website -- deathpenalty.org -- and you will find many ways to get involved. particularly right now, telling the governor to cut the death penalty, to convert all death sentences. if each of you were to go home and take that action, to send an e-mail message or hand write a letter to the governor, that would make a huge difference. together, we can end the death penalty in california. [applause] >> thank you for having me here today. i would like to close by saying i have had the opportunity to view this issue from every point of view, having been the warden at san quentin state prison. i am absolutely impassioned about the fact that it is time to end the death penalty in this state. life without possibility of parole is the real sentence. hold people accountable and gives them the opportunity to change within the prison system, and they can give back by working within the prison

system, giving restitution to family members and working on behalf of the state of california on a variety of projects that go on inside prisons. i also want to echo what the process said -- please join, please help -- i also want to echo what natasha said. talk to 10 of your friends, send e-mails, send letters. thank you. [applause] >> 1985, when i was sentenced to death for a crime i did not commit, i thought right away that this would be rectified. i was convicted of two different crimes. it took 18 years. it took me seven execution dates. i watched 12 then be executed while i was there -- i watched 12 and then be executed while i was there. i'm not in a position to say

whether either of them -- whether any of them were guilty or innocent. mr. d.a., i am asking you, truly consider leaving the death penalty along. let that be in god's hands, what that person goes through or deals with. there are too many flaws in our system that we cannot control and we cannot trust a man. i am asking you to consider that, to take the consideration of that. the question we did not answer was it one of these guys were in this and that was executed by a prosecutor that had evidence that was clearly convincing that that person was innocent, what would you do? that was a simple question to me. that was not a tricky question. it was a straight up question dealing with innocence and the prosecutor doing something that was considered murder or

attempted murder. you could answer that. you faded around that question, and to me, that is enough to make me think you should consider not dealing with the death penalty and joining in the fight to abolish the death penalty. we went to illinois, and i was with another group. we would go from state to state that have the death penalty and go to legislators and everyone asking them to abolish the death penalty. in the last two years, we have been successful. it appears like we are going to have to put california on our list. but that is all i wanted to say. that is something that once you take a life, you cannot bring it back. accountability needs to be on your part, too, on the district attorney's part, so if he knew a man was innocent and still

prosecuted him, that a straight up murder -- that is straight up murder. that is not malfeasance. [applause] >> i want to thank the public defender's office for putting this panel together. i understand there was a good panel this morning. these are issues that are conflicts, and they require continuing dialogue. the law is not perfect. the law is always evolving. it was an honor also to be with the other panelists here. i think that the issue of the death penalty is one that obviously is right -- ripe for us to bring this back to the voters. i think there is a great deal of evidence today that speaks to the problems of wrongful convictions. i think we all understand what the factors are.

we know there is a problem with wrongful convictions -- convictions. there is certainly a problem with prisoner treatment, and there is a problem with closure to the victims as well as the financial costs. it is up to all of us collectively to talk about how we deal with this and create a more profitable policy around dealing with very serious crimes, and i welcome the opportunity for having been here today. thank you very much. [applause] >> jeff adacci has a few closing remarks. >> i am a public defender. >> good afternoon. i am with the d a's office. >> in closing today's program, we want to first of all thank all of you for being here and being part of this discussion.

no doubt, we achieved a great deal. this was not just another talking head conference where people were just here to give a speech. you really heard engaged discussion from this morning all the way up until now. we thank our panelists because they came here with an open heart and an open mind. we are going to talk in a minute about how we are going to move things forward. i want to thank the staff of the public defender's office and the many volunteers who made this possible. we thank the library staff as well as sfgovtv for their good work here. john came here because we invited him and because he knew

that he is making a difference and will continue to make a difference. after serving 14 years on death row and spending 18 years of his life fighting the case, he continued to fight for justice, and he brought his case to the united states supreme court. he received a $40 million jury verdict, and in april, the united states supreme court overturned that, even though in this case, there were three prosecutors who have -- who were found to have intentionally withheld evidence that would have exonerated him. plus, and this is a great lesson for all of us, it was a prosecutor who was the hero. he stood up and came forward and told everybody what the other two prosecutors did. when he did that, his efforts were rebuked by the district

attorney. as a result, he left his job. it tells you that there are heroes everywhere. people are standing up for justice everywhere. we have to reach everyone everywhere every place in order to solve this problem. we do have a plaque to presented -- present to j.t > as a result of everything he has been through, but more importantly, to help him in the future -- present to j.t. as a result of everything he has been through, but more importantly, for everything he will do in the future. you can support the work he does with a reentry program for persons coming back from prison. so if we could present this to you. [applause]

moving forward, our work cannot stop here. i would like to have christine talk about what we are going to be doing moving forward. we have had meetings with district attorney george gascono about doing things differently. within the police chief, a new district attorney, we have that opportunity -- with a new police chief, a new district attorney, we have that opportunity. i would also like to acknowledge supervisor ross mirkarimi to come up here just for a moment and say hello, and let me have christine close the program.

