>> i just want to make a public statement to acknowledge that appointments to the police commission and any commission which is a policy-making body is very important. i want to encourage about keep in front of our minds the importance of not only to elect women, but to work to get more women appointed to these bodies that help make legislative decisions for our city and county of san francisco. >> i am from san francisco. i grew up in the local neighborhood. i did my under deprad wait work at fisk university, where i studied political science with a concentration in public administration and worked eight years largely in the public sector. then i earned a master's degree from carnegie melon in pittsburg, pennsylvania. i spent some time as assistant executive director for a

non-profit. we did work if a lot of kids in the neighborhood. i have done fundraising for candidates and issues. i have experience with the federal reserve bank of san francisco. when i look around my neighborhood and see the changes that are happening, i so there is no neighborhood grocery store. i see that small businesses in particular are coming and going, and they haven't been able to really sustain themselves. from my work experience in working for the city in the mayor's office as well as in the non-profit, i had a good sense as to what some of the challenges were. when i look in the future, i could see more challenges coming. i thought i had a set of experiences and more importantly a passion and desire to serve. >> i understand that no one wants to have their programs cut. of course not. i also want everyone here to understand that no one up here wants to cut programs because they don't care about the population being served. there are no value ains here. we are all on the same team. it is a tough situation, as we

are here so that we can begin the work together. >> i am actually more forward thinking. for me it is less about being left or right, or in this town, moderate or progressive. it is really about the issues and about creating policies that will have a sustainable and lasting positive impact on the families that live here. it is very costly and difficult to do business in sfrinls, to raise your children in san francisco, and i would like to have a voice at that table to really create policies that will minimize that san francisco is not a big business-friendly city. i think we started to go in the wrong direction. the reason why we started walking down that path largely was because of political ideology. when you deal with me, you are dealing with facts, less than politics. i really want to have a positive impact on the city overall. >> good afternoon, everyone. how are you? >> good. >> it's a nice day today. thank you for coming out to our community event. please give a round of

[applause] to them. we have a lot of development going on. you see how lovely leland street looks. do you like it? >> yes. >> beautiful, isn't it? we are going to continue. we have a library that is going to be opening up in june. that's right. so i will see you all there at the library. there is a lot of activity going on. it is important we remain connected and engaged. >> would you mind if we were to pull the seniors together and translate for me in a mini meeting? >> yes, sir. >> what we are going ready to do is we are going to have a quick little mini meeting to -- because we didn't translate my short message before. >> i just want to say i want to welcome everyone to the event. >> we have folks in visitation valley only talking with visitation valley. we have folks in bayview again

only talking in a very small corridor of 3rd straight and the merchant corridor. we don't have people talking to the hill merchant association, doing patch. all these fragrmented conversations are happening, largely talking about the same thing, crime, keeping the streets clean, supporting sbaubs. that is something i made a concerted effort on the campaign to build bridges. >> along third street, dog patch, and everyone along the cord door has the same complaint. >> i have the same complaint. >> we have the third street merchant corridor and an opportunity to revite lies what i consider to be the main artery of the business district. it is a pretty long street. there is a lot of opportunity there. let's not squander that. when we recruit businesses, we want it to be a healthy mix that reflects the cultural

history of the southeast part of the city. we are all human, and how to connect with that human spirit, whether you are in public housing, own your own property, or if your asian, african-american, male or female, we are really a community. when we start to realize and move in the direction of being humans and having this human experience and connecting together, really if you will, being each other's keeper, then san francisco really begins to continue to thrive.

