandemic. has dph ever been able to fill in many positions in 90 days before? >> thank you. the answer is no. by the way, i am still awaiting the data. i will provide that to the board on what we are able to do under the covid emergency. the level of hiring that is required and the number of different classes is unprecedented. we have the combined factors of we are trying to grow the system while we are digging out of deficit that was created during the covid-19 pandemic.

it was indirect but because a lot of our freezes and the city's ability to conduct exams and create civilville service lists and resources dedicated to the positions for direct covid responses created a backlog. our ability to do this does require a major push and does require our ability to do some flexibility with the rules. this is a little unprecedented. i will say that we did have that authority under the covid-19 pandemic for nurses for a lot of the positions that are at the hospitalizations and in direct covid-19 response. the nature of this emergency allows us to take that model and apply to positions needed to

make an impact in the tenderloin and part of this mental health sf initiative that we are not eligible for expedited hiring under the covid-19 emergency declaration. we understand this is a significant ask. we think it is necessary to be able to do an unprecedented amount of hiring on the timeline required. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. after the hearing on the 23rd and the articles in the paper and the way this whole effort was rolled out by the mayor, so many of the adsvo cats in the community that i so deeply respect who were against us voting in favor of this emergency declaration of local emergency, i really wanted to emphasize this point. i think this is a major, major

deal. hiring 200 vacant positions in behavioral health to address very sick people living to streets of tenderloin is what we need to make that difference. 200 city workers in all of the categories that greg wagner laid out is more progress that we have had in behavioral health department that i have seen since i have been here at the board of supervisors. i am worried about and do not agree with a law enforcement-led response in the tenderloin and will continue to fight against that, that strategy which i do not believe when work and i believe we have literally 100 years of evidence showing it doesn't work. i do believe that what will make

a difference is a proper health-led response to this crisis. that begins with having enough case managers, enough psychnurses, behavioral health professionals, epidemiologists, program managers to have a workable behavioral health system in this city that it can serve the people that need help on our streets. i just wanted to emphasize this point again because i don't think that this point which i actually believe is the most important part of this proclamation of local emergency has news been discussed enough by the mayor, department of public health and certainly not discussed enough in the press. i hope that explains the reason i decided to vote for this

proclamation of local emergency. i want to assure all of the hundreds of people who wrote pome opposing this measure thiss is the reason i supported it. i will continue to fight against a law enforcement surge in the tenderloin. i will continue to fight for a services health response to this drug overdose crisis in the tenderloin, mission and all over the city. i am very excited and hopeful what it will mean in the next 79-- 90 days to have 200 professionals focusing on this crisis. >> thank you. supervisor melgar. >> supervisor melgar: thank you supervisor peskin and ronen for

your strong statement and advocacy on behalf of mental health in our city. i am glad to hear that we are going to be able to do some of what we need to do. my question was more about something that supervisor peskin touched on earlier. that was the role of the private hospitals. as i remember, when i was sitting on the planning commission we would get annual reports from c.p.m.c. about the progress on making good on the community benefits of their development agreement. i remember now supervisor gordon mar was very involved in drafting a lot of the agreements that happened between the hospital and the community when we approved their expansion.

i remember correctly part of what they agreed to do was provide more health services in the tenderloin. i thought at the planning commission i remember that in one area where they often underperformed in terms of what we were getting out of them. i am wondering if this emergency declaration and i think they have to report to the health commission if i am not mistaken. i wonder if the emergency declaration gives any additional powers to the emergency services does give additional powers to make sure those agreements are kept, if there are resources to compel them to spend in the tenderloin which they were to spend all along to support our efforts with something they got from us. i am just wondering if somebody from dph or planning can answer

that. >> mr. wagner. let me see if anybody is here from planning. i am not sure. >> supervisor melgar: i can wait for the answer if it takes time for somebody to come talk to us about it. that was part of the agreement. they were supposed to provide health services. the report they give us every year at least when i was on the planning commission a couple years ago that is one area where they could have done more. >> we are probably going to have to track someone from planning down. we didn't invite them to this committee as a whole. we can reach out in the meeting.

>> thank you, supervisor for your question and discussion about the obligations of the hospitals and the community benefits. i would have to get back to you. i think mr. wagner and i can bring that back. we will understand what the obligation is there. >> supervisor melgar, any other questions? >> supervisor melgar: no. thank you, president walton. >> supervisor safai. >> does he get back to you?

i wanted to put out there we did have at budget committee we had a whole conversation. the first day we announced the covid case in the city and county of san francisco we had a hearing on the hiring process of nurses. the amount of vacant positions of nurses, amount of traveling nurses and the plan with which they would reduce the amount of time from nine months average to hire down to 60 days to 90 days. they did give us an update recently at the budget and finance committee because we were having a conversation. department of public health is heavily relying on traveling nurses. we wanted to scrutinize that and talk about the total vacancy rate of nurses. i want to read that into the record.

it is reduced down to 7.2% of the number of nurses. in terms of san francisco general hospital and laguna honda 11%. when you start county the number of jobs awards it is 3.7 and 8.5 respectively. the process they were not back to business as usual but using the things we learned. there is still work to be done. there is a lot of concern at san francisco general in if emergency room. i wanted to put the amount of vacancies on the table to get that into the record. i will let public health and mrs well that is the data that we had. my question for mr. wagner. i did mention last time that we

were here. couple priorities as part of this emergency order and plan. one was san francisco general addiction care team. in line with what supervisor peskin is talking about in the surrounding hospitals to the tenderloin. i know a lot of the individuals suffering from severe addiction are sept be to sf general emergency care team. it is there the addiction care team addresses them. they are under funded. it is an area where we could do additional work to increase amount of linkage to get people to proper treatment and facilities rather than handing them a flyer to say these are the services that you could tap into. doctor martin runs the team. i have spent time with her and her team. it is one of my top priorities

for the budget season. now that we have accelerated the conversation and directly linked to what st. francis hospital and dealing with individuals there. it is also someone, another piece of the puzzle that could be increased. i just want to give mr. wagner the opportunity to talk about that. we will continue to work with dr. martin and her team. they have a proposal to expand the resources there and to increase linkage with individuals that have addictions. both maybe he and mr. wagner and ms. cummings can talk about that. >> if she has anything to add to that program.

supervisor, that would be worth while for us to have a little bit of offline conversations about that particular program. certainly sounds like it fits squarely that type of expansion fits in the initiative. there would be the usual kind of logistical questions to work through. we would be more than happy to work with you and your office to look at that. >> just through the chair, mr. wagner, are you familiar with the addiction care team at san francisco general hospital and the work that they do? >> i will pass that to dr. cummings. >> i wanted to establish if you are aware of their work. >> yes, i am very aware and respectful of their work.

it is a model that is being expanded across the country as a strategy to link patients who might come in for care for pneumonia or hurt leg or other physical health needs and then get the opportunity to have help for their substance abuse disorder or addiction and get linked to ongoing care. i worked with dr. martin as well and i think it is a terrific program of one of the challenges is unlike other kind of specialty services in hospitals like cardiology or pulmonology. medcalorie imbursements are not sufficient to support those

services only with insurance reimbursements at least with public insurance. i will add that would be another interesting opportunity to discuss with the private hospitals as well. >> i would say thank you through the chair because of work they are doing, because this is again your area of expertise. you have individuals in this emergency room, you have individuals that are diagnosed with addiction and other substance abuse disorders in need of support. that would be to me one of to most important opportunities to connect them and if this is what this emergency order is about, it is about not going back to doing things the way they have been done for a long time but trying to change the paradigm. this is one of the things we will continue to push in this. very similar to mental health sf.

