75500. the phones answered during hours for clients to questions. >> >>

>> for those of you don't know me, i'm janet and tilts a pleasure to be here today for the irish flag raising the irish are optimists and irish flag raising i saw the sunshine slow the rain clouds that's what day i today is all about the irish helped shape san francisco and including buildings and engineering and science and medication and education, government and public service. my father thomas yes, ma'am

graduated in 1949 and immigrants found opportunity and warm welcome in san francisco and found the love of his life my motel whose family where in the county and my siblings and i were raised with great pride in the irish heritage and (microphone feedback) welcome to introduce to i your mayor of 0 san francisco mayor london breed (clapping.) all right. good afternoon everyone who is so great to be here with each and every one of you to celebrate the flag raising that represents are your bond and continued work and growth what did you irish community here in san francisco this this year's theme is unit

sf i appreciate leaning the united society and all the work they have done and continue to do to make sure we are building bridges we are working together and we're doing everything we can to move san francisco forward. it is so great to be here. with the lord mayor of clark mayor ma carbohydrate thank you. obeys here to celebrate this occasion and thank you to our council generally been a great addition to san francisco we appreciate and value our work relationships in the centuries of what it means san francisco has been celebrating st. patrick's day for one hundred and 73 years celebrated with the history and vacation dwelling the relationships bringing us toyota this this year this is anymore special lord mayor celebrating 40 years of the

sister relationship between san francisco and cork (clapping.) it is no wonder that so many of our learned are joining us i want to take a moment to recognize them thank you to the chief marianne for being here and corresponding this event (clapping.) thank you to the members of board of supervisors i ask you all to stand supervisor safai, supervisor dorsey and others. thank you very much. >> (clapping) and also want to thank our assembly member matt apprenticeship any for being here as well (clapping.) and finally, recognize that the public safety over there our paul our police chief bill scott

and fire chief jeanine nicole son and i know a beloved member of the irish community is here the former parade kathleen banning (clapping.) shout out to the residents bigger john who is joining us as well (clapping.) and the co-chair the sister committee for being here. (clapping.) and finally, i know that i served as grand marshal a while ago i feel like every single year i'm passing the torture i want to thank the folks for coming to san francisco 1979

developing his company more importantly continuing to be a course of inspiration and making sure that you are supporting you're one hundred and 40 people being sf as well as the cooperer field and treasure island thank you for your work and congratulations (clapping.) i want to also recognize the family of michael administering joining us and let you you know, his memory is recognized during this time as a here member and grand marshal we appreciate your work and commitment to the public service during the grand marshal dinner i met his son with the san francisco pd thank you for being here today (clapping.) so much xiechltd so much rich

history and amazing people lipped unit 19is part of the theme this year so as we celebrate it is about bringing communities together. it is about recommending our challenging times but also recognizing that san francisco and our irish community represents row silence coming up with the stronger and better than that than ever before so many of you with our stories of row silence and your stories around coming to san francisco before crocker or other places we know at that time was not easy but today we're here with over 67 thousand people of irish decent has the prior chief joan

talked about public service and police officers and firefighters and people who have established their own businesses and construction companies engineering and many people who helped to lead and would build the city and county of san francisco guy we recognition and recognize the history and in order to move our city forward and i want to ask the lord mayor of crocker as well as the council general to come down to accept that official proclamation. that cement we'll officially proclaim that irish-american friendship today in the city and county of san francisco (clapping.) oh, wait a minute what i'm a news lerlt and change it is now

officially irish-american heritage month in san francisco (clapping.) to celebrate the most we're going to light city hall up in green make sure i come back to get our pictures and in is 16 the day we host one of the biggest st. patrick's day in the united states light city hall up in green make sure you join us and have a wonderful time thank you all so much. >> (clapping) all right.

