>> the meeting welcome to order. to the friday, november 19 meeting of the public safety and neighborhood services committee.i am supervisor gordon mar joined by matt haney and erin peskin. i'd like to thank jim smith and corwin cooley forstabbing this meeting. we are in receipt of a presidential action memo according supervisor peskin as a temporary member of this

committee . just for today's meeting. on the appointment of chair stefani and i like to make a motion to excusevice chair stefani . >> clerk: on the motion to excusecommissioner stefani for today's meeting commissioner haney. >> aye . >> member peskin. >> aye. >> chair mar. >> aye. >> clerk: there are 3 aye's. >> president: can you please call item number one. >> clerk: wouldyou like me to make the announcement first ? the minutes willreflect the committee members participated in this meeting remotely through videoconference . the board recognizes that public access to these services is essential and invites public participation in the following ways.first public comments will be available on each item on the agenda either channel 2678 or 99 depending on your

provider and streaming the public: call in number across the screen. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment are available for a phone by calling 415655 001. again415-65-5001 . the meeting id is 2493569 4649 . then pound and pound again. when connected you will hear the meeting which will be muted and in listening mode only. whenyour item of interest comes up dialá3 to be added to the speaker line. call from a quiet location and to turn down your television or radio . alternativelyyou may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways . email them to myself at public safety neighborhood services clerk at aliciasamara@sfgov.

you may send your comments via postal service to one doctor carlton place room 244 san francisco california 94102. finally items acted on today areexpected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda on november 30, 2021 unless otherwise stated . mister chair. >> chair: now can you please call item number one. >> clerk: item 1 is a hearing to consider the premise transfer of a type li nonprofit club on sale beer wine and distilled liquor license to treasure island yacht club incorporated to dobusiness as the treasure island yacht club located at one avenue of the homes , building one suite 133 in district 6 and will serve thepublic convenienceor necessity of the city and county of san francisco . members who wish to provide public comment . although public comment number 415-655-0001 and enter the meeting id of 2493 569 4649

then pound and pound again. once connected please press star 3 toenter the cue to speak and a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand . please wait for the system to indicate you havebeen unmuted and that is your time to begin your comments . mister chair . >> chair: i believe we have officer tomlinsen from the liaison unit and can you present the alu report on this item? >> good afternoon. treasure island yacht club has a license and if approved this will allow them to office operate in a members only club and i have zero letters of protest,zero letters of support . they are in census tract 1902 which is considered low saturation area. we have no opposition and unit

recommends approval with no additional conditions . >> thank you, do wehave a representative from the treasure islandclub . who would like to present ? maybe not. >> there was supposed to be a john harrison. >> eight or john are you there. richard rosetti ishere. i don't know if you need that . >> this is richardrosetti with the treasure island development authority . the jacob moving to building one to operate for that facility, we've relocated them throughout hangar to do to development activities. so we would like this to be improved and allowed the

clubhouse to continue on with their business atbuilding one . >> chair: thank youfor that. supervisor haney i don't know if you have any extra remarks . what we go to public comment. and. >> members who wish to provide public comment should dial áthree to enter the cue. a systemprompt will indicate you have raised your hand. wait until the system indicates you have been unneeded and then you may begin yourcomment . operation is checking to see if we have any callers in the queue. please let us know if there are any callers who are ready . >> clerk: there are no colorsin the queue . >> mister chair. >> chair: public comment is closed and given the support of

supervisor haney, not objections by the northern station and support i would like to make a motion on directing the clerk to prepare a resolution determining that this will serve the public convenienceand necessity that we send this resolution to the full board with positive recommendation . madam clerk can youplease call the role . >> clerk: member haney . >> aye. >> clerk: member peskin. >> aye. >> clerk: chair mar. >> aye. >> clerk: there are 3 aye's. >> chair: this will be sent to the board with a full recommendation. please call itemnumber two . >> i hearing to consider the transfer of a type xxi on sale beer wine and liquor license to bottle back located at 4126 to

18 street district 8 and will serve the necessity of the city and county of san francisco. members who wish to provide commentshould call public comment line 415-655-0001 answer the meeting id , 2493 569 4649.then pound and pound again to connect. once connected press start 3 and a quick system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. wait for us tocall public comment and when the system indicates you have been unmuted you may begin your comment . mister chair. >> chair: i'd like to welcome back officer tomlinsen to present the alu report on this item . >> bottle back now is a type xxi license and this will allow them to operate on general premise with zero letters of

support. they're located in platte for 17 which is considered ahigh crime area in district 205 it is considered high saturation . the station has no opposition and alu approves on condition the positioner shall monitor the area to prevent the loitering's of persons on any property adjacent to the premise as in abc 253 and as of november 9 they have agreed to that condition. >> chair: thank you officer. is the applicant or a representative for bottle back and now here? >> i am here, i am becky, i am the owner. i just want to tell you a little bitabout myself and the business . i've been in san francisco for 10 years in the food and beverage industry for 12. i've beena server, manager and

most recently i was in the back of house 13 bakery . i've always been focused on working at small community driven business and that's the at those i want to carry on to my newbusiness in castro . i want to carry my own selection and enjoy what i've created as far as bottle bacchanal we are a woman owned boutique bottle shock with natural lines, craft beer and esotericapproachable liquors . it's going to be mostly wine but we're also going to have interesting things and focus on women, bipoc and lgbtq+ producers. we will have books, small snacks and i plan on hosting committee events and classes . i've been in contact with a couple of charities to talk about hosting events and doing what i can as a business owner to uplift the community and

neighborhood and the a positiv influence and an addition to the grand opening of sf that we're experiencing. so let me know if you have questions thank you for that discussion of what sounds like a wonderful new edition to the castro . colleagues if you don't have any questions maybe what we go to public comment clerk. >> members who wish to provide public comment should dialáthree and whenconnected you'll hear the system indicate you have raised your hand . wait until your line has been unmuted and that is your time to begin your comment . we are checking tosee if we have colors in the queue. let us know if we have any callers who are ready . >> no colors in the queue. >> chair: public comment is closed i understand supervisor madeleine has no objections .

