Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to our June 22, 2026 rules committee meeting.

I'm your chair, Supervisor Shimon Walton, soon to be joined by Vice Chair Stephen Sherrill, and currently joined by President Mandelman.

We also are joined by Supervisor Melgar this morning.

Our clerk today is Victor Young, and I want to thank Matthew Ignail from SFGov TV for making sure that this meeting is publicized and available to the public.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes.

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

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

Actually, not on your right.

Um against the wall by the window.

Trying to find my spot again.

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

Email them to myself, the rules committee clerk at VICTOR.yo N G at sfgov.org.

If you submit public comment by email, be included as part of the file.

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

mail to our office in City Hall, Dr.

Carlton B.

Good place.

Room 244, San Francisco, California 94102.

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

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of June 30th, unless otherwise stated.

That completes my initial announcements.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk, and please forgive us all for any rustiness.

I know I have not been in this room since the pandemic, and we have not had a rules committee here for a very long time.

So thank you all for bearing with us this morning.

With that said, Mr.

Clerk, please call item number one.

Item number one is a resolution authorizing the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Executive Director, Chief Deputies, Deputy Directors, and Program Directors to solicit donations from various private entities and organizations to support the expansion of temporary shelters and other homeless services to support people experience homelessness, notwithstanding the behested payment ordinance.

There is request that this matter be sent out as a committee report.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk.

And I do believe that we have Director Emily Cohen with the Department of Homelessness and Support of Housing here with us this morning to present.

Good morning.

Good morning, Chair Walton.

Good morning, President Mandelman, Supervisors Emily Cohen with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

And I'm before you today requesting approval of a resolution that would authorize the sixth waiver of the behested payment ordinance for leadership of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to engage in solicitation of philanthropic and private resources to augment the existing homeless response system in San Francisco.

We have had this waiver in the past, which has helped us successfully leverage resources from philanthropies such as Crankstart or the Housing Accelerator Fund, the Schwab Foundation, and others that have led to significant investments in the homeless response system beyond what the public resources are able to do.

We ask for this continued waiver, given that we are still in a state of crisis when it comes to homelessness, particularly unsheltered homelessness in our community, and respectfully request your support for ongoing collaboration with our philanthropic partners.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Director Cohen.

Don't see any questions or comments from colleagues.

Mr.

Clerk, would you please call for public comment on this item?

Yes, members of the public who wish to speak.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, would you like to do one minute or two-minute public comments?

Okay, thank you so much.

This is a reminder that we will be doing one-minute public comment for today.

This meeting is expected to run pretty long.

And as you know, we also have budget and appropriations today at 11 a.m.

So we will do one minute for public comment for this meeting.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should I speak at this time.

Each speaker will be allowed one minute.

There will be a soft chime when you have 30 seconds left and a louder time when your time has expired.

Are there any members of the public who like to comment on this item?

Uh there does not appear to be any commenters for this item.

Thank you.

Seeing no speakers.

Public comment is now closed.

I want to thank the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing for coming in and, of course, presenting on this item today.

I think this is important that we do allow for that opportunity as we continue to address one of the city's crisis.

With that said, seeing no comments or statements from colleagues, I will move that we forward item one to the full board with recommendation as a committee report.

Yes, on that motion, Vice Chair Cheryl.

I Cheryl I, Member Manaman.

Well, tonight that motion is adopted without um unanimously.

Thank you.

Motion carries.

Mr.

Clerk, please call item number two.

Item number two is the charter amendment first draft to amend the charter of the city and county of San Francisco to increase the amount of funding.

The city must appropriate to the housing trust fund each fiscal year that is used for the creation, acquisition, and rehabilitation of affordable rental and ownership housing for down payment loans and housing stabilization for certain households and for housing related infrastructure provided for a temporary freeze and temporary reduction and the annual appropriation to the housing trust fund under certain circumstances.

Thank you so much.

And as stated, we are joined by Supervisor Melgar this morning.

Supervisor, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Chair Walton, for uh scheduling this.

Uh and thank you, colleagues, for hearing this item today.

I believe that this is one of the more uh consequential items that we may be placing on the ballot this November.

Given that our city has been facing with a uh face uh a housing production uh issue, it's been stalled, uh, rents and evictions are, however, at a high.

Uh we've always needed a lifeline, a dedicated stable source of funding for affordable housing that is not dependent on the whims of the market.

Um we are faced right now with a situation that in a couple years um there is no funding uh for what we have uh in terms of the production of the pipeline.

As we all know, it takes a good five, six years between the time there's a pre-development of a project to when there is a certificate of occupancy issued for an affordable housing.

On the whole, some people have been able to pull it off faster, but that's the average.

So what happens uh when we are funding affordable housing production with fees, um, is that when uh the market is really healthy, when market rate housing is being produced and people are paying those in loop fees, there's money in the budget for affordable housing.

But when the market goes down, which is right now, there's no fees being paid, but that's also when there's uh less competition for land to be able to build the affordable housing.

So we have this counter-cyclical issue uh where we are, you know, having lots of money when the market's good, but not enough money when we are able to buy that land.

So this is a way to uh make sure that we have both, that we have a uh stable source of funding so that we can rely on it always, and we know how to predict it and have the capacity to do it, and then when the market's good, then we have that icing on the cake on top of it.

Over the past uh you know, few months, we have converged a diverse coalition of affordable housing organizations, nonprofit organizations, housing finance experts, labor, along with the Mayor's Office of Housing to try grant craft this charter amendment that will gradually expand the housing trust fund over the course of time to reach 125 million annually.

I am grateful to the voters of San Francisco that supported the creation of the original housing trust fund in 2012 that is in our charter.

Uh, but any changes have to go back to the voters, and that's what I'm asking for permission to do today.

We designed this charter amendment so that the housing trust fund grows by an allocation by allocating a portion of future property tax growth every year.

Last year we just rezoned most of the west side and north of the city.

This is a value capture that invests back into much needed affordable housing.

We also made sure that we are expanding the housing trust fund in a fiscally responsible way.

The gradual growth of the fund will not start until 2029.

And we included fiscal safeguard to freeze the growth of the fund during a budget deficit and to decrease the baseline during a recession.

I want to thank uh my co-sponsors, Supervisor Walton, Sauder, Cheryl, Wong, Dorsey, and Mahmood.

Um, and I also want to thank Mayor Lurry, along with his team, Ned Siegel, Ali Bondi, Ben White, Lee Letenski, Jacob Bintliff, Assessor Recorder, Joaquin Torres, and his team, Victoria Wong, Brad Russian and Keith Nakayama, and of course, Director Dan Adams, who we will hear from uh in a little bit, along with controller Greg Wagner, for all his support in crunching the numbers, which was not easy.

I look forward to further the discussion and getting your support to send this to voters for approval in November.

There are some amendments that I am proposing today in consultation with the mayor's office staff.

Uh we wanted to align the eligibility for down payment assistance programs only for households up to 200% of AMI, which is what some programs already do, but not all of them, so we want to make that consistent.

Um this allows for flexibility of funding sources for these types of programs and uh if that when that is proposed, it'll come back to the Board of Supervisors for approval before it happens.

Um there's also a couple of other clerical technical amendments uh is just cleanup uh that we uh are working on with our city attorney uh through the chair.

We do have a brief presentation to provide an overview of uh this charter amendment by the mayor's office of housing in community development, Dan Adams and also Jake and Jacob Bintliff, who is a project manager who was uh just so like uh helpful, brains behind a lot of this uh uh number crunching at the Office of Economic and Warfare's Development.

Um, and we also have controller staff on standby for this.

So thank you, Chair Walton.

Um, the I have circulated the amendments, um, and uh you know can read them into the record if that's necessary, but if that's okay, we could um go to uh Mr.

Adams.

Before we go to Director Adams, I believe President Melman wants to uh chime in.

Yep.

Um like a majority of San Franciscans, I supported Prop I.

Um, and uh I think one of the challenges over these many years has been that although Prop I gave us a source, it never ensured that that uh as drafted, it wasn't going to ensure that that source went to affordable housing, and as we've seen other sources constrained and cons and uh constrict, um, uh the need for more dedicated funds for affordable housing, as I think become clear.

It's been clear to uh Supervisor Melgar, Lady's Chair Melgar for um a very long time, and she has been uh like a dog with a bone on this for more than a year, pushing on lots of different possible funding sources.

Uh in the end, um there is I think uh some oddness later in this uh agenda.

We're gonna talk about um a charter reform measure that I'm putting forward, and our charter reform conversations have uh been a lot about how we needed to grapple with and get a handle on set asides.

Uh that is a conversation I think for another year.

Uh it is not something that we have tackled this year, and the one uh significant set-aside measure that is going to go on the ballot.

I think is going to be this one, but I think it is worthwhile and worthy and also responsible as it is going to ensure that um our the the uh impact of this on our general fund will um occur over time, will not be something that we have to swallow right now in this uh very difficult and challenging uh budget year.

Um, and so uh I want to congratulate the author, uh Supervisor Melgar, and I would like to be added as a co-sponsor.

Thank you so much.

Not that Dan Adams' presentation was not something to be worth waiting for, I'm sure it's a ruining.

We'll only addressed to my support for this.

Thank you, President Mendelman.

Vice Chair Shirle.

Uh Dan, thank you for being here.

I'm sure your words will be uh enthralling, so I'm gonna make everybody wait.

Um, Supervisor Melgar, I just want to thank you for putting this on.

This might be the most important measure on the ballot this fall, uh, and I don't say that lightly because the transit measures are ungodly important, as are the charter reform measures.

Um I think President Mandelman's remarks about set asides should not be taken lightly.

And the reason that I feel so strongly about this set aside is when we look at the problems in this city.

The lack of housing at affordable levels is the number one problem.

That's worth setting aside money for.

So thank you for working so hard on this.

Uh I'm proud to already be a co-sponsor.

That's not a dig, I swear, President Mandelman.

Um, but um, but uh to everyone in the audience who I know I recognize several faces out there who've been working very hard on this.

Thank you to all of you for leaning in so hard.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair Shuro.

Uh Supervisor McMood, did you want to speak on this?

Um, thank you everyone for being here.

Thank you, Dan, for saying sorry I didn't see the presentation.

But um uh I just want to thank Supervisor Malgar again for uh leading on this legislation.

I think um I remember we had a hearing where uh Dan presented at the land use committee where he outlined how uh we're gonna run out of money uh by 2829.

And this is the first uh initiative in I don't know how long, uh probably ever, that provides a sustainable and reliable source of revenue that also acknowledges the deficit that we're in with responsible deficit controls uh and checkpoints to help us ensure that we are raising this limit responsibly.

Um and I also want to commend Suez Melgar for leading a coalition, bringing a consensus measure uh to the ballot in November to show how we should be doing housing legislation and um leading the way on solving a significant problem for our city.

So thank you, Supervisor Melgar, and honored to be supporting.

Thank you, everybody.