after school at 3. . 30 i hop on the bus and go to work with kids. i didn't realize i was going to get up that early for the rest of my life. >> it's hard to get good jobs. you can get well paid working at

restaurants i was making good money that's not my 50 year goal working as a waitress. it would be better to have something to fall back on i wanted something where i would in 10 years accumulate properties. >> 3 months is a long time to be busy all day. i'm putting myself further in debt with the understanding it's worth the sacrifice. eating raman for 3 months. it's not fun but i think it will be worth it. >> we all want to graduate we are all tired of this class. been 11 weeks. one more week to go. >> i need to get these mraps out. >> my purpose is to get the

recruits prepared for the construction training. >> what you do is get a 2 by 6 sitting on the saw horses. we will cut 10 feet. everybody going to get one and you measure up 6 inches. you sure you got 8 feet. >> as a carpenter you have to let them know what's expected and they need to know the stuff to get going on the trades. >> the main thing they need to know is how to carry the stuff on the job and the hussle. >> you can't work with the gloves. >> my part is a small part. my part is the best part. the part that really teaches them how to go out and fish rather than go to the fish market. my job is how to teach them to fish when the fish market is

closed. >> this requires i thinking. when you go on the job site they will pay you 20-15, dollars an hour you have to think and figure stuff out and get the jobs done in a record time. >> one of the things we try to teach with the construction trades is your attitude going to work. how employers look on new workers and it's about profitability and productivity. it's not how much swings it takes to drive, you know, ita about do you have the right attitude? can you show up on time? can you make the company money? >> 12.5 times 15. >> i don't want you to use the calculator. >> the students go through

approximately 420 some hours of training. we operate at the campus of the community college a 12 week, full time program, 7-3:30. >> if you were going to figure out how much [inaudible] you need you rounding up. >> average age of individuals in the trades is in the 40's from what we are told. in the 50's quite frankly those folks are getting ready to retire. we see a void. >> the average is making 60-80 thousand dollar a year more with benefits much it's hard work i will not lie. >> if you like working with your hands and creative and you look at a building and say, i did that finish and that building is there for a hundred years. come to my program you will work for anyone in the country.

>> we send people to the dry waller the carpenters and the plummers. >> we are conscious who we give a job referral to. >> we look at the skills part as far as hayou do with a hammer and nail there are other components to be able to be a team player. be able to take directs and be precise and punctual things like this you need to help you keep your jobs. >> we will looking at the interviews today and doing the critiquing from the papers. >> i was thinking last week we

were talking ask that was so much thinking going on about the interview and how i was going to do it. >> i feel like, me, as an african-american woman and older woman with children i feel i have to set an example. a lot of people don't know how to deal with anger and conflicts. the kids here look up to me. if i do something and don't set an example then they are going to follow. since i've been a positive roll model, coming to school everyday. some of those kids pick up on that and i see the improvement in them. >> one thing that i knew but the class helped reinstate is that you have to check yourself. we are all grown adults. >> i try to be motivated in

everything i do in my life. if you don't encourage yourself to do something or do things for yourself you can't expect somebody else will do it for you. some people didn't make it to class because they have a bad attitude and decided it wasn't worth it. >> when you do something you have to understand why you are doing it and you can't say and come in and say, i will make good money. construction's not like that you have to want to do it because it's not aedz work. you have to want to get up and go to work and do physical labor for 8 hourses. >> i lived next to biotechnology companies and was a recruiter. i was getting tired and felt sluggish. >> i knew from the first day we were outside being outside having fun, climboth ladder and hammer and the physical labor i

knew it was something i would enjoy. to say i put 15 years into this and not retire a multimillionaire but retire healthy and feel good about the work i have done. >> the greatest accomplishment is you drive by a building or bridge and say, i helped build that bridge or helped build the building on market street. the most greatest reward for me is i taught that student to work on the bay bridge. taught the student operating the crane that student was in my class.

>> our goal is to have a core group of people, we are hoping it's over 50 percent of your grads complete and become journey people andup standing good roll models and citizens. the largest public works our city has season in many years going on now the private project that 1 rincon hill. huge project. we had 5 or 6 people work on that project thus far. the rebuilding of the academy of science in golden gate park. the rebuilding of our public hospital laguna honda this is on going work with the same contract ors that move successful apprentices from one project to another and keep them working for several years. the construction workers of the future to be the superintendents the construction owners.

that's the perfect thing there. that's success.