little the ferry stopped having a purpose. >> what happened in the 40 and 50's because of this downturn we were trying to find a purpose a number of proposals for a world trade center and wanted to build it own the philly in a terrible idea objective never gotten down including one that had too tall towers a trade center in new york but a tower in between that was a part of ferry building and completely impractical. after the cars the tower administration wanted to keep

americans deployed and have the infrastructure for the united states. so they had an intrastate free plan the plan for major freeway systems to go throughout san francisco. and so the developers came up with the bay bridge and worked their way along embarcadero. the plans were to be very, very efficient for that through town he once the san francisco saw had human services agency happening 200 though people figure out city hall offender that the embarcadero free was dropped and we had the great free to no where. which cut us off from the ferry building and our store line and created in 1989 and

gave us the opportunity to tear down the free. and that was the renaissance of ferry building. >> that land was developed for a new ferry building and whom new embarcadero how to handle travel and needed a concept for the building didn't want- that was when a plan was developed for the liquor store. >> the san francisco ferry building has many that ups and downs and had a huge hay day dribbled adopt to almost nothing and after the earthquake had a shove of adrenaline to revise the waterfront and it moved

around the bay and plans for more so think investment in the future and feel that by making a reliable ferry system once the ferry building will be there to surface. >>

>> you are watching san francisco rising. [music] today's special guest is mano raju. hi. i'm chris and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting and rebuilding

and reimagineings our city. our guest is mano raju san francisco's public defender great you could be here. actual at this time us about yourself how you became the public defend and why it is important to provide legal representtation to people that can't afford council. >> i started in contra costa county graduated from berkeley and a liven deputy for you a number of years special jeff recruited me to san francisco the former elected public defender of san francisco and i began as a line department here and then asked me to be training direct and the managers of the felony unit the unit most serious case. after he passed away, i was appointed to be the public defend and electd and recently reelected. but you know what i think about

what you know the story of public to the office i like to start with my parents. they come from a farming village in india and dad was the first in family to finish high school. there were a couple people in his village who saw him and encouraged his parentses to pursue studies and move in the country when i think of what public defenders dot most person thing is to see our clients so than i can hopefully realize their full potential that is important to me and to our office and the cult usual of our office. >> you know the right to a public defender was developed in 1963 in gideon case ensuring the right to a public defender. we take this very seriously in our office. my vision is that anyone in our office should be representing the people represent the same way they want their love 1s to representd and people think if

you have a public defender representing you in san francisco you will bet better than a private attorney. we will leave no stone unturned no motion unfiled and try to perform the highest level for clients >> that's fantastic >> often when people think public defenders they jump to the idea of somebody defending somebody in court your office does more than courtroom representation. >> i'm an elected public dem felonieder i campaigned on that it is important we break the mold of what is public for our office on accomplish. fiercely defending is the core of what we do and that will never go, way. as the only elected public defender there is an elected da and sheriff in every county. in the state but one elected public defender. it is important our office pushed envelope and engage in the national and state wide and

local policy that will impact community how public safety and our clients. we have local policy directors, state policy director. we are active in sacramento in trying to make the law change in order to be more humane system for our clients. we are believer in advocating for community power. we have two 501c3's in bayview and fillmore that are be more magic under the umbrelast public defender's office. these are youth empowerment organizations that do programming throughout the summers. which back pack give, ways to kid school sflois start the school year and believe engaging youth will prevent them from become clients. and put people on the path to thrive. we have a program, end of cycle

program. culturally competent social workers going to the jails and finding out what the individual needs. we'll fight for their best legal outcome in the case. and the position of trust the fifth amendment protects the conversations that our clients can have with us. we can use that to really encourage a trusting rep and telling us what they need and be frank and connect that individual with the substance abuse or mentor or housing or employment and educational opportunities hamp that individual needs to thrive and reach their full potential. that is another piece behalf we do. 17 units across our department and you know we take collaborating across units something we try to do every tail to meet our mission, vision and values >>. a part is ensuring recidivism does not reoccur >> of course the left thing we want to see is a client to