And again, thank you, Supervisor Melgar, for bringing this forward.

This is a consensus measure, and like President Mendelman, I won't get in the debate about set asides at this meeting.

I will say that they do demonstrate the priorities of the people because they vote to decide that we should set resources aside for things like child care for things like children's services, etc.

And most certainly, in this case, housing.

With that said, we will go to Director Adams with the Department of Housing and Community Development.

Thank you so much, uh Chair Walton.

And uh thank you for those encouraging comments that makes our job a lot easier.

Uh I want to appreciate again the leadership of Supervisor Melgar in bringing this forward as well as all of the co-sponsors, both previous and new.

Uh, and with that, I just want to set a little bit of context.

I'll be very brief, of course.

Here to answering questions, I'll turn it over to my colleague Jacob Bentliff, who'll go through some of the mechanics and guardrails around the uh housing trust fund, and then we have the controller's office uh here to answer his questions as well.

So just a quick refresher, and we did uh have a uh very comprehensive hearing on this uh at land use the other day, but it's important to remember that our local funds leverage a host of state and federal resources.

So every dollar that we put in leverages a couple dollars from state and federal resources, and it really is a kind of menu of resources that we bring together together.

Critical to this is having local dollars, and that's why the Housing Trust Fund as a local source is gonna be so essential for us moving forward.

Our local funding sources have been diverse and are diverse.

Um we have uh passed general obligation bonds over the years.

Over the last 10 years, we've passed 1.1 billion dollars of general obligation uh allocation to dedicate toward affordable housing.

Obviously, the housing trust fund has been a super important source for us and will grow in importance uh should this measure pass in November.

We've issued certificates of participation, uh impact fees and jobs housing linkage fees.

This before the pandemic was a really important source for us.

We were averaging about 75 million dollars annually in the 10 years prior to the to the pandemic.

Those funds have really dried up.

Uh and then we have uh special fees that come into our office on occasion.

The big bars that you see are really related to those general obligation bonds.

And so that we've been drawing down on that largesse over these last five or six years and really dedicating it to a very aggressive and robust pipeline.

We have a lot of projects in construction right now.

Over the next couple of years, we have a really again robust pipeline to move forward.

But as Supervisor Mahmoud referenced, you know, we really run out of money in a couple of years, two to three years.

And so this housing trust fund is extremely well timed.

You can see those little tiny bars in the years to come.

That means we've got to find another source, and this is the source to move our projects forward.

Otherwise, we're just gonna have to say pencils down.

There have been a number of new and emerging funding sources.

The housing trust fund obviously one of them, but we also have an affordable housing opportunity fund.

This passed last year, and it's relatively small set aside to support rent subsidies for extremely low-income households.

That's an important priority for our office.

Um we are looking at a likelihood of a state housing bond uh in November, as well as discussions are starting around a regional housing funding measure uh in uh 2028.

Again, these are would be leverage sources, and it just emphasizes the need to have these local dollars in order to access those future state bonds or regional uh funding sources in the future.

And finally, uh our housing trust fund has really been and would remain our most flexible source.

It allows us to create and preserve affordable housing as well as housing related infrastructure.

We use it to support our housing stabilization programs.

This helps keep people in their homes, such as our eviction defense program is is funded in part with the housing trust fund, and our really important down payment assistance loan program for first-time homebuyers.

Um that's been essential to move folks into home ownership and the kind of equity and wealth uh accrual that can happen through homeownership, even for moderate and low-income households.

Uh, so again, really an important source for us given its flexibility and its permanence.

Well, one of the beauties of having an ongoing set aside is that we can issue debt against it.

And so, particularly in the years in which it's going to start to grow, we we imagine issuing uh some form of debt, either a bond or certificates of participation against that income stream, so we can kind of prime the pump and we can really move forward uh more projects in the early days because we can support debt through this permanent source.

So, as opposed to a geo bond, which is its own form of debt, of course, but just comes in one lump.

This will be an annual uh set aside that we can use to support um bond issuances on a on a through through periods during that first 10 years in particular.

So, with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague uh Jacob to go through some of the mechanics.

Thank you, Dan.

Good morning, supervisors.

Jacob Bentleff, Office of Economic and Workforce Development.

Just to round it out with a couple of the nuts and bolts for this measure.

Um, so as Supervisor Melgar said, the housing trust fund has been in place since uh 2012 and currently has an appropriation of just over 50 million dollars, almost 51 million dollars.

Um it currently is set to grow or decrease by the percent increase or decrease in overall general fund discretionary revenue or ADR, and is set to sunset in 2043.

So that was a 30-year set aside when it was passed originally.

Under the proposed charter amendment, that would be uh changed in the following ways.

So we wouldn't make any changes to that formula for the next two fiscal years.

But beginning in fiscal year 29, the annual appropriation would grow by the higher of uh one of two calculations.

The first would be the current formula to continue to increase it by the percent growth of general fund discretionary revenue, or uh, if higher, and we project that it would be higher, the fund would take 20% of the city's annual growth in property tax revenue that would come from our growth in the overall assessed value of the city.

So it's not the actual net property tax revenue, it is the amount of property tax revenue that would come from the city's 1% of our overall growth and assessed value, which represents growth in general uh in the city coming in.

So we'd take 20% of that each year until the fund reaches 125 million dollars from its current 50 million dollars.

And at that point in time, the fund would cap out at that 125 million, but continue to grow annually by up to 3%.

It would grow with that same 80R% growth, up to 3%.

Uh, and the fund would be extended through 2058, so another 30 years from that FY29 starting point.

Um so the idea here is for this to grow in tandem with the city's overall growth up until we hit that 125 million.

Uh finally, as you all have mentioned, um, you know, we take uh a 30-year set aside in the charter seriously.

So we did uh work quite a bit with the controller's office uh and mayor's budget office and everyone to ensure a number of fiscal guardrails in this measure.

So, first of all, as we've said, we're not making any changes for the next two fiscal years.

Uh starting in FY29, this will be a gradual ramp up over about a decade to get to that 125 million, which will then be capped, as I said, and indexed up to no more than 3% a year.

We will maintain a sunset, though extended out to give this another uh 30 years.

Uh importantly, we're adding two measures that were not included in the current housing trust fund.

First is the ability of the Board of Supervisors to temporarily freeze the annual appropriation in any year when the first year deficit is projected to be more than 250 million.

The secondly, the board may also temporarily reduce by up to 10% the appropriation in years where the city is eligible to tap into the rainy day fund in a recessionary uh environment.

So uh we believe with these measures, this is a responsible measure that will grow uh the resources of the city for affordable housing in tandem with our overall growth.

Uh, and we are here along with our colleagues at the controller's office for any questions.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

And that concludes our presentations from city departments.

Uh we will now go to public comment on this item, and I just want to remind everyone that we are doing one-minute public comment today, Mr.

Clerk.

Yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up by the window.

Each speaker will be allowed one minute.

Are there any members of the public who would like to speak on this matter?

You can line up by the by the window.

Please approach.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Manson, with self-help for the elderly.

I'm here on behalf of the 40,000 elder here, urge the community to adapt this resolution from the major.

Because our elderly need the elevator.

It's a mobility problem.

It's an issue for all the elderly, including everyone here.

So I uh wish that you guys can understand.

I'll need this uh committee to see the need to approve this uh uh funding.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Quentin Mackie, executive director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.

I am thrilled that this is a consensus measure.

Uh, and thank you to Supervisor Melgar for her leadership in helping craft this measure.

Um, as Director Adams has pointed out, uh, this is a key measure to unlock some units in the pipeline, and we should be clear the overall need as presented by the budget uh an analyst last week or two weeks ago is in the billions.

So we need to treat this as a floor, not a ceiling for funding for affordable housing, but in this current budget environment, this is absolutely necessary to pass this fall.

So I thank you for this being a consensus measure.

I look forward to passing this in November.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Uh Reina Theyo with Poder.

Um we are in full support of this measure.

Um, I agree with Quentin before me.

This should be a floor, not a ceiling.

And I think the next item on your agenda, uh, we are in full support and we will give public comment, but I think that's an also a way that we can get affordable housing.

Thank you.

He has had uh allergy with his nose since he was one because the air in the SRO does not circulate well.

He has a runny nose every morning, often feels tired and sometimes even has nose bleeds.

This affects both his health and his learning.

I have applied for affordable housing for more than 10 years, but I have never been selected.

My son often asks me when he can have his own room and when he can have a desk like other children to do his homework.

I tell him to keep studying hard and that I will not give up.

We will continue applying and hope that one day we can move out of the SRO.

Supervisors.

I am here today to ask the has you to support expanding the housing trust fund.

My family of four across three generations lives in an SRO room in Chinatown that is only about 10 square meters.

This includes my eight-year-old son and my parents, who are over 68 years old.

We have to share kitchen, bathroom, and shower with other tenants.

More than 30 households often have to wait in line just to use basic facilities.

Sometimes my child even has to wait to use the bathroom.

He has always wished for a room of his own.

This living situation affects our whole family.

My elderly parents have difficulty moving around, and my child does not have enough space to study, rest, or grow.

Our life feels crowded and unstable.

I'm a new immigrant.

I take English classes at City College every day to improve myself, and I have tried to find work in Chinatown.

My job options are very limited.

My income is not enough to afford market rent.

Even though we work hard, low-income families like mine cannot find safe, stable, and affordable housing in a city as expensive as San Francisco.

This is why I respectfully ask you all to support expanding the Housing Trust Fund.

Thank you.

We have to share the bathroom and shower with many other families.

One time before taking a shower, my daughter went back to our room to get her clothes.

When she returned about five minutes later, someone had thrown her belongings out of the shower room.

She cried and I felt heartbroken.

Living in this environment has made her more nervous and I worry about her mental health.

But we still cannot afford market rate rent in San Francisco.

We have applied for affordable housing, but the chances are very limited.

And we have not been selected.

This is why I respectfully ask supervisors to support expanding the housing trust fund.

This fund can help build more affordable housing and protect families like ours from unsafe and unstable living conditions.

I hope my daughter can grow up in a safe, stable and dignified home.

Thank you.

Hi supervisors.

My name is Che Hua Wu.

My family of four lives in a very small SO in Chinatown.

I am a mother of two children.

Our building has many serious problems, including mice, roaches, water leaks, mold, a broken stove, and clock toilets.

At night, mice and roaches often move through the ceiling and make noises, making it hard for us to sleep.

Many SO families face the same unsafe living conditions.

Even though we work hard every day, we still cannot afford market rent in San Francisco.

This is why we need the city's support.

Expanding the housing trust fund will help build more affordable housing, improve existing SO housing conditions, and help families like mine move out of unsafe homes.

Please support expanding the housing trust fund so more families can live in safe and stable housing.

Thank you.

After school, he often tries to delay going home because he's afraid to return to this environment.

But the reality is that the cost of living is very high, rent is expensive, and most of our income goes towards rent.