you are going on and you want to fill these positions to deal with mental health crisis. it is very, very clear as you know and we have had these conversations. we have an addiction crisis in the city as well. we have to do better in terms of getting and linking people to services and no better place than the adsdiction care team at san francisco general. it is duplicating those. they are completely under funded and supported that is one of those priorities to push this conversation during this 90 day emergency declaration. did you want to respond to that? >> thank you for your comments. i think that those are highly -- i agree that is a highly

impactful service and intervention. we will talk more offline. >> thank you, mr. president. >> thank you. supervisor haney. >> supervisor haney: thank you, colleagues for your questions and your comments. much appreciated. thank you for the answers. i had a few questions about some of the things brought up and a few that have not. i think it is incredibly hopeful that we heard today as supervisor ronan's questions led us to that we are going to see 200 positions filled over the 90 days as part of this health emergency psychat trick specialist, behavioral health, nurses, pharmacists, care coordinators. that is as was said by

mr. wagner a much needed really unprecedented rapid hiring and deployment of public health professionals to meet this deadly epidemic that is killing nearly two people each day in our city. i want to ask a question about how it could possibly be that we have these hundreds of positions that i think we all i hope acknowledge will save lives. i am very hopeful that by deploys the hundreds of people that this type of public health response is capable of saving hundreds of lives. it also leads me to be both curious and sad that over the last two years we have seen 700 people die each year and we were sitting on hundreds of vacant

but funded positions that this board allocated to respond to this epidemic. mental health sf made the foundation to respond to this epidemic years ago, and yet the lack of filling of positions, lack of deployment of strategies i think has led to us losing many lives. can you help me understand why we could possibly have a situations where we have so many hundreds of positions funded but unfilled and that only through an emergency were able to fill these positions? i think that is hard both for the public and for me as someone who has long supported this emergency to understand how that can be? is it truly there is barriers

that it takes a declaration of emergency to do it? if that is the case, why didn't we do this two years ago? i have and this board has called for the declaration of emergency for some number of years for what it could mean for staffing. now as i am reflecting on that, i feel both hopeful about what this could provide for this neighborhood and the people but also incredibly frustrated and sad that this didn't happen sooner? how can we have 200 unfilled positions that we know can save lives that can only be filled by bya state of emergency? >> i and the rest of us at dph share the frustration and sense of urgency about filling these

positions. i think there are a couple of factors that have led us to where we are today. we have combination of the fact that we do have an expanded number of new positions in the most recently adopted budget. we are growing. at the same time we have gotten behind both in behavioral health be grated care and else -- integrated care and elsewhere. where certain pieces of the hiring process were frozen due to covid emergency and we have not been able to dig ourselves out of that hole. in combination with that, the nature of the labor market environment particularly in behavioral health is very challenging. there is high turnover, people

who have left the work force through burnout, through a lot of the issues that we are all familiar with over the last year or so. i think those factors combined to put us in a position where we have this backlog. we have a combination of backlog of vacant positions that is a lot to dig out of plus expanding the system. with the board support we did put additional resources into our budget to fill these. we really are at this challenging situation where we have a big hurdle to go over to get back to the point where we are at a normal balance between number of vacant be positions and the resources to hire. there are challenges in the

city's hiring process, but that is -- those are the factors that got us to where we are today. again, i share your frustration and don't provide those reasons as a justification but as explanation for why i think all of these accumulated pieces that have brought us to where we are today mean this emergency order will give us the push to get out of our hole and back to a place where we have some balance where we are able to more sustainably keep pace with turnover and vacancies with the resources that we have for our employees. >> thank you for that. i asked that question not to place blame or point fingers but more to understand how we make

sure that we respond in an ongoing way that is sustainable that keeps pace with the need that actually deploys the staff, public health staff that we have funded. i definitely acknowledge that mental health sf was passed right before the pandemic. then we have added additional positions and funding to build it out. during that time we were in the middle and still are another pandemic. or another epidemic in the middle of a pandemic. i do understand that. it is a reason why this level of focus and giving you the tools to move forward rapidly is something that i think is necessary and i hope that it gets us to a place that is much more sustainable. again, as supervisor ronan said,

one of the reasons why this is so necessary is because of the opportunity to fill these hundreds of public health positions to help us respond to the behavior health needs in our city. i wanted to ask one quick question related to that which is about outreach. i noted one of the fundamental approaches we are taking with this emergency is bringing people to the linkage site or center, however, it is referred to, and from there connecting people with longer term care and treatment. in terms of hiring and maybe this is also a question for director carroll or others involved with the center. one of the clear needs is much

more robust and ongoing set of street outreach to be able to connect with people where they are regularly and then bring them to the center or enroll in care and treatment directly on the street. is that part of the hiring plan? how are we building up street outreach? is that part of 200 positions? how are we planning to handle that in a different way? >> i see director carroll. i will weigh in on the initial question about 200 person hiring plan and i will turn it over to director carroll. very much part of 200 person hiring plan includes as supervisor ronan pointed out staffing to fulfill and staff up

the office of coordinated care. that office will include care and case managers, some of whom will be street based and able to work with people lon people to o sustainable care to coordinate and expand the ability to coordinate the care and to help navigate people to care over not just one single episode but over time. director carroll. >> thank you. happy to be with you today. the outreach we are working on the outreach plan or strategy is

led by trusted community partners who are already in the tenderloin. one of the things that we learned through our covid response was that we needed to let the communities that we are serving really help lead the way and to also give the voice to trusted partners, not necessarily the city leading. that is the strategy that we are following in our outreach now. we are meeting with the community partners on a regular basis right now with the health department and the department of homelessness and supportive housing. as you know, we have a number of outreach -- teams with a combination of staff that do

outreach. we are working with them to figure out the best way to do the outreach. what we have been told already is that the sooner we can get information out to the people that we want to serve the better. we want to prepare people. we don't want to add trauma on trauma. we are listening to experts, the community, working to put the outreach plan together. >> i appreciate that. it is something that we also the street crisis response teams, outreach is very much welcomed and needed. i think the type of outreach we are trying to do in response to this particular emergency requires an even greater level of both city staff as well as

service providers. couple other questions. this emergency focuses, of course, on stopping the epidemic of drug overdoses specifically, and i understand and support that a lot of that attention is focused on people unhoused or using publicly accessible to us in that way. one thing i have not heard as much of is how we are reaching people housed. [please stand by]

>> yeah, thank you, supervisor. go -- go ahead. >> sure, sorry about that. and so, supervisor, i think -- i think that -- i hope that you know that we are really have overdoses as one of our highest health priorities. it is for those unhoused and unhoused folks, about two-thirds

of overdose deaths are among people who are unhoused in the city. again what this plan in particular around the hiring will allow us to do is to amplify our ability to engage and offer care and treatment to people who are at risk of overdose. focus on people experiencing homelessness, but also able to extend to people who are housed whether they are housed upstabley or stable, whether it is expanding florida naloxone or access to other effective treatments for opioid use disorder. i think that we are really looking to bring to scale every opportunity to engage people at risk of overdose. and i think that some of the list of things that we are interested in bringing to the private hospitals, things such

as supervisor safai mentioned about the addiction consult team as well as the work we're doing out on the streets are all aimed to find people who are at risk of overdose, offer them risk reduction strategies, ranging from naloxone, to treatment. >> great, thank you. and, you know, i know that the hundreds of positions that we've talked about here and the more critical care coordination, obviously, will also be serving people who are both housed and unhoused. and we'll help with that. i just wanted to make sure that was -- you know, a key part of this strategy. and i know that there are other goals that we have around some of the public impacts that happen in the tenderloin related to drug use and overdoses which are -- which are also very important. but -- and we want to actually

stop people from dying of overdoses, which is the central part of this emergency declaration. and that's going to require us meeting folks where they are and as you said two-thirds of the people who overdose in our city are housed. dr. carol, i wanted to ask about the linkage site and if you could tell us what -- what generally the plans are with it now, and if you have a sense of the timeline, the hours, the type of services that will be there, i will say -- and supervisor ronen spoke about this as well -- one of the parts of the framework of mental s.f. was to have a low barrier, accessible, ideally 24-hour place where people could refer or go themselves immediately without bureaucracy and without barriers to get access to

referrals or care. it sounds like this is largely what we're doing with the linkage center, at least focused on the tenderloin and focused on addiction. can you explain a bit what we know so far and what the plans are? and also i want to thank you for your work in securing this site i think that it will make a big difference and it will save lives. >> yeah, thank you, supervisor. so the linkage center is intended to be a service -- really service focused location, where people can voluntarily find respite from the streets, first. and, second, to gain access to a wide variety of resources that are provided by the city and our partners. so, again, there's sort of two purposes. and one is to provide a very safe and welcoming kind of

