[bell ringing] >> actually, i would ask that -- >> thank you. thank you. president olague: if you can start coming up to the mic if i called your name. president olague: he was next. we called him. he was in the first three. >> i was called. good afternoon, commissioners. and i don't need -- president olague: great. >> i don't need a translator. my name is andy yu and i live at 840 jackson street with my 86-year-old mother. i am not against at&t and in fact, i have at&t cell phone for over 10 years, but i was surprised to hear that they're going to put a strong an the --

big antenna on top of the chinese hospital directly across from the building. the reason is i am not surprised they need for cell phone and more coverage and all that, but as mr. sugaya said, san francisco has a topography and so five-story building, chinese hospital, is like the first floor and only a block up. and so why put such a strong antenna on such a short building in a mostly residential neighborhood when half of your radiation is only useful and the other just walk by other -- the other is blocked by other buildings. i don't understand the rationale for that particular site. i am against putting that antenna on top of the chinese

hospital for this reason because in sfrafr san francisco there is to many buildings, taller buildings, and so many other locations in terms of topography is much taller than the chinese hospital. chinese hospital is in the middle of the chinatown which is historical area we want it to be served. thank you. president olague: thank you. if i called your name, you can start coming up to the mic. and not everyone will need a translator. >> commissioners, my name is sandra and i am a resident of jackson street. and many residents cannot come today. i am here to present 500 signatures of labels of

residents from jackson street that are within approximately 300 feet to oppose this at&t project. and property owners and cell phone providers and doctors and nurses and this is the high density popul residents believe that installing heavy industrial antenna on rooftop of chinese hospital is neither desirable nor necessary for the following. first, of the 500 signatures collected on this petition, 140 are currently at&t cell phone users in the area. 90% of them say they receive good reception already. therefore, it's not necessary to

install more antenna in the area. secondly, another wireless company is facing significant monthly payment to the landlord to install antenna on the roof top. at&t already has so many antennas installed in the neighborhood. and complete cell phone company and there are more and more antennas to be installed. and the number in the neighborhood. please consider opposing the installation. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i work in the school site that's very near the hospital. and we interviewed one of our colleagues, may lee, and she is

an at&t wireless customer and so we asked her to conduct this experiment. she was on the third floor of a four-story building in the area. she was in the inner portion of the room, 20 feet from the window. she kept her voicemail reception, it was fine. she used some of her favorite apps like wikipedia, the dictionary, movies and film previews and everything is fine. she also drives to work and she often parks on the street, but so while she is in her car she finds that reception is also very good. she doesn't have any problems with reception in chinatown around her work site which is in chinatown, so she said she gets much better reception here in chinatown than she does from her home in a different county.

i have a second colleague quincy lee and she also works near the chinese hospital area and she has been using her cell phone in the area for 10 years and gets very good reception inside the building and on the street. and there is knowledge of people who have come here to oppose the installation. can you stand? [bell ringing] >> good afternoon, president olague, vice president miguel, and fellow commissioners.

my name is winnie and i am a manager for the elderly one-stop and we support at&t deploying technology in chinatown. wireless is the future of communications, mobile payments, entertainment, and chinatown must not be left behind. san francisco needs the jobs that better technology will create, so please approve at&t's investment in our community. thank you. >> hello. [speaking chinese]

>> hello, i live on jackson street across from the chinese hospital. the area we are talking about is quite small and crowded. [speaking chinese] >> with such a small place, you need to install nine antennas, powerful ones, for that matter, and i believe that emission of

the radiation will greatly affect our health, so i am here to oppose the installation. thank you. president olague: mimmi wong. >> good afternoon. my name is wong chi. [speaking chinese] >> i'm learning english in san francisco. [speaking chinese] >> myself and my class mates are strongly opposing to the at&t installation of the antenna.