Every time I apply for affordable housing, I feel less and less hopeful.

There may be only a few dozen affordable units, but thousands of people apply.

When I see that my lottery number is over 2,000, I know right away that we have almost no chance.

Hi, supervisors.

My name is Jen Chang Woo.

Today I would like to share my family's story and ask for your support in expanding the housing trust fund.

I have a two-year-old son and our family is currently living in an SOO.

The room is very small.

My child has to eat and play on the bed simply because there is not enough space for him.

The building we live in is old.

Two months ago, mice entered our room at night and affected our sleep.

We later found that they had damaged the window frame and were coming to holes near the sink.

Although the issue has been temporarily fixed, I still worry about my child's health and safety.

I am currently unemployed, so our families depend on my husband's income.

This is why we have no choice but to live in an SRO.

In the SRO, we must share the kitchen, bathroom, and shower with other tenants.

Waiting in line is part of daily life.

I sincerely ask supervisors to support expanding the housing trust fund and help build more affordable housing in Chinatown and nearby neighborhoods.

Good morning, supervisor.

My name is Mei Yen Liu.

I am here today to ask for your support in expanding the housing trust fund.

I am living in an SO with my two kids.

We are a family of four.

Because I'm monolingual.

I can only work a low-wage job, and it's really difficult to afford anything in San Francisco because the cost of living is so high.

The rent is so expensive.

Our current SO condition is terrible.

Luckily, we receive a lot of help from the SO Families United Collaborative, and we have the opportunity to apply for affordable housing.

However, we are never we never get selected because there are not a lot of affordable housing units available, and there are a lot of people applying.

That's why I'm here today to ask for your help and for your support in expanding the housing trust fund.

Thank you.

So my goal.

As a father, my greatest hope is really simple.

I want my children to grow up in a safe and healthy home.

That is why I support expanding the housing trust fund, and I'm asking all of you for your support to expand the housing trust fund as well so more people can apply for affordable housing and have a chance to move out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

Peter Stevens with Todco.

Thank you all for the work you've done on this.

We support the Housing Trust Fund.

However, San Francisco really needs to be a city for all, meaning that we're working for working people.

City sanctions reports have said we need to invest a billion dollars a year at deed restricted housing.

So I hope this is the beginning of the conversation, not the end.

Thank you all.

We appreciate your work.

Hi, supervisors.

Uh, a family cannot make it here today, so I'm uh sharing this family story on her behalf.

You cannot read something on someone else's behalf, they must be here.

If you would like to use your own public comment time to read it, that's fine.

So they have to be here to read it.

I can't read statements from other parties.

We have you have one minute, you can read it.

Okay, got it.

Hi, supervisors.

My name is Sandy.

I'm here to share a family story.

Um so this family, they are we are the most hardworking people that I know that they are trying their best every day to live their life.

And I remember that uh the uh one of their daughters, Lisa, she has a favorite book, and she always goes to Chinatown Library to check out this book.

This book is called Your House, My House.

She loves this book so much because of all the animals in the story, have their own rooms.

After reading it, she realized that some people have their own rooms before that.

She thought that everyone had to share a shower, kitchen, and bathroom, and she thought that everyone living in a small and crowded space is normal.

And she often um take the book out and ask her mom.

And she asked, Mom, when can we have our own room and like the animals in the book?

When can we move out of the SO?

Every time when I see stories like this and I hear from children in SOs, I just really hope that we have more affordable housing for families in this hall so then they can move out.

So I'm here to ask for your support in the expansion of the housing trust fund.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Walton and members of the rules committee.

Kyle Smealy with the San Francisco Community Land Trust.

Here to urge your support for the housing trust fund expansion and the critical investment in housing preservation that is included as part of this package.

At SFCLT, we preserve affordable housing by acquiring apartment buildings and taking them permanently off the speculative market.

We work with tenants facing displacement and help keep longtime San Franciscans in their homes.

The housing trust fund expansion and specifically the commitment of at least 70 million dollars for preservation and acquisition, will give organizations like ours the resources to act when opportunities arise and preserve homes before they're lost to speculation with rents rising, evictions increasing, and affordable housing funding otherwise declining.

This investment could not be more important.

Please support the housing trust fund expansion and the preservation investments that will keep San Franciscans in their homes.

Thank you, Trump, Member Melgar, for your leadership on this.

Thanks.

Good morning, Chair Walton and members of the committee.

My name is Mitch Bankin with San Francisco Housing Development Corporation.

We're a community-based affordable housing developer, resident service provider, and HUD certified counseling agency based in the Bayview in Fillmore, serving primarily the black community.

We're so proud to be in support of the Housing Trust Fund and uh so appreciative of Supervisor Melgar's leadership on this.

Our need, as you've heard in these comments, is uh what you've heard is mirrored citywide, and it's to the tune of a billion dollars.

This is an excellent first step towards meeting the needs for affordable housing in our community.

And it leverages state and federal dollars that we need to leverage if we want to meet those goals.

Thank you so much.

We're proud to be in support.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Douglas Angman.

I'm the former president of the city planning commission under the Agnos uh Mayoralty, which I'm proud to say instituted the first inclusionary housing law in San Francisco.

Thank you for your support of the affordable housing trust fund.

You just passed a comprehensive city rezoning, but no provisions for affordable housing.

There are many shovel-ready projects ready to go that need the impetus of the city funding to get their state and federal housing tax credits.

As my wife, Barbara will be talking about one project in a minute.

Please pass this and let's get started on building affordable housing in San Francisco.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

Barbara Engman, thank you for supporting the trust fund amendments.

Um I represent Martin Luther Tower Inc.

We are a church-owned corporation that builds affordable housing.

We currently own and operate a low-income senior housing building of 121 units.

We have entitlements for a second building of 94 units low income.

And thirdly, we are in the process of entitlements for our third affordable senior housing of 121 units for a total of over 300 units.

Morning, supervisors.

Affordable housing development takes years to assemble and require multiple public, private, and public and private funding sources.

Having a stable housing trust fund gives developers, lenders, and community partners the confidence to move projects forward.

I respectfully urge the board to support this effort and continue investing in affordable housing that San Franciscans need.

Thank you for your time.

Good morning, Chair Walton and Supervisors.

So I appreciate this prioritization of affordable housing.

One thing that I would ask for you all to pay attention to is affordable home ownership and in particular.

Funds at all levels dedicated to home ownership production and preservation are quickly drying up, especially from the state level where Calhome has not received funds for the past several years, including in the currently proposed budget.

We'll only make ownership opportunities more expensive for everybody.

We'd be very happy to discuss this further with any of you, and to make sure that homeownership is fully a part of this very critical charter amendment.

Thank you very much.

I can use this one a little bit.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Jim Mayhi.

I'm board member of the Community Tenet Association.

Today's CT is speaking on behalf of community to ask for your support for housing trust fund program.

Recently, CTA has received report for many long-term tenants who are facing eviction notice or increasing pressure and displacement.

As the market rent continue to rise, low income tenants are facing even greater financial burden.

At the same time, many of our senior members are still living in SL unit, as they're getting older.

There's living conditions no longer suitable for their need.

They require housing with elevator and larger living space.

However, their fixed income cannot keep up the rent inflation, making it impossible for Denver to relocate for more appropriate housing.

Therefore, we need the CD to use a housing trust fund to support the development of the more affordable housing.

Back in 2012, CTA public support the housing trust fund.

And to date in 2026, CTA continue to express strong support.

On behalf of CTA, we need to ask you to support for the housing trust fund.

Thank you for listening to the voice of the grassroots community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just as a reminder, please make sure that your phones or any device are on silence.

Thank you.

Morning.

Uh thank you, Chair Walton, and thank you to all of the members of the board for here in this committee for co-sponsoring this.

I'm Rebecca Foster, the CEO of the Housing Accelerator Fund.

And the most pressing issue in San Francisco and our region is affordable housing.

And one of or the biggest challenge to delivering affordable housing that our community needs is reliable, predictable funding.

And the expansion and the renewal of the housing trust fund will provide that for the preservation of our community of our housing for people who already live here and uh new production, which we so desperately need for economic development and for our families and communities to keep our city this amazing place it is.

Thank you so much.

Uh good morning uh members of the committee.

Bill Barnes on behalf of MPH, the nonprofit housing association.

Uh before I was an MPH or uh worked in this building, I lived at a basement apartment in the Haight for 400 bucks a month when I moved to San Francisco.

That's not possible for people working service jobs, it's not possible for folks working on profit jobs.

And so the lowest lookup folks, the middle-income folks were all feeling the squeeze.

It feels a lot like the dot-com era.

It's 2012 redevelopment got eliminated.

So we built the housing trust fund to make sure that we're captured property growth.

We've done that, and this amendment expands on that success.

So a big thanks to Supervisor Melgard, America Lurie, uh, to the folks who worked in the departments to make this work to each of you uh for making this happen.

One reason we need this set aside is so you can bond against it.

You can't borrow against money that's not reliable, and so while set asides may not be ideal, if you're actually doing capital to build the stack that they described, you actually need to do it this way.

Uh thank you, supervisors.

Hope you support it.

Good morning.

My name is Raimi Dare, and I'm with Mercy Housing California.

We're very much enthusiastic in support of the housing trust fund charter amendment.

Uh, Mercy Housing is a not-per-profit, and we have 58 different housing communities throughout San Francisco in different neighborhoods.

Uh, Trans Bay, Castro, Soma, Bayview, Sunnydale, and Biz Valley.

And we would like to do more.

We have 2,900 more units in our pipeline in different neighborhoods like Laguna Honda, Hayes Valley, and other areas of the city.

And this housing trust fund charter amendment will allow for a steady, predictable source that allows us to keep producing housing for our low-income households in the city.

I want to thank Supervisor Mulgar and Mayor Lurie for your leadership and for all the co-sponsors, including the new ones.

Uh, thank you very much for answering the call of San Francisco who are speaking across a wide spectrum for more funding for affordable housing.

Thank you.

Good morning, Supervisor Zachary Free Also.

Thank you, Supervisor Melgar for spearheading this important step towards meeting our affordable housing goals.

As the board is well aware, the city is expected to plan for 47,000 units of affordable housing.

And this uh important is an important part of ensuring that there's a sufficient funding source to build this housing.

However, there's still significant funding gaps.

According to a BLA report presenting at land news two weeks ago, the city needs about two billion dollars per year to meet its RENA goals.

Provided this measure passes the trust fund will be supplying only about a hundred and twenty-five million per year for affordable housing.

That represents only six point two five percent of the total annual funding we need.

SOMCAM recommends that this committee move forward this charter measure.

However, we also encourage the board to explore a panoply of tools like the public bank to truly meet our affordable housing production goals.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, supervisors.

