This meeting will come to order.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Monday, October 30th, 2023 meeting of the Rules Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I am Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Chair of this committee.

I am joined by Vice Chair Shimon Walton and Committee Asir Safai, a committee member, Supervisor Asha Safai.

Together, we'd like to express our gratitude to our clerk today, Mr.

Victor Young.

Thanks also to the team at SFGov TV for facilitating and broadcasting today's meeting.

In particular, our producer today, Jaime Eshaveri.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Uh, yes, I'd like to note that on October 17th, 2023, the Board of Supervisors approved a motion discontinuing remote public comment and participation at all board and committee meetings.

Going forward, all public comment will be taken in person with remote access only being provided for those who are required who require an ADA accommodation.

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

Email them to myself, the rules committee clerk at VICTOR dot Y O U N G at SFGov.org.

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

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

mail to our office at City Hall.

One Dr.

Carlton B go to the place, Room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

During this meeting, please be sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices.

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

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of November 7, 2023, unless otherwise stated.

That completes my initial comments.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Uh, would you please call item number one?

Yes, item number one is the Charter Amendment, second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of San Francisco to establish minimum staffing levels for sworn officers of the police department requiring for a period of five years that the mayor and the board of supervisors appropriate funding to meet staffing levels, establish a police full staffing fund for a period of five years for the process of facilitat minimum police staffing and allow for a temporary freeze of appropriations of the police file full staffing fund in a budget or economic emergency and an election to be held on March 5th, 2024.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Uh colleagues.

Item number one is the police full staffing charter amendment as amended last week, which I first began working on back in March.

When I first uh announced this effort at the April 12th meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I said that I welcomed my colleagues' collaboration on the process.

I also expressed my strongly held conviction that we must make a commitment to San Franciscans that we have an actionable plan to fulfill the promise of a fully staffed police department for our neighborhoods, for our city, and for our economy.

At its core, the San Francisco Police Full Staffing Act Charter Amendment aims to address a palpable and in many ways unprecedented public safety crisis.

In my district, as in many other parts of the city, much of this public safety crisis is driven by the most potently addictive and deadly drug we have ever known, infentinal.

That drug is fueling brazen open-air drug markets at a scale we have never before seen.

In my neighborhood, among others, we see public drug use and drug-driven lawlessness that is robbing our residents of the safe enjoyment of their own neighborhoods, that is driving out small businesses and large employers alike.

And most seriously of all, it's a crisis that's driving a public health calamity due to drug overdoses that is worse than anything San Franciscans have witnessed since the worst days of the days of the AIDS crisis.

There was a time in South of Market where I live, when the worst thing my neighbors encountered was illegal trash dumping or an illegal encampment, but with increasing frequency these days.

Lives lost to overdoses in a year on pace to surpass all others in our history for drug overdose deaths.

We all know our struggle to meet the challenges of this moment is hamstrung by another crisis, a wholly foreseeable crisis, which City Hall candidly did not do enough early enough to address, and that is our police understaffing crisis.

If we don't act substantively and effectively, I believe we are on pace for a staffing shortage that an SFPD commander last week called potentially catastrophic.

Right now, nearly a third of the police support police department we are supposed to have isn't there.

And worse, between 350 and 400 current police officers are right now eligible for retirement.

Half the police department could be gone if we don't act.

Now, our police department isn't our only understaffed department, so stipulated.

But by any measure our police understaffing crisis, in my judgment, is acute enough and unprecedented enough and consequential enough to the safety of our city and its residents and its visitors that it deserves its own solution.

That is what my charter amendment endeavors to provide.

That is not to deny other staffing shortages or to minimize them, and that is not to deny or minimize the need for other solutions.

And I'm open to being part of those discussions.

Now it is my understanding that another amendment may be offered today, and because those here deserve transparency about an amendment that may significantly uh alter this charter amendment, and in my view, possibly diminish its effectiveness.

I can talk in general about it, but I'm gonna there's a lot of people here that want to do public comment, so I'm just gonna speak briefly, kind of set the table.

I I agree with a lot of what you said, Chair, appreciate the fact that you highlight that this is something that has not been addressed effectively, and let's call it out what it is.

I mean, the the budget, the direction of the city leadership of the city rests with the mayor of this city.

The mayor sets the tone, she allocates the resources for the budget and has total control over how that money is allocated.

I think we can remember when we were talking about our housing crisis just two years ago, there was a push to allocate money from the reserve.

About $50 million was allocated, and the mayor chose not to spend that money.

And that is the power of the charter and power of the way the city is set up in the city and county of San Francisco.

Um I had a hearing last year, I talked a little bit about it last um week, where we talked about the overall uh emergency response system.

We talked about wall times in our emergency rooms and how long people wait when they have been in an accident or some type of emergency, how long they wait to even get into a bed, how long it takes to get nurses to come and the understaffing of our nurses in our hospitals.