[applause]

[applause] . >> thank you everyone. [applause] >> good evening.

[off mic] dragon. that's why we have special and the dragon -- they're always great. [applause] >> [off mic] let's give a round of applause. [applause] >> [off mic] and welcome to this year's new year

celebration. i am claudine cheng from the the san francisco general hospital foundation and [off mic]. >> . >> . >> [off mic]. particular celebration because this is the first, the first of many, many of asian pacific cultural celebration in the new year and family and friends getting together and wishing each other a happy and healthy new year with lots of good fortune and that's what we're doing here looking out at the rotundra today. this is diverse communities coming together and celebrating as san francisco family and wishing all the goodness that the year can bring, hopes, optimism, all the good things so we want to thank you for being here and i would like to say a few words

in chinese. [speaking foreign language] so i justin tsai to mention and the new year is celebrated in communities and the ask pacifics and this evening we prepared a number of performances celebrating the culture of a number of

ache pacific count reese and china, indonesian and the philippines and celebrations like what we have here now doesn't happen in every city in the country or in the state of california. this has become kind of a tradition for our city and because we are very lucky to have so many mayors through the years and our city officials who took every opportunity to bring communities together. we have very fortunate we have a city that embrace diversitys in the manner that we do and please welcome the host of this year's celebration, mayor london breed. [applause] >> thank you. let's hear it for commissioner claudine cheng. [applause] >> well first of all welcome to city

hall everybody. happy lunar new year. you don't seem that enthusiastic. it's the year of the dragon, progress, prosperity, courage. so many things represent the year of the dragon and what i am so excited about here in san francisco is what this means for the future of our city . this is going to be a great year, 2024 in our city, and it has everything to do with each and every one of you joining us here tonight to kick off lunar new year in san francisco. [applause] >> now, i wrote a new names down that i want to identify and i want to make sure they get this right, but first i want to start with my cohost tonight. you will from them in a little bit but i want to thank carmen chu, city

administrator. [applause] >> sheriff paul mijamoto. public defender mano raju. and our other cohost david chiu couldn't be with us here tonight but as many of you know he's everywhere so if he's want here tonight he couldn't really be here tonight and i want to thank the committee for all the work and the apa heritage foundation claudine cheng who does amazing work. thomas lee, al perez and grace. almost grace, almost. i want to also thank our chief of protocol marian and some of our amazing leaders,

president of the chinese console baited benevolent association. thank you for being here today and our pair port commissioner representing the san francisco chinese chamber of commerce malcolm young. [applause] >> and congratulations to kevin chang who is the new chaplain for the san francisco sheriff. [applause] >> and i know mary young is also here somewhere. now we have a number of new council generals and i want mention the countries joining us here today, korea singapore, mongoala. welcome to san francisco. we also have the consul general of japan as well as other places

and can they please stand up. [applause] >> thank you to those who are joining us here today and welcome to the new council generals. we look forward to welcome and you celebrating at the lunar new year parade this saturday as well, and we have some special guests visiting us from the district of west vancouver including the mayor, mayor mark saiger who is joining us today. welcome mayor. as well as your delegation from the meto vancouver transportation agency. can you all please stand. [applause] >> i want to acknowledge some of the elected leaders who are joining us here today starting with supervisor rafael mandelman, matt dorsey

and joel engardio. [applause] >> . our assessor recorder jaking torres. our school board members please stand. our treasurer jose cisneros. [applause] >> and jenny lam are you still president or -- okay. lanie is the president of the school board. all right. i am getting all my name exercise thingsed up but i think i took care of everything and we have some amazing department heads joining us here today and can you please stand, michael lambert from the library. greg colfax and mary and joe and thank you all for being here. if i didn't call your name raise your hand. just kidding. anyway again thank you so much for joining us

and as i said we're kicking off the year of the dragon and prosperity, abundance, intelligence and honor. so many things represent san francisco as a whole and when i think how amazing it is to celebrate lunar new year i think about the resiliency of the asian community, so many people immigrated here to san francisco and made it what it is today whether it's folks from the filipino community who immigrated to the south of market neighborhoods or japantown which is one of the best japantowns anywhere and chinatown which is one of the first and oldest anywhere in this country. we have so much incredible history with so many different communities that celebrate lunar new year and it is what makes san francisco unique. when we