I'm Molly Goldberg with the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, and I want to thank you for supporting this measure, for moving it forward and say that we're here to support uh the expansion of affordable housing and funding for it in San Francisco because we understand how crucial it is in uh building the stability necessary to both to both um interrupt the process we see over and over again in the boom times of the of the new resources flowing into our communities immediately being transferred back out to private equity to real estate investment trusts in the form of higher rent and higher housing costs for our communities, and how important it is then in the inevitable downturns that we have the stability necessary and the people in place that create that resilience to make it through the next time.

So we understand how important investment in affordable housing is, and we want to support this the housing trust fund in a package with the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act with the public bank and all of the resources we need as a city to really ensure that we have that resilience moving forward.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Caitlin Cow and I'm with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco.

Um, as tenant organizer, we spend every day fighting to keep people in house.

Um we know that organizing can stop eviction, can win repairs, but we need to more than just putting try to put off fires every day.

We need more funding and keep building towards long-term solution and solution that actually stop displacement in the first place, and also a solution that don't just respond to crisis, but actually change the condition that creates it.

So we need more delicate resources toward preserving our existing affordable housing to build more affordable housing and also support community acquisition of housing so that we can take housing off the speculative market so that tenants have more control and stability, and that's the type of investment that our working class community needs in this city.

So thank you all for your support on this.

Hello, I'm Teresa Dulalas with SomChan.

Um, like many families in San Francisco, my family would not be able to afford market-rate housing.

We share costs and make sacrifices simply to remain in the city we call home.

The experience surviving four eviction attempts taught us how quickly housing insecurity can create fear, instability, and uncertainty.

That is why we support expanding the housing trust fund.

This is one of the tools that will help preserve build, preserve, and protect affordable housing.

Is it the only solution?

No.

We need more ideas.

We need to build affordable housing projects, as many as we can and as soon as we can.

That's why we need this tool.

We don't want to wait 10 years or 115 years for affordable housing, while market rate housing continues to receive priority attention and move forward at a much faster pace.

Economically, the choice is simple.

We can invest in affordable housing now or we can pay much higher costs.

The question is not whether San Francisco has the ability to act the question.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning, Supervisors.

Uh Rick and Tor, Bill Sorrow Housing Program.

Just here to voice my support uh of the Housing Trust Fund Charter Amendment and just urging all the committee members, please use the political power and will that you have even beyond this committee to make sure that this gets across the finish line.

Um I'm not quite sure what version of San Francisco exists anymore.

Um, as many people seem less concerned about those who aren't in their same social class or live in their same neighborhood.

Um so I think it would be foolish to take for granted the passage of this amendment, even though there is um broad support.

So just want to try to, you know, get everyone to do that little extra percentage to see this really get passed.

Um, and also want to just say I can't help but notice the absence of the people that are always pushing for building more housing, but um those voices are not here today.

Um that seems a shame.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Dan Rail.

As a parent of two SFUSD students, I'm greatly encouraged to see you supporting this public intervention and our city's most intractable problem.

I hope you agree with what many have said that this is a floor and not a ceiling.

San Francisco has committed to creating 46,000 affordable housing units by 2031.

And last week the budget and legislative analyst affirmed to the land use committee that market rate housing has stalled out for lack of financing due to macroeconomic factors beyond municipal control.

Rents evictions on home prices are spiking.

Together, the housing trust fund increase, the closing the foreclosure loophole, and dedicating prop eye revenue to affordable and social housing and the establishment of a public bank approach the kind of long-term vision of how San Francisco can solve this crisis and ensure that our city is affordable to all.

I encourage you to vote yes, yes, yes to affordable homes for all.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Connie Ford.

I'm a longtime union organizer, now retired and president of St.

Francis Square, one of the longtime existing cooperatives and Supervisor MoMad's district.

Um I'm just here to say that obviously, obviously, we need this bill.

Obviously, all of the great people here deserve everything that they're asking for.

St.

Francis Square is a little bit unique in that we're uh market rate, but our market rate um listing is is like about 500,000 for a three-bedroom, two bath now because of the downturn.

So we're to going through renovations, which we which a third of our members cannot afford.

A third of our members are from the old school and their families, and when we were all sort of equal under HUD, we've paid off our HUD loan responsibly a couple of decades ago, and now we can't afford to increase the revenues in the carrying charges for many people.

So this is it.

Is that the last bill?

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

I just consider the co-op, St.

Francis Square in particular.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Jessica Rivia, and I am the policy director at Mission Economic Development Agency.

I am here in support of the Housing Trust Fund Chartered Amendment.

Admit that we have already built over two twelve hundred affordable housing units, and we're committed to continue to make housing affordable for everyone in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, we still have three projects on hold right now.

Uh that's over 400 units, and we have the capacity to acquire four preservation sites that could range from forty to eighty more units.

Uh, a hundred and twenty-five million annual commitment could make a huge difference for us and our community members.

We could finish building these units and house close to 500 families.

This is crucial to keep our affordable housing pipeline moving.

So thank you, Supervisor Melgar, for your leadership, and I encourage all of you to support this expansion.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Mauritius Serra Soto, and I am a student at Lowell High School.

I have been living in San Francisco for almost 17 years.

And I urge you to support and advance the housing trust fund charter amendment.

A 125 million dollar annual commitment could allow many more families and children to live in this beautiful city.

I currently live in affordable housing, and other low-income families deserve a chance to live with dignity.

MEDA could build close to 500 units with this funding.

So we hope that you can support the housing trust fund expansion.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Alison King.

I'm 17 years old and I'm here in support of the housing trust Fund Amendment.

A hundred twenty-five million dollar annual commitment is what it takes to keep our affordable housing pipeline moving for youth like myself.

This is a real opportunity to lock in long-term funding for affordable housing.

So I urge you to support the housing trust fund expansion.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

We've all heard the necessity for affordable housing.

We all know the housing goals.

We are thousands of units behind in probably a decade, maybe of making a sizable dent in the need.

Every single affordable housing developer who has come up here has units in the pipeline that just need funding.

And like many families that you heard from today, I also grew up in an SRO in the tender loan without any hope of getting out.

We cannot have pride in this city if we pass this affordability crisis on to the next generation.

Put it on the ballot and please just let the voters of San Francisco remind this government again and again that we must utilize every necessary solution so people can simply afford to live here.

Thank you.

And I am the president of Penguin Residence Improvement Association.

I live in Pengyan in the heart of Chinatown for most of my life.

I raised my son here, and this community gave us gave my family stability and a place to call home.

Today, at 624, I live on a fixed income without affordable housing.

I could not afford to stay in San Francisco.

Penguin is the one of the few affordable housing where low-income families and seniors can remain connected to their culture, language, and support neighbors.

This is why I support the Housing Trust Fund expansion.

If you have more families to fire home and more seniors' age in place, please support this measure.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Avi, and I'm here with the Chinatown Community Development Center.

Um of the Housing Trust Fund, and we especially want to thank Supervisor Melgar for your leadership on this, as well as uh two two and all the co-sponsors for your partnership.

Um yeah, we this comes at a critical time when uh state and federal resources are drying up, and um as the speakers before us have said, this uh will really is a stable and predictable source of income that will um help us unlock the several hundreds of affordable housing units in our pipeline, including uh with CCDC.

Um and yeah, as our residents have said, um they're really struggling at this moment to pay for rent, but also to afford food, health care, and other necessities.

Um, so this is really a great step, and we do agree with speakers before us that it should be a floor and not a ceiling.

Um, and thank you.

Just uh hoping for unanimous support of this measure.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Jamie Falamico, and I am the beer responder of the Bath ECS program.

I am here today to support Supervisor Melagar, expand of the renewed housing trust fund updating the requirements.

I respectfully ask for the rules committee move the measure forward and support.

Putting it on the ballot voter can decide.

It will help build and provide affordable homes across San Francisco.

Please support the elegation and move forward.

Thank you for your time.

Appreciate it.

Good morning, Supervisors Jennifer Dolan, uh CEO of TNDC.

Again, would like to express our support for this really important charter amendment, having done this work for so many years, seeing the uh director's, you know, flow of funds over the inconsistency of it.

I can't tell you from running a business, you know, having an understandable, predictable uh forecast of how we can continue to develop our pipeline means a lot to to running our business.

So I want to thank you for this measure.

And uh we have five um potential projects, you know, just sitting there waiting for this work.

The federal government has really loosened up their um ability to use the tax credit program, so the timing is is indeed perfect.

So thanks again.

Good morning, Caroline Fang with Mission Economic Development Agency and also chair of the CUCHU board.

ChuChoo, as many of you know, is represents the organizations that have come up today to really share the investment that San Francisco has made in affordable housing and appreciate the leadership of this board and Supervisor Melgar in crafting a legislation that really thinks about that pipeline and that consistent of investment that um Jennifer Dolan just mentioned.

And also, as you heard from our various residents and workers that are in your neighborhoods, we need this to keep San Francisco San Francisco.

So thank you all.

Good morning, supervisors.

Walter Benati here.

I just want to uh thank you guys for uh hearing us today.

I'm in support of the housing trust fund.

I attended the ECS leadership academy.

I live at 1064 Mission Street, which is permanent supportive housing.

The ECS does thanks to some uh investments that were made.

I just want to say that uh it means a lot to me that I have a home now and uh people want to be in San Francisco because it's a good place and we're good people and uh we look after our you know our people here and uh so I I support this because we need to have an um, you know, this is there's an affordability crisis as well as a supply crisis.

So um making investments in this will really uh, you know, I think uh be to the good, and you'll see less people on the street.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Billy Davies.

I'm a D9 resident.

I'm glad to support the Housing Trust Fund expansion.

Um Supervisor Melgard's charter amendment more than doubles what the city put into affordable housing from 50 million to 125 million, and it pulls that money from the property whimfall the owners get when the city upsones their land.

It also locks this commitment into the city charter, so no city hall can do what Mayor Bridge Breed did and simply refuse to spend the money on affordable housing.

That's real progress.

Um let's pass this and keep going forward and get more money for affordable housing.

Grand rising supervisors and all resounding echoes to everybody in support of this uh housing trust fund charter amendment to the 2026 ballot, excuse me.

This ballot is about putting our money where our mouth is at a time where too many families seniors and working residents are struggling to stay in the communities they call home.

The housing trust fund would provide a stable local resource to build and preserve affordable housing while proactively sowing racial economic and social equity into the future of communities.

Communities that are the most vulnerable in San Francisco to gentrification and displacement.

We urge you immediately to advance this measure and let the voters decide.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any additional speakers on this matter?

There are no additional speakers.

See, no additional speakers.

Public comment is now closed.

Supervisor Melgar.

Thank you.

I'm just gonna quickly wrap it up, Chair, and thank you for uh all the time you spent on this, hearing from the community.

Um I think, like many uh of our public commenters that this is a floor, not a ceiling.

Um it is a predictable floor.

Um it is a way to create the infrastructure that we need for production so that we can reach our RENA goals uh in the commitment that we've made to our residents.

And I just on a private note, hearing all of these like heartbreaking stories from families in our city uh who desperately need affordable housing.