low-barrier space for people who suffer from substance use disorder in the tenderloin where they can go and they can access a number of these basic services which are, you know, food, water, hygiene, what we call test treatment activities and programming, covid testing and vaccines. we're working on having some basic services around wound care. so things that really, if nothing else, it is a safe place for people to be that's not on the street. and then, secondly, of course, is the linkage to programs. and so those include programs in the area of behavioral health and treatment. temporary winter shelter. homeward bound. sobering and substance use. food coordination. child and family care and other types of problem solving. so, you know, people who are on

the street have a lot of different needs, and maybe a person comes in many times to get a cup of coffee or have their wound addressed or to, you know, have some socialization or what have you and that can be many times before perhaps they may also have that time where linking to some services to help their addiction becomes available. so we don't -- it's not a very prescribed what people need to do there. we're going to offer everything that we can. i think one of the big -- for me, one of the benefits of doing this declaration and this project is that it really forces us as a city to coordinate in a way that we haven't before. or in the way that we did over the last two years under another emergency. but to really bring these programs together in a way that will be the most helpful and to

expedite that -- that connection. and, frankly, to offer something that right now we are not offering people in the neighborhood which is relief from the streets. to the question about housing -- people who are housed, we are in those conversations, both with the clinical service providers, but also the housing providers. because, obviously, a fear of people going back and using in a way that is more unsafe, certainly, we don't want to drive negative outcomes from this project, right. we want to be able to achieve our goals, which is less overdoses overall. so that is -- that is sort of the basic picture. again, we're still working on a daily basis on the final programming of who is going to

be there and what the schedule is going to be. our intention is for this to be a 24/7 operation, which means that everyone feels that that's not going to be the most optimat effect for everyone. it is very likely, especially due to covid and that we are opening this in the middle of the omicron surge that we may have to ramp up those hours kind of on an iterative basis but that is the goal that we are working towards. >> thank you, i appreciate that and this is obviously a tremendous, tremendous challenge that you are all taking on and it will not be easy, but this is something that requires this scale of a response and a level of coordination that is unprecedented. but, absolutely, essential. i just want to note too that -- and this hasn't been talked about as much, but there's one

non-congregate shelter that has already opened and i believe another one that's opening this week, and i think that those have also been made available to help us as part of this plan. so i do want to underscore that, obviously, as supervisor peskin said, we need places for them to be linked to. and that is the kind of thing that we need to see, which is more of these placements being made available, including non-congregate shelters, treatment beds and, of course, filling the permanent supportive housing units that are open. one last question. you know, we had a hearing a few weeks ago and i mentioned this at our hearing on this item 10 days ago. they really shone a light on the fact that we have a lot of spending on behavioral health,

on homelessness, that was approved as part of the budget -- and this is a special interest to me as a budget chair, but have not yet been deployed. is not yet been sent out the door. and one of the things that i am hoping as part of this emergency is that we can move quicker on that as well. is there anything that you can share as far as updates in terms of -- for maybe this is for the director on sort of how you're thinking about deploying resources or contracts that we've approved as a board as part of this in a way that is quicker over the next 90 days? >> yeah, that is very much unded thinking about ways in which we can speed up other processes in addition to hiring.

i think since the declaration, we have been -- as i think that you have heard -- really laser focused on the hiring processes and making sure that we can take advantage of this moment. i think that your question is really a natural one and we are definitely going to be exploring that as well where we can use this declaration to do the same thing. >> great, thank you. and i know that we'll be in touch about, you know, the future update and ongoing ways for people to give input and receive data and transparency around this and i appreciate the data that was released today in terms of the number of people who have been placed and some of the other positive things that have taken place. and, again, i know that this is a tremendous, tremendous challenge that we are taking on, but i think that for the reasons that we have outlined here

around the ability to secure this facility, the opportunity to move contracts, the opportunity to hire quicker, all of these things at least for 90 days i think that give us the -- the needed push to match this with scale and urgency, not to disrupt the status quo that had really devastated this neighborhood and our city. thanks again for the answers. thank you. thanks, president walton. >> president walton: thank you, supervisor haney. supervisor preston. >> supervisor preston: thank you, walton and thank you, supervisor peskin, for calling for this additional committee of the whole. and to my colleagues for all of the good questions so far. i must say that i am concerned and i appreciate some of supervisor haney's questions along the lines of just kind of did this problem of basically having all of these vacant

positions and having this problem for so long and then sort of relying on states of emergency to sort of push through for things that should have been done and haven't been done, it is -- it can be a concerning style of governing. but more specifically i do feel like this conversation has so far really ignored the context here that we discussed at length and i don't want to go back over in detail. but i also don't thank we can just read it out of the situation. i mean -- that is the role of policing and law enforcement here. and, you know, since the last hearing which we talked about this extensively, in which we talked about how the mayor has made very clear that this is a law enforcement-led or co-led effort, complete with all of the talking points from the war on

drugs, rhetoric, right, and flooding the streets of the tenderloin with police. i went through it in her statements in more detail last time. the administration has not really backed away from those statements, other than having the police chief say that's not the plan and we hope that people will voluntarily take services. but, surely, there's just no question that the mayor has been very clear on this. i think that we should take her at her word on that. and which we've had two more weeks in which the administration could have provided us anything in writing describing any limits on the role of law enforcement here. and we've also established that the proclamation here and the declaration of emergency, it's broad, and it doesn't pro-cludethe kind of increases of policing that the mayor has vowed to unleash on the neighborhoods. so -- so i appreciate -- you know, look, if this conversation

were just about the public health responses, we'd have a unanimous board fighting all together with the administration for all of these things. instead, what we have is basically packaging a police response with a public health response and then telling everyone to just ignore police response. so getting the headlines around the police response, but then when it comes to our discussion here at this board we're supposed to just ignore that. we have received since the last hearing the three-page outline of a plan. you know, not a word about the police department, one way or the other, right. community ambassadors are referenced here as to what they're doing, to calls to intervene in street activities. this is so elegantly written to even avoid saying sfpd. i mean, who are we trying to kid? i just -- like, at some level, there's -- i think that there's a duty of candor in discussing

these things and the administration coming before this board in which we need to be honest about what we are and we are not doing. so we have the mayor's public statements and nothing limiting those. two more weeks going by -- nothing. could have revised the proclamation, brought to us something that had limits on law enforcement and we would have been unanimously moving forward to address the public health crisis and, instead, we're back here to have the same argument. i do have some questions specifically in particular relating to these things that have or have not happened since our last hearing. so through the president, i wanted to ask first the controller ben rosenfeld if he is available, whether there's been any transfers of funds pursuant to the proclamation? >> president walton: we do have

controller rosenfeld on and there he is. >> good afternoon, president walton and members of the board there have been no transfers or appropriations of funds [indiscernible] under the state of emergency today. >> president walton: controller rosenfeld you have some kind of echo for some reason. >> clerk: through the president, adjust your microphone, if that is possible. >> apologies, did that come through? >> president walton: it's still going. what was your -- what did you say, madam clerk, i didn't hear that. >> clerk: just through the president to mr. rosenfeld, if you could maybe turn off your camera and see if that would give you a better sound. >> can you hear me now clearly? >> president walton: that's much better. >> okay. apologies. good afternoon, president walton

and members of the board. ben rosenfeld, controller. to your question, supervisor preston, no, there's been no transfers of funds or appropriations of funds processed as a result of this emergency to date. >> supervisor preston: thank you, mr. rosenfeld. have there been any requests for the funds, even if not yet processed? >> there have not. >> supervisor preston: thank you. through the president to director carol, i wanted to follow up on supervisor peskin's questions around the public health nature. is this a proclamation -- is this a public health proclamation? >> it's an emergency declaration to address the public health issue. so, i mean, i'm not a city attorney so i don't know what

else to say. emergency declarations are set forth in the charter and the attorney can explain better the nature of what we're doing. >> deputy city attorney, i would field that question, supervisor preston, if that is okay. >> supervisor preston: yeah, go ahead, thank you. >> sure. so under state law, local jurisdictions have the authority to declare local emergencies. and then there are charter, the authority to make that declaration reside with the mayor. so the mayor here has proclaimed a local emergency. state law also authorizes the health officers to declare local health emergencies under certain circumstances, typically deals with infectious or communicable diseases. you may recall that under covid there were two declarations of emergency. the mayor declared a local