given that i will make a motion directing the clerk to prepare a resolution determining this license will serve the public convenience andnecessity and we send this to the full board with positive recommendations . madam clerk could you please call the role. >> did you want me to include the one condition that officer simonsondid acknowledge . >> thank you, sofor item number two member haney . [roll call vote] >>. >> chair:thank you, we will send it back to the board with apositive recommendation . clerk, can you please call item number three ? >> agenda item 3 is a item establishing standards opening the certification of cannabis

related programs and processes extend the temporary authorization period to continue operating while the receiving business permit application and adding certain food prerequisites.members of thepublic who wish to provide publiccomment on this ordinance to call the public comment number 415-655-0001 , enter the meeting id 2493 569 4649 . pound and pound again to connect to the meeting. once connected tileá3 and a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. wait for us to call public comment and when the system indicates you have been unmuted youmay begin your comment . mister chair . >> chair: i want to welcome supervisor safai who is the sponsor of this application and thank you for your leadership on around issues relating to that cannabis industry and

particularlythe workforce supervisor safai, the floor is yours . >> could afternoon colleagues. you know, we have beenworking on a number of different updates . we did the city grow legislation where we were allowing forpresentation and pathways for employment in industry . we worked on a numberof different amendments . when the legislation for the original legislation transferring fromtemporary article 3 was the final article 16 permits . we spent a lot of time thinking aboutthis industry and how it should be shaped . protecting our small business owners and our homegrown no pun intended businesses. so that businesses would have to own business or seven years before they could sell and there wouldn't be this temptation also ensuring that

next round of owners were equity until there was 100 percent parity in the market between equity and nonequity owners. we spent a lot of time thinking abouthow this industry should develop in san francisco and today is the next step in that . the office of cannabis currently the permitting process it has progress a little more slowly than originally anticipated and as a result mcd's medical cannabis dispensaries are spending significant period of time under their temporary authorizations . this legislation is an amendment to the existing ordinance and clarifies the standards of oewd including license activation processes, underservedcommunity outreach programs, is this plan development training , all of which relates to the mcd and today there are still 35

businesses under the temporary mcd permitting so existing law authorizes it to establish standards governing certification of pre-apprenticeship programs but it does not specify the types of standards they may establish. this legislation is our equity and apprenticeship programs by legislating participation for all qualified dispensaries in san francisco and the ordinance will require that temporary mcd medical cannabisdispensaries ensure that 35 percent of new hires are certified apprenticeship programs to the extent feasible . and if a medical cannabis dispensary has more than 10 employees and turns into either a labor peace agreement or collective-bargaining agreement with a bona fide labor organization, these requirements already are part of the cannabis dispensary permit, excuse me cannabis

business permitting process under article 16. the other police code or other use operation so we're running parity to the remaining 35 businesses that are operating under the temporary permit. this is an opportunity to further bring cannabis to san francisco under one umbrella and create an equitable and parallel experience for all operators and employers. i want to thank the office of cannabisfor working with myself and my team . me and my team want to thank you cw local five, office of economic and workforce to government and bjjones from my team , josh r say director of workforce development and a few other people that were involved in crafting these amendments today thank you for putting this together what i think is a good

update to the legislation . >> chair: thank you supervisor safai for all your work on this. do you have any presentations? >> i don't think so. we can do public comment. ididn't have much designed today other than just resenting the legislation . letting people from the public speech and if they have any questions but other than that wecall for a hearing.we're also going to have a larger conversation . we had at the budget committee talked about yesterday supervisor mar and myself talked about the temporary pause on the imposition of the tax. they're going to talk about how many equity permits there are on the market, how many nonequity permits and get an update for the industry. i think there will be more in depth conversation that.

>> supervisor peskin. >> the question i had relative to the hundred 50 day complaint period is if you have a spurious complaint that's filed on the hundred 49th day and the department has not yet had the chance to determine that it's a spurious complaint if indeed that isso . it seems like this could be a unjust imposition. it seems like they need to have sufficient time to determine i mean, i appreciate the notion that permits should be issued if there are complaints that have been sustained. >> the way this was written, the directors aware of no

public safety complaints submitted in the prior hundred 50 days and then it goes on to say unless the dispensary has demonstrated to the satisfaction of the record that they don't raise significant health or safetyconcerns . somebody could file, they might not like it. i'm not pointing fingers but some supervisors have been more or lessenthusiastic about dispensaries in their districts than others . i've both been enthusiastic in some locations and less so in others. but it just seems like this might create a due process issue and maybe i have concerns about that. that paragraph three on page 3.

>> this was legislation we worked on so maybe the acting director i think john pierce can speak about that. >> this is acting director of the office of cannabis. thank you for your concern. supervisor, this is a modification of the timeline in the code that you're reading. it's actually an extension from 120 days as it is currently written to a longer timeline so to address the main point is not producing the timeline for changing anythingin our process. it's actually giving us your time to address complaints . to your second fundamental question, the reauthorization process is holistic and involves a lot of checks and things that we do including considering the businesses equity considerations andwe wouldn't , if there was a bad

faith attempt to lodge a complaint the day before a renewal was due we would consider that as article renewal process. we've never had that before and don't anticipate that in the future and the other thing i'll flag is that these mcd's are slated tobe transitioned article 60 permits and the not-too-distant future so this is a temporary piece of legislation . >> last thing you said makes me appreciate it . i realize this is a modification of the existing section has never had a provision that says that you are awareof no complaints . there's a difference betweena complaint and a complaint that has been sustained . this is a new factor in ... this wasn't a factor before and to the extent this is temporary and is part of the transition i am less concerned so anyway, thank you for thatresponse mister pierce .

>> chair: thank you supervisor peskin for the questions. i just have some questions myself. i'm more on the overall intent of this legislation. so this is allowing the existing medical cannabis dispensaries to put more time on their temporary permits a bit more time and it's also adding in addition to that it's requiring them to comply with apprenticeship and some other workforce requirements that are already required of regular article 16 applications. did i get that right? >> one point of clarification, the renewal period is extended

so apparently theyhave a temporary permit renewed over every 120 days and that's a longer cycle for it to be renewed . >> chair: supervisor safaiyou said there was about 35 . >> a lot of this had to do with the fact that there's not parity in the way the application number of people who organized labor or some of the folks concerned about what we're training, some of the things that existed out today are required in article 16 permit holders are not required and so they have been going on these temporary permits for a long time as acting director pierce said. the idea is that we will transition them but in the meantime, we have been trying to get this done for months. it took a little bit of time to

finalize this we started this conversation months ago with the hope that we would get this finalized quicker in the meantime there are still 35 medical cannabis dispensaries under these temporarypermits and we want to bring them fall into the same fault with everybody else . >> chair: what is the expected timeframe for processing these 35 or so mcd's that are operating under the temporary permits to a regular article 16 permit. >> the office of cannabis is required to promise process permit applications so we cannot expedite them but we anticipate shortly were going to present to the board a new grant from the state that will

allow more expensive and once that is complete we think after it wasa higher that we could potentially get all these densities done in around 2 years . >> two years as a temporary period sothat's part of the other motivation of the legislation . >> chair: yeah and one final question . so these 35 medical cannabis industries operating under a temporary permit that's renewe , they currently don't have the labor requirements so this would be kind of a new requirement. >> i'm sorry,did you direct that me ? >> chair: or mister pierce. i'm just trying tounderstand if this is a new requirement . >> can you repeat the question? >> chair: the collective

bargainingagreement . >> it's clarifyingthat and is currently under article 16 . in that light right acting director pierce? >> it's extending the same requirements to article 33 and associate directorray lodge is here. can you let us know more of the details of what governs the agreement ? >> thank you for this question supervisor mar. it's defined by labor peace agreement requirements which means if and mcd has 20 or more staff then they are required to have an agreement in place but once this legislation causes, then they will need to be abided by the low code requirements which lower the threshold to 10 which means mcd's who have 10 or more staff will need to havelb in place on the pending legislation .