>> thank you. >> thank you, mayor london breed and now like to ask council general from ireland to come up this is the month (clapping.) thank you, thank you joanne the state of an the overview of happy st. patrick's day we're celebrating on this we have setting of this great home it is great thourn. thank you. >> today you read the irish side over flag over city hall we celebrate the connections to this great city to a home of a wonderful mix of the people's where there is unit and comfort and diversity and heritage poisoning success and failure and resiliency a city that is long home for the irish a

community helped to shape and forge many relationships in this city thank you, mayor london breed i was reminded i remain jealous this year for the lord mayor and i don't think none jealous for any jacket but mayor, i witnessed the work for the people across the city and little irish and thank you for making in day special for st. patrick's day for us in the irish community. and want to thank you to the team miriam and everyone involved in city hall thank you to the supervisors we had a great day not board yesterday thank you, commissioner chambers for the presentations in city hall that will continue and to liam and

the board of directors of the united irish society thank you for your work to marry that the st. patrick's day celebrated and the entire irish for the relationships with that country and city and at the as phone call o for the support for my family and i offer decades almost after a year and a half and looking forward to as the mayor referenced to under united 70 sf sophomore the grand marshal tom very well-deserved tom and you're good people made a tremendous quack in the city and region thank you for that and also to the family of honoree grand marshal murphy thank you for being here a wonderful honor to be the

honorees grand marshal and other big year forever irish and this region 40 years of the history relationship i'm deliberated that underlines the relationship and significant progress and culture center on 2025 and progress with the common america and have the championship the biggest championship in the united states this year and in the city and in august and you might see me there as well this is a year the hundred anniversary of diplomatic relationships with the united states a very special relationship and talk about on that over the coming days and weeks st. patrick's day we promote ireland and

relationships we just conducted a decade of that marked the political body island of ireland some dark and some light by this year our theme is looking at the ireland in the future and in the world he threw the lens of our youth that is the theme the irish government theme across the united states and this year but more importantly let's joy ourselves today and joy ourselves for the next few week thank you, thank you (clapping). >> now like to perfect segue our first performance is by cal

tick voices enjoy. >> (music).

>> (singing).

>> and i shall -

(clapping.) thank you cal tick voices a round of applause (clapping.) and next gives me great pleasure speaking with marty joe owner since 1963 the year before i was born murphy school of dance led by mary joe murphy.

>> (music).

>> (clapping) thank you to the murphy school dancers another round of applause the mayor asked if i

would do the steps maybe after an irish coffee i'll to ask the lord mayor, i had the pleasure to meet last time and mary please join me at the podium welcome. >> dear mayor london breed dear members of board of supervisors and members of london breed and exclusive members of city hall i brought jan as your honored guests thank you, so, so much for hosting this very, very important encouragement event and my dear friends i have if i may unfortunately, raise ireland's flag to recognize this day this is a bold much meaning reflection recommending the

celebration of irish culture to the identity and particular events and journeys of irish people across kirnts of time and event rfkdz on the resilience and ambition and attitudes and mechanisms a deep sense of pride with an emotional pride sense of hope for not giving up in the face of challenge. my dear friends ultimately so many to learn from such stories that's the first message and not judge the irish stories but the other stories across the world not just in san francisco i didn't across the world as well and my dear friends my second message has before you get us on

an important journey and democracy i talked about with mayor london breed with threatened of democracy our prirn or partnership is a light of opportunities and for me those opportunities are together more in a devoted world more before and the restoring is one of the bridging poem to the and has inspired and mature benefits of projects and over the last 40 years and also like to thank the san francisco crocker committee for their hard work with your executives and for hard work and volunteerism and so my second message is that we purview past years since dianne feinstein and the lord mayor john signed

agreements and joan in crocker and send him our best wishes and always remember dianne feinstein and for her work and for international democracy but still much to do we need to continue our journal today and many roads and my third message my dear friends to ask the festivities in preparation for the anniversary a song has been stuck in my head but the lyrics to the beautiful scenery and bringing san francisco indeed a song for several years on the chart in ireland since 1984 so this is dedicated to you and i have no doubt other mayors so