>> good afternoon, everybody. it was a pleasure to listen to the last panel this afternoon. i am the chief of staff for mr. gascon, and i joined him when he moved over to the d.a.'s office. joining the office on his request, because i think we really have a unique perspective, having worked on the defense side and on policy issues, and i can attest that he is undertaking a wholehearted effort to really bring some reform to the criminal justice system on many fronts, this being one of them that we are evaluating. i hope that you as city and county residents will see in our work that we really take some efforts that will reform. anybody that has participated in the criminal justice system for any length of time knows that it does not work from whatever and will you are looking at it, so the question is how do we make it better? we hope to engage all of you in

that. we are starting neighborhood courts, and a lot of efforts that we hope to engage the city and county in supporting us and looking at ways to move away from the over incarceration of people and look at ways to reform their behavior. the efforts we have undertaken when george was appointed to the position -- jeff asked him to come to the public defender's office to have a question and answer session, which he did, and i attended with him. we are told that was the first time that had ever happened, and we reciprocated by asking jeff to meet with the district attorneys in our office. we have begun a dialogue that both sides think is very healthy. we have identified a number of issues that we think require further exploration, so we are creating working group's staff by the people from the d.a.'s office and the public defender's office to look at improving things like discovery, which is an important issue, making sure that we have reciprocal discovery and that it is

transparent and complete. looking at workers from collaborative courts, looking at solutions besides incarceration, dealing with mental health and behavioral health issues, rather than using the jails as a solution to that, and we are also working around juvenile issues to make sure we are doing all we can for those under the age of 18 in our community. those are the efforts we are undertaking. jeff and matt have been a fantastic partners in this. as far as we know, it is a new day in these efforts and really trying to work collaboratively and we hope to have all your support in doing that. [applause] >> of course, that is not to say that we are not going to fight it out in court because, of course, that is what we do. i would like to briefly introduce ross mirkarimi, who is a supervisor here in the city,

and he has been a champion of many criminal justice issues, including prisoner reentry. i also want to thank and acknowledge debra atherton. thank you. supervisor mirkarimi: it is nice to see everybody. jeff is generous. i was not expecting to be up here. i know you have had a productive day. i think that the public defender's summit is something not to be missed and a template for the rest of california and probably the nation to follow. i am proud of our public defender. i am proud of our criminal justice partners because over the last four years, we have seen a great amount of innovation. jeff and i started the city's first reentry council, and it might be bewildering to you, but before we started it, believe it

or not, those stakeholders in the criminal-justice system really very irregularly rarely would come together and talk about ways that we might mitigate, reduce our recidivism rate. great progress has been made, but san francisco still needs to step up its game. i was delighted to hear the conversation that took place here, but no the statistic that for every four people that sanford's is the police department arrests and the da prosecutes, nearly three are repeat offenders -- for every four people that san francisco police department arrests and the da prosecutes -- the d.a. prosecutes. there is evidence to show that doing everything we can to try to divert some of his life from repeating their offense, but we will have to really vigorously enhance our approach. one way to do that obviously is the collaboration being fostered

and demonstrated here today, but it is more than just today. it will have to be every single day, or else california will continue to be building more prisons, and san francisco may not be far behind. thanks. [applause] >> once again, thanks for the flag. [laughter] have a good time. have a good evening. thank you very much. [applause]

>> i am the executive director of the san francisco redevelopment agency. thank you for coming.

we are here to celebrate and acknowledging the spirit of this block of kucom. -- nucom. we have a close collaboration with the mta, dpw, and leadership from our elected officials. thank you. the investments that we can see here today in the public realm, incredible streetscape improvements, and then in the private rel., through the local -- low-cost loan program for homeowners on this block to update and maintain their homes, demonstrates the mayor's commitment to revitalizing our city's neighborhoods, starting here in the bayview hunters point community. in doing so, creating local jobs for san francisco residents.

thank you, mr. mayor. with that, i turn it over to you. [applause] >> thank you for the introduction, tiffany. thank you for coming down to our brand new nucom avenue. for supervisor cohen who was with me, our public utilities agency, redevelopment agency, public works, environmental protection agency, as well as others, if santa claus has a choice on which st. he will visit first, i think he will come to nucom avenue first. it is a well-designed street, one that we started -- 16 of these all over the city.