emergency and the health officer declared a emergency. and this is a local emergency, even though as has been discussed it deals with issues related to public health and public health threats. >> supervisor preston: thank you for the clarification. and, director carol, how is the command for this structured? like, what is -- obviously, dem will be in charge of the emergency response. are all of the other departments equal? or is this -- or does public health lead beneath you? like, what is the command structure here for the emergency response? >> so we -- the department of emergency management is the lead. so our role is to coordinate the overall effort for this. our planning -- we are doing -- you know, a lot of what we're doing right now is in planning so we're working with a lead from the department of public

health, dr. andy tenor, and we have moved from human services agency and then other support departments. >> supervisor preston: and -- >> go ahead. >> supervisor preston: sorry. director carol, i'm trying to understand, do all of the departments then -- their leads report to you? and just let me be more specific. for example, the police department, within the context of this emergency order, do they take their direction from the department of public health, some other entity or dem directly? >> so i don't have the ability to direct the police -- the police department as far as their tactics, but they are part of our overall incident management team. and we are focused primarily with them on the -- on how outreach will work. that's our main direct focus

right now, but at the same time, the police department emergency declaration or not has law enforcement operations ongoing in the tenderloin. so it is important that we coordinate very closely with them so that we understand whers are and so that we are able to, you know, to focus on certain areas and what we're going to do that day. since mid-december, we have placed 58 people in non-congregate shelter and so on the days that we're out doing the outreach for that, that we have been out there, you know, we let police know that this is an outreach operation and that's where we are. so, yes, we coordinate closely with them, as we do with the health department, hssa and ta, and theuc, and this is a

city-wide operation that we're working on. >> supervisor preston: and i'm trying to understand that there was some outreach done that you've been describing, but i think that in response to supervisor haney you clarified that there's not an outreach plan at this time, that you're working on that. so is this a model where you have, like, different folks from different departments as part -- like, what's happening in the meantime until you have that outreach plan? what is the outreach date that you are describing? >> yes, so we are working -- hsoc -- so, first of all, we've been working on this under the emergency declaration since last week when it was ratified and planning for it since before then. so over the last week and i think that this was shared and if it's not i'm happy to share it with everyone. i'm just pulling up my latest

info. so since the declaration and for the past few weeks, what we've been doing differently is that we have been on a daily basis holding operations meetings. and that is with existing operations that are already there that normally on a daily basis are not an emergency. everyone is out there doing their thing. but what we're doing now is that we pull everyone together every day, and we have folks report on what they're doing specific to the tenderloin. this declaration directs us to focus our efforts on the tenderloin. so, for example, i can -- the data that we're collecting this week, 66 engagement by street crisis response teams, that is since 12/17. we have -- what was the disposition of those. we have -- we're keeping data on all of the successful encounters. we know that our tent count in the tenderloin has gone from 95

on 12/11 to 51 as of 12/30. this is due to the joint efforts of dph and hssh and pd doing the outreach and hsoc operations. the reason that we were able to do those placements is that we were able to secure specific resources in a non-congregate hotel for the tenderloin. we also know that pd has made 33 arrests for drug fails and possessions, and seized, you know, a certain amount of fentanyl. there's been 80 calls for street overdose response teams. and we have mta doing enforcement. so these are the kind of things that on a daily basis we have certain objectives, but we're also doing report outs. so we'll report out on a weekly basis all of this data.

we've recently had contacted the controller's office and they'll help to provide us this information. so our focus, obviously, is on overdose prevention, but we know that the neighborhood has other problems also. and so we are looking at this as a whole. >> supervisor preston: thank you. and to your question or comment, no, we have not received any of this data and i would love to get it. and is this -- this is done daily or weekly, the data tracking that you're describing? you're on mute. >> i'm sorry. so we'll be doing a weekly report, similar to what you all receive, i think still receive for covid. >> supervisor preston: thank you. and then my understanding is that the linkage center lease was signed in the last few days, is that correct? >> yes, it was signed on new year's eve.

>> supervisor preston: great, thank you. and i just want to comment again -- and i've made this point with other documents but i just want to make it again -- we're coming into a committee of the whole, we're discussing this topic. it would have been great to learn about that directly from you or your team as opposed to, frankly, right now our source of information is public records act requesters who then tweet documents. i mean, that's where we are, that the board of supervisors that is charged with oversight and the unlimited power of inquiry is reliant on public requesters of documents. that's how i learned that there were leases signed despite that being a key assertion at the last hearing of why the -- i mean, we talked about this extensively at the last hearing and that was put forth really as the only reason that things couldn't wait until today's hearing before moving forward with the state of emergency.

so, you know, that's not a question. but i want to just note that as an ongoing concern. i don't think that any of us expect, you know, real-time daily updates, but coming into a hearing, i've gotta say that it's really concerning when we're convening a hearing to discuss these issues that we learn more from public record requesters than we do directly from the departments that are before us. my next question for director carol is the hiring plan that's been referenced a few times. and thank you to my colleagues, supervisor ronen and haney in particular, for all of their work on mental health, s.f. and for their questions on this. but is that -- is there a hiring plan that's in writing? >> the hiring plan pertains to the health department. so i would defer that answer to my colleagues from dph.

>> through the president to supervisor preston, we are right now working with dhr to finalize the list of positions intended to use under the emergency declaration and we'll be happy to provide that to the board as we finalize it. >> supervisor preston: thank you. is there a consultation with any representatives of labor in developing this hiring plan? (please stand by)

>> have tents and people residing in them been involuntarily removed from the streets of the tenderloin? >> no one ever involuntarily removed by the operation. people have been offered placement and as i noted, 58 people have taken up placements in non-congregate shelter >> what happened to the people that did not take the placement?

>> they are still on the streets of the tenderloin. >> then the arrest urk mentioned 33 arrests since the proclamation. how many of those were from possession? >> my understanding is that those were all around dealing. i don't know specifics to all those that were arrested. they were arrested for drug sales or intent to sell. again, i can't speak specifically. if you want the breakdown of those, i would refer to the police department. >> through the president, if chief scott is on, can you provide clarity on the 33 arrests. how many of those were for possession or intent to sale or

intent to sale. or anyone from the police department? >> president walton: i don't see clear representative from the police department on this roster now. we're going to have to do some outreach to get someone on. >> supervisor preston: thank you. question to the deputy city attorney pearson. does this emergency order in any way -- can an emergency order authorize a sweep -- let me rephrase that. does this emergency order authorize any action, enforcement action against homeless people on the streets that would otherwise be

prohibited by the boise case? >> boise case was a case that looked at constitutional limits on the ability of jurisdiction to enforce criminal laws relating to camping outdoors. a local emergency may suspend provisions of the charter. may suspend provisions of local law but may not suspend provisions of the constitution or federal or state law. >> supervisor preston: thank you for the clarification. when the mayor makes statements around enforcement of laws, all of those will be subject to the constitutional limitations of the boise case regardless of the existence or nonexistence of the state of emergency? >> that's correct.

>> supervisor preston: thank you. through the president to director carol, are there sufficient shelter beds to offer people right now given the limitations of covid to do resolutions at this point? >> yes, h.s.h. dedicated shelters specifically to the tenderloin. which is why we were able to place that number of people off the streets in the tenderloin into those specific designated beds. >> supervisor preston: how many beds are currently available? >> i don't have that on me right now. we get numbers on a daily basis

from h.s.h. we base our work on the number of beds that we have. >> supervisor preston: thank you. director carol, are there any -- i know you've been dealing with this over the last two years in the context of other emergency order. i'm wondering are there any general order, policies or protocols regarding how police interact with homeless people that this emergency proclamation would override? >> not that i'm aware of. >> supervisor preston: thank you. i think the last question -- in

terms of shelter beds or other services currently, let's focus on available beds or housing now for this question. are there any new resources that are being made available or is it the reallocation of shelter beds or housing that would be available city wide now being prioritized for the tenderloin? >> to be honest, i don't think i can accurately answer that. as you know, i think we're all aware that the availability of beds is a very dynamic situation and it changes on a day-to-day basis. we're working close oh closely with h.s.h. to have as many beds designated as possible. i'm happy to come back or provide that answer to you in