the people in the audience who are from ireland if you know this walking. were falcons build their nests and they fly they know the call of firemen in any breasts and against the sky where twisted rock they run down to the sea and living on the western shore for the sunset ask for anymore he stood by there is a lot to see and sank. >> song for ireland and talking along the day try to make you stay. and joe how have

news and singing songs to past the night away and watch the silver dancing in the sun and living on your western shore for the sunset ask for more i stood by your atlantic sea and sank a song for ireland and i sink a song for ireland (clapping.) thank you so much. >> (clapping) (laughter). >> to conclude dear mayor london breed and my friends let's reflective on the learning

for the racing of the flag and continue to renew our journal together in the relationships and let's remain true friends as is lyrics sank thank you for the opportunity to address you in that beautiful, beautiful palace (clapping.) thank you, mayor. mccarthy if you tire you can go to the entertainment industry and [off mic.] >> beautiful, beautiful. >> charming before i call up the next speaker someone i want to introduce when a who has met joan someone i know since i was a little girl and my family and father and wonderful public sovereignty this is deputy chief

former president please stand dermot (clapping) thank you. >> thanks for what you've done for the city i love this city big city and small town i went to high school with his drought terry require we're getting close towards of end i'd like to make sure we introduce liam frost did a great job of the irish society (clapping.) ethic, of course, i get to follow the talented sirens and all the speakers i'm the president of units irish society of san francisco and demeanor met was my procedures i want to

say wow. one hundred and 73 years for the irish have been celebrating and it was brought to our attention no longer the same day but sfaipd for the month of mark and this can only happen from when one hundred and 74 years ago like our tom and you decided to get to the and celebrate the irish heritage and could angle last this many years have mayors will i london breed that welcome us with the irish flag raising and doing everything we can to celebrate our parade so mayor london breed and her staff foster and others helped to organize this and then the council general smith and

jennifer is the advice council all those people make piano last one hundred and 73 years and i'd like to um, supervisor supervisor stefani for putting on the reception and continue the staff with joe and others organizing and any ask chris to council u come up and give little mayor a token of our appreciation for having us a vase in ireland (clapping) [off mic.] >> there we go. >> put this on the shelf. >> any for the parade every

year this gongs and not like and we can do better the only people that know there is a hip and now have jan i'm not sure james understood how much work but thank you to james and his family for allowing him to do all that work (clapping.) as well as the whole board of units irish sovereignty i was handed this board and like being on a big ship and all i have to do it stay out of the way and every year everything is done the business the hospital and the day cape county of los angeles day and looking to ask the rose committee to one of our events to make that agent better and next to get more people to support this.

>> put own this parade we need a lot of help in the city and got nick with the sf mta rec and park phil and others and the staff and, of course, jeanine nicholson and asking a lot of them to do the work we appreciate that. >> (clapping) you know, there is a boss but are face to face with the captain jason from northern station and their staff of a toby moore and frank and you accessibility adam shaw. when we have those meetings we're sitting across the table those are the ones that gets this done for one hundred and 73 years i appreciate the city employees

taking care of of us so once again thanks (clapping.) i'd like to congratulate and thank our grand marshall tom and his wife may mary and as honoreey grand marshal it is huge honor to be a grand marshal of san francisco but a lot of work we ask a lot of those people most of these guys want to be in the background we ask them to go on tv and they're not me but they do that and we appreciate that that's why we're honoring people like them and past fire chief joann that's she talked about mercy hospital and mike murphys kids behind me - i

worked with mike murphy with my son at bayview station a small town and it's amazing i get to honor people like. so thank you, (clapping.) and as always have to thank my wife i get a lot of phone calls she looked me and roles her eyes okay, honey. the support i get from here is amazing. and i appreciate and love my wife and want to shout out also to every board member they in the same boat so thank you, (clapping.) this is the season to celebrate being irish and i invite everyone to become irish for the season and let us unit san

francisco. thank you. (clapping.) thank you, liam. >> this concludes this part of ceremony and irish coffee or two i know again, the generosity of supervisor stefani down the hall you on your doors we appreciate that thank you. . thank you. >> um, thank you, mayor london breed and i was going to say i want to congratulate tom hunt a your family as grand marshal the wonderful experience and mike murphy thank you, ferry the attracts to our city before we conclude mayor, i the president to briefly count the voices have you come up for a

certificate. >> (laughter.) >> this is mary who oversees cal tick voices (clapping.) i'm going out a limp are i still principal at sanity (rustling of papers.) and wonderful principal and next mary joe murphy and school of dance (clapping.) great job.