>> i believe it will hurt the appearance of the building for chinatown generally and the fact that we are already well powered as far as our wireless is concerned. [speaking chinese] >> we can turn about nine of the antennas that being installed would greatly enhance the radiation. we hope that at&t will abolish

their plan. >> thank you. >> and take back their plans. thank you. >> i will just keep calling names. if you heard your name, start coming up to the mic. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am randall lo and am related, of course, to my wife, who owns a small grocery store at the corner of jackson and powell street. i am opposed to the installation

of this installation on chinese hospital and it is basically for this reason. it is ugly. these towers are going up all over the city. and they are just tacked onto the side of the buildings or ill pailed on the top of buildings and even though i am an at&t customer and enjoy all the high-tech abilities of smartphones, etc., there has to be a better way of deployed this kind of technology. and can you just imagine on my parish, st. peter and paul's, if we stuck that nine array up there between the two towers? i am sure the father would have something to say about it. or since i do live within the shadow of clay tower, and to bolt one of the towers right up the side and it has a perfect vantage point for coverage. but that doesn't happen, does

it? why in equally historic architecturally historic neighborhood of chinatown are these arrays being put up? i remind you that they're already in that particular area four that i can count of already. so i guess that was the time. and i thank you very much for listening to my comments and once again ask you to vote no on approval of this plan. thank you very much. president olague: thank you. >> madam president, let me say that the first chime is a 30-second warning -- president olague: there's two bells just so you know. secretary avery: the first one is a 30-second warning and the second your time is up. >> i would like to clear something up that this is not

organized by anything, anyone, or any group. this is spontaneous organization from the residents and workers of the neighborhood. i work in the neighborhood. and we are address iing whether this facility is necessary, compatible, or desirable. and come patable with the predominantly residential neighborhood and chinatown is one of the most densely populated areas in the whole country. and there are a lot of movements in structures nearby. and the battle used in conjunction with the potential fire hazard and i have examples from the manuals of the kinds o know the exact kinds of batteries they are for the commissioners to take a look at and these are serious -- these

represent serious industrial possibilities for industrial accidents and they use hydrogen and is highly explosive. and we're talking about very densely populated neighborhood which is not easy to get fire crews into and out of and hydrogen gas is extremely explosive and the industrial commercial wireless facilities with the potential for fire hazard and the chinatown coverage is not fully adequate and at&t itself sells the product. the at&t 3g microcell which is "up to 5 bar coverage in your home." this antenna proposal is a speculative business practice

and subjects the -- president olague: thank you, sir. >> there is no obligation to permit this. president olague: thank you. is there any additional public comment? i don't know if you wanted to say something. seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore. commissioner moore: i would like to ask the at&t representative who mentioned about neighborhood meetings and mentioned they were conducted in mandarin. and the prevailing language of the chinese population in san francisco is cantonese and if you had that in mandarin, i am not surprise we see 500 signatures of people within 1 1/2 block from your facility if that is indeed true or this was a slip. >> to clarify the earlier statement, we had translation in both, cantonese and mandarin. >> thank you for clarifying that. that still leaves a large number

-- thank you. that answers my question. for the commission, i would like to remind the commission when weed that institutional master plan including the building approval, the hospital administration did talk about a need to add antennas to the building in order to basically insure the proper working of the facility which obviously is more than just being on the cell phone. and it's a large data and etc., but i am surprised that the hospital a chinese institution would not really come to the table and discuss with the neighbors their own situational needs. that somewhat surprises me because we have in the past been sensitive where large numbers of neighbors came out and expressed concerns. and i was wondering if mr. hollister could comment whether

they have come to the table to help the neighbors understood the issue. >> commissioner, aaron hollister, i am not aware of the building ownership seeking out members of the public, but perhaps at&t can discuss that. >> commissioner moore, i have spoke within the c.e.o. of the hospital several times and as late as yesterday afternoon, she had meetings to set up with the community members to explain the hospital's use of data and they are in negotiations with at&t on this site. commissioner moore: and that puts us in an awkward position because we don't basically go behind the discussions in a neighborhood together that they need to have on their own. we don't do that and don't saying we approve and have the meetings later.

