Land Development Lawyer And SF Supervisor Mandelman Wants To Shutdown Remote Dial In

Land Development Lawyer, Union Buster and Privatizer SF Supervisor Mandelman Wants To Shutdown Remote Dial In

Your help is urgently needed by, and on, Monday February 6 at 10:00 a.m. to urge the Board of Supervisors to not end taking remote, dial-in oral public testimony.

Let’s stop this at the Rules Committee!

The Rules Committee of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is hearing a Motion sponsored only by, and introduced by, Supervisor Raphael Mandelman to end remote dial-in public comment from members of the public during both full Board meetings and during meetings of the Board’s various sub-Committees.

Agenda item 5 at https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/rls020623_agenda.pdf reads:

Motion discontinuing remote participation by members of the Board of Supervisors (“Board”) at meetings of the Board and its committees for reasons related to COVID-19; and discontinuing remote public comment by members of the public at meetings of the Board and its committees, except as legally required to enable people with disabilities to participate in such meetings.

The actual Legislation is here.

How to Take Action and Testify

This Monday’s February 6 Rules Committee hearing will be broadcast live on-line on either SFGOV-TV Cable Channel 1 or Channel 2 at 10:00 a.m. (most likely on Channel 1) at: https://sfgovtv.org/sfgovtv-live-events.

Oral Testimony

To speak for up to three minutes each when public comment is called, dial 1-(415) 655-0001, enter Meeting ID: 2498 811 4462, and press the # sign twice. Then press “*3” to enter the speaker line queue. When it’s your turn to speak, you’ll receive a voice message saying your line has been unmuted. When you begin to speak, you’ll get three minutes to testify.

Notes: The Rules Committee will take public comment first from people who attend in person at City Hall, followed by remote call-in comments, so be patient. Second, please note that there is a two- to three-minute delay between what you are watching and hearing on-line on SFGOV-TV and what is happening in real time at City Hall. To avoid the closing of public comments, rely on what you are hearing on your phone when you call in.

Written Testimony

Urge the Rules Committee to Table and reject this Motion and not forward it to the full Board of Supervios with a recommendation to approve this legislation.

Write your testimony addressed to Rules Committee Chair Matt Dorsey and include the two other supervisors, Supervisor Shamann Walton and Supervisor Ahsha Safai. Be sure to cc (courtesy copy) the Clerk of the Board Angela Calvillo, and the Clerk of the Rules Committee, Victor Young. Their erespective -mail addresses are:

Matt.Dorsey [at] sfgov.org, Shamann.Walton [at] sfgov.org, Ahsha.Safai [at] sfgov.org, Angela.Calvillo [at] sfgov.org, and victor.young [at] sfgov.org,

Then, find the e-mail you submitted and forward it separately to Clerk Young, and explicitly ask Young to post you written testimony into the background file in the Public Correspondence testimony folder on-line for Board File # 221008.

Union Busting Plan To Outsource CCSF Classes To Non-profits By SF Mayor Breed, Norman Yee, Catherine Stefani, Ahsha Safaí, Aaron Peskin and Rafael Mandelman

Nixed CCSF Classes for Older Adults Diverted to Nonprofits

The plan to save some classes leaves behind unionized faculty and other cut classes, faculty union says.

https://www.sfweekly.com/news/nixed-ccsf-classes-for-older-adults-diverted-to-nonprofits/

by Ida Mojadad • 12/30/2019 4:24 pm - Updated 12/30/2019 4:58 pm

City College of San Francisco Ocean Campus. (Photo Kevin N. Hume)

Mayor London Breed and several supervisors stepped in Monday to save some community classes for older and aging adults threatened by class cuts at City College of San Francisco.

When the college suddenly cut 288 spring classes in November, it wiped out nearly all the classes in its Older Adults Program serving seniors and adults with disabilities. Breed and supervisors Norman Yee, Catherine Stefani, Ahsha Safaí, Aaron Peskin and Rafael Mandelman on Monday announced a funding plan to restore some of those classes.

“City College is having to make some tough choices to address ongoing structural financial issues, and while that is happening we can lessen the impact for our seniors who visit our community centers to enrich their lives,” said Breed in a statement. “Many of our older adults rely on these classes, which keep them active and connected to the community, and I’m glad we’re able to find a way to ensure that they can continue.”


The City will use $216,000 annually from the Dignity Fund, which voters passed in 2016 to support older adults and adults with disabilities, to fund 17 of the 50 classes cut in the program. Nonprofits like the Jewish Community Center, Self-Help for the Elderly, and YMCA Stonestown will take over the administration of the classes, which are expected to serve about 1,000 people.

But it’s not clear how similar the curriculum will be to the classes CCSF developed, or if any of the laid-off community college instructors will be rehired to teach. The community groups hosting the classes will also find instructors and manage enrollment and curriculum for the next three years, according to the Mayor’s Office.


“The announcement from the mayor today is certainly concerning, because it suggests [The City will] allow the defunding of a public institution and give city funding to private institutions,” said Jenny Worley, president of the college’s faculty union AFT 2121. “We have created these programs, we have the infrastructure and the experience to run them.”

Supervisor Shamann Walton said he shares concerns that the change could take away equitable pay from instructors and that a long-term plan is needed. Before the latest round of cuts came in November, CCSF had already cut 554 credit and 309 non-credit classes and left more than 100 instructors without jobs in order to balance a $32 million budget deficit, the Examiner previously reported. The cuts occurred despite a recent city commitment to funding the Free City College, a program providing subsidized tuition for city residents that was expected to help bring back enrollment after an accreditation crisis.