>> (clapping) thank you, everyone for joining us happy st. patrick's day and month thank you, london breed. >> good [♪♪♪]

>> my family's starts in mexico in a small town. my parents are from a very, very small town. so small, that my dad's brother is married to one of my mom's sisters. it's tha. a lot of folks from that town are here in the city.

like most immigrant families, my parents wanted a better life for us. my dad came out here first. i think i was almost two-years-old when he sent for us. my mom and myself came out here. we moved to san francisco early on. in the mission district and moved out to daily city and bounced back to san francisco. we lived across the street from the ups building. for me, when my earliest memories were the big brown trucks driving up and down the street keeping us awake at night. when i was seven-years-old and i'm in charge of making sure we get on the bus on time to get to school. i have to make sure that we do our homework. it's a lot of responsibility for a kid. the weekends were always for family. we used to get together and whether we used to go watch a movie at the new mission theater and then afterwards going to kentucky fried chicken. that was big for us. we get kentucky fried chicken on sunday. whoa! go crazy! so for me, home is having

something where you are all together. whether it's just together for dinner or whether it's together for breakfast or sharing a special moment at the holidays. whether it's thanksgiving or christmas or birthdays. that is home. being so close to berkley and oakland and san francisco, there's a line. here you don't see a line. even though you see someone that's different from you, they're equal. you've always seen that. a rainbow of colors, a ryan bow of personalities. when you think about it you are supposed to be protecting the kids. they have dreams. they have aspirations. they have goals. and you are take that away from them. right now, the price is a hard fight. they're determined. i mean, these kids, you have to applaud them.

their heart is in the right place. there's hope. i mean, out here with the things changing everyday, you just hope the next administration makes a change that makes things right. right now there's a lot of changes on a lot of different levels. the only thing you hope for is for the future of these young kids and young folks that are getting into politics to make the right move and for the folks who can't speak. >> dy mind motion. >> even though we have a lot of fighters, there's a lot of voice less folks and their voiceless because they're scared. >> making to may grandkids a program all about pop ups, artists, non profits small business in into vacant downtown throughout the area for a three to 6 months

engagement. >> i think san francisco is really bright and i wanted to be a part of it revitalization. >> i'm hillary, the owner of [indiscernible] pizza. vacant and vibrant got into safe downtown we never could have gotten into pre-pandemic. we thought about opening downtown but couldn't afford it and a landlord [indiscernible] this was a awesome opportunity for us to get our foot in here. >> the agency is the marriage between a conventional art gallery and fine art agency. i'm victor gonzalez the founder of gcs agency.

thes program is especially important for small business because it extended huge life line of resources, but also expertise from the people that have gathered around the vacant to vibrant program. it is allowed small businesses to pop up in spaces that have previously been fully unaccessible or just out of budget. vacant to vibrant was funded by a grant from the office of economic workforce development that was part of the mayor's economic recovery budget last year so we funded our non profit partners new deal who managed the process getting folks into these spaces. >> [indiscernible] have been tireless for all of us down here and it has been incredible. certainly never seen the kind of assistance from the city that vacant to vibrant has given us, for sure.