hosted the asian pacific economic corporation what i said during that time to so many of those visiting us from 21 economies is that san francisco is a gate way to the asian pacific. we represent diversity of cultures in so many ways and when you think about it people travel to different places all over the world to experience different cultures but when you come to san francisco you can experience it all right here in our city whether it's different foods or different neighborhoods or different people. we all have a unique fabric that makes san francisco what it is today, and i appreciate being here celebrating on this momentous occasion, joy, excitement and happiness. after everything that we have been through the challenges of the pandemic, the challenges around anti-asian hate we're finally starting to see the representation of what

the dragon means around progress with the 90% reduction in anti-asian hate crimes in san francisco and it is everything to do with all the work that we have been doing together. [applause] >> so again i want to welcome you to san francisco city hall for this great celebration and really appreciate you all for coming together because after such a hard time, after so many challenges it is time to start rooting for san francisco. it is time to start rooting for what makes us so unique and special. it is time to start celebrating and experiencing joy and happiness and excitement. yes, san francisco has its challenges because we're a major city, but we need to start focusing on what makes us great, what makes us special, what makes us unique? and lunar new year

with our diverse asian community is really an important part of what makes us special and what makes us unique. that's the celebration that we're hosting here tonight and we appreciate each and every one of you for joining us on this auspicious occasion and we hope to see you saturday at the lunar new year parade as well. thank you all so much. [applause] >> i knew i was going to forget something so at this time i want to ask the counsel generals who are joining us today to come to the stairs so we can take a picture. right claudine? okay.

[applause] >> thank you everyone

and next in the program we have another treat for you. let's welcome the gordon j. lau elementary school students. these students have been sacrificing all lunch breaks to practice for today so let's give them a big round of applause. gordon lau. [applause] >> (music)

[applause] >> "i could dance by

dua lipa watch me dance the night away. my heart but you won't see it. watch me dance the night away. i still keep the party still running and when my heart breaks, when my world shakes i don't play. don't you know about me? i could dance, i could dance. i could dance. dance away. [applause]

>> thank you students. i think the mayor was going to thank the students. [applause] >> all right

everybody. big smiles. they're looking great. what do you say everybody; right? [applause] >> i mean i wish i could dance moves like that. all right. one, two, three. you got your pictures?

we want to make sure we see all these wonderful students' faces in the picture. [applause] >> all right. here we go. big, big round of applause. [applause] >> dragon pose. dragon pose. serious, brave and courageous. there you go. all right. thank you very much. big round of applause for gordon

j. lau elementary school performers. [applause] >> and of course our wonderful brian here from lion dance. thank you. . >> [off mic] [applause] >> thank you. good job. [applause] >> all right.

another big round of applause. [applause] >> i'm going to invite my cohost to come up, our chair will be joining me on the stage. good evening. my name is carmen chu and one of the cohosts today i want to welcome you all to city hall. i know many of you come from far and wide and busy schedules to join us with this wonderful celebration. as we go in the city and celebrate the lunar new year it's important to know what the lunar new year celebrates. [off mic]

with our family to watch all the previous year and celebrate and un-- unity and coming together and we welcome to you city hall and hope you have a wonderful time in today's performance. [speaking foreign language] and with that let me turn it over with comments from my do host. first i will start off with the sheriff. >> thank you carmen. [applause] applause happy new year everyone. it's always difficult to follow carmen and dragons and little dragons and lions and the wonderful culture represented here tonight. i'm very happy to see you here and as the mayor mentioned always welcoming people to city hall is a wonderful thing. we will have more fun on saturday at the

parade and not like the one earlier but i will be under a dragon head in the parade and i look forward to that every year and i want you to be there as well because we feed off the energy of the audience and the community as we celebrate the lunar new year together so i will do my best right now. [speaking foreign language] wow big round of applause. good job. [applause] >> it's wonderful to be here today on lunar new year. i am the public defender and you know as a son of indian immigrants it's special to see the wonderful diversity and how everyone shows their full potential. i was able to fortunately go home over the winter break and go to india

and went to japan and back here in san francisco is really beautiful. i am in a jury trial seeing the wonderful diversity on the jury and i always want to sayad public defenders and san francisco's public defender i believe what is truly the power and potential of every individual and wonderful to see it come together here and when i need inspiration i will go to the youth here and the dragons and they're amazing and lunar new year and happy new year and hope everyone enjoys the enjoy festivities. >> i'm going to invite others up here and after the speaking the mayor to come up with a photo with the elected officials and department heads so come on up. our assessor