writing. i don't have it here. i don't know if any of my colleagues are here from h.s.h. >> supervisor preston: is anyone from h.s.h. on? >> yes, hi. this is emily cohen, deputy director at department of homelessness and supportive housing. >> supervisor preston: my question was whether there are any additional shelter beds or housing units being -- that have been made available pursuant to this declaration of emergency or whether it is just a matter of earmarking or prioritizing the existing resources for folks in the tenderloin. >> at this point, we are utilizing existing resources to

provide shelter capacity to support the operation. we are looking at opportunities to expand shelter but there's nothing that has created more beds at this time. we are opening winter shelter currently. we are looking to open additional shelter capacity in the next couple of months. right now we're making beds available through our existing portfolio. >> supervisor preston: are there any plans to expand beyond what you will be planning to expand without this declaration of state of emergency. is there any plans to expand beyond that? >> we have plans to expand shelter but they are not reliant on the state of emergency. >> supervisor preston: thank you. i want to note, that is concerning. one of the benefits of state of

emergency in this situation would be to use it in the same way i think my colleagues noted in terms of ramping up the hiring process. i would respectfully suggest to everyone that we be ramping up the number of shelter beds and so forth with the same urgency that's been described around the hiring of public health folks. thank you. those are my questions. >> president walton: thank you supervisor preston. i want to remind my colleagues before we go back to supervisor melgar and i know we have plans on. we have interpretation to 7:00 p.m. we do have the public that may need interpretation. we can come back to ask questions after we hear from the public. i want to be mindful of that. supervisor melgar, i know you wanted to hear from planning.

i do see aaron star is on. are you available? >> i am. >> supervisor melgar: thank you so much. mr. starr, as you may remember, i sought through several annual reports on how they were doing on your community benefits obligations under their development agreement. we are talking here today about the emergency declaration in the tenderloin and the need to increase our staffing levels to provide health services, behavioral health services. in my mind, when development agreement is entered into with a developer and they commit to

community benefits, that becomes the asset of the city. they allow them to do things this they wouldn't normally do. to me, it makes sense to view those resources and i'm wondering if you could update us as to what those are in their development agreement and how they are doing towards those.

this is an obligation that our resources outside those we are paying for, that really belong to us in every other way. it was part of the development agreement. >> yes. you're absolutely correct. the development agreement, they have to abide by what's in there and make sure they do that. i don't have an update on where they are on that and how well they've been doing. on january 20th, they are presenting an update to the planning commission. we should have more data and information specifically on the health services to the tenderloin in the development

agreement. it's something that we can look into. >> supervisor melgar: i will follow-up on that. thank you so much. >> president walton: thank you. thank you aaron. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: the other aaron, thank you president walton. just couple of quick questions and i will wrap up. to ms. carol, out of curiosity, you mentioned trusted community partners in the tenderloin. who are those trusted community partners which you are affiliating? >> give me one moment.

the t.l. organizations that are so supportive and who we've been working with is st. anthonys tenderloin community benefit district, tenderloin housing clinic, level latino, organizations that we are working with actively but who have indicated they may still have outstanding concerns about the plan and we're still working out all those details are glide, chinatown community development, uc hastings and ywam. we appreciate their willingness to work with us and work through the process.

that's the list that we have. we're also working with providers through department of public health and h.s.h. sorry, also adult probation. we forget them, they have enormous amount of resources. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. with regard to the terms of the new year's eve lease duration location and cost? >> it's a five-month lease. it is $75,000 a month. it is at 1170 market street. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. colleagues, not to quibble because one death is one death too many. i keep hearing the number of two deaths per day.

i was curious, i asked the office of the chief medical examiner for all overdose deaths in 94102 zip code which is the entirety of the tenderloin. and 94103 zip code which is the entirety of the soma. if you add those together and these are staggeringly high and terrible numbers there are a total in the calendar year in those two zip codes and those two neighborhoods in 2020 of 282 deaths by overdose. in the year 2021 through the month of november, december numbers will not be ready until later this month. there are total 244 overdose deaths. that's a terrible and staggering

number but it's less than one person a day. i want to make sure we're all using the same numbers from the same sources and as i also referenced earlier, those numbers are relatively static and consistent. they have not precipitously grown or declined in any particular month or either one of those two years. nor does the mayor's proclamation claim that there has been a precipitous increase as required by emergency. there has been other statements outside of that proclamation that would indicate that and the numbers are the numbers. they are depressing and they are tragic numbers. they are .73 deaths per day, less than one, not a factor of

100% or more higher. i wanted to say that for the record. i want to thank staff from d.p.h. and d.e.m. and you colleagues. we'll turn this over to the president. >> i have a correction to make. i said it's five month lease but it's six month lease. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor haney? >> supervisor haney: i wanted to pond quickly. i used that statistic. it's a horrifying statistic, no matter how you describe it. i've always been -- this has been nearly two day city wide. this is a city wide crises an epidemic. i believe that about 30% o40% of

them have been in the tenderloin and soma and district 6. this is an epidemic that impacts our entire city. there hasn't been a huge increase in 2020 and 2021 it's tragically been about 700 in each of those two years. that's tripling from 2017. we've seen a huge increase in our city in the last three to four years. i would agree, this has absolutely has been crises or emergency level in the tenderloin and the city for the last few years. one we saw exponential of explosion people dying in our city from this epidemic, in particular from fentanyl. it has been here with us for a number of years. i am grateful that we are finally treating it as the

crises that it is. >> president walton: thank you colleagues. i want to thank director carol and all department heads that are here today. i have to say i know one is excited about having to come back and have a conversation again about the committee of the whole particularly since we were here until after midnight and into christmas eve. some you have us later in different states and different areas. when you declare an emergency, we all have to go to work. emergency was declared. if we have to revisit this and have conversations about what the plan is, what the declaration actually means, that's something that we need to be prepared to do. because it's the situation that we're in. it's part of the work. i do sympathize with everyone who had to sit through that last hearing, which was important. there may be more. there's more work to do.

we don't get to declare emergency and complain about sitting in meetings all day. supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar: i would agree, this follow-up hearing was very important. i want to focus on the point that supervisor peskin and melgar made about engaging and with the hospital and being partners in this new focused effort in the tenderloin given their -- they are serving the community. i had to jog my memory around the cppm development agreement. it did include a significant

commitment to more low income -- they committed to serving new med cal patients in the city. i remember the last time i was tracking their compliance report, they made their very little progress, particularly on serving the tenderloin residents. i appreciate the question and response to the planning department and aaron starr's responses. this also may be the question should be ready to director carol and whether you're going to be including cpmc in this part of the partners in this

effort. >> that needs to be done hand-in-hand with the department of public health. we are also the e.m.s. regulator. we need all the resources to come there. we'll finally follow-up with my colleagues to make sure we're engaging the hospitals at the appropriate level in this conversation. >> president walton: thank you supervisor mar. thank you director carol. i don't see any other

colleagues. at this point, we're going to take public comment from the public on the committee of the whole >> clerk: at this time, board of supervisors welcome public testimony on the proclamation of local emergency relating to drug overdoses. to provide comment, the phone number is (415)655-0001. when you hear the prompt, enter the meeting i.d., 24993702895. press pound twice. i'll have joined the meeting as a listener. once you're ready to get in the queue to provide your comment, that's when you should express star 3. listen carefully for the prompt. and begin speaking your -- we have interpreters here on

standby to assist the public with interpretation. [speaking spanish] [speaking chinese] i

>> clerk: thank you for being with us this evening. as the president stated at the beginning of the meeting, we are setting the timer for one minute. operations, do we have our first ruler -- caller? >> caller: linda chapman, i was impressed with the board packet. it's a general scoping per program. one thing that i note is that there was nothing that i saw about how we're going to represent the best programs. used to have public agency.

the other thing, everybody needs to be housed not under a tent. the third thing is the police need to discrimination against gun. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: supervisors this is bafoonry. within 90 days you supposed to address this emergency.

the plan was not discussed with the community. we have this woman in charge of behavioral sciences from new york, take up to restore san francisco. you don't a -- shame on you supervisors. -- next line will fail. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. there are 22 listening and 10 callers in the queue. if you are one of the 22 and you expect to make comments on this item, should press star 3. next caller place. >> caller: this is david elliott lewis, good see you

we have a crises in the tenderloin, that's due to people being unhoused. that leads to trauma, and drug loose. we have a good solution. community created solutions called c.a.r.t. compassionate auto response team. i would like to see that get the support it needs. we do have better solutions. let's house our unhoused residents. thank you.