and the recommend ed any individual issue particularly when it comes to the language difficulties and the understanding of the subtle, technicals, and other things is discussed by those people who are having the application and is not for us to resolve. and i suggest you go home and have that prior to us sitting here and lacks the public comment we normally have. >> she had gotten a call earlier that day and was seeking more informing, so the calls have continued and my understanding is she has communicated to the best of her ability to try and respond to these issues. i can't speak for her. commissioner moore: one day before doesn't cut it and we have been extremely supportive and really helping in the hospital in the master plan and in the approval all the way through and is a fabulous community institution and i am all for it. i just believe that that extra step should be handled by them

rather than by us. president olague: commissioner miguel. commissioner miguel: oddly enough sitting at the two ends of the commission, we are very much in sync because my first question was going to be, is there anyone here from chinese hospital and why didn't you do your job? i would hope that someone from chinese hospital would get together with the person from self help for the elderly that services a lot of the same population and actually in cantonese probably explain the situation because obviously no one has done that work. and this commission is -- they're all in place for it. and if there is a fire hazard, bring the item up to the fire marshal. that is where that is taken care

of. not at a planning commission. we are not qualified to make those judgment calls. that is their qualification. you have a situation of a hospital that has agreed to the site and the situation of san francisco general hospital that build a garage directly across the street that has two stairway towers, each of which have multiple antennas in them, which is a massive city hospital, but also deals with a lot of very, very sick people and very, very elderly people. there is a lot of what i would call misinformation out there and the people whom n my estimation, should be responsible for outreach to their own communities, i do not

believe have done the job. it's very disappointing to me. however f the gentleman from at&t or someone from the site location person would come up and there were several questions as to coverage, site location, and that which i think we should clear up and that is the last i'll have. >> sure. what are the specifics? commissioner miguel: there are questions to why do you need this site? >> i should mention this is a replacement. and we have a microsite on chinese hospital and we are going from a micro to a macro site and will be removing the micro antenna once the macro site gets built if we are approved here. we already have an existing antenna on the building that we are looking to increase that

ability to make that call and hold that call as more traffic comes and goes. we have identified this area in the planning packets with maps that outline the coverage of the before and after of what the neighborhood looks like and this is an area in desperate need of upbringing. commissioner miguel: very good. if the translator could come up while you are there, bald i would yike to -- because i would like you to translate to the populations no sufficiently english speaking what i am going to ask the gentleman to say. after your antennas are up, you offered to do on-site testing? >> yes. commissioner miguel: would you explain that so he can translate that in cantonese? >> can i translate the question first? commissioner miguel: absolutely. greatly appreciated. president olague: if you could use the mic.

commissioner miguel: on the broe listening on the broadcast can here it. [speaking in chinese] >> at&t is required to provide you with the current levels of e.m.f. and we come out and test again after the installation is done and we are required every two years to do that to the

department of san francisco department of health and on top of that we are willing to come out and meet with any resident that would like us to test it and in their home and contact my office and we will be happy to set that up. [translator speaking chinese] commissioner miguel: thank you. greatly appreciated. commissioner antonini: while you are up here -- president olague: i was wondering where would they get the information? >> i can put it on the record now f you like. president olague: what do you think? >> my email is m as in mark, b

as in boy 3878 at at&t dot com. [translator is speaking in chinese] >> aaron, maybe people can ask you after the hearing and if you could stand up and we can point to you right -- to put you on the spot -- if the translator could let people to know that is who they would talk to to get the information. [translator speaking chinese] president olague: thank you. commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: i would like to talk to the rep and ask a couple of additional questions and if they wish to translate

the answers also. at the beginning of the testimony there was a party who came up and spoke about insomnia correlating to what seemed to be a night installation. and a flash of light or something. and i didn't get the whole thing, but it seems that i would think the installations are being done during working hours. and i'm not sure or if there is any kind of welding or whatever is done and seems like it's an isolated incident, but i wanted to establish for the public that the installations are being done during working hourses and once instaled, there should be no type of flashes or any kind of light that would cause insomnia. >> sure. thank you, commissioner. indeed we follow the build iing inspection code and install during business hours as the permit require. i have heard of this incident

before -- it came up at the community meeting. we have tried to find out more details about the nature of that. we were unable to get any clarity on when that happened or what site or if it was even an at&t site. but indeed there is no flashes of light or anything that is emitted from the antennas and i am unaware of what they may have been referring to. commissioner antonini: maybe you should translate that part. and i have a follow-up question, too. [translator speaking]

ant a commissioner antonini: and another question for the rep from at&t. the comments were made to the effect that the building is relatively short and yes, compared to some of the other buildings in the area that are buildings in the area that are maybe not in the immediate area