>> chair: that sounds good to me as well. thank youfor all your work on this. mister pierce, supervisor safai , i don't see any other questions for colleagues sowhy don't we go to public comment ? >> clerk: operations ischecking to see if their colors are ready in the queueif you have not done so pressá3 to speak and a system prompt indicate you have raised your hand. the system indicates you have been unit . this jackson do we haven't colors in the queue ? >> caller: i am organizer with the lzw local five we represent cannabis workers here and san francisco and we are in full support of supervisor safai's

rent presentation. this will help protect workers as well as conversion to article 16. by turning into collective bargaining agreements they will ensure apple benefits and maintain a healthy worklife balance and you will provide some much-needed legitimacy to theindustry . the ordinance requires a temporary medical cannabis dispensaries and ensures 35 percent of new hires are certified apprenticeship programs to the extent feasible. it will increase equity drop the industry. these requirements are not different than those that don't use cannabis operations and further bring security to the industry.

thank you. >> thank you for your comment. any other colors in the queue? >> there are no furthercolors in the queue . >> mister chair. >> chair: public comment is now closed. supervisor safai. >> thank you colleagues for your support today as was mentioned by the acting director it still takes time to turn these mcd's and we want to bring parity in the market in the meantime. two years is a long time in the life of our city so if we can support this today i think we will have a goodbenefit on all the areas that wementioned . equity, apprenticeship training , labor peace and it will set a good standard for the entire market. as these 35 transitions eventually to their permanent article 16.

>> chair: thanks for all your workon this. i'd love to be added as cosponsor . i would move that we send this itemto the full board with positive recommendation . madam clerk, please call role. >> on the motion to extend item 3, member he. [roll call vote] there are 3 aye's. >> chair: thank you supervisor safai. madam clerk, please call item . >> clerk: hearing to receive updates on the implementation and funding of the city's urban canopy maintenance waterand retention replacement and

expansion plan . including all trees on public property and in and francisco parts as well as the trees. proposition e in 2016 and reflecting public works recreation park department and public utilities commission to report. i thought our members who wish toprovide public comment they should call the publiccomment number now, 415-655-0001 . enter the meeting id of 2493 569 4649 . then pound and pound again to connect to themeeting. once connected please press star three to enter that you to speak at a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. wait for public comment on this item and when the system indicates you have been unneeded that willbe assigned to begin . the chair . >> chair: thank you supervisor

peskin for calling this hearing and this is a follow-up to part one in october where we had an informative dictation from the department , different departments on tree maintenance and planting work and had a lot of robust discussion that merited some follow-up. so looking forward tothis further discussion we will have today, supervisor peskin >> thank you for scheduling part one you just referenced and now the continuation of that hearing this afternoon . and as indicated we heard from public works as well as urban forestry from the public utilities commission and from records park as well as many interested members of the public including the new relatively new head of urban forests but we ran out of time and we did not get to hear from actually it was something you instigated which was the report from budget and legislative analyst which is very topical and when we came out a few

months ago i think we were all in the middle of everything when it came to in june. and today we are joined by carla schwartz herself who is both ... she's the acting head of public works. we know her and appreciate her in her incarnation as the head of the bureau of urban forestry in san francisco so i wanted to start by giving the budget and legislative analyst some time to go through what i think is really a timely report follows nicely with what we were talking about in the first part of this hearing as the number of recommendations for public works in the board of supervisors and itstimely and deals with some of the things we talked about relative to asset management , relative to having realistic goals so if we can start with don bouncer from

the legislative analyst office and turn it over to ms. schwartz and then hear from the public and this is part of really an expression of serious ongoing interest by not to put words in your mouth chair mar yourself and supervisor safai is on this meeting. supervisor bowman and others to make sure that we sustain our existing urban tree canopy which is sadly a hair under 14 percent of the city lags behind other urban areas in the united states and it stands back canopy and expands it equitably and maintain that with proper watering on proper cycles. and making sure that making making sure we reverse the

trend of using trees and not exceeding that 13.7 percent that we are currently at so with that i'll turn it over to the budget legislative analyst and look forward to hearing the presentation that you call for supervisor . >> chair: are you ready to present? >> i'm ready to present, i'm not really a presenter.i don't know if the clerk will share the slides or i can share my slides from the computer. >> i'm making you apresenter right now . >> thank you for that introduction and chair.

i'm dan gunter with a budget legislative analyst office and supervisor as the supervisor mentioned i will be giving a summary of our findings and recommendationsfrom our audit of the department of public works which came out in june . but it covers resurfacing and street maintenance but i will be focusing today's presentation on the street treatment piece of the audit. i also want to mention i'm joined by my colleague linda and barry who managed this audit with me and is also available forquestions if there are any for our office . the audit was conducted pursuant to a board motion passed in 2019 as i mentioned it was released in june. we had a total of nine finding areas coming street resurfacing and street tree maintenance on this slide. this summarizes the street resurfacing findings which are not the focus of this. so i willforward . so we had five finding areas covering street tree as at an

event includedstreet tree as a baseline pruning progress vacancies in the program . the geographic distribution of three tree services. the street treecanopy growth and geographic distribution . the data management notations of the program. our review of baseline pruning found the street tree completed 21 percent of the maps address 32 percent of the street trees within the key maps in the first three years of programming and currently jacks that will take a total of eight years to complete key block pruning rather than its initial goal of 3 to 5 years at the outset. because the baseline tree maintenance has not been completed street tree as athas been unable to "plant maintenance cycle of maintaining all city street trees every 3 to 5 years .