>> caller: good afternoon. i was -- i'm happy to see the board meeting today and the constructive questions oop i'm absolutely supportive of this effort. some of the statistics abided today. i think the questions are good, the solutions will evolve. i really do support the mayor's declaration. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your

comments. joe, let's hear from the next caller. >> caller: i want to thank supervisors and staff who have been able to hold this meeting tonight. i do strongly support the declaration of emergency. i do question the reports i'm hearing of street vendors being harassed.

>> caller: hi. i'm a district 10 resident. the. l. need services. mental health, but not sfbd, no way. i'm want to know where -- we have the same problem at the sometime. >> clerk: next caller place. welcome i have to agree with the last caller and with supervisors.

kin. this is a city wide issue. it's not just a tenderloin issue where. last week i was 1 -- 1000 percent again this. it's pouring lot of people into a beverly -- >> clerk: another caller please. >> caller: hi, my name is brook. you heard me speak ton before.

i want to be clear, that the actions that have been taken in tenderloin so far are not actions that will prevent overdose. they are actions that will pave the way. uprooting people and causes overdose, can be -- it's actually the department of works installments people and pushes people long. i -- those kinds of services don't work. i'm hopely that.i'm hoping funds can be released.

>> clerk: we were setting the timer for one minute. >> caller: good evening. i called tonight to emphasize how the police department should be. i'm prohibition. which explains this fentanyl crises has been driven by law enforcement response who is often more as a result -- please supervisors, i'm calling on you to act in and help the people understand.

>> caller: if you like to make comment, press star 3. >> caller: this is dr. teresa palmer. i live in district 5 the only thing that's going to make is shelter with the door will lohse and -- please, do not approve the emergency continuing and passage many othank you.

>> caller: i'm concerned about the idea of wasting money on events where what will translate to. stop the spread of the omicron variant will disable people who need to sunset down in health reasons. currently, if someone ask help from a social worker, there's a six months to a year wait list. >> clerk: another caller plaza.

>> caller: i support this initiative. this crises affects us all especially in the tenderloin. finally we have an initiative to address violence, drug. i applaud the supervisors questions today to ensure that long-term care facilities and staff are available. i urge you to support focus plan that's taylor thank you so much. next caller please.

>> caller: good evening. i spent 25 years working in the tenderloin. i urge you tonight to move forward with this emergency space -- the state of emergency lows us act quickly. i want to remind the abortion the state of -- it will allow us toramp up qf and enable the city to address this crises. i urge the lease to be longer than six months on the property. i urge you tonight to vote yes to continue this emergency

declaration. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. next caller please. >> caller: good evening. i'm with home life. we provide housing to people in the tenderloin who have been homeless. we have a few different concern about this plan. one of the largest ones is about the community involvement and the community-based organization that are involved in cracking the plan and continue to be involved in providing advisory capacity. we heard about -- i'm glad supervisor peskin asked question

about community partners. we heard about hand full of groups.

>> caller: san francisco delegates to private contact -- it mens they are less accountable to the public. that's the entire point what the executive branch is doing. thank you. >> clerk: thank you mr. anonymous. do we have another caller in the queue? >> caller: hi, everyone. i'm organizering in district 3. we know the mayor contradicting her own staff. we know we've seen harassment from the street vendors. we know the aclu has an active

lawsuit. we know -- i'm telling everybody like i called last time, insanity is doing the sape thing over and over again and expecting a different result. this declaration has good components. please i agree with supervisor preston, this isn't working. thank you. >> caller: we like to have more affordable housing. that's really the only solution. we also need compassionate alternative response, c.a.r.t.

you got it in the budget. it is has not allowed to get started. why are we doing this emergency thing? i fear people will arrest people who need more services to deal with their addiction. i appreciate supervisor peskin asking if there were sweeps.

>> clerk: let's hear from the next caller, please. >> caller: hello, i'm a resident of district 10. i'm calling against the emergency declaration in tenderloin. i really urge the board of supervisors to really look closely who receives contracts underneath this emergency declaration and start holding to account the way in which contracts are actually given out in this regard. there's a lot of shady stuff going on as we look through this stuff. we know -- we don't necessarily

get as much scrutiny on the contractual detail. i urge you to dig into the detail on the contracts. >> clerk: we have 28 listeners and 9 callers in the queue. if you like to make a testimony this evening, you should press star 3 if you haven't already. mr. atkins, next caller please. >> caller: this is kristin evans. i was struck today by director carol's testimony, she doesn't

have number of beds accepted. we have reports people surrendering tents with promise of a hotel room. that is the definition of a sweep. we need to focus on opening more noncongregate hotel rooms. thank you. >> clerk: next caller please. >> caller: good evening my name is kelly powers. i want to say thank you for supporting this emergency declaration. majority of you. remind of the other unintended victims which are the families, parents and children of the tenderloin. i don't hear many calls relegated to those who are also victims of this horrible situation. they need to also be considered. thank you so much for supporting it.

it's a new solution. thank you. >> clerk: next caller please. >> caller: hi, folks. i work in the tenderloin. i work in area shannon street. we've been there ten years. i have to really back up what derek short said earlier. the tenderloin is not a monolith. it's very diverse community. you have a diverse field of different nonprofits and organizations that are working there. i think it's key to be able to reach out to those organizations and work them to make the plan come to fruition and successful.

thank you. >> caller: hi. thanks for the item tonight. good luck how you work towards a better organization. as you continue to work on it -- [ indiscernible ] it can be okay for the police to describe how they are arresting people. we fleed to -- we need to know that.

>> caller: good evening supervisors. i'm kevin ortiz. i'm speaking as vice president of the san francisco latinx democratic club. we heard lot of rhetoric that has been happening with arresting the honduran drug dealers. we feel this is a direct and racism that's happening. i like to know what's happening with those individuals that are being pushed into the system and what we're doing to ensure they are receiving support services.

>> caller: i'm calling to oppose the emergency order. there is emergency in the tedder but not solved by sweeps. [ indiscernible ]

>> caller: good evening. my name is noah roberts. we organize demonstration and press conference today outside of city hall demanding that your board revoke the mayor's emergency ordinance. i would urge the board to listen to these grassroots community organizations in the tenderloin. the support really isn't there for this plan. it's not there. >> clerk: i will say, we have 26 members of the public who are listening and there are 4 callers in the queue to speak. if you one of the 26 and you

like to participate, press star 3 now. >> caller: i'm a d3 resident. i listened to all of you through the previous call. i want to thank you for the conversation. i'm still unclear what the plan is. one thing that's clear after the last call, no one on the call, staff, supervisors or public didn't need we needed leadership response.

our city agencies need to do better. thank you. >> caller: hi, i'm district 8 resident. i keep taking back to something that -- he said last meeting. he was talking about people on the street being moved from one place to another. he said where do people go when they don't have a home to go to? if people are taken off the streets temporarily and put back on to the streets without a home to go to, we're running around in circles. we have to be providing homes for everyone. thank you.

>> caller: my name is mark solomon from the north mission. this is like groundhog's day. for the past 25 years we see these divisive wedge measures that have been run not about homelessness at all but it's wedge issues to divide the electorate. what we need here is for you guys to deprive the mayor of the golden power to use homelessness and poverty as a wedge issue to win elections. when fox news setting the agenda for san francisco and local moderate conservatives are siding with that, we have to figure out ways to say, san francisco is going to stand up to nationwide campaign of demonization of cities. it's up to you guys to do the political work. we can't afford to have this happen over and over again.

>> clerk: thank you. >> caller: good evening interviews. i work for code tenderloin. i been a 30 plus resident [ indiscernible ] you have take another approach to help people that's trapped as well. i applaud the mayor say it's an emergency i don't applaud of it being a masquerade.

>> caller: good evening. i called in and made comment last meeting. i'm a social worker providing behavioral health services to unhoused residents in the tenderloin. i find lack of resources pretty concerning. i appreciate supervisor preston's questions and encourage no vote on this ordinance. we need care and partnership with the community, not policing. >> clerk: thank you, sir. mr. atkins, let's welcome in the next caller. >> caller: hi. this is cally with the coalition on homelessness.

the community really came together. it worked. this time, so many that were part of the that process have been blocked out. what makes someone distrust the partner? why are the community groups mentioned? we still have no shelter wait list. there's outbreaks going on. we need to be honest about the lack of resources and not play this game.