>> vacant to ibvooerant is a important program because it just has the opportunity to build excitement what downtown could be. it is change the narrative talking about ground floor vacancy and office vacancy to talking about the amazing network of small scale entrepreneur, [indiscernible] >> this is a huge opportunity that is really happy about because it has given me space to showcase all the work i have been doing over the past few years, to have a space i can call my own for a extended period of time has been, i mean, it is incredible. >> big reason why i do this is specific to empower artist. there are a lot of people in san francisco that have really great ideas that have the work ethics, they just don't have those opportunities presented, so this has been huge lifeline i think for entrepreneurs and

small businesses. >> this was a great program for us. it has [indiscernible] opening the site. we benefited from it and i think because there is diverse and different [indiscernible] able to be down here that everybody kind of benefits from it. >> >> >> my name is alex sinclair of willow on the green in san francisco. we are the only british tea shop

on the west coast and focused on high quality luxury goods from the u.k. and we have teas and baked goods. we came up with the name because willow is made with baskets and the parklett, a willow green and that is a picnic in the park. i have come up with the idea because i have lived in the neighborhood for a year. seven years ago we had a tea shop. during covid we needed to have a new flavor and rejuvenate the business. we are between two beautiful businesses. i realized with the shop opening next to the bakery, we had a beautiful tea shop in the area.

we started with british teas and want to support local tea makers in the local area. and once you have cheese and biscuits need tea and jam and lemon curd and chocolate and all of these parts basically imported from the u.k. our most popular products come from wales. it's an extra cheddar and next popular product is a jam made with alpine strawberry. so you get a taste of a nice strawberry. this is about supporting cheese makers and business in the area and women-owned businesses

around the world and always want to support the community. we support concerts, we support charities and come to the aid to those in need such as the british society and the san francisco society and the -- >> if you have never had british cheese, i recommend you come in on weekend. all of our staff are highly knowledgeable of all of our products and we are really passionate about what we do here and gives you a chance to explore our culture and food and our values. i encourage you to come to the inner sunset with a beautiful park to be young and academy of sciences here. come to the shop. we have beautiful baskets and blankets so you can enjoy this wonderful nature and you can support these

wonderful businesses out here. >> >> you are watching san francisco rising with chris manner. today's special guest is carla short. >> hi, i'm chris manner and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting rebuilding and reimagining the city. our guest is carla short the intric director of public works and here to talk about the storms we had and much more. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. >> great to have you. let's start by talking about the storms that started beginning of the year. there fsh a lot of clean up recovery and remediation. can you talk about what your team did? >> sure. the 17 inches of rain we got starting on new year's

eve through the first 2 and a half weeks of january made it one of the wettest periods in recorded history for san francisco, so as you imagine we had a lot of work to do. we gave out more then 31 thousand sand bags, we were operating all most non stop from new year's eve to san francisco residents and businesses out of our operation yard and frequently working thin rain so it was a beautiful dance to watch. we had a corio graphed where people drive in the stop and load with san dags and get on it way so thats was the most visible thij weez had to do. responded to all most a thousand calls for localized flooding for the corner of the street with catch basin. our team trying to address that. we clear and pick up anything to block and it hopefully get the flooding to go down. if we are able to respond we

call in the san francisco pub utility system and are responsible for the sewer system under so they bring ing vack trucks that vacuum out debris inside the catch basin. we also dealt with lots and lots of calls about trees and tree limbs down. i think we actually faired better then some other places in terms of loss of full trees. we did have whole tree failures and that is not that uncumin with super satch waited soil conditions. we had over 950 calls about trees or tree limbs down. a lot of calls were about loss of a limb and we could save the tree. we are still assessing the data to figure how many were full tree failures versus limb failure. >> also had land movement too. the great highway comes to mind. what is your approach to managing rock mud and land slides? >> that is a great question. we had 28 different slides over the course of that

period. it is kind of a interesting process, so the first step is we have our geotechnical or structural engineers take a look to see is the hillside safe, do we need to stabilize it in some way or just need to do some cleanup? once they made their assessment they will recommend the next steps. often times to protect public safety we will place k rails the giant concrete rails at the base omthe slide area to make sure that any debris doesn't get on the edroway and bring ing the heavy equipment to scoop up on the ground and move off the roadway and try to open the roadway. some cases, we will actually inject some rocks or other stabilizing forces either into the slide area or sometimes below the roadway. right now there is nothing that's unstable out there but be are keeping a close eye on the areas including the gray highway area. >> right, right. well, so