tree sf have not publicly established annual goals for tree pruning or sidewalk repair that are reported to the public or board of supervisors and have not defined how it measures its success by completing the worst primer priority key maps so for the baseline pruning our recommendation was that the superintendent of the bureau of urban forestry should establish a realistic annual goal for the number of street tree sf trees to the road each fiscal year and report on the program's requirements inmeeting the annual pruning goal in annual reports and other syndications to the board of supervisors . we also recommended that the head of urban forestry established a realistic annual goal for the number of tree related cement repair spaces to compete he completed the school year and report on the programs performance meeting the annual report goal and other medications.

our review of staffing found that he street tree sf positions have been vacant for extended period sometime in some cases for the entire three year period since the program's inception despite the department participating into citywide recruitments with a third underway when the pandemic began.the program has held onto its authority but reprogrammed the salary savings to contract work tree pruning and removal work. in particular we found an arborist apprenticeship program the goal of which is to develop a pipeline of apprentices to promote the arborist technician position has not filled any of its apprenticeship positions since the inception of the program. and currently street tree sf seeks a 3 to 1 ratio of arborist to apprentices as required by the state board of apprentices and were all the apprenticeships to be hired as

a court . however given the programs hiring challenges it is not likely the program will be able to hire a sufficient number of arborist technicians to establish the appropriate ratio and cohort size so our recommendation for this action were that the superintendent of urban forestry should work with the department of human resources to develop a recruitment for 34 arborist technicians at a specific to the department of public works and also to restructure the arborist apprenticeship program such as revising the cohort size of our firsttechnician, the apprentices and training schedule so that the program can begin to fill these positions and develop lifelines for arborist technicians . our analysis of thedistribution of street trees throughout the city, san francisco's treat trees are not evenly distributed . and that street tree sf has so

far focused on areas with high concentration oftrees to maximize tree activity efficiency . thatdid not consider city neighborhood or geographic distribution when initially prioritizing services . thismethodology resulted in areas of the city worked with low tree density not prioritized for maintenance despite the presence of priority one trees . and prioritizing key maps for cement work the program similarlyconsidered areas of high risk but did not consider geographic locations . as a result some neighborhoods of the city have received very little street tree mrs. during the first three years of the program. so our recommendation for this area was that the superintendent of the bureau of urban forestry consider reevaluating and reprioritizing the uncompleted street tree and cement repair work team at using additional criteria including excuse megeographic location or program activities

once the key maps are in the green or lowest tier . so we also looked at the street tree canopy, the rate of growth and distribution across the city. and what we found was that phase i of san francisco's urban forest plan established the goal of growing the city street tree population to reach 155,000 trees by 2034. so while other city documents including the 10 year capital plan and climate action plan also recommending increasing the number of street trees however we found the city did not have a dedicated funding source for growing the street tree population and the tree maintenance funding cannot be used to expand the urban fores . further the number of new street trees fighting each year is not enough to account for the tree mortality in order to maintain a baseline three tree population of 125,000 bucks less increase the numberof

trees to meet the urban forest plan sold. san francisco's population and its associated benefits are not evenly disputed across the city . the urban forest plan recommends within five years of the class publication the dpw should develop a citywide strategy to develop gaps in tree coverage for a long-term three tree management plan to formalize a maintenance strategy and plan for the succession or the succession of trees. however six years after the urban forest plan was adopted the department has still not yet developed recommended long-term street tree management plan and just completed the planting strategy after the completion of our audit fieldwork the distribution of the city's urban canopy and its benefits will remain unevenly distributed across different neighborhoods without a targetedincrease in street fleet treeplanting to focus on underserved neighborhoods

guided by a formal planning strategy so this area we recommended the director of public works work with partner agencies including the urban forestry council , friends of the urban forest and planning department for the planning department department of the environment . to develop a citywide street tree management plan and the management plan increasing the street tree population in areas of the city with no number of street trees should be prioritized. the recently completed street treeplanting strategy and proposed street tree management plan should be presented to the board of supervisors for review no later than june 20, 2022 and second recommendation for this area was as part of the street tree management plan that the department should develop a street tree planting funding strategy to support the city's new planting needs including the use of state and federal grants , local bonds, general fund support and private shareholder nations that would

supplement the existing funding. we also recommended the board of supervisorsreviewed the street tree planting funding strategy prepared by the department of public works in accordance with the previous recommendation that i just described to you consider allocating general fund support for planting of new trees estimated annual funding . as shown on the slides this illustrates theissue with the challenges with growing the street tree canopy . as shown on this the city's 10 year average of 2154 street trees fighting annually is less than the 5000 three trees that need to be planted each year to ensure that the city street tree population does not shrink. given its one percent tree mortality rate. and our final finding was on data asset management located related to the street tree program and in this area we found the data asset management system was not designed

specifically for free maintenanceand urban canopy management and were instead adapted from pre-existing dpw data management systems . it's on the current data management infrastructure produces unreliable report for basic measures of tree and sidewalk board completed . just to add a reliability challenge has led to inaccurate reporting and hinders the program from tracking progress . so for this area we had full recommendations that the board of supervisors should request the acting director of public works for his or her designee report to the oversight committee on findings and recommendations associated with the consultants review of departments asset management system once it's completed but no later than june 30, 2022 and further request the superintendent of urban forestry report back to the gao on actions taken to implement the robust asset management

system for street tree sf not later than june 30, 2022. they also recommended the superintendent of the bureau of urban forestry can share that new asset management system is designed in a way to enable the street tree sf program to filter exclusively for maintenance and sidewalk repair work on the proposition e and limit the need formanual review of data as a prerequisite to ensure accuracy . and finally we recommended that the superintendent issue a revised fiscal year 20 1819 annual report that correct errors in the number of trees pruned in square foot of sidewalk repair. and with that i and linda and barry are availablefor questions . if there are any for us. thank you for all your work on theaudit. supervisor peskin .

