amount of public education on this issue. people have, for years, talked about the fact that as a society, it doesn't make sense that we are criminalizing marijuana. there was the movement to decriminalizing marijuana that made it a misdemeanor. and it was often charge as a felony. there are lots of places where people are sentenced to jail and prison. hopefully through 19, calipf3 will lead the way. >> how will the revelations of the crime lab debacle4ma change discovery in representing the clients you have represented? >> these are excellent questions, don't get me started on the crime lab.

that was certainly an event at this year that shook the foundations of the criminal justice system. what happened, there were reports that a chemist who worked in a crime lab for many years, a longtime employee, was taking cocaine from the crime lab home and using w technician's sister. when we found out about it, it was several months later, and it was thought at the police had just learned about it, it turned outrv÷ that they d known about the problems with this chemist. $6the reason why it when you he a chemist that has access to it, it calls into question every case. ef@we have hundreds of drug cass that are tried every week

hall of justice. hall of justice. p'd found that some of the weights were not properly recorded. there was no way for us zñ$@&e%i that because we don't have access to the crime lab,éçx the evidence was often late when the drugs were brought in. cases were dismissed. #"vyou were asking about the legalization of drugsylj, and everyone would have thought that san francisco would have fallen in the oceantsm because 700 cass were dismissed. life wenté$. on as usual. the sad part of the debacle:j< s that justice was not served in those cases. ju$ose cases had to be reviewed by the office.

we had to gou"ç back and look at hundreds of cases that involved at thisáwk particular technician and contact the individuals in those cases and determine whether the case is needed topñe brought back to court. there were some cases where there were more sample that was reported, and there were cases where thuwere . it was hard to figure out what exactly had happened. (xéwe are still reeling from the impact from that, but we're making sure thatsdn every case s properly adjudicated. n$f>> what have you done to proe diversity on the public defender's desk? [ to me. whend of the things i pledged to do oft diverse offices in the country. i bej. i appointed the first woman

chief attorney. vññpeople might not know this, t the whole concept was originated by a woman, ]h and she lived inn jose, had aí2ç family, and wantd to become a lawyer. at thatñ time, women could not become lawyers. she had to change the law÷/ allow women to become lawyers. a+tthey used to say that only we males could become lawyers. she changed it to say person. s but fc minorities. she then s's under the law, andayd won her suit. she became the first woman california and became a criminal defense attorney.

she tried manykky cases from san francisco to los angeles. b of the public defender'su office. defender's office came into being. íxçit reminds me about the importance of diversity. wye50% of my management team are women. jxzthe office is led by women. almost 60% are women. , i am very proud of the diversity.

g twice received the bar association's award for both genders. % statement. m0fif you are not registered to vote, others to register as well. the5ñz actual deadline is octobr yoy of this overwhelmed public

servant who, you knowvotez do a as grown into one of the best offices in the country. we received the american bar t association's top award in 2006. and i want to take this opportunity to thank my staff for their hard work in representing the 25,0y(ñ people in san francisco every year the public defenders. )e to find us. thank you. >> on behalf of myself and the threeg of women voters and our partner organizes, sfgtv and the san francisco public library, our thanks to the candidate for participating and thanks for all of you for to yourself about your choices on november 2nd. good evening. [applause] >> great 2á great job.

>> welcome to coulterwire. the san francisco arts commission and department of public works has joined forces by battling graffiti by launching a new program called street smarts. the program connects established artist with private property owners to create a vibrant murals which is a proven an effective strategy for combating graffiti on private property. artists, along with his crew,

recently transformed a building turn to vandalism into a masterpiece. let us take a look. >> part of me has so much compassion for other graffiti artists. i understand why they are doing what they do. for me, it was something that was so hard to get out of. the lifestyle in general. j and tagging is addicting. i used to be on these routes. i have compassion for these guys. a lot of these guys are super talented. i am just trying to find the median to still be involved but still do my thing as an artist and work with the city, like we are doing. we are doing this wall in a

collaboration with the san francisco arts commission. basically what they are doing is trying to get rid of some of the tags and by putting up murals. they are cooking up graffiti artists with business owners. today, we are trying to get a lot of this wall buffed out and covered it. then we will spray on some sketches of what we are going to do. the rain is coming tomorrow. it should be here for a few days. we want others to know that there are artists working on this wall. the owner of this building, she has had to pay a lot of money to keep on paying over these attacks. >> we have paid as much as $400.