torres. . >> i want to go before him because he's going to wow everyone with his cantonese and i'm going to wish everyone a happy new year and thank you so much for pulling this together. this is always an amazing amaze maze event. claudine you do so much for the city and so much for these celebrations in city hall and to everyone that made this happen thank you and happy year dragon everybody. [applause] >> so did you think ho ychoy and the extend of the chinese i know and this what i look forward to every 12 years and i'm a baby of the dragon and along with supervisor peskin who couldn't be here and my

legislative aide is also year of the dragon so we're excited in the district six office. [applause] >> [speaking foreign language] i want to wish everyone a very happy, happy year of the dragon, auspicious, prosperous, healthy, joyful extraordinary times for all of you and your families and see you in chinatown on saturday. >> thank you. [applause] >> all right. hey everybody. nobody celebrates lunar new year and the culture and the diversity of our community better than the city and county of san francisco in the entire country. i want to wish everyone a happy lunar new year and look forward to see you at at parade facultysh saturday.

look forward for the book mobile. >> thank you. i want to recognize my department heads. michael you weren't supposed to say something but glad you did and i want to welcome all of the department heads here and and mayor would you please come on up to take a photo with department head and other elected official and i will ask my folks to come up and stand loser closer to the lion. . >> >> and please stand closer to the lion.

. >> all right. [applause] >> and now of course for the performances. i think as most folks know we have so many different cultures represented in san francisco. many folks who all celebrate the lunar new year so of course we want to welcome and show case some of the amazing talent here in san francisco and so i will be introducing two dance performers that we will be starting. first is a dance performance by parangal dance company a filipino and folk dance and non-profit based here in san francisco. we will be having two dances from them and one is sohten and thalek and

see a performance from the korean culture andept representing and honoring peace and harmony. please welcome both of these performances. [applause] >> (dance performances)

[applause] >> beautiful. let's give our two performances a big round of applause again. thank you. [applause] >> before our third and last performance i would like to introduce two community speakers to the stage. we have the presiding president of the chinese consolidated console benevolent association and they have sponsored so many events celebrating the chinese new year and as well as the chamber of commerce. welcome to both of you. [applause] >> honorable mayor

lee, city officials, honorable guests and friends, happy new year. [applause] >> i am the presiding president of the chinese consolidated benevolent association. on behalf of the association it's my honor to wish everybody a happy healthy pro perrous year of the dragon. lunar new year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of the new year on the hundredar solar calendar. it's the most important holiday in china and

celebrated for every 3,000 years. it is the time of the year to reunify the immediate and extended family. on september 29, 2022 governor newsom proclaimed this day as california holiday. at the end of last year the united nations also made it a holiday. that's big. this meaningful celebration world wide event. i'm grateful to have the opportunity to represent the chinese

consul benevolent celebration to attend this celebration and continue the good working relationship with city hall. to promote the chinese culture and freedom and tradition. [speaking foreign language]

[applause] >> all right good evening everybody. i'm malconyoung representing the chinese chamber of commerce. our president wade apologizes he couldn't be here this evening. he's taking care of some important details. i want to everyone to give a big round of applause to all of the performers and especially the young people from

gordon lau and dance team. i can tell you the lunchtime was well spent; right? and in really in all honesty because it's the young people that carry on our traditions that are really the next generation that make sure we have the cultural identity so thank you very much. second repeat after me. [speaking foreign language] okay now you can all speak chinese as well as as joaquin. you know every year the chamber helps to organize the lunar new year parade and madam mayor you mentioned earlier there's so many things that make san francisco unique and special and the lunar new year parade is one of those things.