>> i want to thank the budget and analyst for that report and i'm glad it has served us and we now have an opportunity to respond to it and talk about it as it's obviously not june 2022 yet but it will be tuned . so this is an opportune timeto have that discussion . and you as the author or requester of the audit may have questions or comments if not i'm ready to hear from mister sure. >> i'll hold my questions and would like to give mister jordan and opportunity to respond and present. mister short. >> thank you. thank you care mar and supervisor peskin for the opportunity and i want to thank the la for their work on this

audit. i think we were pretty enthusiastic within the bureau of urban forestry to go through the audit because while we felt like we were doing pretty well with the programs we wanted to be the very best possible program that can be often told my team that my dream would be that this is held up at the national international level as the type of urban forestry program that cities should strive for so we welcome the feedback and we are working on many of the recommendations. a couple of comments if i may. it's certainly accurate that we have not completed the baseline pruning. i would like to note that we were projecting to be on track to complete in 4 and a half years so within our first five-year goal before the pandemic hit and obviously affected us in many ways.

both our contractors andour internal crews . we support the recommendations to establish annual pruning goals. we have not yet done this because it's tricky since we're still addressing the deferred maintenance when weinitially inherited the trees . it's hard to judge what future pruning is until we kind of touched everything for the first time but we support that we're working on trying to create realistic goals with the understanding that once we get throughbaseline we may actually adjust those goals a little bit annually . i would say we are strong supporters of the recommendation to develop a recruitment for arborist technicians , classifications before before specific to publicworks . as noted we already have 2

recruitments and yet we have rehired a small number of arborists and because we also had a couple of recoveries in the same time we havenot increased our staffing very much . that third recruitment which was beginning when the pandemic hit has not even been finalized so we would love any support that the board can give us in trying to advance a department specific recruitment. i would note that we are in fact in discussions right now with dhr and local 261 about relaunching the arborist apprenticeship program so we are eager to get that moving and we will look at hiring a smaller cohort and perhaps breaking it into two or more groupings of trainees rather than holding out for hiring all eight.

which would be a preference because of the training schedules but we understand recommendations support that. we also agree with the recommendation to look at geographic equities. once we are into what we call the green tear. so we felt strongly it was important to address the public safety concern. even if those were not geographically equitably distributed across the city . but there are quite a few red areas we went all the key maps that are all at the same level so as we are hitting those green key maps our going to take a look at geographic equity and prioritize based on that. we strongly support the recommendation there should be dedicated funding for street planting. we have to planting strategy that we had completed that was

ongoing while the audit was occurring as well that is not on our website . we areworking on the management plan . we achieved i think great things as the city when prompted to the task and we got the funding for streettree maintenance . that is pretty unique and i think it is a game changer in terms of the long-term future health of trees insan francisco . however i think what we're calling the unintended consequences of success as we did not also identify dedicated treeplanting money . had we been able to do that we would happily be rolling the urban forest right now because we built into the model for that street tree maintenance program the growth of the urban forest i think that was a really unique and responsible thing for us to do. now if we can identify the funds to plant we can

confidently plant those trees and because we know we will have funds to maintain them in the long run we strongly support that recommendation to find dedicated funding for growing the urban forest. i would note that the management plan, i'm sorry. the mortality rate that we built into the urban forest master plan was about four percent which is very consistent with kind of national standards. i think the good news is we actually have only been removing about 2 and a half percent annually buspar so we hope that our mortality rate might actually and up being lower and that we with our strong program to care for trees that we can actually reduce the number of trees that have to be removed annually moving forward and if we can keep thatmortality rate low ,

then as we plant more trees we will be growingurban forest more quickly than we had originally anticipated . i think those were the key points that i wanted to make but i'm of coursehappy to answer any questions . i did also want to address the question of our asset management program because that was something we had ... i sel identified as an issue and have begun to advance . but on it pointed out some key challenges wefaced with our current system. we have the consultants report has been completed . we are currently working on business youth cases that should be actually completed next week for the consultant to then kind of narrow in the recommendations really look at those more bureau specific cases to see if that changes how they recommend that we move

forward. and once we get their feedback onthose business use cases , we will be initiating that basically the transition to the system that's being recommended. one small point is that the system recommended was just acquired byanother company . we don't expect this is going to cause problems or delays for us but that was an unanticipated new piece of information. so with that again really pushing the work of the la. i think it was a great exercise for us to really look at our processes and look internally where did we think we needed to make some improvements and also getting that feedback and really we found it was those recommendations are recommendations we mostly agree with .>> chair: thank you

mister short. i have questions and comments butsupervisor peskin , i would defer to you to go first. >> this is exactly what we were looking for and is a work in progress. since proposition e and nobody anticipated this pandemic pickup and all the things that have come along the way learning , growing and wrestling i think with these recommendations are good and i think we're taking them seriously. one thing i think we discussed at the first hearing touched on at the first hearing is not in the performance on at all have to do with maybe this is again part of a longer-term project but the role of the urban forest council and the fact that the department of the

environment you have any ups aboutthat you could share . >> does recommend working with the council on our management plan. i think the council was set up really within the department of the environment because they were not a managing department and the department who managed trees are all represented on the council but i think based on i was not in any role in the city when the council was established but my understanding was that sort of the policy group was sitting within the department of the environment which is for the most part a policy agency and public works wreck part and the puc often had management roles or by the numbers in the council was maintaining some independence by being in the

other city agencies i think it's been a productive relationship with the council. we have gotten advice and feedback from the council over the years. he played an important role withthe urban forest master plan development . they also played a great role with the development of what ultimately became proposition e and working with supervisor weiner's office on kind of the advisory body. so i think it's working for us in its current form. >> i have nofurther questions . >> i have a fewquestions, thanks again for all your leadership . both in urban forestry and now for the entire department of

public works. regarding some of the key findings from the blt report, i think the first one is that the city and department is really not on track on the timeframe for the first round of tree pruning and maintenance. i was wondering if you could maybe respond or offer a little explanation why that is with an unrealistic goal or timeframe. is that related to the staff hiring problems. >> we did not expect it would be quite as challenging as it has been fired. we did have programmatic authority so if we don't hire we can ship those funds over to contractors.

i think we were really on trac . we thought we would be projecting to complete within four and half years of the program so our goal was the first 3 to 5 years. when a pandemic hit. and so i think we actually were on track to meet that goal honestly we when it hit all our contract stuff water on hold for a brief time but then we had to basically convert them, the initial feedback we had was the emergency work could continue so we had to shift to the emergency portions of the contract and then we were told that because they were city contracts and city work was considered essential to advance so we had to go back, shift backwards. we had a lot of employees who had kids out of school suddenly with nowarning so basically

that set us back . i don't think it was unrealistic. i will say there was a lot of deferredmaintenance in the city . we knew that , maybe that was a little bit greater impediment than we had originally thought but based on the fact that we seem to be ontrack to complete 4 and a half years i think it was a realistic goal . >> chair: thank you for that explanation and certainly the pandemic impacted the work . and you know, most of my colleagues have concerns raised about removal of trees as part of the maintenance program. the street tree sf maintenance program and i was curious if you knew how many trees have been needed to be removed. rather than just fruit and maintain so far. or if you have an estimate on

like what's the number or percentage of trees that would need to be removed.>> i can get that for you but i did do the math a while ago. we've been removing roughly between 2000 and i want to say 2600 trees a year for the first three years so we are about two, 2 and a half percent mortality that we've been removing in thefirst few years of the program . >> the expect that 2020 500 trees to be removed per year to continue into the future or is that just or will it go down because there hasn't been tree sf maintenance until recently.