the fed typically have been talk about four times a year. typically, it happened right after we have been notified that we need to remove it. the painter will go up there and paid over the graffiti and make a perfect canvas for the tigers to come back. this program appeals to me because we were looking for a way to stop the taggers and the ugly graffiti. this program has beautiful work done by great artists that we thought would look great on our building. cameron talked about a few difficulties that he thought would be great. he called me and we talked about a theme of what he could do to the side of the building. he took some pictures and e-mail them to me. >> we are going to do all kinds of animals and plants. also, we are all to doing graffiti letters.

if you one other taggers to respect our, you have to respect graffiti art. >> if you had a lot of characters in it, you will get more respect from business owners and stuff like that, but letters will give you the respect of the graffiti artists. i have actually had in my name in this patch of seaweed. >> what if we did it a giant blue whale? >> i was going to do a puffer fish. >> the program for the children

is just so important. this is important, too, but you have to get at the kids to find out why they are doing it and direct them in more positive ways. i think what you are doing is great. >> have a good day. see you later. >> dana has been great, she has been a sport about the project. it was cool for her to see it and actually like it. as an artist, it means a lot to us. we are going to make it look really clean today. then it should be done. we have had this mural of for about six years and it has not been tagged. it really works as a deterrent. a lot of us graffiti artists

have been waiting for an opportunity like this, to express ourselves on walls. and there are so many walls around the city that could be beautified. i am so thankful that this opportunity has come about. >> my word encourage anyone who is thinking about it to really jump on the bandwagon. it is looking beautiful. when i came here this morning, i was notified that taggers were there last night, but fortunately, they did not touch our building. >> to check out the mural in person, stop by 65 polk road. in addition to being a street smarts artist, he has been teaching students about the value for public space and creating public art for the communities through a program called where art lives. for a full list of other in your locations and to learn more about the efforts to combat

vandalism, visit i'm the president of friends of mclaren park. it is one of the oldest neighborhood community park groups in san francisco. i give a lot of tours through the park. during those tours, a lot of the folks in the group will think of the park as very scary. it has a lot of hills, there's a lot of dense groves. once you get towards the center of the park you really lose your orientation. you are very much in a remote area. there are a lot of trees that shield your view from the urban setting. you would simply see different groves that gives you a sense of freedom, of being outdoors, not being burdened by the worries of city life. john mclaren had said that golden gate park was too far away. he proposed that we have a park

in the south end of the city. the campaign slogan was, people need this open space. one of the things that had to open is there were a lot of people who did a homestead here, about 25 different families. their property had to be bought up. so it took from 1928 to 1957 to buy up all the parcels of land that ended up in this 317 acres. the park, as a general rule, is heavily used in the mornings and the evenings. one of the favorite places is up by the upper reservoir because dogs get to go swim. it's extremely popular. many fights in the city, as you know, about dogs in parks. we have 317 acres and god knows there's plenty of room for both of us. man and his best friend. early in the morning people before they go to work will

walk their dogs or go on a jog themselves with their dogs. joggers love the park, there's 7 miles of hiking trails and there's off trail paths that hikers can take. all the recreational areas are heavily used on weekends. we have the group picnic area which should accommodate 200 people, tennis courts are full. it also has 3 playground areas. the ampitheater was built in 1972. it was the home of the first blues festival. given the fact that jerry garcia used to play in this park, he was from this neighborhood, everybody knows his reputation. we thought what a great thing it would be to have an ampitheater named after jerry garcia. that is a name that has panache. it brings people from all over

the bay area to the ampitheater. the calls that come in, we'd like to do a concert at the jerry garcia ampitheater and we do everything we can to accommodate them and help them because it gets peop into the park. people like a lot of color and that's what they call a park. other people don't. you have to try to reconcile all those different points of view. what should a park look like and what should it have? should it be manicured, should it be nice little cobblestones around all of the paths and like that. the biggest objective of course is getting people into the park to appreciate open space. whatever that's going to take to make them happy, to get them there, that's the main goal. if it takes a planter with flowers and stuff like that, fine. you know, so what? people need to get away from that urban rush and noise and this is a perfect place to do it. feedback is always amazement.

they don't believe that it's in san francisco. we have visitors who will say, i never knew this was here and i'm a native san franciscoan. they wonder how long it's been here. when i tell them next year we'll get to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the park,

>> i work with the department of environment and we are recycling oil. thank you. we can go into a refinery and we can use it again. they do oil changes and sell it anyway, so now they know when a ticket to a. half