it's the only night time lunar new year in the country, the largest one in the country and for those that have been in person you know it's a spectacle. you can't feel the magic. you can't feel the power of it unless you're standing on the ground with the performers and it's going to be a beautiful, beautiful year. i want just to make sure to highlight some of the special things we're doing in this year of the dragon. we are introducing we're debuting a new green wood dragon so look out for that. that's going to be incredible. we have an amazing grand marshal this year, the hollywood actress aqua finna. but we want to show her that we do lunar new year way better than l.a. so all the hollywood people need to come up here to get the real thing and also i really

want to say that we have an incredible number of performers and units this year, 122 to be expect. the number keeps going up and up and up and i mention this because the time and energy and dedication it takes to get ready for the parade is something that folks do all year around so it's an incredible special moment and please pay attention to all of the units because they spend so much time on tnow the chamber organizes this thing but we don't put it o it's a community and city effort and first of all i want to thank the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers that come out to support the parade and you know it's a production. it's incredible. it takes a lot of person power and the volunteers make it happen. secondly i want to thank our city's leaders ma'am mayor, london breed for

the support year in and year out. the city contributes funding to make it happen. that's really critical but the work of the department heads keeping us safe and clean and everything orderly. that's so important so thank you especially to the sheriffs, the firefighters, san francisco police department and i know they're in commission right now. thank you to dpw for cleaning up afterwards. it's a big task and thank you for the transportation. for those going to the parade there's go through the new chinatown rose pac station and via that instead of driving and i want to invite everyone to the parade and it's going to be amazing and madam mayor we hope that you can call the weather service to make it a beautiful evening and we know you will help with that. thank you. >> thank you and now i would like to invite back up claudine cheng and the

apa heritage foundation representatives for a special presentation to the mayor, mayor breed please join us on stage. yes, you mayor. we only have one mayor here. . >> all right. so this is the year of the green wood dragon. i think we all know by now so we're very pleased -- we have many versions of the dragon and around town but we saw a very, very special and unique one. i would like to introduce our san francisco's own artist. her piece was really stunning and i think this year the community has

chosen for commissioner to present this plaque to you mayor. it would look great in the mayor's office. [applause] >> and maybe the commissioner would like to explain a little bit about this. maybe the artist would like to say a few words about this special piece. >> thank you so much. thank you so much for having me. i'm so excited here to present the year of the dragon art. this is a special piece because this is not generated by ai. i actually generate this -- i create this at work

by hand on apple computer using adobe software. it symbolizes the innovation spirit of san francisco bay area where technology meets humanity and liberal art and the east meets west and the tradition meets contemporary. i'm incredibly honor toed here and i echo every previous speaker and performers and i wish you all a happy lunar new year of the dragon. thank you so much. cheers. >> thank you. another round of applause. [applause] >> it certainly takes a village to create the celebrations across the city whether in the san francisco chinatown, in visitacion valley, sunset, excelsior, or ocean avenue and we see celebrations and thank all the committee members for

the help, claudine cheng in particular for all of the work, some of the folks at city hall and rob and others who did an amazing job to support this event. we're going to have our final performance today and this is a real treat. this is a dance from you know no nishia and will be performed by monali varaiya and this is performed for celebratory occasions in the temple.

(performance)

[applause] >> i want to take a name to thank all the wonderful performers today. let's give them another big round of applause. [applause] >> thank you mayor breed for your tireless support of events like this that celebrate the richness of our community. i know events like this couldn't happen without your support and strong advocacy and thank you for your support. i to thank all the community partners to make this event possible and of course think

claudine cheng and the people that do this on a yearly basis. a big round of applause. thank you. as malcolm said early year we're looking to see everyone at the lunar new year parade this year. it's going to be a big fun parade. come out and celebrate the city we all love. for more information on events in the city go to our website. this concludes tonight's program. happy new year. thank you so much for joining us. [applause]

you are watching san francisco rising with chris manor. today's special guest is sarah phillips. >> hi, i'm chris manors and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting rebuilding and eare imagineing the city. the guest today is sarah phillips the executive director of economic workforce development. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. let's talk about the city economic plan and specifically the city's road map to san francisco future. can you give a brief overview and update on progress? >> absolute e. in february 2023 mayor breed

released the roadmap comprised to 9 strategies to move the city forward understanding there was structural and lang lasting changing by the covid impact. 134 were shorter term impacts how people using transit downtown and coming out and are using small businesses, some of them remember long-term structural impacts. the way we work. how often we are in an office and how much office space companies who had headquartered in san francisco need. some of those were structural impacts how we stop. there has been a long-term change as online shopping takes up a greater share how we performs and covid-19 took a shift that would probably take 10 to 15 years happen and collapse what happened ofern the timeframe to 2 years so saw structural impacts how people shop. we have seen a lot of progress

