This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the June 13th, 2024 regular meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee.

And I want to welcome our two supervisors, Supervisor Dorsey and Supervisor Ingario to room 263.

This is the first time for them having a hearing in this room.

So welcome.

I am Supervisor Catherine Stephanie, Chair of the Committee.

And to my right, we are joined by Vice Chair Ongario.

And to my left is Supervisor Dorsey.

The clerk is Ms.

Monique Creighton, and I'd also like to thank James Kawana at SFGov TV for staffing this meeting.

Madam Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes.

Please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices.

Documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk.

Public comment will be taken on each item of the on this agenda.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak on your right.

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

First, you may email them to myself, the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee Clerk at M O N IQ E.

C R A Y T O N at SFGov.org.

Or you may send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall.

Number one, Dr.

Carl Carlton Be Goodlit Place, Room 244, San Francisco, California 94102.

If you submit public comment in writing, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and also included as part of the official file in which you are commenting.

Finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors Agenda of June 25th, 2024, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Will you please call the first item?

Yes, the first item is a resolution adopting the leather and lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender, queer, LGBTQ, cultural districts, cultural history and housing and economic sustainability strategy, excuse me, report.

Thank you.

This item is sponsored by the mayor's office, and I will turn it over to Grace Lee from MOCD and Bob Goldfarb from the Leather and LGBTQ cultural district to present.

Good morning, supervisors, clerk, and community members.

And I do have a presentation great.

So as you all know, since you have all been champions of this important anti uh dis of this important work, um, the cultural district program celebrates and strengthens the cultural assets of San Francisco's distinct cultural groups.

Uh the program was designed as a formal partnership between community and city, and I want to acknowledge the efforts of the cultural district, the broader leather community, um, and my colleagues at uh various city departments, who some of whom are joining me today from OED planning and the arts commission.

Each cultural district is required to complete the chess report and the cultural history, housing and economic sustainability strategies report, acts as a roadmap to stabilization and sustainability.

And importantly, it includes a list of prioritized strategies that the community has come up with.

Um that is a really a forward-looking view at what the vision of the community can be.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Bob.

You could just press the down arrow.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

Um we are very proud to be here this morning.

And uh for our next slide.

Umited, we preserve, enhance, and advocate for the continuity and vitality of the kinky and queer communities of San Francisco's Leather and LGBTQ cultural district.

That is uh our elevator pitch, and all the buildings in SOMA are low, so it's very short.

The leather history in Soma began in the 50s.

We originally located in the embarcadero area, and the city decided to repurpose the embarcadero for other things, and our community was displaced by the police in the 50s.

In 1954, publishers and organizations began locating in Soma, and in 1962, the first leather bar opened in Soma, which was the toolbox, which is currently it operated from 62 until 71 when the building was torn down, and it is now the location of Whole Foods, which gets a slightly different clientele.

In 1966, the first leather bar opened on Folsom Street, which was Phoebe's at uh 11th and Folsom, and that began the era of the Miracle Mile.

Many other bars followed on Folsom Street, and it became one of the densest uh leather areas uh in the world.

Let's see, in um the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in the 50s and 60s uh marked SOMA for large areas of SOMA for redevelopment.

There was a lot of opposition from uh residents, there were lawsuits that delayed the projects, and eventually the area around Moscone Center was built, uh displacing 7,000 residents in one fell swoop.

The in the redevelopment was planned to continue west down Folsom through SOMA, and in 1984, the Folsom Street Fair was founded to uh oppose that redevelopment.

Uh the fair did achieve its goals uh by showing that Soma was a vibrant neighborhood and not uh a blighted area ripe for redevelopment.

Uh that fair has uh changed from its original beginnings of roughly 10,000 attendees and now gets over 200,000 attendees and is one of the most iconic leather events in the world.

Uh the leather district itself was created by the Board of Supervisors and the mayor uh in 2019.

We are governed by a board of directors.

Uh we have a full-time staff of two, of which I'm one.

Uh we have a number of programs and initiatives.

They include uh monthly street fairs, murals, public art, walking tours, uh, support for artists, community organizations, and uh we we have to give a big thanks to uh Supervisor Dorsey's office and his aide Brian Dahl for uh help with many of our projects, uh especially our uh public art projects, such as you can see in the photo uh of having the leather pride flags uh on the light poles.