You know, my family came to San Francisco and I was 12, and we lived in a once, you know, a little studio apartment, off of Mission Street.

My uh sisters and I all slept in the walk-in closet.

And uh I'm here today because my family was able to move through.

Um land use decisions uh are ultimately about access.

It is uh our our region, San Francisco, our region uh has one of the highest social mobility indices in the country.

It is why everyone wants to be here.

It's why everybody comes here from all over the world, from other places in the country to look for freedom for opportunity and for access, and the decisions that we make as a body about who gets to live here are what makes our city great.

Uh we are here because of the diversity that we bring, because of the access and opportunity, and nothing is more important than that access and that affordable housing to give people the chance to live with dignity.

So, like I said, this is a floor, not a ceiling, but it is a really important step in providing that production, that stability that we need for future generations.

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope you can vote yes.

Thank you so much, Supervisor Melgar.

And I do want to thank all the public and community who came out to speak on this item.

Resources for affordable housing will always be a priority for this supervisor and also for this city.

And so I'm glad we're going to give the voters a chance to demonstrate that this is a priority as well.

So thank you all so much for that.

With that, I would like to move the amendments as explained by Supervisor Melgar.

On the motion to amend, Vice Chair Cheryl.

Cheryl, aye, member Manuman.

Aye.

Madam and aye.

Chair Walton.

Aye.

Walton aye.

That motion passes without objection.

Thank you.

Item is amended, and I would like to move this item forward as amended with the recommendation.

Yes, on the matter on the motion to continue the matter as amended to the June 29th meeting.

So June 29th meeting, yes.

Of the rules committee.

On the motion continue as amended to June 29th.

Vice Chair Cheryl.

Aye, Member Manaman.

I, Chair Walton.

Aye.

Walton aye.

That motion passes without objection.

Thank you.

Motion carries.

Thank you so much, Supervisor Melgar and public.

Mr.

Clerk, would you please call it a number three?

Item number three is a charter amendment first draft to amend the charter of the city and county of San Francisco to authorize the establishment of a municipal finance corporation and public bank as nonprofit corporation and set forth the mission principle and governance structure of those corporations at an election to be held on November 3rd, 2026.

We're both stuck here.

How many?

Yeah, that's fine.

I have extras.

Uh yeah.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk.

And we have Charlie Siamas.

Yeah, you already did, but I can do it again.

No problem.

And we have Charlie Siamas reporting on behalf of Supervisor Chin this morning.

Thank you so much for being here, Charlie.

Good afternoon, Chair Walton.

Uh Vice Chair Mendelman, Supervisor Cheryl, Supervisor Mahmood, Charlie Shamus Legislative Aid with Supervisor Chen.

Today I'm presenting on Supervisor's Charter Amendment to establish the structure and governance for a municipal finance corporation and public bank.

A public bank is a proven solution to deliver mission-driven lending towards some of our city's most urgent priorities.

Many of us are grappling with finding the tools to address our housing affordability challenges, assist small businesses to survive and thrive, and finance the investments needed to achieve climate sustainability.

This charter amendment builds upon years of due diligence by financial experts, policymakers, and community stakeholders.

It takes advantage of the pathway enabled by the California Public Banking Act authored by then Assembly Member David Chu before its sunsets in 2028.

It codifies the mission, principles, and business plans that were developed by local experts in collaboration with national consultants and accepted by the Board of Supervisors.

The Charter Amendment establishes good governance structures with an oversight body selected by the treasurer, controller, city attorney, mayor, and board of supervisors with significant safeguards to protect the public interest.

It ensures the municipal financial corporation public bank will be run by skilled banking professionals, bankers who will uphold financial industry best practices and rigorous financial management.

It ensures that the finances of the municipal financial corporation public bank will not co-mingle with the city and county and have no impact on the general fund.

Once established, the municipal financial corporation will work in partnership with local credit unions and community development financial institutions to offer specialized lending products that fill market gaps for affordable housing, small business, and climate resilience.

Our office wants to acknowledge the important work of our treasurer controller, city attorney, LAFCO reinvestment working group, and the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition who have laid the foundation for this charter amendment.

This charter amendment is co-sponsored by Chair Walton and Supervisors Fielder, Malgar, and Mahmoud.

Carlit Samurai of LAFCO is here to provide a brief presentation to outline the mechanics of the Charter Amendment, and I'm here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, supervisors.

So how do we get here?

How do we develop these plans and arrive at this charter amendment today?

Like Charlie said in uh 2019, then Assemblymember David Chu sponsored ABA 57, the public banking act, which allows municipalities in California to uh operate a public bank.

Um after that law passed, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance in July 2021 to form the San Francisco Reinvestment Working Group.

That working group was staffed by LAFCO, by me, um, and included technical financial experts, three technical financial experts from banks, credit union uh and CDFIs, community representatives um from housing, small business, um, community organizing, uh, the controllers designee, and the treasurer's designee.

Um, who did the work to actually develop the plans that formed the basis of this charter amendment?

Um, uh obviously their investment working group um met uh for 14 months at least once a month to review the work of a consulting team made up of HRA advisors, um, the Finley companies, uh banking consultant uh who's started over a hundred community banks across the West Coast, and Contiguo Communications, San Francisco-based community organizing uh organization.

Uh and the city attorney also hired an outside law firm with specialty in um banking law, Nixon Peabody to also advise the reinvestment working group.

The first thing we did was conduct a market gap analysis.

And as you can see from this slide, we talked to literally everyone in San Francisco, and uh the overall consensus was there is a market gap.

This market gap can be filled by a public bank, and this public bank can be profitable while servicing this market gap in San Francisco.

At the end of our market gap analysis, we developed a um list of products uh that are needed in each of the priority categories that the city uh told us uh were priorities, which include affordable housing, small business, and green investments.

Um, to summarize essentially most of the products needed in San Francisco by small business and others.

It's under a million dollars and more than fifty thousand dollars, so not a microloan, but less than a million dollars.

And uh the reason the private market doesn't service these uh this these loans is not some grand conspiracy or anything like that.

It's that these large banks um it costs them just as much to issue a loan for 10 million dollars as it does for 100,000.

Uh a loan officer has to sit down, do paperwork.

That's that consumes time uh and money, and so you are able to make more money off a 10 million dollar loan than a hundred thousand thousand dollar loan.

And that's why we need to step in to fill this gap.

When we finish the market gap analysis and the plans, we actually presented them uh to the banking community of San Francisco and told them what we had found.

And that was in 2023.

And my understanding is there's still a need for all of these products in affordable housing in small business and in green investments.

Also, like Charlie said, the MFC and public bank mostly will operate through partnerships with credit unions, community banks, and CDFIs.

It's a process called participation lending, where we essentially, the MFC, which is a precursor organization, and the public bank would buy loans that were already issued by these credit unions who already have networks on the ground and have customers who have these needs, and we would package those loans essentially, and not have to do all the groundwork ourselves reviewing everyone's credit.

These loans are already issued, they're already creditworthy debtors, and we are essentially buying that, freeing up space in these CDFIs, credit unions, and community banks to issue more loans in those priority areas.

So that's how the public bank and MFC would operate, at least initially in the short term, with the goal of turning a profit by year three and converting to a public bank.

So what is that charter amendment that we're that is based off these plans actually do?

Well, it amends the San Francisco Charter, specifically adding a new section.

The reason we need to do a charter amendment and that we can't do uh an ordinance is that the charter, I think it's like section 3.100 subsection 18 says that the mayor must appoint all board and commission members.

And because that's in the charter basically to have the governance structure we developed for the MFC and public bank, we would need to amend the charter.

And so what it does is the Charter Amendment actually uh authorizes the creation of the MFC and the public bank and establishes for both mission principles and uh governance and oversight.

Um as the controllers' costing letter shows, this charter amendment does not have uh any funding attached to it, and it does not fund and capitalize the public bank.

What it does is create the foundation, the structure that we deliberate over for over a year, met with the FDIC, CD FBI, the California Department of Financial Protection Innovation, the uh state agency that charters banks to develop the governance structure that both meets regulator standards and is democratically accountable and fits into the governance structure of San Francisco.

Um I'm gonna briefly go through what's in the charter amendment.

I'm sure everyone's read it uh multiple times already.

So uh traditional banks, uh what it said basically it outlines our findings, the things I've already said to you, but um traditional banks have underserved low-income communities and communities of color.

Um, major funding gaps exist in affordable housing, small business, and climate infrastructure.

Um as was said earlier, affordable housing.

We're like $12,000 units behind at a price of $2 billion a year.

The latest uh estimate for how much the climate action plan will cost San Francisco, I believe is about $20 billion over a decade.

There are lots of things we need to do.

We've said we're gonna do that we don't have a way to pay for.

What this does, what the charter amendment does, and what the public bank does is give you the board and the city a tool uh to help um deal with these uh funding issues.

Um what else does the charter include?

It uh codifies the mission and core principles of these entities.

Um, so one of the main goals of the reinvestment working group was that a uh public bank will serve the citizens of San Francisco, the community of San Francisco, without uh relying on extractive and harmful practices of those same people.

And so, how do we do that?

Uh we deliberated over that as well and developed these key principles and mission uh as essential aspects of what this public bank is and what the uh the precursor entity and the MFC will do.

Like I said, there's going to be two entities.

The first is the municipal financial corporation, and second is the public bank.

Why are we doing that?

We need to start a bank, we need regulatory approval, like I said, from the FDIC and CD FPI that's required by AB 857.

And when we met with the FDIC and CD FPI, they basically, and our banking consultant, they basically told us these the regulators are not going to just give a city a banking license insurance and charter that's never done banking work before.

And so the banking expert basically helped us design this precursor entity.

It's a non-depository financial institution.

It only issues loans, it does not take deposits.

That's the legal distinction between what is a bank and what is not a bank.

And this entity is modeled on what the public bank will look like and the requirements we will have when we convert to a public bank.

And it's designed to work in partnership with credit unions, community banks, and CDFIs.

Like I said, another aspect of AB857 is that actually cannot compete with private banks.

So for example, if a private bank in San Francisco is issued has a um any sort of financial product, the public bank cannot copy that product.

It has to be significantly different for a public bank to be able to offer it.

Which again goes back to what we're trying to do, which is fill in a market gap.

So should all the private banks and institutions decide to do all these products, we wouldn't be able to copy them, basically.

And they're not going to because the margin of profit is lower than they can achieve in other financial instruments.

This is my original figure, 2.6 million.

The controllers is updated to include inflation.

Other figures, it's four a little more than four million.

Their figure is accurate.

It's let's call it, let's say number one says four million.

We're all gonna pretend right now.

So the pre-opening funding is acquired, we have four million dollars.

The treasurer then hires an MFC coordinator.

This person is a professional banker who has the experience to be the CEO of the MFC and public bank, but is not, we can't make a promise to hire somebody for an entity that does not yet exist.

And so this person will come on uh either as a consultant or an employee and update the reinvestment working group plans because they were designed in in 2023.

