Good afternoon.

Welcome to the April 27th, 2022 meeting of the Budget and Appropriations Committee.

I'm Chair Hilary Ronin, and I am joined by President Walton, Supervisor Chan, Supervisor Safai, and I believe Supervisor Mar may not be joining us today.

We will find out soon.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

With our return to the chamber, just a friendly reminder for those in attendance to please make sure the silence whole cell phones hand electronic devices and kindly refrain from any flash photography.

The Board of Supervisors and its committees are now convening hybrid meetings that allow in-person attendance and public comment while still providing remote access and public comment via telephone.

The board recognizes that equitable public access is essential, and we'll be taking public comment as follows.

First public comment will be taken on the item on this agenda.

Those attending in-person will be allowed to speak first, and then we will take those who are uh waiting on the telephone line.

For those watching either channels 2678 or 99 and sfgovtv.org.

The public call comment number is streaming across the screen.

That number is 415 65501.

Again, that's 415 65501.

Uh, then enter the meeting ID of 2492 607 1682, then pound and pound again.

When connected, you will hear the meeting discussions, but you will be muted and in listening mode only.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, those joining us in person should line up to speak, and those on the telephone should dial star three to be added to the speaker line.

If you're on your telephone, please remember to turn down your TV and all listening devices you may be using.

As previously mentioned, we will take public comment from those attending in person first, then we'll go to our public comment telephone line.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment uh in writing in either of the following ways.

Email them to myself, the budget and appropriations committee clerk at B-R-E-N T.org.

If you submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and also included as part of the official file.

You may also send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office and city hall.

That's one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlett, place room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

Uh and uh finally, uh items acted upon today, if any are forwarded to the board, uh, will be uh expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda of May 3rd, unless otherwise stated.

Madam Chair.

Thank you so much to our clerk Brent Halipa, and I also wanted to thank Matthew Ignau from SFGov TV for broadcasting this meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, can you please read item number one?

Yes, item number one is a hearing on the division of public works and the formation of streets and sanitation department as a result of the passage of proposition B to determine financial and budgetary needs to accomplish the goals of proposition B to increase cleanliness of city streets and create overall better conditions on the street.

Members of the public who are joining us remotely and wish to comment on this hearing, please call the public comment number at 415-655-0001 with the meeting ID of 2492 607-1682.

Then press pound twice.

Once connected to the meeting, you will need to press star three to enter the speaker line.

A system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand when the system indicates you haven't unmuted.

Thank you, colleagues.

I have called this hearing today to uh discuss the formation of the new city department sanitation and streets as a result of proposition B, uh which uh which the voters passed.

Um, and public work is curks is currently charged with building, designing, and maintaining city infrastructure will be severed into two separate departments.

San Francisco is experiencing an unprecedented crisis when it comes to street conditions.

Many of our neighborhoods and streets are overwhelmed by people that are uh suffering from homelessness, addiction, mental illness, uh many people who are even selling goods, oftentimes uh uh fencing goods uh as a result of extreme economic inequality and um a crime ring that is uh definitely flourishing in the streets of the mission.

It is going to take all of us and the best of us to fix this and to get our streets to a healthy place where we can all be proud of our neighborhoods as we once were.

Not only do I want to hear how the formation of these two new apartments will affect street conditions, but also how the Department of Sanitations and Streets will be funded to adequately serve their multiple functions.

Very recently, we've placed at least three, if not four new initiatives at the feet of what is currently public works, the enforcing the rules around the shared spaces program, the street vendor legislation that I wrote together with the supervisor with the mayor's office and supervisor Safai in order to deal with the overwhelming street vending happening in many of our neighborhoods.

And you can see, you can see the impacts on our streets.

And so I would love to hear today how creating these new departments will impact what we see as constituents, supervisors, neighbors in our streets, and what you need in terms of resources from this committee in order to properly enforce the laws that have been placed at your control as well as really make a measurable difference in the conditions of our streets.

And with that, colleagues, anybody else have opening comments?

Nope.

So we will hear from our city administrator Carmen Chu.

Good morning.

Or good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Chair Ronin, of course, our president of the board, President Walton, members of the committee, thank you very much for having us today.

First off, I want to thank you for acknowledging the good work that the department has done, whether it is around the street vending work that they have been in partnership with you on, the shared spaces program in partnership with our businesses, and also working on some of the other challenges we see, whether it's graffiti or some of the challenges we see in the tenderloin.

I think the one thing I really do want to say is a big thanks to the department because they truly have a can-do attitude about trying to address some of these challenges alongside with us.

So I want to thank them and the line staff for all of their good work.

My name is Carmen Shu, and I serve as San Francisco City Administrator.

And as you know, when proposition B passed in 2020, I became city administrator shortly thereafter in February of 2021 and was tasked with helping to create plans and a process for the implementation of proposition B.