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tv   [untitled]    January 3, 2012 4:01am-4:31am PST

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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]
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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,
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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
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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]
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>> please join me in welcoming our mayor, ed lee. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. i am very happy to join all of you here today. it is an exciting day to join our high school kids, our high school, here at john o'connor.
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principal gomez, our deputy superintendent, our school board president, and our building trade, thank you for being here. the director of the joint power trended authority. we have the sfpuc, the school alliance, school district personnel. we are all here because we are excited about this wonderful announcement. we are here in a very green, multipurpose use building that has just been opened. this is going to be representing something that i am quite familiar with. i know mike and others closer to my age, we had a wood shop. we had metal shop in middle school. we had exposure to how to deal with graphs. more importantly, you are
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talking to somebody who used to spend five years at the department of public works, as the director. we're having to pay attention to our infrastructure, one of the most important things any city can do. when we are trying to grow a new economy -- and as you know, i have gone around the city selling this idea about how the economy is about tech jobs, but we also have an important infrastructure to take care of. if we do not take care of the infrastructure, these other jobs will not be here. jobs at the transbay terminal, which we are already building, celebrating and historic project labor agreement. we also have a commitment to our growing kids, that we are going to get them there. they are not just going to school to get bored.
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they have to have those jobs here, and we need them trained and ready for those jobs. so, in this new economy, when we are investing, like our city is, my commitment to the city is making sure we pay attention to infrastructure. we are going to do it right and make sure that our kids know, by fulfilling their educational goals, being exposed to a facility like this, where you are building our labor representatives with the curriculum that the school district has offered to work with the infrastructure agencies that we have just mentioned, we have a curriculum that will train them in the jobs to come. being able to pay attention to this overt -- capital structures of the city, our high school kids can be exposed and get the experience, whether it is automotive, engineering,
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architectural design. they will get that exposure here in the center with all of the participants. so i am excited about this because it blends so much of what i believed in, what we have been doing in the city. all of our facilities that we are building in the city, whether you look at the mission bay, the building's at hunters point, treasure island, a partner said, all of these projects, or the hospital's going up, they will all meet plant engineers, in infrastructure commitments. for our high school kids, as you often heard, maybe not enough, i want to welcome you to the million-dollar club. that is the difference, what our school district is trying to teach all of you, to make sure that you know there is a difference between someone who just graduated from high school,
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and someone who will go after their college education. it is a million-dollar difference. i want all of you to participate in that million dollar economy, because that will be the difference. and we will be working, not only through the school alliance, city colleges, local colleges to make sure we reinforce that. i am here to celebrate, participate, and the knowledge all of a great, wonderful entities that have come together to create this tech 21 center, where this exposure and experience will happen, with your leadership, printable gomez. these kids will be able to see they have a way forward in this challenging city, but one that will be there city, when they have all the skills. thank you very much for being here. [applause]
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>> thank you. mr. mayor, we want to thank you on behalf of the 56,000 students in the san francisco unified school district, children of our community, for your tireless work on their behalf. we look forward to calling you a long-term partner. thank you. the mayor was gracious with his time. as you can imagine, he has a full schedule today and asked to be part of this ceremony today to show his appreciation for the work being done here. we want this to be a celebration and i would probably take until now until 3:00 to thank all of the dignitaries here, but i wanted to recognize some of our elected officials and dignitaries. of course, you met mayor lee, and we also have with us today two commissioners of our board of education.
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commissioner sandra fuhr. we also have commissioner moss. [applause] we are very happy to with us also -- the mere mention her -- our transbay executive director maria ayerdi-kaplan. thank you for being here with us. and the executive vice president for the united educators of san francisco, linda, thank you. and our president of united educators of san francisco, denis kelly. thank you as well. whenever you go down this path, you are going to miss someone. with all due respect, as i see you, i will call you out as we go through the program. thank you for being here.
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i serve as the separate -- deputy superintendent for social justice. what i would like to think about, as the good to this dedication ceremony, this is a tangible, real world artifacts of social justice. if we believe social justice is about kids having opportunities to explore career paths, opportunities to have jobs in the real world, if it was not for these types of opportunities, that is social justice. we are happy to have you here to be part of the celebration of social justice. on a personal level, i will say to you, this is so important to me, because i stand before you as the son of a dirty man she metalworker. local 353 in tucson, arizona. why is that important? it is important because mayor
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lee mentioned, you cannot run a city, have infrastructure for a city, without these jobs. there is a connection between college and career and career and college. they are very much interconnected. as my father, who never graduated from high school, later earned a ged, the person who taught me geometry was not my geometry teacher, who had a master's degree. she was wonderful, but i was just one of those kids. i learned geometry with my father actually doing the work. when you are cutting out sheet metal, bending the angles, you have to make it fit and you have to measure. i learned about ankles and how geometry works by actually doing it. when i say that career tech education is about college readiness, it is about utilizing all of those skills that we send
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kids to school every day to learn. this gives you a reason to read and write and do arithmetic, because you get to apply it. that is the duty of what is happening here today. happy to have you here. what a wonderful building. what do you think? do you like this building? [applause] this is our flexible use green building. we call it the text 21 building. we have not named it officially yet, but there is a naming opportunity for you, if you want to take advantage of that. just kidding. before we dive into the program, i would like to talk more about all the wonderful individuals that have made this a reality. this has truly been a collaborative effort on the part of our partners, union partners, labor partners, educators, former administrators.
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you will hear from the former principal, dr. schultze, who was part of the original work. before we get to that, i want to introduce the current principal, martin gomez. this high school is named after one of san francisco's own labor champions, and john o'connell. i want to introduce to you the man leading the academic work in collaboration with all the wonderful teachers here at john o'connell high school. [applause] >> it is a lot more full than it was five minutes ago. as principal, i want to welcome everyone to this event. it is important, not only for o'connell students, but all of san francisco. the district is making a push to
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include, improve, and pushed toward education. today, we are here to celebrate another reason of how o'connell is supporting and encouraging all students to be prepared for college and for a career. while some people are spending their time looking at what students are going to college, which are going to a career, with this new tech 21 program, the courses will support students to be prepared for a career, and for college. that is the difference between the programs of before and now. the new tech 21 courses will require students to be able to apply tougher math concepts. the program will recruit students that are college-bound and students that want to go straight into the workforce.
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the whole purpose is to make sure that these students are prepared for the requirements that internships and jobs are asking for out of high school. we want to ensure all of the graduates are prepared for these requirements because we are promising them jobs and internships, which is huge for our students, and for san francisco. i want to thank mark, david, the entire ct department, all of the stakeholders, dr. schultze, the previous administration, for making this building, and the course of the reality, which is much needed in san francisco. it is an exciting time to be a high school student in san francisco, but particularly, that john o'connell, and if you
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are excited about these tech 21 classis, please stay in touch with us as we figure out ways to continue supporting students. thank you for your time, thank you for coming out, and let's move this forward. [applause] >> good evening, everyone.
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my name is filled in the third, the director of your parks department. my job can be challenging at times, but on and that light tonight, i feel like the luckiest guy in the world to be here, to support families in the event like this is truly fantastic. this is the greatest city in the world, the greatest parks department. thank you for joining us. 82 years ago, uncle john mclaren, our first park superintendent started the tradition of minding a mile- long of live trees at, to where he lived at the time. behind you is the official entry of san francisco, and it is called uncle john's tree. called uncle john's tree. it is a monterey cypress that