San Francisco Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee Meeting - May 27, 2021
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San Francisco Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee Meeting - May 27, 2021
The Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee met remotely on Thursday, May 27, 2021, beginning at 18:15 UTC (11:15 a.m. Pacific), for a multi-hour session chaired by Supervisor Gordon Mar, with Vice Chair Catherine Stefani, Members Matt Haney and Rafael Mandelman (joining for item 3; Haney was later excused from the final vote). The committee considered restrictions on police crowd-control weapons, an ordinance requiring city departments to adopt overdose prevention policies, and a hearing on the annual Proposition T treatment-on-demand report. It opened with a moment of silence for the nine victims of the May 26, 2021 mass shooting in San Jose.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Item 1 (Right to Safely Protest ordinance): Public commenters overwhelmingly supported the measure. Wesley Saber, policy manager for Glide, said such weapons are ubiquitous with police misconduct and asked the board to support the ordinance and reallocate funding to community programs. Nick Robinson, senior legal advisor at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, said at least a dozen municipalities and five states have already restricted these weapons. Several resident callers described personal experiences of being injured or fearing police violence at protests, including a 2020 SFPD encounter at United Nations Plaza and injuries from rubber bullets in Oakland.
- Item 2 (Departmental Overdose Prevention Policies): Commenters generally supported the ordinance and urged expansion of harm reduction, supervised consumption services, accessible treatment, and housing. Laura Thomas (SF AIDS Foundation), Brian Edwards (Coalition on Homelessness), and a social worker from the Public Defender's Office stressed the need for community-based, non-carceral approaches. Felicia Jones argued that harm reduction has harmed Black communities and that Black-led recovery programs have been underfunded. Another caller urged culturally appropriate services for monolingual Spanish speakers and LGBTQ communities.
- Item 3 (Prop T Treatment on Demand hearing): Commenters strongly backed treatment on demand. Jennifer Friedenbach (Coalition on Homelessness) cited a roughly 600-person survey showing about one-third of unhoused respondents identified substance use as a significant challenge, and many were reluctant to enter treatment without a guaranteed housing exit. David Elliott Lewis (Treatment on Demand Coalition) said he is a living example that treatment on demand works, but many clinics are unmarked and hard to find. Seth Cass, a harm reduction worker, said harm reduction and accessible treatment saved his life and that strictly abstinence-only approaches can be deadly. Several callers emphasized the need to reduce stigma, expand peer support, and avoid policing-led responses.
Discussion Items
Item 1: Restrictions on Police Use of Specific Types of Force (File 200784)
Supervisor Matt Haney presented the Right to Safely Protest ordinance, noting it was introduced a year after George Floyd's murder and amended after consultation with SFPD, community groups, advocates, unions, and medical experts. The amended ordinance would prohibit SFPD from using kinetic impact projectiles such as rubber bullets, chemical agents such as tear gas and CS gas, disorientation devices such as flashbangs, and military-grade equipment for crowd control. It would allow very limited use of extended-range impact weapons such as beanbag rounds and chemical agents such as OC spray only when there is an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury, after de-escalation, with targeting of violent individuals, and with written reporting to the Police Commission within 10 days. Haney cited data that 93% of racial justice protests were peaceful, yet police were five times more likely to respond with force to these protests than to anti-lockdown protests; at least 115 people were shot in the head or neck between May 26 and July 27, 2020; at least 20 suffered severe eye injuries, including seven who lost an eye; and at least 100 law enforcement agencies, including 11 in California, used tear gas against civilians. Supervisor Stefani praised SFPD for being ahead of national trends and said the legislation codifies existing practice. Haney requested that the amendments be adopted and the item be continued to the call of the chair so further meet-and-confer work could continue.
Item 2: Departmental Overdose Prevention Policies (File 210304)
Supervisor Haney presented the ordinance requiring DPH, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, the Human Services Agency, and the Department of Emergency Management to submit annual overdose prevention policies covering treatment and harm reduction services, syringe access and naloxone distribution, on-site overdose response, staff training, and grantee compliance. He cited escalating overdose deaths: 146 deaths in January-February 2021, up from 81 in the same period in 2020; 106 additional deaths in March-April 2021; and 712 overdose deaths in 2020, the worst year on record. Eileen Loughran of DPH said DPH has done much of this work and will collaborate with the other departments, with a report back to the board in December 2021. Supervisor Stefani asked for clarity on overdose prevention strategies and urged inclusion of peer specialists and abstinence-based recovery perspectives from the Recovery Summit working group. Supervisor Safai asked DPH for data on how many overdose decedents had recently been in treatment and later joined as a co-sponsor.