>> as we noted in our previous transportation we tried to start with what we called the works first so we were trying to address the trees that were in the highest need of pruning or removal in the first few years of the program. so i am actually told that the need for removals will go down but i said that as we continue to plant new trees over time and grow the population, there will always be some mortalityof trees . i don't know that it would be great if we could remain at under four percent mortality annually because that is as i mentioned a pretty consistent number across municipalities. i would view anything under four percent as we're doing pretty well. >> chair: i was just taking a

look at the treeplanting strategy and i'm so glad to see that was completed for the recommendation in the urban forestry plan. it looks like there's a strategy is has a goal of 4000 trees every year for the next 20 years. 2500 of them are replacement trees and 1000 500 our new trees so it's good to see that there's a clear goal . i guess my bigger question us around i think my concern is focused around the finding that the la report and we talked about before we came up in the hearing that we had two years ago on this issue the lack of a dedicated funding stream for

treeplanting. and that's something i think we really need to address in order for us to meet our goal in creating anurban canopy that we need in our city for so many important reasons .in short, did we leave? are you still here? >> looks like we lost director short. her screenwas present frozen she may be having connection issues .>> chair: i did have a few follow-up questions for her about funding strategies but i'll hold off on those obviously. i think we took public comments in this hearing part one so ...

>> one thing i'd like to add chair mar is supervisor safai agreed to delay scheduling of article 16amendments and in the in-between time actually a few days ago , yesterday i guess it was we supervisor safai and i met with joshua cliff and client we desire with regard to some concerns that they had over those changes that have been in part informed by these hearings and supervisor safai agreed to revisit some of those article 16 changes but that will he be heard at some point in the not-too-distant future at the rules committee board of supervisors so i wanted to inform everybody who is interested in treesas to that. so thank you supervisor . >> chair: glad to hear that.

>> apologies for the technologies faculties. did you have a follow-up question i can answer. >> it's around the bigger issue we've been discussing for a few years now or i've been discussing for a few years creating dedicated funding for treeplanting so we could really meet our goal and in planning the urban canopy in our city so it looks like based on the treeplanting strategy that you have, your goal is 4000 trees planted every year for the next 20 years. that accountsfor replacement as well as new trees .>> that's correct. >> chair: how much funding is needed for us toget to that level as quickly as possible ? >> i will note that i always tell folks that's a very

scalable goal. if suddenly there was a windfall say in federal infrastructure funding that we were able to secure for treeplanting wecan always grow the urban forest more quickly . but that goal was designed to both grolier and forest and try to keep up with mortality. so it's kind of what we're calling a more moderate planting for growth of the urban forest. if we find ourselves with a lot of funds we could actually sort of get to our endgame which is what we call.. so the idea that every available planting in the right-of-way would be planted. to achieve that goal of 4000 trees a year we would need a little bit over$8 million . the biggest cost as many of you have heard us say on

medications is watering trees. we have hopefully this year we will get some significant rainfall in the winter but basically we have moved to a year-round watering model. we used the water nine months of the year when i started and we had to change that to watering 12 months out of the yearbecause we just don't have consistent rainfall in the winter . so it's the most expensive part of raising a tree is watering it. we've looked for creative solutions like we had on the mission group on 24th street . they came to us with that idea of the most expensive part of watering, what ifthey take that part out and you can spend all the money you are allocating on planting . so if we can create other creative solutions to watering then as i said we can use more money for planting but we also

want to be realistic because we can't, what we don't want to do is plant trees that don't survive. we want to make sure we get all the newly planted trees, a full three years of regular consistent weekly water so they are well-established and they are ableto go on . so with our current it's about $2000 a tree so that's about 8 million annually.>> on the $2000 per treatment cost how much of that is wiring cost? >> about 1500 about three quarters of the cost is for wondering . and for the mission project,

did that are they covering the full cost of the watering. >> we have provided, we purchased the watering part for them and where providing them with the cops to fill their tanks but the big cost is the labor. and they're doing that on a volunteer basis they are really covering the virtually the whole cost ofwatering . >> chair: that does sound like a great model to look at how we could expand notjust for the cost savings but for the neighborhood engagement and community engagement project to . and then the bla recommendation as part of the streets the management plan was also recommended in the urban forestry plan but you're still in the process of developing

that. that wouldinclude a street treeplanting funding strategy . i want to make sure that you guys are working on that and that's a priority. and looking at especially now it seems like theremight be some like you are mentioning federal or state funding funds that might be tapped . what's the statusof the funding strategy i guess that's my question . >> it's certainly not finalized but while we're working on that plan we are still working on identifying other funds simultaneously so we participated as a vanguard city in a national program led by america's forests to try to advocate for federal stimulus funds to come to urban forestry and i think we're very well-placed if in fact some of

those funds to flow having been engaged with that we have a proposal that's ready to go for any money that might become available. so the challenge that we have is we have a number of potential funding sources but we don't yet have any that have been committed. i have as many cities in that we know our cost when we worked with some of the other vanguard city they say how do you know what you need for that ? we have good information and good data on what our costs are forplanting . workingwith our nonprofit partners, working with other community partners . i think we're well-placed. we have a dedicated maintenance stream.most other cities don't have that. that makes usattractive as a recipient for sure because you know the long-term care is

already in place . so the plan is in progress but ithasn't slowed us down from applying for funds . we're doing that simultaneously but we do hope to have that plan ready for presentation by next summer. >> chair: great. thanks again carla for all you leadership and your work . i look forward to your continuing to work with you and the apartment on especially on resourcing our treeplanting strategy and course working with the supervisor peskin and our budget chair on that as well. colleagues, any other questions orcomments . well, thank you supervisor peskin, thanks again calling for this hearing. and these are very important issues that don't often get the

attention that they need or deserve given all the pressing issues that we're dealing with as a board and as a city so this is an important opportunity to get updates and look at how we can practice our urbancanopy to a higher priority . so i think i would suggest or move that we file this hearing and then we can. >> we need to take public comments mister chair. >> chair: madamclerk, public comment . >> for those who wish to speak on this item please press star three to enter the q will indicate you have raised your hand. that will be yourcue to begin your comments .

