Committee forwards Civil Grand Jury responses and rejects siren deadline

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee voted on September 17 to forward the Board of Supervisors' responses to five Civil Grand Jury reports, amending several of them and declining to set a deadline for deciding what to do about the city's outdoor warning sirens.

The sharpest item was the report on the outdoor public warning system, "The Sounds of Silence: San Francisco's Outdoor Public Warning System and the Cost of Not Deciding." The city's sirens have been out of service since 2019. Testimony covered the system's history, the cost of replacing the sirens against the unknown cost of removing them, the difficulty of delivering multilingual, actionable instructions through a siren or loudspeaker, and the value of redundancy when so much alerting depends on phones. Committee members also asked about the lack of protocols for closure or follow-up messages after an alert.

The response the committee forwarded agrees with most of the jury's findings but partially disagrees with two of them, and rejects the recommendation that the city's emergency management department advise the mayor and the board on restoring or retiring the system. That decision requires cross-departmental coordination with elected and department leadership, the response says. No members of the public spoke on the item.

Before the reports were taken up, the jury foreperson told the committee that the five reports on the agenda covered emergency alerting, wildfire risk in Glen Canyon, homelessness services data and conditions in the county jails, and that the jurors are volunteers who gave up a year of their time and interviewed city staff, elected officials and outside experts. The jury has no power to compel action. Under state law, departments need only state whether they agree with each finding and how they intend to act on each recommendation, leaving it to the committee and the public to judge whether the answers are adequate.

The second alerting report, "FOG OF WARNING: San Francisco's Warning System That Warns but Doesn't Inform," found low subscriber numbers in the city's opt-in emergency alert system and recommended better promotion, citywide messaging standards, and protocols for wireless emergency alerts. The department has limited money for paid advertising and relies on community events and a messaging platform to reach people, the committee heard, and it is working on clearer criteria for sending wireless alerts. The committee amended the response to note that departmental leadership had not prioritized audience growth, and marked one recommendation as unreasonable, leaving it to the budget process instead. The amended response was forwarded to the full board on a 3-0 vote with no public comment.

The homelessness report drew the most public emotion. "At Scale, At Risk - Upgrading Data and Oversight to Improve Homelessness Services" found that the homelessness department collects extensive critical-incident and contract data but does not use it to spot safety patterns, benchmark nonprofit providers or trigger targeted monitoring. The jury recommended making safety metrics an explicit, publicly disclosed contract measure and giving oversight commissioners training and tools.

The department and the mayor's office broadly accepted the data and benchmarking recommendations but pushed back on public disclosure of incident-level data, warning that granular publication could discourage providers from reporting and undermine trust. They also disagreed about keeping shelter monitoring in house. The committee adopted a response that partially disagrees with two findings and agrees with a third, reports several data recommendations as already implemented, and declines to implement the recommendations adding a safety-standards section to contracts and returning contract renewals and extensions to the commission's consent calendar. During public comment, a relative of a resident who died in permanent supportive housing urged the board to adopt the jury's critical-incident recommendations. The amended response was forwarded to the full board with a positive recommendation, and a companion item was filed.

On the jails, "When Making Do Doesn't Work: San Francisco Jails in Crisis" found years of capital neglect, complex health needs among people in custody, poor data and outdated technology, and concluded that a crowding-committee trigger had not been properly assessed. The sheriff's department disputed that the trigger had been met, citing fluctuating occupancy and existing meetings among justice partners, while the mayor's office defended the city's capital planning process and opposed a separate jail-specific process. The committee amended its response to partially disagree with the crowding finding and to direct a jail needs assessment, forwarded it to the full board with a positive recommendation, and continued a related hearing item to the call of the chair.

The one ordinance the committee sent to the board without a recommendation would eliminate statement of intention disclosure and reporting for candidates seeking election to the Retirement Board, Health Service Board and Retiree Health Care Trust Fund Board, along with third-party disclosure and related training, audit and enforcement provisions. Supporters said only a handful of candidates have ever registered for the program, which was created after a disputed trust fund election, and that trustee candidates face stricter rules than mayoral or supervisorial candidates, including having to open a bank account even when they raise nothing. Opponents said the boards oversee large retirement and health care funds and that removing disclosure invites corruption and cronyism.

A supervisor raised a further concern: the ordinance would also end candidate-stage Form 700 filings. Staff confirmed that assuming-office and annual filings would remain but the candidate filing would go, and suggested adding the board positions to the conflict-of-interest filing list instead. The sponsor withdrew the motion for a positive recommendation and moved to forward the ordinance without recommendation, which carried.

The committee also approved an amended response to "Red Flag Warning - Wildfire Risk in San Francisco's Glen Canyon," partially disagreeing with a finding that the aging eucalyptus canopy poses a material wildfire danger citywide while agreeing that it poses storm-collapse and litter hazards. The committee agreed with a finding about an advisory body's lack of guidance but said a related recommendation would not be implemented because that body no longer exists. That response went to the full board unanimously, and the accompanying hearing was filed.

Two other items moved quickly. A resolution lets the city's film office solicit donations and in-kind support from tourism organizations and hotels for six months, notwithstanding the behested payment rules, because those groups hold film permits and are normally off limits. And an ordinance revising health care expenditure requirements for certain employers at the airport would replace a tiered rate with a single rate, create an alternative path to compliance and set an hours-based coverage threshold. A deputy city attorney told the committee the changes are required by a settlement in the airline industry's lawsuit, and a companion ordinance authorizes a $0, non-monetary settlement with Airlines for America, under which the group drops its suit once the ordinance is enacted and each side pays its own costs. Both were forwarded to the full board with positive recommendations and no public comment.