>> clerk: i want to apologize, we are setting the timer for one minute this evening. thank you for your comments. we have 21 listeners and 3 callers in the queue. we are setting the timer for one minute. >> this is mark schneider. sweeps and brutality is happening. i hear the police chief lie about that the last meeting. what's point of more staff without durable and available beds? >> clerk: thank you, sir for your comments.

>> caller: hello. hi, i'm a former high school teacher who lives in d9. i've been working out of high school. i want to say thank you to the people of the -- d11 has created zero affordable housing. we only have 37 options available all together. d9 has made a ton of luxury units barely enough affordable. all of our populations has been getting evicted, we had to place them in the t.l. because there's thousands of spaces that opened up and affordable. if we continue to push all problems into the t.l., the t.l. will continue to of problems. if d11 and d9 step up and stop trying to push their problems

into other districts. we can have places for people to live. >> caller: hi, i'm from the coalition on homelessness. just to finish kelly cutler's comment, i think she was about to say that the system is resistent to serving people. that's what we're seeing every day. we are not seeing this emergency ordinance. the plan is attached to that and changing that any faculty way. we do know that works.

we need to invest an expansion of treatment, spend $100 million on the table. we need to invest in the housing. we need to do c.a.r.t. we need to use the emergency ordinance to do self--- >> clerk: thank you for providing comments this evening. >> caller: president walton and president preston thank you for voting against this measure. let's call this what it is. the mayor wants a p.r. win so

she don't have to see our hear about homeless people anymore. let's make her do the work and work on inclusion. >> clerk: thank you. let's hear from the next caller place. >> caller: hi, my name is eddie hernandez. i work here in the tenderloin. on august 25, 2020, london breed tweeted post, we need to reform

criminal justice system to prevent crime and the use of incarceration and reduce recidivism. this was a year and a half ago. >> caller: i wanted to pose a question or comment. i caught part of the hearing

earlier where director stated response to supervisor preston's question that the city doesn't do sweeps. i know that to be false. plenty of evidence to show that's false. whether you call it sweep or encampment resolution. people are forced to move. how can this board trust somebody who is not giving honest answers to questions to lead this response? thank you. >> there are no further callers in the queue. >> president walton: thank you. seeing no other speakers, public comment is now closed. supervisor preston? >> supervisor preston: thank you president walton. i wanted to check whether anyone

from sfpd is on? can we clarify that members of the police department leadership were invited to this meeting. i don't know if the president has the information regarding the breakdown of arrests that dr. carol was preferencing? >> our departments are out there right now dealing with the omicron variant out there.

we did have conversations with the department and asked them to focus on that emergency. i apologize for that. i will make sure you get the information you requested. >> supervisor preston: i look forward to the information. i do think that $700 million a year department can have a representative at the board of supervisors hearing when the police issues were central. we'll note that they aren't here and move on to another question. mr. powers, can you clarify why is the tenderloin. defined by the police district? geographically. >> i think the only reason when we were working with the city

attorney to grap -- graph. it was a pre-defined geography where there was a map that everybody can look at on a website. it was for that purpose only. >> supervisor preston: mr. powers, does the mayor stand by her public statement that we're going to make life hell for people using drugs out in the open? >> i cannot speak for the mayor and personal statements. what is before you today, this emergency declaration is an effort that is driven by public health and our desire to get people help and off the streets.

this is to focus on public health strategy and intervention to make things better for the residents of tenderloin. >> supervisor preston: are you aware of any statements since she made that statement on december 14th revising or changing her public statement? i'm not aware of any statements. i don't track her day-to-day communications in that way. >> supervisor preston: does the mayor stand by her public statement that she's going to use the ordinance against people sleeping or camping in public? >> i can't speak to her statement. i can speak to this provision that is before you today authorizes emergency intervention in the tenderloin that is connecting people to

services. >> supervisor preston: i will note for the record. i understand if you can't speak on behalf of the mayor, i will say that kind of can't have it both ways if the mayor is not here and sending you to represent her. i don't understand why. these are positions the mayor taken publicly. sounds like those remain her positions. they are not being revised by you or anyone representing her. can you clarify -- we have conversation before, i don't know if you were on, regarding the lack of any increase overall in shelter beds or housing available pursuant to this state of emergency.

will you make commitments to the board regarding additional expansion available, shelter beds or hotel rooms? >> yes. i'm more than happy to make that commitment. actually tomorrow at the budget committee 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, there's a lease for consideration for a site that will provide north of 200 shelter beds in a semicongregate setting. this is about providing executions for people now to get them off the streets and housing. >> supervisor preston: that is not the dependent on this. if we were to reject this state of emergency, you'll still be moving forward with that. what i'm asking if the board concurs this, are you in position now to commit to

anything additional beyond what is already planned in terms of additional shelter beds or hotel rooms? >> we are constantly looking for new solutions. we will use whatever mechanism we need to get those solutions online. our presumption as we're moving through this emergency process is use the authority of the emergency declaration only where it's necessary. >> supervisor preston: will you commit to winding down of any hotels? >> i can't make the commitment to do that.

we are working to maximize solutions. some of those are converted to winter shelter. we are looking at opportunities to do that. all of that is being done now with all the departments we are planning. our approach here is to maximize our ability to make a real difference in the tenderloin. >> president walton: supervisor preston, it may be appropriate you sit down with the mayor's team and department head to have some of conversation. there's a level of detail that you deserve that you will not get information from tonight. >> supervisor preston: i think we had a detailed discussion around plans to hire different

people using emergency powers. from everything i heard so far, there is no plan to do anything different if declaration of emergency is concurred and it remains in effect. there's no plan to add any additional capacity this shelt -- in shelter beds and hotel rooms. what i'm hearing there isn't one. i appreciate the comment. i think i'm trying to give multiple opportunities for mr. powers to on any of these fronts make a commitment that there will be an expanded capacity in shelter beds or hotel rooms as a result of us having state of emergency or not. it sounds like the answer is not. >> if i could answer through the chair, what i'm pushing back on,

you're asking me on the record that i will do something. i can't commit to that. we are actively looking for every opportunity that's out there. my hope is we will be increasing our capacity in many fronts. that is the work that our departments are doing business we speak. when we ask you to give you a commitment we'll do that, the commitment i can give you we are looking at every opportunity to do it. >> supervisor preston: i'm asking about one of those opportunities which is sip hotels that you're winding down. i will leave it as a comment instead of a question. i understand some of this we can follow-up on. but the comment will be we have opportunities now to not wind down sip hotels. the problem is, if you have zero

sum game, you're not adding any additional shelter beds or any additional semi-congregate rooms, all you're doing is making prioritizing some existing stocks for folks if the tenderloin. making worse than other neighborhoods and may be making headway in the tenderloin. i would urge that we approach the increasing number available rooms and not winding down sip hotels with some urgencies. i appreciate lot of public comment which resonated with me. there is absolutely a play book

here that is bigger than the words on this page here. it is announced decrease in police budget, don't reduce police budget, blame crime on defund the police and flood the streets with police. this is every fox news inspired right wing chamber. it's an attack on progressive solutions. blame those very calls for progressive solutions and call for more policing. city after city. this is the steady diet on this on right wing news. i think we buy into it at our own peril. i think this is not a public health plan. there's outline of good public health ideas. unfortunately, i have concluded with two hearings, i see lot of smoke, mirrors and lot of cops.

i think there's an easy solution to get this right. i urge you to reject this plan. i think it's thoroughly corrupted by the central role of failed policing strategies and the mayor continuing to double down publicly on those strategies while pushing this emergency declaration forward. thank you. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor chan? >> supervisor chan: thank you. i think that we have discussed this both on the 23rd and today already. i wanted to pose this just again for confirmation and

clarification with mr. powell. try to understand where the mare mayor is come from with the declaration. for the purpose of law enforcement, the mayor could already do so without a declaration or emergency. >> yes. this emergency authorization before you was supported last week by eight members of the board. today, it provides no authorization for additional police services or police funding. i made the commitment on the record at the last meeting that

we were use the appropriations authority. generally across department in order to respond to emergencies and increase police funding. >> supervisor chan: i think the follow-up question, is it the mayor's strategy to those simultaneously or parallel as a strategy that while that with this declaration, she and her administration intends to up and increase enforcement, law enforcement in the tenderloin. >> i can't speak to that question. we are focused today on this emergency response.