it appears we have five in the queue. please bring the first caller forward. i am the chair of the parks and trees to many and also the producer and director of a movieabout birds who love trees , the wild parrots of telegraph hill. i would like you to please add my voice to the street activists who have been trying without success to preserve and enlarge san francisco's pathetically thin urban canopy. the bla report spells out why trees have received so little real care in the city and i hope the changes that are recommended in thereport will be implemented . thaturban forestry . i have a brief example. it has to do with watering. san francisco took the trees

back. they basically took ownership of thestreet trees back a while ago, a few years ago. but in many caseslandlords didn't realize they were still being relied upon to water the trees . i myself watched a single tree on stockton fall through these bureaucratic cracks and did i . it was eventually replaced but the same problem popped up again. so i would like to add to those recommendations that the city stop pointing to the landlords and the landlords stop pointing to the city and let's clarify responsibility for watering street trees and it needs to be clarified and communicated clearly to thepublic . so that the trees thrive. thank you. >> may we have thenext caller please ? >> good afternoon chair.

thank you once again for calling this hearing. my name is brian we admire and i am executive director of friendsof the urban forest . i appreciate the work on the budget and legislative analyst's office in completing this on it and thank youagain chair for calling for it . two things i would like to highlight from their findings. one of the theydescribe the inequitable distribution of san francisco's urban tree canopy . i would go a step further and pacify distribution as an environmental injustice that the communities that are least likely to benefit our street trees are the same communities that have been the victims of racist housing and land use policy from the darker days of sanfrancisco's history much like many other american cities . the second finding i would like to highlight has already been discussed at some length is the urgent need to find a reliable and dedicated fundingsource for

planting . if we're going to meet our goals we need to fund this work and i'm happy to hear acting director short also support that finding and to hear of the words of supportfrom you chair mar and supervisor peskin in particular . we stand ready to work with you as our elected leadership to try and make that happen as soon as possible. we know we are in a race against time. the benefits and trees would last will not be fully felt for decades to come and we will be facing an even more dire linux reality so thank you once again. >> next caller please. >> i appreciate supervisor mark comments because it's more effective to prune and remove and what we have learned

through the processes here is what is proposed to be removed is not always necessary and i think 24th street is a good example . as cofounder of want to thank carlos short for this program. i'd love to push for the creation of a city force process and having sat through innumerable meetings it's clear we have no cohesive letter allowed strategy and no one is looking at urbanforest as a whole .we haven't urban forest prerequisite across the mta and unified school distric . we need someone who's going to ask tough questions and ensure accountability once a week and without anyone or any office overseeing the urban forest citywide we're going to continue on our current trajectory . and taken a step further i like to propose creation of important issues and biodiversity, native green spaces rather large because we

aren't overseeing any ofthat at the same level and something a lot of san franciscans about deeply . without citywide focus the result is chipping away at our green infrastructure that destroys our lives and ecosystems and i want to thank supervisor covid for mar. supervisor safai for his year-long commitment to updating theantiquated laws which have allowed our forests to suffer and supervisor peski for making sure our concerns and voices are heard all the way to the top of city hall . >> do we have to next caller ? >> good afternoon supervisors, catherine howard . thank you for these informativ hearings . i would like to support all the comments. personally i was shocked when i heard probably had no money to plant new trees. many other people who voted for that measure we were getting

new trees but here we are. it is clear from the paperport the city needs to allocate more funding for new trees to record-keeping and for necessary staff to take care of our urban forest. i hope this will be addressed in the next budget 16.5 million from thegeneral fund is a drop in the bucket for our cities multibillion-dollar budget . bond is also a great idea and yes please encourage neighbors to water trees as a standard part of treeplanting . setting aside from personal comments on my sierra club had the sierra club has been submitted to the board in letter in pending legislation in that letter contains suggestions to increase our urbanforest in an equitable manner thank you for holding these heroes hearings . can we have the next caller please. >> this isstephanie pete , i was on the street and we have lots of trees and unfortunately

they have not been taken care of but they need pruning but they are oldtrees . we hope you do not replace them with tiny trees so we don't have to wait so long waterso much to get them growing . i was thinking since water is such a huge problem i think we're replacing the trees, they take a lot of water and hopefully replacing them with doesn't like trees and that's the direction you seem to be going. thank supervisor mar for your comments. i agree with them and i appreciate the comments of all the other speakers.iq . >> clerk: can we have to next caller? >> caller: this is michaelnolte

on executive directors line . i've been deeply involved in a number of years now dealing with i guess just community planning and it's really been a hardship on i guess you want to call tree huggers trying to keep the trees planted that we have until they should be emergency room instead of having to go volunteer people to a bunch of tree hearings to try to point out there'snothing wrong with the tree except it needs to be pruned . so there is a needto kind of have it removed . we see that there's a poor record-keeping. we thought there was going to be some approval by the department for public outreach

but that's not really taking place because of covid. we need to see a city prep plan and when the trees are scheduled for removal there needsto be a removing schedule . it would be stopped to instead of just saying we're going to remove the trees and not replace them. because there's no money. there should be a way to have an implemented plan so the committee understands how long it will take for the trees and not just have a tree stump or no trees at all because they were removed but notreplanted . so there needs to be more of a process and these are the kinds of things that end up being discussed for hours at the

board of appeals. i think if some people would take the time to read or listen to a board of appeals hearing how the trees are being dealt with ... >> clerk: thank you for your comments. mister atkins, can we have the next caller? if you have not done so already press áthree if you wouldlike to speak on this matter . >> caller: this is dave chipola. i want to thank you for paying attention, they are in bad need of it and i would like to draw your attention to a mass removal of trees that's coming up at the hands of sfmta on

16th street. planning to take them 16 trees because somehow there in the way of their transit improvements. i think that they took down in the hundreds on vanness for their transitimprovements . and i don't know what they're intending to do in terms of taking care of the replacement trees which they have promised. i don't know if they've gotten enough water in their coats or not?i'm really very concerned about the overweening power of sf mta and i think it needs to be taken apart. i don't know if, i just know that you're not in a position to do that but i just want to speak about it to you. thank you for your attention.