this became one of the most important ones, where we are getting the blessing of our planning department working in close collaboration with our model blocks program to design these streets to make sure that we do the most environmentally friendly but also resident- family types of things. you will notice some of the good treatment here, and some is hard to see, and of course, it is going to rain. instead of going into our storm sewers, this will help to feed into the plants here. whether they are on islands or the new, permeable landscaping. this will slow traffic down, increased the beauty of the street, make it much more engaging for our residents, and

also helps with the trees that have been replanted here to increase the beauty of the street, but making it that much more enlivened with greene streets. at the same time, it took a few more months than anticipated. it was expected to take four months. when dpw dug into the main sewer line, they discovered some major work that needed to be done. they wanted to make sure that the sewer line would work perfectly, as well as each of their feeds into homes. while infrastructure is sometimes hard to imagine or see, you will be -- you are standing on the street that will probably be the best for decades to come. you will have an unstoppable sewer. no longer those backups.

the fire chief will have a pleasant time going down the street to make sure that the services are there. as i said earlier, this is a beautiful project coming in, not only the designed for infrastructure, but the work force that was put together. i want to thank the contractors that worked so well with our citybuild program. 18 of that group are president spirit within that work force, they completed 43% of the work hours on this street. that is a very good standard, the highest standard we have had. we made that commitment at the beginning that our local folks would be hired, san francisco residents will be hired, and they did very well. of course we can do better, but

with the 16 beautiful streets -- we have eight of them already completed. that includes van ness and we have five under construction. three or four others under planning, like market street. from the puc to redevelopment, planning,vs department, police department working gear along with the contractors, they all have to be thanked. the most important people i want to acknowledge today are the residents who live here on the street. thank you for your cooperation. q were working with us on day one to embrace the idea that we could use infrastructure to enliven our streets. i see a lot of smiling faces.

you want to see santa come here, too. you are not displaced. this is your home. you what this street to reflect the duty of all of san francisco. thank you for working closely with everybody, thank you for your patience, thank you for welcoming us in to share in this new street. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. supervisor malia cohen is a staunch advocate for her residence, as well as the residents of district 10. we thank her for her leadership on this project and we are pleased to partner along with her and the residents. >> thank you, good morning, everyone. seven months ago, many of us were standing here doing a groundbreaking ceremony.

here we are making sure that our walk and talk were in line with each other. i told you that this was the beginning of a rebirth for a new neighborhood. here we are along an infamous street. those of us that know this area knows that there had been good and bad activity. here we are one block off of third street, celebrating the work of san franciscans, a shining example of our local hired initiative, and i want to the knowledge the public partners that make this a reality. we have new roads, and everyone is here, a physical manifestation of the partnership, not just on the city sought but the contractors, private citizens, working to make san francisco better, one street at a time.

i am very happy to be here. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, supervisor. infrastructure is the backbone of our city. we could not have done this incredible project without the hard work of our partners at dpw. [applause] >> let me join the mayor and supervisor for thanking everyone for coming out. i do not know how many of you know what the street used to look like, but this is a huge change for the community, a victory. streets around san francisco, we will continue to make sure we have sidewalk landscaping. these gardens you see, when it rains, they will absorb water and reduce the amount of water

that will end up in our sewer plant. the papers will also collect water. as much of -- as half of the rainfall will be a absorbed into our landscape and continue to sustain a healthy street and help the soil and reduce the amount that goes to our sewer plant. the design had been changed. the lights are human scale, they are not the tall ones that go overhead. they are designed to fit the neighborhoods. the plans are also from around the area, so they will do well, low maintenance, but with the newcomb avenue residents, they will help to make sure that they do well. this is a victory. i want to thank the staff from dpw, the project manager, and

all the landscape architects who worked hard to make this a huge success. i am from the neighborhood, so i am looking forward to seeing many of these streets become more sustainable and enjoyable. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. the sfpuc is a leader in environmental stewardship, at the forefront of environmental practices, pushing us to adopt stormwater management guidelines, clean energy. this street is a physical manifestation of the hard work from the residence and a great partnership with city departments, including sfpuc general manager ed harrington. >> [applause] it is a wonderful day touk% here. when we do these kinds of programs, we have to have folks that will take care of them. the neighborhood taking care of it is important to us.

stunning to see all of this cooperation. as we rebuild our water system in san francisco, we cannot just build bigger treatment plants. we need permeable pavement. 400,000 gallons of water a year will be going into the ground, as opposed to the treatment plants. if we can do that, we can provide water, provide a good environment, as well as provide good water for the people of this city. [applause] >> as the other speakers have indicated, this could not have happened without the leadership and direction from the residence on this block. speaking on behalf of the residence, sandy. [applause] >> i am also bringing the core that is important to this project. members of the newcomb avenue

block have done a great job and we want to clear up some misconceptions about what happens here. i have been a resident in the bayview for 25 years. i have been here a very long time. very few have preceded me. this project originated with redevelopment. redevelopment a star and our eyes, and we were wondering if they could ever came out. they came out with this project, and it was their idea to help redevelop our street. with the neighbors on the spot, we were able to win the award. with all the neighbors, and redevelopment, -- and i also want to thank one whirled designed -- this project came to light. we were able to get it on