Interest rate has have changed.

Um this coordinator will also work with the treasurer's office and other entities in San Francisco to identify sources of capital and funding, making sure that when we open on day one, we have that 26 million dollars that the plans call for, or whatever the updated um figure is accounting for inflation.

When those plans are updated, the the treasurer's office, this coordinator, and the city attorney and any outside law firms they hire, uh will create the articles in corporation and bylaws for the nonprofit that is the MFC.

It's gonna be a public benefit corporation.

The city files these documents with the state, then we acquire all the funding capitalization I just talked about, then the MFC starts operation.

So even after the charters uh amendment passes, there are additional funding and um policy steps needed to be taken to actually start the MFC.

So again, the the charter just sets the um the framework for what this entity would look like.

And this is amazing work I'm gonna ask that you kind of.

I'm so sorry, I been I could talk about this all day.

Alright.

Um, so uh we also set up a governance structure that we uh went through with the FDIC, CAPI and our banking consultant, basically making sure that no single elected official can influence um the composition of either uh the oversight commission or the bank board of uh directors in a in any single election cycle, but at the same time is democratically accountable to those same elected officials in a staggered um uh um term with staggered terms so that uh when they there is a way to appoint uh appoint new members, but it's it's very difficult to remove them and to influence uh what the bank does uh basically it's gonna be as independent as we can make it, uh, but still be democratically accountable to a city and county of San Francisco.

Um, it's gonna transition to a public bank.

We also did the public bank governance, it's also in the Charter Amendment.

I actually have extra slides that I'm not gonna go through, obviously.

Um, because of our time.

Thank you so much.

Uh happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Supervisor Shiro.

Um, thank you.

Thank you for all this work.

Um, I'm sorry, was there another presenter?

I believe Charlie, did we have any?

No.

Yeah, that was it.

Okay, great.

Um I do have a few questions.

Um you mentioned um financial viability for the public bank before it gets created.

What is the measure of financial viability?

What does that mean?

I get to use my appendix slides.

Uh that's of duff.

So um it's the supervisor.

So uh the subtitles are kind of like covering up the exact one I want to point to.

But you'll see in year three, and we estimated twenty twenty-six because this was twenty twenty-three, the net income, the bottom uh row says 0.6 million dollars.

That's $600,000 in profit.

Basically, you're saying the municipal financial finance corporation can become profitable within three years, that proves financial viability.

Starting with as little money as possible, which is the $26 million uh needed for year one.

So what we asked our consultant, what is the least money we could start with to have a financially viable entity um uh by year three, the MFC, that could then convert to a public bank, and this uh the the banking consultant who started a hundred banks across the West Coast, who is on the board of of multiple banks.

But but profitable after three.

Exactly.

That's what vibe yeah, financially viable.

Great.

Who uh determines whether that profitability equals financial viability legally?

I think it's more of a common sense uh terminology, like you make a profit, you're financially viable, and then the plans you have developed basically show that you have um that you'll earn a profit by a certain point.

Okay, I won't spend time on that one.

Um no competing products.

Uh you reference that it's basically an interest rate.

Is that basically an interest rate question?

Like if a private bank offers a product that has an interest rate of five percent and and the public bank or the municipal finance corporation offers basically the same product but at a two percent interest rate, is that considered non-competing?

That's not the same product.

A two percent loan and a five percent loan, or would be not the same product, correct.

And is there a threshold at which like four point eight percent is competing with five percent, but three percent isn't?

Like, what's the threshold that where we go from competing to because I assume different banks might offer slightly different.

We're in a novel area uh legally, uh supervisor, because there has been no public bank in uh California for us to test these um theories in the courts, but um the example used in the legislation was uh like a retail checking account.

So a if, for example, a bank in San Francisco is offering um, you know, zero fees, uh retail checking count to just anyone, the uh public bank could not compete and offer that same product.

But as far as like how close in interest, how similar they can be, that hasn't been explored.

Okay, great.

Um at scale the public bank is gonna need a lot of money to loan out to be effective in theory, right?

Can we pull up that same slide?

So it's actually, it's very detailed, Supervisor.

So um by let's just skip to the end of it.

I see up to through $250 million dollars in in you know total funding with 60, 40, I I I see it.

Right.

So yeah, for 300.

Are we thinking it's all going to be appropriations?

Before year three, the MFC cannot take deposits.

Right.

But when we get to the public bank.

When it becomes a public bank, yes, it'll be able to accept uh deposits and it can grow in that way.

As far as uh where the money will come from, we did look at a lot of potential sources during their investment working group work.

Um the final plans do not specify where the funding will come from.

Um, and neither does this charter amendment.

However, there is potentially a uh citizens initiative in a couple of years to create a public bank fund to fund this.

Um, another benefit we can have from having this framework set up is um I don't want to get too far into it, but uh the greenhouse gas reduction fund was um a program that existed under the previous White House administration that got scrapped by this one.

When it was in effect it and in development, it essentially wanted to offer 10 million dollars in capitalization to all new similar entities to the MFC.

Um mostly for green banks, but the MFC could function at San Francisco's green bank.

Having this framework set up allows us to apply and get funding potentially in two years when the uh the administration changes, and for any other opportunity, we wouldn't have to wait to go through this process if we already have this framework in place so that we can get funding from a variety of sources um wherever they may be.

Okay.

Um, what happens in terms of insolvency?

What happens if the public bank fails?

It is a separate nonprofit, so it's if if it should fail, it would have no impact on the city financially.

Is that your question?

Unless the city decides to put its tax revenues in its deposits.

Right?

Yeah, should the board decide to use the general fund surplus, put money into uh the MFC or public bank, and then should that entity fail, yes, the city would lose that funding.

Uh okay.

Thanks.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much for your questions, Supervisor Shrew.

I think they're very important.

I do want to remind the public and everyone listening that this work has been going on for several years.

Uh the treasurer has been involved with this work.

Other electives have been involved with this work.

I personally had a conversation with then assembly member David Chu to get him to bring the assembly bill forward to put this forward so that we could set up our own municipal bank here in San Francisco.

Uh there's been a lot of work that has been involved with this, and I think that Supervisor Sherrill's questions are very valid because it is important to know uh when the bank will be profitable, it is important to know where resources will come from.

It is important to know what happens uh in insolvency.

I think that just like any separate entity, um, they divide assets and move forward.

But our hope obviously is that we create something here in San Francisco that is only been done once, but really never been done before to this magnitude and to this degree.

So I'm I'm excited about the work that has come previously.

I'm excited that the voters allowed us to move this forward to get to this point to put this charter amendment on the ballot.

Supervisor Makmoo.

Thank you, Chair Walton.

I just wanted to express my support again for this um charter amendment on the ballot for a couple reasons.

Um, and it's echoing a lot of the statements that were made in public comment and the previous item, which is that friendly believe that when there is an inefficiency in the market or the capitalist system that we have an um a really a not just an option, but a responsibility to ensure that the market is operating efficiently for those who are most vulnerable.

And when I talk to small businesses um throughout San Francisco, I always hear three things about what is causing them difficulty in starting up and maintaining.

Number one is the ability for their workers to afford to live here.

Number two is their utility bills, and number three is access to capital.

And that goes back to the issue that a lot of small businesses, especially when they're starting off, don't have credit.

And the only loans that are available to them are extremely high interest, which led to predatory situations, and can put them in significant debt.

And I've seen examples throughout the developing world, particularly micro lending, where they offer lower interest loans to provide that access to capital for small businesses.

We don't have that commensurate option in San Francisco outside of maybe some credit unions, but having a public bank will ensure in California and then San Francisco leading the way that we have an opportunity for those small businesses for individuals who are unbanked to access capital to level the playing field with other organizations and other corporations that could be thriving in San Francisco and giving small businesses, immigrants, people of color that have traditionally been unbanked or unable to access that capital an opportunity.

Second is this facet of just like in the previous conversation around the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, this is about leveraging the existing infrastructure like credit unions, like you talked about, and providing a novel model of leveraging existing infrastructure to provide non-competitive products in the market so that those who are unable to access the existing market can leverage the same opportunities.

I think it would also note that we are trying to provide an opportunity for this to be a reality.

If we don't get this passed, my understanding is the state bill that authorized this has a deadline.

And so this is merely creating the opportunity or the option for us to realize this in the future once our financial situation might be better.

But if we don't do this, we eliminate that possibility for what voters have been asking for for some time.

And so I would ask my colleagues to support this as well because it's about providing that option for what the voters have requested for some time, what San Franciscans have requested, but also to provide an innovative modality for low-income people of color, immigrants, small businesses, but frankly every San Franciscan who who wants to start a small business, who wants to access affordable housing loans, to give them that option to provide that reality in the future.

So I think that's why this is an exciting measure.

And just like with the housing trust fund, it's technically unfunded at this point.

Um, but we want to create the option for it to be funded in the future.

So thank you for leading this.

And thank you, Supervisor Chen, uh, for leading on this as well.

You gotta write.

Thank you, Supervisor.

Thank you so much, Supervisor Mark Mood.

Uh don't see any other statements or questions from colleagues, so we will go to public comment on item number three.

Yes, members of the public wish to speak on this item.

She'd like to speak at this time.

Each speaker will be allowed one minute.

There'll be a soft chime when you have 30 seconds left and allowed a chime when your time has expired.

One minute.

Okay.

I was gonna say I won't introduce myself then.

Um, Reina Teo with Poder.

I am delighted to be here in front of you after close to a decade's work on this public bank.

Um, thinking through the legislature.

Um just want to say that San Francisco supported it before it became law 857.

So really proud of that.

Um I would like to say that our money will be much safer in this institution that we are trying to build because of the added um hoops that were placed in front of it.

And so I really hope that everyone is supportive of this measure.

Yeah, and let's bring it to fruition.

The next thing would be to capitalize it.

So let's do it.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisor.

My name is uh my name is Roberto Alfaro, and um Rice is to ask your support for this charter amendment for the public bank.

As you know, uh, like the previous item on the housing trust fund, a public bank can be a critical piece of our housing economic tapestry, and it will uh lower borrowing costs, help with reinvestment of funds back into the local economy.

It will support community lenders to support building housing by providing affordable loans.

Uh, and the public bank will also help with green initiatives and also support families during the times of crisis.

Uh the public bank will also help support uh service over the 2,000 families that we serve each year, and so uh I, along with all the constituents at HOME that I represent, hope that you vote uh for the charter member.

Thank you very much.

Hello, good morning.

My name is Alan Tello, and I'm a district 11 resident, and I'm here with Bodeda Homey and Five Elements Youth Collective.

I gave my first public comment and support of the public bank when I was just 10 years old.

Back then, I spoke about how a public bank could help create opportunities for young people like me to make it possible for us to build a future here in San Francisco.

Now, almost eight years later, I'm preparing to attend college this fall, and I can tell you that a public bank is needed more than ever.