the emergency is about hiring behavioral health and related staffing, department of public health. it is about providing people connection to care and housing. that's what this emergency declaration is about and what it authorizes. it does not authorize police activity. >> supervisor chan: i want to thank you for being with us today and being with us on the 23rd and spent early hours of christmas eve with us. what i would like to keep us all honest, even though, it's unfortunate that the police department couldn't be with us here today. meanwhile, while we track this plan, this declaration and this plan moving forward, is that at the same time, simultaneously, let's keep ourselves honest to really track enforcement within

tenderloin. i have list of items that i would love to get information on. just starting on december 17th to the end of emergency order. just so we understand a picture, a whole picture about what the tenderloin is going through. that is for the tenderloin district police station as well as the san francisco police vice unit within the premise of the emergency order or the area i should say. the number arrest charges specifically on drug dealing drug sales or just drug use as well. charges that actually officially filed. would love the breakdown of number of arrests in each state from the day of december 17th leading to the end of the emergency order. so we understand how is that really impacting everybody. now from this point, my

assumption is from december 17th or from december . we have 33 arrests made. it's not clear what those arrests really were and the status of those 33 individuals. i think those will be my -- i don't them right now obviously. we probably don't have all the information right now. would that be possible to have that information to be tracked? >> absolutely. she is going to be providing a weekly update to the board. whatever we can add to that

including all these things that you just articulated, we'll be happy to add. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you. thank you again colleagues for this hearing this afternoon. in the case of the emergency declaration by the mayor with regard to covid from now getting on to two years ago, president walton and i have been meeting with the mayor's specific -- tomonitor those status proclamations to make sure that proclamations that are no longer any force or factor need has been sun settled. that emergency powers that need not persist are appropriately

disposed i would propose that we check in again in the middle of february and would propose that we continue items 9 and 10 for that purpose to the meeting of february 8, 2022. >> president walton: thank you. is there a second? seconded by supervisor chan. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: thank you, mr. president. thank you supervisor peskin and ronen for your questions today pointed, focusing on public health. focusing on mental health and focusing on the additional details of this plan. i would be remised to not

respond to some concerns and questions about the conditions and the request for policing in the tenderloin. as i said in my comments on the 23rd to the 24th, i worked half my career in the tenderloin. i represented those families, many of them are janitors and service sector. they lived there, immigrant families. they want more presence. if you had spent -- if any of us had spent even an hour in the tenderloin in the last month, would see conditions, would see drug dealing and violence to the point. i agree with you, i'm not saying this was an emergency today or last week. this has been going on,

supervisor haney called for state of emergency. we will be remised not to talk about the violence and drug dealing to the point where there are gaggles of people selling drugs openly. one of the most longest, serving providers in the tenderloin wrote about today how the last time district attorney gascon, he's a reformer, came in and started to arrest number of drug dealers. the people that live there and reside there and work there overwhelmingly want additional police presence and response. that doesn't mean we're going to arrest our way out of an addiction crises. i support alternative sentencing

programs. also in the tenderloin area, i'm supportive that. if people out there violently breaking the law, policing is necessary. with my two small children, i do not want to walk that's that violence on a dilly basis. >> supervisor preston: i want to respond. this is really since the last hearing i hear a very common refrain of those who want to ramp up policing in the tenderloin. suggesting those who to not never spent time in the tenderloin or not reflect efws of the wishes there. i got to say, there's diversity

of youth. it's a lot of people in the tenderloin who i heard from. there's a lot of advocates representing lot of folks, including the folks housing in -- lot of folks not at the table are not trusted -- i just do want to push back. i'm amused by the people say they never spent time in the tenderloin.

we can disagree on the solutions and this is not just directed at supervisor safai's comment. it's something i hear regularly for anyone stands up big push for policing and police intervention for dealing with homeless issues. >> president walton: we have a motion on the floor to continue items it 9 and 10 to our february 8, 2022 meeting as a 3:00 p.m. special order. committee of the whole. please read item 10 for the record. >> clerk: item 10 is a motion to concur, withdraw concurrence in the proclamation by the mayor.

declaring the existence of local emergency in connection with the sudden increase in drug overdoses in the tenderloin. >> president walton: thank you. supervisor ronen. >> supervisor ronen: through the chair, the 22nd is pretty far off. the example that you used that you built that off that you and president walton regularly meet with the mayor -- >> president walton: he was saying that we meet with the mayor's office to go over all the emergency declarations for covid. not meeting about this. >> supervisor ronen: that was the example he used to make this motion. i want to have more regular -- not committee meeting but

engagement on this issue. i wanted to mention, i'm not going to be supporting this motion. i think for the kind of detailed engagement that i want in this process.

>> president walton: the reason why i'm supportive of the motion, this was a request for 90 days. around the halfway point. by all means we can set other ways to get more frequent reports from everybody involved. this continuance of the committee of the whole and continuance of whether or not reaffirm the vote is important tool for us if we ever want to change how we stand on that. i think that makes a lot of sense. we most certainly can also put something in place to make sure that we get regular report back at a more increased interval.

this allows us come back and have more conversations and questions make any shifts in changes that may be needed as we move forward. i don't think this motion is saying we will not have a conversation. >> supervisor haney: the understanding that i had, we were going to bring this back in february and that was what we discussed 10 days ago. i want to clarify, i think there's an interest in ongoing engagement around this. transparency and accountability. i would support bringing it back february 8th if that's what

makes sense. there was some reference weekly reports or other types of regular updates. can we also have a clear commitment on what we can expect as a board from now until february 8th so we can also be clear about this question of ongoing transparency and accountability? >> thank you. absolutely. we are planning on taking a weekly report out. what i i can do send a template what we're planning on doing and share it with you. if there's anything missing, you can let us know in feedback. we can add that to it. as you know, for about 16

months, during covid, we met yearly. i met when you wanted to meet. we provided the information that you want to get. i remain committed to that. i will make sure to send out the draft for this week. anything that's missing, please let us know. if there's some other form of update that you want to provide, i'm happy to do that. president walton and i have a regular meeting scheduled. we can increase that if that's helpful. i'm happy to share. >> supervisor haney: we'll have a weekly reports different variables that you're tracking. i'm sure members of the board will give speed -- feedback about certain things they want

to see. i will support to revisit this on february 8th. >> supervisor ronen: i'll be supporting it. >> president walton: i don't see anyone else on the roster. madam clerk on the motion? >> clerk: on the motion to continue items 9 and 10 to february 8th. >> president walton: my apologies, supervisor melgar. >> supervisor melgar: thank you. i wanted to say that i will not be supporting this motion. i voted for it for the motion on the 23rd of december with the understanding that we would be giving the administration 90

days under this declaration. knowing full well, that we could revisit that at any time it will put the agenda the possibility of withdrawing on february 8th. i don't want to set up this under the threat of withdrawal on february 8th. i think that we are perfectly capable of putting hearings that are in-depth, transparent that gives the community all of the information and updates at committee where this should happen. i will not be supporting the motion. thank you. >> president walton: thank you supervisor melgar. i don't believe i see anyone else on the roster.

please call the roll. >> clerk: on the motion to continue items 9 and 10 to special order to february 8th. [roll call vote] there are 8 ayes and 3 nos with supervisors stefani, mandelman and melgar in dissent.

>> president walton: motion to continue carries. please present in the memorials. >> clerk: today meeting will be adjourned for beloved individuals, ms. gerris whitson colt, on behalf of supervisor mar late mr. richard mcgarry mr. robert thomas me nardy. on behalf of supervisor mar and safai mr. george. mr. warren joseph sleagle. >> president walton: seeing no other business before us. we are at the end of our agenda. i want to say in this new year, no matter how hard the path, we

can always begin again. this meeting is adjourned.

>> clerk: remote hearings require everyone's patience. if you are not speaking, please mute your microphone. to enable public participation, sfgovtv is streaming this hearing live, and we will receive public comment on each item on the agenda. dial 415-655-0001 and enter meeting i.d. 2488-410-2876. when we reach the item that you are interesting in speaking to, please press star, three to enter t