“I don’t believe that this addresses what the real need is as a whole,” Walton said of the plan to divert the older adult program classes to other agencies. “These are the things where if we all work together, we could come up with a strategy.”

That strategy may be hard to come by when CCSF leaders have different ideas about where to take the college. Chancellor Mark Rocha has defended the cuts in a letter, saying they are part of a “long-planned restructuring” to prioritize graduation rates over community offerings and comply with the new school funding mechanism under state law. The Chancellor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment by press time Monday.

In December, Walton proposed a $2.7 million emergency appropriation from the city’s budget reserves to restore the 300 classes cut the previous month, while Supervisor Gordon Mar sought a set-aside from the Public Education Enrichment Fund. A hearing on the impact of the recent cuts is expected in January.

Misguided Mandelman Supports Evicting Senior Mentally Disabled From Adult Residential Facility ARF
SF Supervisors step up pressure on mayor, DPH to reopen long-term mental health beds
Ronen called Mandelman’s request for legislation “misguided” and called for more immediate action, including filling the beds within the month to ensure that “our city’s most mentally ill are not abandoned on the streets for the next two years.” She said Mandelman had developed his approach without consulting with the nurses and other hospital employees.

“These beds have scandalously been empty for a year. That is an outrage,”

LAURA WAXMANN
Sep. 3, 2019 3:30 p.m

Adding to political pressure on the mayor and health department officials, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman on Tuesday requested legislation to ensure that 41 long-term care beds serving patients with severe mental illness at the Zuckerberg San Francisco Hospital will be reopened.

The San Francisco Examiner reported last month that only 14 beds will remain inside of the Adult Residential Facility — a unit inside the hospital’s Behavioral Health Center with 55 permanent beds serving patients unable to care for themselves. The Department of Public Health plans to relocate at least 18 residents by October.

More than half of the beds inside the ARF have been held empty for at least a year.

On Tuesday, Mandelman requested that the City Attorney draft legislation requiring the Department of Public Health to “open and fill” all 55 ARF beds by June 30, 2021 — the date on which the suspension on the 41 beds will be lifted, he said.

The legislation would also require DPH to present a report on the “barriers to operating the ARF at full capacity, including any necessary legislative, regulatory, budgetary or policy changes and a plan to achieve full capacity at the ARF” to the Board of Supervisors, and require semi-annual updates after that initial report.

DPH officials have justified the decision to suspend the residential treatment beds as a means to add 27 short-term shelter beds for mental health patients at the hospital’s Hummingbird Place, a psychiatric respite and drop-in center where the length of client stays averages about 19 days. They have cited staffing issues inside the ARF as a reason for suspending the beds.

Shortly after taking office, Mandelman authored legislation to stabilize private residential board and care beds that also serve mental health patients in need of assisted living services but that are shuttering at alarming rates, and more recently supported efforts to tighten conservatorship laws in San Francisco. Among adult patients receiving treatment in the ARF are a number of individuals who have been conserved, a DPH spokesperson confirmed previously.

Mandelman said that there is a clear need for The City to “maintain and expand” its portfolio of city-operated residential care beds, which is currently limited to the hospital’s Behavioral Health Center.


“Allowing the department nearly two years to restore the ARF should be enough time to solve any staffing or regulatory issues, although I am mindful that, again, the ARF has not operated at full capacity for many more years than that, and I believe DPH staff when they say they have been trying,” said Mandelman. “They need to try harder, and this ordinance will put the full weight of the Board of Supervisors and I hope the mayor behind the effort.”

Supervisor Hillary Ronen also addressed the matter on Tuesday, calling for a hearing on the events that led up to the decision to suspend the beds within “two to three weeks.”

“DPH quietly decided to place 41 long term beds on indefinite suspension. The department already removed 14 of those beds last year [and is] using them as short-term navigation center beds at Hummingbird Place and was about to remove 27 more,” said Ronen, adding that the decision came despite a clear need for long-term residential treatment beds.

Ronen said that she was made aware of the issue by nurses who work inside of the hospital’s Behavioral Health Center. The nurses allege they were told that the beds were kept empty because the hospital was in violation of its license, but Ronen said DPH officials told her the “redistributions” stemmed from staffing issues within the unit.

Ronen noted that The City, which contracts with private board and care providers, has lost some 40 percent of those beds in recent years.

“There are people in locked facilities, they are incarcerated despite the fact that they don’t have to be incarcerated, because there are no board and care beds to send them to,” Ronen said.

She added that the loss of ARF beds has “serious implications for people being conserved.”

“We recently passed legislation expanding the number of people The City can place into conservatorship. At the same time we are removing precious beds we control that could serve people who they conserve,” said Ronen. “This would have been information I would have loved to know when voting for conservatorship law.”


Ronen called Mandelman’s request for legislation “misguided” and called for more immediate action, including filling the beds within the month to ensure that “our city’s most mentally ill are not abandoned on the streets for the next two years.” She said Mandelman had developed his approach without consulting with the nurses and other hospital employees.

“These beds have scandalously been empty for a year. That is an outrage,” Ronen said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We as a city need to be doing everything in our power right now to hire the labor force necessary so that those beds go online next month — that is the urgency I have around this crisis when people are incarcerated in jail or in a locked facility.”

lwaxmann [at] sfexaminer.com