The cost of living in San Francisco has been absurd.

Working families are being pushed out, small businesses are struggling, and affordable housing remains out of reach for far too many people.

The city has already made a significant investment in this effort.

It's time to make to take the next step.

A public bank is a tool that can help finance the affordable housing we desperately need, support local businesses, and keep our local economy thriving when federal, state, and even city resources are falling short.

As a young person who wants to build a future in San Francisco, I urge you to move forward.

Thank you so much.

Good morning again, Kyle Smealy with the San Francisco Community Land Trust.

I'm proud to support this legislation to establish the governance and mission of a San Francisco public bank.

Community land trusts are a proven model for creating and preserving permanently affordable housing.

But one of the biggest barriers to expanding this work is access to capital.

Too often, mission-driven organizations like SFCLT face the same financing challenges as any private borrower.

High interest rates, limited lending options, and financing structures that do not recognize the long-term public value that we create.

A public bank offers a different vision.

By creating a locally controlled financing institution focused on public priorities, San Francisco can build new pathways to affordable capital for housing preservation, community ownership, and other social housing models.

For organizations like SFCLT, a public bank represents the possibility of financing that is aligned with community outcomes rather than short-term returns.

It is a chance to expand permanently affordable housing, preserve more homes, and ensure that more San Franciscans can remain in the neighborhoods.

Thank you for your support.

Good morning, my name is Rick Girling.

I want to reiterate what uh Supervisor Walton was saying.

I first made a presentation to former Supervisor Malia Cohen, who was a former student of mine.

I'm a retired uh economics teacher with a master's in economics, and I've been involved in the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition for a big eight years trying to get this legislation through.

So it has been well thought through as uh Supervisor Walton was saying.

Uh additionally, all of the speakers about affordable housing have made it very clear that we don't have enough money to build affordable housing.

And a public bank is a way that a city can fund it and make money while it funds it.

So I I think it's a no-brainer.

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't get right behind this right away and support it.

Um it's profitable.

We need democratic financial institutions.

We need this, uh, and we need your support for it.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is uh Joseph Clifton.

Uh I'm a resident of District 5.

Um, I'm also here with the um SA Public Bank Coalition and asking you to support uh this legislation.

Um I think there are a lot of reasons to support a public bank in San Francisco, and I won't go through all of them.

The main thing I really want to focus on is uh is how this is an important response to the climate crisis.

Um I think one of the things that's great about our study that we can take a lot of pride in is that we take the climate crisis seriously, and we want to be seen as leaders in that space.

Um, and that's best uh possibly exemplified by our climate action plan that commits us to be uh net zero by 2040.

That plan is quite explicit in that we have the solutions to solve the climate crisis, but we need funding for them.

And that plan, that mayor's plan specifically calls out creating a green bank as one of the steps that is would be very, very useful to help to help actually respond to the climate crisis.

So if we're going to be serious about this, um, we need to take these ideas that are proven outside of California in other countries and other cities in North Dakota and actually put them um to work to solve the climate crisis.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Billy Davies, D9 resident.

I strongly encourage the board to vote to advance the public bank.

When corporate banks give out loans, they effectively decide who can and cannot start a business and whether legacy businesses that hold the neighborhood together can continue to exist.

A public bank can be a lifeline to keep and build what makes San Francisco special.

This is a very important question that voters deserve to hear, and I hope that you will vote to advance this charter amendment.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Hal Ahmed.

I'm a member of the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition and D10 resident.

Thank you for the supervisors who have already supported the public bank.

I actually led a report series for the city of LA to outline the objective costs and benefits of a public bank.

And you just heard from so many individuals in the city about gaps in finance.

This is a common sense of financial measure to help to solve some of those gaps in housing of affordable housing finance and other gaps in finance we have across the city.

25% of global assets in this type of institution.

And it's also a counter-cyclical measure that we really need right now at a time when we know global uh climate change is a major threat, and there are so many catastrophes that come up again and again.

I also want to quickly address the comments from Supervisor Cheryl.

Your comments may sound like fair questions, but financial insolvency is preempted by the laws surrounding this bank and the collateralization of the bank assets to repay depositors alongside FDIC insurance, which is also required.

It would be a big mistake.

Not to pass this.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Noah.

I live in D9, and I'm speaking in favor of the Charter Amendment to authorize the establishment of the MFC and public bank.

As it has been demonstrated by the previous items in the meeting, affordable housing must be a priority for San Francisco.

And if we can pass this amendment, the public bank could exist to provide low cost loans for the development of affordable housing, long past the projected end date of the affordable housing trust fund, which was uh earlier stated, I believe would end in uh 2058.

Hello again, supervisors Dan Rayleigh, uh SFUSD parent and D8 resident.

Um I'm here urging you to please vote to uh uh keep this moving forward.

Um, as others have said, this has been years and years in the making.

Uh it has involved a lot of due diligence.

Um it has popular support, it's had consensus board votes every time it's come up.

Um I think the voters of San Francisco deserve the choice the opportunity to uh vote on this in November, and I hope that you will not foreclose this opportunity uh to really address many of our local priorities uh long into the future with this like incredible new tool uh and and also you know making it making San Francisco once again like a a leader in and providing new uh democratic uh uh policies that um you know address all of our nation's problems.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Teresa Dulalas with SomCAN.

We support the creation of the San Francisco public bank.

We see this as another important tool to help fund affordable housing, support community needs, and a San Francisco public bank could allow San Francisco to invest its own priorities.

Community development, small businesses, affordable housing, and environmental justice initiatives like the um a climate equity hub of the San Francisco environment.

At a time when we are facing budget cuts and an affordable housing crisis, we cannot afford to ignore promising solutions.

We need every tool available.

We can't wait 10 years or 115 years.

Please let the voters decide.

Morami Salamadpa.

Good morning again, Supervisor Zachary Friel, Song Can.

I would like to express my appreciation for your supervisor Chen and, of course, Supervisor Fielder for working on this measure.

As stated in my previous comment, our city needs to explore a panoply of tools to meet our affordable housing goals.

The public bank was one of the financing mechanisms mentioned in the BLA report presented two weeks ago.

In addition, the public bank can also help us meet our climate goals, allowing us to provide low interest loans and other funding to property owners for building decarbonization.

San Francisco will never meet its climate goals if we continue to defund SFE's work.

Passing this measure is one small remedy toward ensuring there's a stable funding source for the climate action plan.

Good morning.

My name is Susan Green.

I'm with the San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition.

I'm here to urge your continued support for the creation of a public bank.

The upcoming introduction of the Air District Zero Mission Appliance Rules will accelerate a multi-decade transition toward electrifying all of our buildings.

One of the most critical goals in our climate action plan.

Many San Franciscans will need help navigating that transition.

Many will need low-cost financing to cover the upfront costs of compliant electric appliances, something the public bank in partnership with local lending institutions would be uniquely suited to provide.

Given the dismaying lack of funding to implement our climate action plan currently, continuing to support the creation of the public bank by supporting this charter amendment is one of the most powerful actions the Board of Supervisors can take right now to meet our climate goals.

This is a critical first step for the bank and the climate.

It needs your leadership and support now.

Thank you.

My name is John Anderson.

I'm a D2 resident and I'm a member of the coordinate coordinating committee of 350 San Francisco.

Um we would like to add our concern with the public bank as a means of funding uh city electrification and climate action plan, and just add that this is climate is just one example of a long-term general uh civic interest that we can uh fund this way.

And I would like to put on my indivisible San Francisco hat.

Uh, Indivisible SF has also uh endorsed the plan, and they are again public interest, uh, all of the things that Supervisor Mahmoud said about uh fixing uh limits of uh public um market.

So thank you for thank you for supporting it.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

My name is Misha Steyer.

I'm with the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition.

Um, so many wonderful things have been said.

I'm gonna focus a little bit on funding.

Um, why this uh legislation in particular is a very exciting answer to that question about funding because what um I've had the privilege of doing speaking over the years, uh there's heavy interest from philanthropy, union trusts.

When you look at where uh the majority of green banks in America were capitalized, that was from 2009 ARP funds from a federal bill.

And so setting up this entity uncapitalized allows for us uh to pursue the most uh wide array of capitalization, i.e., capitalization outside the city.

Um, and so therefore, passing this is a great opportunity for that.

And then, of course, once we capitalize the bank, um, there's just so much excitement about what we can do with the flexibility with terms, with duration.

Um, there's just so much opportunity for our city to leverage every San Franciscan's dollar to bring the most of what we need and make more of what we need.

Thank you.

Hi, supervisors.

Um, my name is Gwen McLaughlin, and um I have my San Francisco hat on because I'm here as a born and raised San Franciscan um and a proud supporter of the public bank.

Uh I think as many of you may have seen, uh, San Francisco's rents have surged between 15 to 20 percent under this current administration.

Um, I'm not necessarily suggesting that the current administration of the board is responsible for that jump, but we do need real solutions to ensure affordability for working San Franciscans.

Um as a part of my job, I do a lot of outreach to the small business community in San Francisco, and um basically the average small business owner and worker makes between 30 to 80 K annually.

Um there's no commercial rent control in place in San Francisco, and San Franciscans are reading the stories that are coming out daily about both residential tenants and commercial tenants seeing doublings of their rents taking place overnight.

It is seriously concerning, and people are paying attention and watching.

Um we need real alternatives and solutions uh and please support the public bank.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, rules committee.

Griffin Lee here representing Connected SF.

We strongly oppose a public bank.

Um couple reasons.

One, City Hall has a lot already at its forefront.

Uh that'll that needs to be focused on for the recovery of San Francisco.

There's things here that the public bank will finance, such as small businesses where we've already seen success with things like first year free.

On the affordable housing front, City Hall can only do so much to to fix the affordable crisis.

Things like more money will not get us to that problem.

Things like finding out and lowering construction costs and continuing on permitting reform will will do a lot more to help with the affordability crisis.

We strongly oppose the Paul Work Bank.

Please vote no.

Are there any additional speakers on this matter?

There are no additional speakers.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk.

See no speakers.

Public comment is now closed.

And I would like to make a motion to move this charter amendment forward to the full board with recommendation.

Yes, on that motion.

Aye.

Thank you, motion chairs.

Mr.

Clerk, please call item number four.

Item number four is a charter amendment first draft to amend the charter of the city and county of San Francisco by requiring or authorizing the board of supervisors to amend specified initiative ordinance transfer.

Transferring from the charter to the municipal, certain commissions and advisory bodies in some cases with modified functions, requiring that the commission streamlining task force be convened every 10 years, removing the general requirement that boards and commissions develop and keep an annual statement of purpose, appoint an executive secretary and prepare an annual report, charging the membership qualification the membership qualifications composition and member selection process for certain bodies, eliminate consolidating and changing the functions of authorities of certain bodies converting the children's youth and their families oversight advisory committee to a commission with limited oversight.