>> clerk: may wehave the next caller please ? >> caller: this is lance kearns, couldyou queue up my slide please ? ... >> clerk: it's chilling now. >> caller: good afternoon. my nameis lance kearns . if you could go to the next slide. this was sf policy for the last three years i was happy to see the budget and the legislative analyst reports which is engaged, managed by the bureau

of urbanforestry. on the left-hand side are the four main points from the report . on the right-hand side are the same points from an independent report from ucberkeley city planning department . both reports are available at savesftrees.org/bla. this is in conclusion from the bla . and if you read through this from my observations at sf tree they are incapable of filling these deficits. next slide. the first note based on my study of the past three years, but uses 1980s data tools and has no reliable tree data. given this our urban canopy cannot be effectively planned for,maintained or expanded .

next slide please. iput down some notes and recommendations . so first of all they have inadequate data and has proven itself unable to maintain the urban forest first recommendation implement a new urban managementplan for sf which includes modern forest management methods . acquire a tree management system . such include tree management expertise including automatic punishment budgetplanning and createa city forest officer position to manage three tree policy for all sf trees , dpw, rec and park etc. . these recommendations were taken fromcalifornia cities urban forest management plan which was put into place a few years ago and is a huge success . then francisco can do the same. >> thank you for joining us,may

we have the next caller ? >> thank you, this has been an enlightening hearing. this ischarles had , president of the coalition for san francisco neighbors and san francisco trees. we've been very concerned about the urban canopy and as a matter of fact we recently set a resolution to the city about our concern for the trees around the bart station entrances hoping they would be better maintained .and preserved. i wanted to thank kathy howard for her commentsearlier . she as well as our work with the sierra club has worked with open space committee for csf and for years now and we look forward to working with cr sierra club, with the city and with vero beach canopy. >> thank you foryour comments. do we have any other colors

left in the queue ? >> i name is john nolte. can youhear me -mark . >> there's a couple of issues that haven'tbeen touched on in the last two years , those sf mta and also san francisco puc have implemented their own tree removal process. competing with the urban forestry plan and sections 16 for the city. so our concern is that having competing departments having their own process to move trees circumventing the only real authority which is urban forestry has for maintaining the street trees is a

concerning problem for the city and then also we have park and rec that have no knowledge of how they have a tree removed. do we do a new park? there's a lot of canopy, more than what's been said today lost over the last five years. so i think that because of it's been discussed that there are other ways to look at the canopy and find out how much is actually been lost in the last five years. thank you very much. >>. >> we have the next caller.

>> thanks for taking my comment. i'm in anticipation valley and i travel frequently to chinatown now more to the sunset hall three neighborhoods seriously lacktrees. when it's hot there's no tree shading. when wendy there are no trees that flow down. when it's noisy there are no trees to make noise. it's awful . and when i lookand compare the places throughout other neighborhoods it's unfair. please quickly find the funding to expand the urban forest to more neighborhoods . half a happy thanksgiving. thank you. >> any colors left in the queu ? >> no further colors. >> mister chair. >> public comment is now closed and i want to thank allof the committee members , environmental neighborhood leaders that called in during public comment and sharedyour very thoughtful point about

these , how we need to expand oururban forest and urban canopy in san francisco urgency .colleagues, any closing remarks or remarks before we wrap up this good hearing. >> continued work in progress mister chair. i look forward to staying engaged with this as long as i am around and look forward to working with you and my colleagues on the board and public works to expand our canopy and water the trees and replaced more than we remove. and really want to thank the membersof the public who have been engaged .it's interesting we had a hearing yesterday of government by about corruption in government and while it was important hearing there's much more public interest in our tree canopy and there is in public

corruption so thank you to fulton called in today and for their work on the ground and i look forward to engaging them and we will be bringing the article 16 amendments reviseto the rules committee in the not-too-distant future . >> thank you supervisor. i just wanted to close by saying i did request that bla on it when i was serving on as the chair of gao not only because of the many changes to our three tree program, not only in the passage of property but also because of our urban canopy has been eloquently updated by all the commenters. it's such an underappreciated and form of our green infrastructure in our city. it's critical for us pretty our climate goals and trees clean and remove carbon from the air and we're also just crucialfor

so many additional benefits , mental and physical health of our community and cooling. in the face of global warming just for the simple fact that even in an urban environment trees remind us of our deep connection to nature and that we all feel to do better when nature is centered welcome in our urban environment so i want to thank everyone, supervisor peskin for callingattention to this issue . supervisor safai for his long-standing commitment to expanding our urban canopy. the community advocates that we heard from this hearing and beyond. so definitely this is work that i'm committed to continuing and making a higher priority in our city. so i would move that we file this hearing. and not clerk, please call the role. >> on the motion to file item for member haiti. [roll call vote] 3 aye's.

>> chair: any further business? >> that concludes our business today. >> chair: we are adjourned. happythanksgiving .

>> we have private and public gardens throughout the garden tour. all of the gardens are volunteers. the only requirement is you're willing to show your garden for a day. so we have gardens that vary from all stages of development and all gardens, family gardens, private gardens, some of them as small as postage stamps and others pretty expansive. it's a variety -- all of the world is represented in our gardens here in the portola. >> i have been coming to the portola garden tour for the past seven or eight years ever since i learned about it because it is

the most important event of the neighborhood, and the reason it is so important is because it links this neighborhood back to its history. in the early 1800s the portola was farmland. the region's flowers were grown in this neighborhood. if you wanted flowers anywhere future bay area, you would come to this area to get them. in the past decade, the area has tried to reclaim its roots as the garden district. one of the ways it has done that is through the portola garden tour, where neighbors open their gardens open their gardens to people of san francisco so they can share that history. >> when i started meeting with the neighbors and seeing their gardens, i came up with this idea that it would be a great

idea to fundraise. we started doing this as a fund-raiser. since we established it, we awarded 23 scholarships and six work projects for the students. >> the scholarship programs that we have developed in association with the portola is just a win-win-win situation all around. >> the scholarship program is important because it helps people to be able to tin in their situation and afford to take classes. >> i was not sure how i would stay in san francisco. it is so expensive here. i prayed so i would receive enough so i could stay in san francisco and finish my school, which is fantastic, because i don't know where else i would have gone to finish. >> the scholarships make the difference between students being able to stay here in the

city and take classes and having to go somewhere else. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] >> you come into someone's home and it's they're private and personal space. it's all about them and really their garden and in the city and urban environment, the garden is the extension of their indoor environment, their outdoor living room. >> why are you here at this garden core? it's amazing and i volunteer here every year. this is fantastic. it's a beautiful day. you walk around and look at gardens. you meet people that love gardens. it's fantastic. >> the portola garden tour is the last saturday in september every year. mark your calendars every year. you can see us on the website

>> and the office of mayor london breed would like to welcome you all to the american indian heritage celebration. my name is ariana. i was born and raised here in san francisco american indian community. i currently work at the california consortium and serve on the board of directors of the american indians of san francisco. i have the immense honor of being your masters of ceremony this evening. [cheering and applause] >> before we get into our program, i want to acknowledge mr. tom phillips, who could not be here this evening but i attended this event for almost my entire life and i remember