rchlt we are 9 months in and significant things we have seen is efforts creating permitinant services and homes for people experiencing homelessness is dramatic. we increased the number of shelter beds dramatically and take-up of the beds dramatically, and there is more work to do. on the safety side there are exciting things that happened. we increased our police pay among the highest in the bay area which is a important thing for recruitment. police recruitment across the country is down so recruiting the best we can means we need to give a high pay set. august the highsh return in graduates. we see 75 decrease in retail theft and 50 percent reduction in car break ins which is

quality of life crime san francisco experienced so there is real progresses we are seeing on clean and safe sides. one thing important in the mayor roadmap we are not trying to get back to 2020 vision. i think covid showed having a downtown with people sitting at offices isn't the best downtown it can be. i think it is a opportunity to bring 24 hour life use downtown. >> music and concerts is a great way to bring people to a specific location. golden gate park we had lots of events in plazas throughout the city. can you talk about those and if there is upcoming events too? >> i think you touched on something key to the mayor road map. for san francisco and particularly san francisco downtown to move forward and be

successful as a great american city, it is about bringing people together because they want to be together not because they center to be together and music is a strong part that. the planet concert sear ries coming up and happening throughout the city not just golden gate park but downtown locations are a great example. there are smaller examples as well. the landing at--is a new plaza we constructed in the mayor roadmap where two streets come together akwraisant to a couple restaurants closed to cars in daytime, chairs and seating and throughout the week they have lunch time and evening music to bring people together after work. they participate in that. something we are working on setting up for next year which is really exciting is our sf live program and that will bring a full 2024 concert series where we match local

venues bringing their work and partnership to useian square, music center plaza and embark cadero. we will be able to announce concert series through the sf- >> you mentioned vacant to vibrant, that program has a lot of attention lately. can you talk generally what exactly that program is? >> yeah. so, we opened a program where we put out a call for landlords willing to offer groundfloor space for free for 3 to 6 month jz small business or storefront operators who had a proposal what they would do for 3 to 6 months. it is pilot. we had a incredible amount of interest. we had--i'm forgetting the

number of landlords, but more then we expected because we are in a place where commercial real estate understands they need to come to the table to help make our groundfloor lively and resulting in a transition where the groundfloor is seen less as a money making operation, but more as a leader to lease upper floors. if you have a active ground floor yields better on the other 80 percent of the building you are trying to lease. that was great, a lot of cooperation scr over 700 small business or operators responded to that call. it is pop up. there is no intention this would result in forever small businesses, but there is certainly a hope and i think what we are hearing, i don't have the final data, but there are 17 activators in 9 different spaces, some are colocated, which is why the difference, and out of those 9 spaces that are being leased for free, now 7 of them are in discussions for long-term

leases so the spaces continue. it is the program. we are hopeful to have a second and third traunch and hoping to pilot in other neighborhoods with other partners. it is not an inexpensive program because there is a lot of capital that goes into popping up for short amount of time but what we are seen is they visit the businesses, the businesses are successful and san francisco want to support this activation so hopeful to expand it. >> that's great. can you talk a bit about why piloting programs and testing things is so important? >> absolutely. you know, i would say not only the important generally but important in san francisco specifically. the benefit of pilot programs in the reasons they are really important here is, it allows us to try something and say, there may be consequence but let's understand those in real time rather then waiting to start a strategy while we think about them on paper and if they are

too great we can modify the program as we go. mta has absorbed the strategy whether a bike lane or other to figure how best to use the street? is this working? is it working for bikes and cars and buses? maybe not, let's switch it around and pilots have been important to oewd to our office particularly because we tend to have the ability and the mayor's support through the budget process to pilot things through request for proposals or rfp process where we can put out a small amount of funding, try activation and small public plaza, see if it works and i think the benefit there is, if it doesn't work we tried it and had the benefit of seeing real time and when it does work, we are able to uplift that and move into a permanent strategy

and that is where our agency turns over something we piloted to another agency because it is part of the city operating procedure. pilots also give people hope. when we have the short-term whether it is physical public plaza or activation that shows change is possible and allows them to vote for what they like. >> lastly, in lith light of the current ai boom, do you think there is a way to leverage those new changes to take a bunch of san francisco's status as a tech hub? >> i do, i think they work together. san francisco right now has a strong vacancy problem in our office space. and there is a back-story to that. our zoning downtown has not prevented other uses, in terms of permitting uses of the