return to be a client again. we work intentionally from the moment we start representing a client with our skilled staff and other members of our team to try to figure out what is that future going to be for the client when they leave our care? >> now, some critics argue public defenders have a heavy case load. how is your office mechanicing this and what issues are most important to you. why we have a heavy case load. unfortunately, this is a problem across the country, public defenders are not funds equal low to da offices our fund suggest 61% of the da office. and the police department has 14 time the our budget. and there is the sheriff's department and any time the entities are detaining our cloinlt in i way it is up to us to defend this is manage we are working on locally. and alsoination wide to change

that. we need more staff and every wing of our office. the logo is greater than one. so we know that we need to be greater twhoon individual in the office and use our teams effectively and strategically and skillfully and put in more hours to make sure we reveal truth and make justice happen in courtrooms. greater than one also symbolizes the fact we are collaborating with other communities organizations to try to support and help our client and move policies that will help our clients. an example of this is the pretextual stop campaign we collaborated with 110 organizations throughout the city to convince the police commission to pass the general order that stops some of the stops traffic stops for things that don't impact public safety and lead to often con41ational

interactions with the police and civil yens and. we wanted to minimize that mostly the shootings we read about and the the violence of inneraction gets in car and tragic occurrence that can happen. by collaborating we can be powerful than the sheer numbers in our organization. >> sure. so you know like cities cross the country san francisco struggling with fentanyl and homelessness, how can our office contribute to help mitigate or solve those problems? >> one thing we can do, again often times with community based organizations; is to really try and figure out how we address the demand. you know. treatment on demand. again. finding people opportunity with housing or employment opportunity. you know mitigation or just any

form of counciling that helps people. move in more positive direction in a way more inviting oppose to co hearsive. now we don't have enough beds for everyone who needs that intensive treatment. contributing to staffers to get more funding for people to get treatment they need. because the reality is there will always be someone to fill the need. we work on the demand, which evidence based there was fee of dealing with addiction will move in a more positive direction. >> then, finally, what else would you like residents of san francisco to know about you and your office? >> i think what i like the san francisco residents to know is how muchow important it is that the public defender be aggressive. right now we had a huge backlog of cases in san francisco. there were over a housand passed

the last day. a right to a speedy try and have case passed the last day. we had to plaintiff and against the court t. is important this we have an independent public defend 30 is willing to do that. and we got a good decision from the court of appeal and now the courts move quick and are honoring this and the effort from policy team to 850 bryant the courthouse is to draw attention to this issue it is important we have an aggressive public defender. had someone gets convicted for something they did not do it impacts their family. clients are greater than one, it is important we fierce low defend. the same time because when someone gets convicted of something they did not do they are less likely to access the

j.w. they need for stability or housing and then will impability a lot of people and lead to more issues on the streets and affect public safety. also to realize we are a public safety organization. we have social workers and take this social worker mentality or support facilitative prop and get cloinlts to a better place. when our clients get to a better place we are all safer >> thank you mr. raju. we appreciate the work. thank you for your interest in the development. you know i wanted to say if anyone wants to know more about a lot of the initiatives and unit in our department they can go to you tube we have a dairy defender series. and people should look at that to learn more about the different units. also we talked about the dibilltating impact of convictions we have a clean

slate program exsponging hundreds of records every year. and people can go to our website sfpublicdefender. org and move their live in a positive direction >> thank you very much. >> thank you >> that's it for this episode we will be back shortly for government government i'm chris manners, t

>> 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 2

>> that i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of penalized paddled for all. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of penalized paddled >> good morning it is >> welcome to the san francisco fire commission regular meeting this morning at 9:00 am., wednesday, february 14, 2024. >> 9 o'clock this meeting is held in three minutes per item.