Item 3: Proposition T Treatment on Demand Report Hearing (File 210270)
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman explained that Prop T requires DPH to submit by February 1 each year an assessment of demand for substance-abuse treatment and a plan to meet it; the FY2019-2020 report was delivered the night before this hearing, three months late and too late to inform budget decisions, and was not publicly available. He and Supervisor Stefani sharply criticized the report as inadequate and not matching the scale of the crisis. DPH behavioral health director Dr. Hillary Kunins apologized and promised the report would not be late again. Dr. David Pating said DPH now measures treatment-on-demand through Medi-Cal managed care obligations, reporting that it meets timely access for most services but has gaps in Spanish-language residential services, residential step-down/transitional housing, outpatient services, and a dual-diagnosis complex medical model. Adult Probation Department presenters Steve Adami, Victoria Westbrook, and Cedric Akbar gave data showing justice-involved clients experienced average waits of 41 to 49 days to enter residential treatment, much longer than the 1 to 8 days claimed in the Prop T report. They called for more treatment options, including abstinence-based programs, and said the Department of Public Health is not meeting the needs of Black and other communities of color. Laura Thomas, presenting for the Treatment on Demand Coalition, called for a comprehensive needs assessment, community-centered planning, harm reduction and supervised consumption services, and alternatives to policing. Supervisor Mandelman said he would work offline with co-sponsors, DPH, Adult Probation, and the coalition to develop legislative changes to improve Prop T reporting.
Key Outcomes
- Item 1: The committee voted 3-0 to adopt the amendments to the police use-of-force ordinance and then voted 3-0 to continue the item to the call of the chair.
- Item 2: The committee voted 3-0 to recommend the departmental overdose prevention policies ordinance to the full Board of Supervisors with a positive recommendation. Supervisor Safai was added as a co-sponsor.
- Item 3: The committee voted 3-0 to excuse Supervisor Haney from the vote and voted 3-0 to continue the Prop T hearing to the call of the chair. Supervisor Mandelman said he would convene further work on revising the annual report.
- The clerk announced that items acted upon would appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda for June 8, 2021, unless otherwise stated.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning. The meeting will come to order. Welcome to the Thursday, May 27th meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee. I'm Supervisor Gordon Maher, the chair of this committee, and I'm joined by Vice Chair Catherine Stephanie and committee member Matt Haney. And Supervisor Raphael Mandelman will also be joining us for item number three. I'm going to I want to thank this committee's clerk, John Carroll, and also like to thank Colina Mendoza and Jim Smith of SFGov TV for staffing this meeting. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. In order to protect the public, board members, and city employees during the COVID-19 health emergency. The Board of Supervisors Legislative Chamber and Committee Room are closed. This precaution is taken pursuant to all various local, state, and federal orders, declarations, and directives currently in effect. Committee members will attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they're physically present in their committee room. Public comment will be available for each of the three items on today's agenda. Both San Francisco Cable Channel 26 and SFgovTV.org are streaming a public comment call-in number across the screen at this time. Your opportunity to speak and provide your comments during the public comment periods on today's agenda are available to you via phone by dialing 415 65501. Once you're connected and prompted into the meeting ID for today's meeting, today's meeting ID is 1870170254. Following that, press the pound symbol twice to be connected to the meeting. When you're connected, you will hear the meeting discussions, but your line will be muted and in listening mode. When your item of interest comes up on our agenda, dial star followed by three to be added to the speaker line. A system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. Please wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted and you may then begin your comments. Best practices are to call from a quiet location to speak clearly and slowly and to turn down your television, your radio, your streaming device, or whatever you're using to access today's meeting. Everyone must account for the potential time delays and speaking discrepancies that we may encounter between live coverage and streaming of the meeting. Alternatively, you may submit your written public comment in either of the following ways. You may email me. My name is John Carroll, and I'm the clerk of the public safety and neighborhood services committee. My email address is J-O-H-N, period. C A R R O L L at SFGO V dot O R G. Or you can send your written comments to our address at City Hall. The clerk's office is room 244. City Hall's address is one Dr. Carlton B. Goodlit Place, San Francisco, California, 94102. Of course, as always, all of this contact information can be referenced from the front page of our agenda for today's meeting and all of our agenda. And finally, Mr. Chair, items on today's agenda will appear on the I'm sorry. Items acted upon today will appear on the Board of Supervisors Agenda of June 8th, 2021, unless otherwise stated. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Before we begin, I I would like to just take a moment of silence in memory of the nine victims of the latest horrific mass shooting in San Jose yesterday. These were public servants, essential workers, fathers, husbands, community members. And our hearts go out to the families and the community mourning the loss of life. Mr. Clerk, can you please call item number one? Agenda item number one is an ordinance amending the administrative code to prohibit the police department from using, deploying, launching, or firing of extended impact weapons, kinetic impact projectiles, commercial, I'm sorry, chemical agents, disorientation devices, and military grade equipment during lawful assemblies and in other circumstances. Members of the public who wish to write public comment on this ordinance should call the public comment number. Let me repeat it. 415-6550001.
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