multi-story building has been open including allowing residential but we put other barriers, cost and code barriers et cetera and what happened also during the height of our preevious boom is that, the amount that tech companies were willing to pay for office space bid everything out so we-without intentionally zoning a single use downtown, we de facto became a single use downtown and thereat is the opportunity you are pointing out. now because downtown was so convertible from work from home, particularly as tech based downtown was and how much companies put at the market in the office spaces we are seeing high vacancy now, all most 30 percent so there is lot of square feet but that presents a lot of opportunity. we have the ability to absorb expansion of the tech industry we are so strong at. we have seen over 800 thousand

square feet of ai space leased just in 2023 alone and there is still more demand out in the market, more ai companies looking for space so that is a growth spot absorbing some of the vac ancy. the opportunity too is prices for downtown lease s have also dropped and that opens up a breath of opportunity to a breath of companies that were priced out in 2018, 2019, 2020. san francisco has always been great at starting companies and allowing them to grow here. when our prices are too high it prevents that growth so now we are a super fertile ground for more start ups and invasion on the smaller end of the sector because they can come and enter our market and we have the space to offer. to talk about san francisco's assets and the leveraging that, we sit at the epicenter of really great university and educational institutions. we are between uc berkeley and stanford.

the graduates produced just from those institutions alone stay in the bay area and want to rise up and work here, provide a real opportunity for the start ups to build their companies and companies to grow here so we confident we will absorb a certain amount of office space with ai tech. with that, we are interested in increasing our human capital growing graduates. downtown university is something the mayor is open to pursuing and we are in conversations with uc berkeley we love to have as a partner in our downtown and then residential conversions are a great partner to that. as we build back the office space, people will want to live downtown again and we have a number buildings that can be converted to residential. the costs are high. mayor breed and her partners on the board made significant changes to reduce the costs. we waived fees for change of uses in the downtown area. there are code changes that

will make the conversions easier. there is a ballot measure on the march ballot that will attempt to reduce costs for those as well. it is ongoing process and none of those changes we talked about absent ai growth downtown, but institutional growth downtown, arts growth downtown and residential conversions downtown are long-term changes so one thing i want to say recollect i do think there is a opportunity per your question, but we also need to be patient because what we are talking about is is a real shift to the make-up of the downtown since from the growth it has been starting at since the turn of the century so that isn't a 2 year change, that is a 10 year change and we center to watch as it goes. >> thank you so much. i really appreciate you spending the time here today and your creative vision and positivity, so thank you so much. >> thanks so much for having me and hope you all downtown and shop. >> that is it for this episode.

for sfgovtv i'm chris manors, thanks >> my name is nary shay assistant fire marshal. assigned at fire pro investigation. i was born in hong kong age 8 me and my family- (indiscernible) i grew up in sunset area and all employment jaibs are with the sitdy of san francisco. when i was growing up my parents were traditional chinese parents. they emphasized school. they didt want us to join or play sports because they said school is the only thing that is important and want us to get a college education. i envisioned myself maybe being a doctor. after high school i went to

uc berkeley and major in bio chem. after college what i did happen is-what happened was i landed a job at ucsf and was a research associate there. one day me and my co worker were talking and don't know how it came about, they talked about fire department and someone mentioned i would be good for the fire department. even though i didn't play much sports i was still athletic. fire department, what will i do in the fire department because i didn't know there were women on the engines and trucks and didn't know the difference between engine and truck. the same night i was watching tv and there was a commercial of the fire department recruiting women firefighter and there was a woman all dressed

and tolds to go to division of training and 27 and a half year later i'm erhoo. when there is more presence of asian person, asian community it educates the population and helps people understand our community rchl ism i think people hate because they don't understand. i will tell the young women that definitely consider you know, a career in the fire service. don't just think it is just for men, because the fire service is not just suppression. suppression is one portion of it it. there are different parts of it. there is ems portion, the medical portion, the fire prevention portion, and there is also the fire investigative portion. all of the departments needs to work together to keep the city of safe, not just the citizens safe, also the first responders. i thinks the career in the fire department

is great. i start #d as a firefighter, i had the opportunity to also become a paramedic and then i landed in fire prevention. i'm very happy at fire prevention because not only am i able to enforce the code and make changes to help the citizen of san francisco be safe in their homes or place of business, but i think my work also make sure that my fellow firefighters and first respond ers, when they respond to a fire, the building is also safe for them.