Specifying the elected members of the retirement health service board, the retirement retiree health care trust fund board, maybe remove only for official misconduct, making various changes to departments operations and reporting requirements, expanding the public utilities commission's exclusive charge over matters related to water power and tour infrastructure and services, provide that the board of supervisors' child approved settlement dismissals and legal proceedings regularly by the city attorney by resolution rather than by ordinance, and making clarifying edits and deleting upfleet language and update out of date references in various sections at an election to be held in November 3rd, 2026.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Clerk.

President Mandelman.

Thank you, Chair Walton and uh Vice Chair Cheryl, and thank you, Supervisor Mahmoud for being here and for your for your work on this uh charter amendment.

Uh as the record will show that all but three people have left the room.

Um perhaps perhaps never has uh charter amendments that so many people have worked so hard on uh that I think is actually so consequential, sparked so little interest.

But perhaps that's a good thing, and perhaps that will uh ensure that it's quiet passage and that we will move forward with a uh a more usable charter.

Um the conversation about charter reform obviously has been going on for years now and uh kicked into high gear um last year uh as uh Mayor Lurie indicated his interest in working on the various topics that go under the general rubric of charter reform.

Um what I'm proposing today is uh the board's contribution, what I hope will be the board's contribution that conversation.

There are three measures uh that friends of the mayor are gathering signatures for outside the building.

Um, by way of kind of uh recounting what this very long piece of legislation is, um I'll remind everyone that uh these changes came from these proposed changes to our charter came from a number of different sources.

Some came uh directly from city departments uh from the folks who do the work every day of delivering for our public, and identified uh changes to our charter that would be useful to them in doing that work more efficiently.

Some of the recommendations that uh we uh have turned into this uh charter and proposed charter amendment came from the proposition streamlining task force, which spent a lot of time and a lot of effort evaluating the city's boards and commissions and made recommendations about which of them belong in the charter, which belong in the administrative code and which should be eliminated altogether.

The board has passed uh an ordinance that implements the portions of their work that could be done by ordinance.

Some of their recommendations, although again not all, have been incorporated into this proposed board charter amendment.

Although uh we did not accept all of their recommendations.

I do want to again reiterate my gratitude for all of the work of the streamlining task force and all the city staff who supported them for all of those months.

Um, I want to thank Supervisor Mahmoud and Chen who participated in the charter reform working group uh that brought together stakeholders from across the city to consumer to could to consider the challenges uh in our charter, possible responses to those challenges.

Um I want to thank Supervisor Mahmoud especially for your interest in trying to get as much done as we could toward ensuring that um our permit granting agencies have the ability to do their work in a more streamlined and effective way.

And I want to thank Supervisor Melgar and her team for the work they did on a set of changes focused on how departments and commissions related to children and youth function.

Um, the changes in this charter amendment fall into three broad categories.

One is just modernization and cleanup.

Um there are a lot of amendments that are truly true cleanup.

Uh they update the charter to reflect current conditions to address incorrect references and cross references to take out provisions that are just out of date.

Um an example we've used is that the charter currently includes a section mandating a bookbinder position at the law library.

That does not make sense in 2026, and so we're updating that language to something a little more evergreen, a technical services manager.

No one will lose their job because of this, but we will have a job description that more accurately reflects what the law library actually does and what the staff there actually do.

A second category of changes addresses those departmental pain points that I indicated where we heard from departments that they they needed relief in areas that I think we can generally support without uh much disagreement.

I think these are consensus.

Again, they're based on feedback from the departments on their specific sections in the charter.

Um, and uh one example here is that we're updating Muni's charter mandated service standards to reflect how modern transit agencies measure performance.

The current charter uses an on-time performance metric that hasn't been increasingly recognized as an incomplete measure of rider experience.

The amendment would allow the MTA to adopt other standards that would could include weight assessments, which measure how long riders are waiting for their vehicles, which is probably a more accurate picture of service quality.

There's been a lot of outreach, and I want to thank uh the mayor's office also for this outreach through the working group and and since then to hear from all the potential stakeholders who might have some concerns about some of these changes.

Um third and finally, as I said, we drew from the work of the Commission Streamlining Task Force.

Um, we are getting rid of a few commissions.

Uh the Streets and Sanitation Commission, the Public Works Commission.

We consulted with interested stakeholders there, and everyone sort of felt like, yeah, those commissions could probably go.

Um, we are proposing moving bodies like the Public Utilities Citizens Advisory Commission, the Parks and Open Parks and Recreation Open Space Advisory Committee out of the charter and into admin code where they could be updated and changed by the Board of Supervisors, but again, we're not proposing to eliminate those bodies.

Um that's kind of the flavor of what's in here, although it is very, very long.

Um there is a I hope helpful crosswalk of the changes that we've provided to all of your offices.

Um I want to talk through.

It's maybe not surprising that uh an amendment this long that touches this many things, has a lot of amendments that have come up since we originally originally introduced it.

And there's um those have been circulated to your offices.

Um again, I don't think anything in here is terribly controversial, but I want to let you all kind of know what generally is in here.

Um for the MTA, there are nine amendments.

Again, most are technical cleanup, correcting a cross reference and section 8A point 113, fixing the name of ISCOT to reflect the fact that it is now the Council on Street and Transportation Facilities, and deleting a stray sentence in 8A.101 that no longer makes sense.

There's two amendments that touch the MTA Citizens Advisory Council.

One moving it from the charter to the transportation code so the MTA board can amend it directly, and a second updating the membership language to explicitly require representation on the MTA board from both pedestrians and cyclists, or uh on the CAC, which will help the CAC absorb the functions of the recently eliminated bicycle advisory committee.

There's also an amendment updating the MTA's climate goals to align with the citywide climate action plan rather than the agency's own stand standalone plan, and a deletion of an obsolete four-hour minimum training requirement that agencies are no longer following in practice.

On the PUC side, there are three amendments.

One updating this term sewer collection system to sewer utility.

Uh, second is adding a sentence to Section 8B.124, which brings the charter into compliance with Prop 218.

Um, and the third uh amendment impacting the PUC is a reorganization of existing text uh into subsections for clarity, no substantive changes.

The remaining amendments include, and this I may be of interest uh to supervisors, in the uh is a restoration of the mayor board split for appointments to the homeless oversight commission.

There was a moment in our process where it occurred to me that perhaps the homeless oversight commission, like lots of commissions that oversee executive departments, ought to have a mayoral, ought to be entirely appointed by the mayor.

I'd sort of forgotten that we'd had that conversation.

We hadn't vetted it with folks, including colleagues.

Um I think that that's a bridge too far, probably for um for our board, and so uh we're taking that back to um uh uh have the split appointments, mayoral majority, board of supervisors, minority.

Um there, we have an amendment to the amendments giving the commission streamlining task force uh that will uh reconvene every 10 years.

More flexibility and drawing for staff from either the controller or the city city administrator, depending on what makes sense at the time.

Um we are we have an amendment authorizing the board of supervisors to change the name of any department board or commission in the admin code.

Um and we have uh an amendment that ensures a role for the city administrator in long-term real estate strategic planning and property management, which has been vetted with anyone who might have a concern about this, and I think um we haven't gotten any flags on that, and then we're correcting a missing word in the retiree health care trust fund provision.

You may have noticed that in your email since this meeting has begun, an additional typo was found by the city attorney, and they have corrected that.

And we're hoping we've got them all, but um after public comment, I will ask the uh that we accept these amendments and continue this for a week to act next week.

Um I would be remiss if I didn't throw out the thank yous.

Um again, there's uh just a lot of people who've been part of this conversation.

Again, the charter reform working group, members of the commission streamlining task force chaired by Ed Harrington, um, the extraordinary city staff who've supported all these uh efforts and work over the past year, notably including controller Greg Wagner, Henry O'Connell, Jonah Bell and Janice Levy, City Administrator Carmen Chew and Sophie Hayward and Rachel Alonzo in that office, the mayor's team, espe um especially Alicia John Baptiste, and then formerly Amr Bardwaj under her, um, have been enormously helpful.

We've put the drafting attorneys in the city attorney's office, uh, and uh in particular Andrea Bress, Sarah Crowley, and Heather Goodman through a lot, and thank you also, Brad Russian and thanks to John Givner for his feedback.

Um, and then I just I do want to thank all the stakeholders.

Uh people have cared a lot through this process.

I hope the fact that no one is here in the chamber in this uh committee room right now indicates that we have addressed all the concerns.

Finally, I do want to thank Melanie Matthewson and Maeve Skelly in my office.

Uh Melanie Matthews, you've been formerly in my office, Mave Skelly, currently in my office for their work on this, and I think that's what I got.

Thank you, President.

Um, we're streaming by the charter.

So we're about to make the fact that we're not having all this here, but also a whole bunch of this.

I will say, I think this is allowing to be in progress.

Uh, are we thanking here?

Or if we have a whole board, committees, but I will say thank you to everyone, put in the town board because we're still changes.

We may so uh appreciate you as meeting your office and we'll restart.

I don't think we might be moving the voters for uh part of the charter, however, we are saying it's back to vote, so um I think uh, some of the concerns of um what people wanted to see in terms of change and some streamlining and at the same time.

Um it doesn't eliminate everything that's important to a lot of people.

So thank you for your work on that.

Um seeing no other statements from colleagues, we will go to public comment on this item.

Yes, members of the public wish to speak on the sign-up.

Lineup speak at this time.

Each speaker will be allowed one minute.

Interesting how the room emptied out after that one.

Uh Griffin Lee here, connected SF staff.

Uh, we fully support uh this charter amendment and all these reforms.

Uh, this is a good step in the right direction to eliminate govern uh city hall bloat and bureaucracy.

Um and we appreciate the work the streamlining task force has done.

Um, one quick question if I can get clarification on um the MTA amendment specifically tied to the committee you just referenced.

Um did not catch that in the file.

Um, but would be greatly appreciated.

Again, thanks for the work on this, and um we'll look forward to supporting it in November.

Thank you.

Seeing no other speakers, public comment is now closed.

President Mandelman.

Uh, thank you, uh Chair Walton.

In response to the uh not that we do respond to public comment, but um I see my staff speaking with the commenter, and we can provide uh more background um to him or anyone else who has questions about what's in this very long document.

Um but I would like to move uh the amendments that have been circulated uh by my office and that I have described as updated most recently uh during this committee meeting, but with an email at about 10 30.

Yes, on the motion to amend.

Cheryl, aye.

Member Mandelman, aye.

Walton aye.

That motion passes without objection.

Thank you.

Motion carries.

And then I'd like to move that we continue this uh until the 29th.

Yes, on the motion to continue the matter as amended to June 29th.

Vice Chair Sheryl.

Aye.

Cheryl, aye.

Member Mandelman.

Aye.

Matterman aye, Chair Walton.

Aye.

Walton aye.

That motion passes without objection.

Thank you, motion carries.

Mr.

Clerk, do we have any more business before us?

That completes the agenda for today.

Thank you so much.

We are adjourned.