talking about the storms in the city response, brings us to southeast community scepter when there is rain remediation projects going on. can you talk about the inconstruction project kblrks that is a favorite project. a beautiful new community facility. we were involved in pretty much every aspect of developing that project for the public utility commission. they were a client. we design project management and construction management and the landscape design for that project. and one thing that we included was storm water management throughout the entire project site. so, that project encapturealize the rain water that lands on the roof and flows into the landscape where we have rain gardens so intent is slow the water down to and give areas to collect

to percolate into the ground rather then the sewer system. when we have sewers that are overloaded, because our rain water mixes with the sewer treatment storm sewer system, we actually can end up dist charging into the bay which we dont want to do. anything we can do to just prevent those combined sewers from overpm loaded is a good thing and in this case allows the water to collect onsite and percolate to the ground which is the best way to manage the storm water and it is beautiful and provides habitat. i encourage everybody to see it. it is special place. >> that's great. there was recently news about how city (indiscernible) powered by steam, which is super unusual i think. i understand public works ablgtually does the maintenance on the system. can you just talk about that a bit? >> sure. that is a unusual situation. that steam loop was actually built when the city

was recovering from the 1906 earthquake. it only provides to steam about 4 buildings in civic center but that is how we keep buildings like city hall warm. the steam goes into the radiators and provides the heat. it is a old system and if you see steam billowing out of the man holes or other spaces, that is indication of a leak actually. we spend a lot of time trying to fix the leaks because it's a old system. it is managed by the real estate department and at one point they were looking trying to replace the whole thing but think that is a massive undertaking so now they focus on making as needed repair said. we did a big repair on growth street where we spent a month and a half working on the known leaks s in the area. it is a very tight spot

and have to use blow torches to seal up the leak so a intense operation and seeing more leaks on polk street so we will be out there once it warms up to fix the leaks. >> excellent. let's discuss what is the reunifiquation of public works. there fsh a proposal or plan to split off the division, called the street and sanitation. now that has been shelved and public works is going to just retain being a single entity. can you talk through the process? >> sure. yeah. the original proposal was a ballot measure voted on to split the department into 2. it basically create the department of sanitation and streets that was really going to incompass all our operation divisions so it was a street cleaning department but encompass everything we refer to as operations. when we worked preparing for that

split with the city administrator office, we found there were actually 91 what we call touch points between the operations work and our engineering and architecture side, so we really felt like it could be very difficult to split into two departments. we have so many areas of overlap. there was a new ballot measure last november to reunit the department. technically we split october one and did split in some ways. we did put on hold some of the behind the scenes things like rebranding all the vehicle jz giving everyone a new e-mail address in the sanitation and streets department, but on january 1 of 2023 we came back together so we are reunited i want sing the peaches and purb song and think it is a good thing for the 91 areas of overlap. we

making #2c3w50d use of the research. preparing for the split. looking at all the touch points and trying to strengthen the department so we are more streamlined and efficient. one of the most important component from the original ballot measure is commission oversight. we retained two commissions, the public works commission which oversee the over-all department and approve the budget and contracts. and sanitation and street commission and their mandate focus on policy and deliverable for street cleaning and basically the operation division. reporting to them regularly how we are doing, we think will help make sure we are as efficient and effective as we can be as a department. >> that sounds great. thank you so much for coming and talking to me today and appreciate the time you have given. >> thank you so much for having me. it was a pleasure. >> that is it for this

episode. you are watching san francisco rising. the meeting began at 9:03 a.m. secretary fuller, please call the roll. good morning. please respond with here or present lynn newhouse, eagle. present. commissioner newhouse siegel is present. warren post here. chair. post is present. gerald turner is not here, paul wolford present. commissioner wolfor