tv [untitled] June 24, 2013 1:00pm-1:31pm PDT
1:00 pm
other part of the city. i'm just really happy that it's not what it used to be and i think it's a manageable thing. and we just have to deal with it more and add some more academy classes, but also look at programs like s.f. faith which helps people learn to take care of themselves and as neighbors. we have to make sure we're providing opportunities to the perpetrators of these crimes and making sure, of course, we're prosecuting people who are committing crimes. but more importantly, that we provide these opportunities before they get to the point where they are committing crimes. >> you mentioned the issue of homelessness as a big issue in your district. how will you deal with the folks that hang out on haight street and the issue of homelessness? >> well, i think that's a real -- it's a city-wide issue and i think part of what we have to do is work together to deal with it, just like public safety. it's a work in progress. it's not something that you fix and you move on. it's something that you continue to work with. i mean, san francisco is an attractive place to people in general, so, we are going to
1:01 pm
get folks from all over, homeless, nonhomeless, and i think part of the balance is making sure that social service agencies that provide support to homeless individuals are available, that they have the resources they need, but they're held accountable to working and talking to folks who are interested in services. and the other issue is that, you know, we do have, sadly, an increase in crime in the area as a result of an increase in the homeless population. and, so, having a police presence, which we've had, park station has been really active in not only being out there and enforcing the law, but doing what police are not required to do, offering opportunities for services. and, so, i think san francisco is an incredibly compassionate city and i think our police department has been compassionate. i think our fire department has been compassionate. but also we have to make sure that we are really aggressively making sure that folks are not
1:02 pm
breaking the law in terms of selling drugs, in terms of using drugs, in terms of just the kinds of things that happen when you break the law. i mean, people who are hanging out, they're just hanging out. there's nothing wrong with hanging out. i hung out a lot. kids hang out. young people hang out. homeless people hang out. the question is when someone makes it more than just hanging out and it messes it up for everyone else. and, so, we have to make sure the city that we deal with those things appropriately, but we also offer alternatives so that we're not just pushing the homeless issue from one place to the next, but we're actually making sure we're taking care of people and offering them alternatives. so, it's going to be a challenging issue and an ongoing issue and one that i'm committed to working with the mayor's office to help address and manage. >> what are your thoughts on the city's economic development? do you think we're on the right track? >> i think we're on the right track, but i think that unfortunately it allows the rich to get richer and it
1:03 pm
doesn't have a place for the middle class and the poor in our city. and i think that part of what we have to do as a city when people are interested in economic development opportunities in our city, we need to be a part of our city. and it's not just about giving out free gifts or giving out free turkeys or giving out free anything. it's about what type of job opportunities, what type of internships, what type of commitment are you going to have to the most vulnerable residents of our city? how are we going to impact lives? you're basically -- this is a great economic opportunity maybe for you and the city, but how does this directly impact residents of the city? so, i think we have to do a better job in making those connections. >> let's talk a little about the issue of sports, the role of sports in the city's economic future. are you supportive of the plans for the new warriors stadium? >> i'm supportive of a plan that includes the residents of this city.
1:04 pm
specifically with the warriors stadium, i think it could be a great opportunity for san francisco, but i want to make sure that in the agreement that there are some requirements that make sure that people are not just employed for construction opportunities. they're employed for management opportunities, they're employed for concession opportunities, they're employed with the warriors team. i mean, there's a whole 'nother franchise of opportunities that exist as a result of this particular team. and who are they going after? what folks are they mentoring, or what -- who are the people that are going to be long-time working with the establishment? so, i'm more interested in what the long-term relationship is between the warriors and the community ~ and not just we're going to build a stadium, we're going to be here, we're going to do our thing and everyone is going to go home. what does this mean long term and how do the residents benefit and how are they connected to this great opportunity? so -- >> to a degree, do you feel the
1:05 pm
city should subsidize the team? >> i don't see the city subsidizing the team from my speaker speculative from what i've seen in terms of the deal other than potentially the land which they will pay for eventually, maybe not the entire amount. but i don't think there are any plans for the city to give up anything financially from my perspective. other than potentially land that wasn't going to be used in the first place. but i appreciate the fact that the warriors are focusing on private fund-raisers and i prefer that they stick to that. i don't think the city should be -- with the situation we're in now, we should be really investing in that and the warriors seem to have a -- seem to be committed to privately fund-raising for it and i'm happy that they're stepping up to do that. >> exciting change. >> yes. >> well, we're almost out of time, but are there any other issues that concern you that we haven't discussed or anything that you plan to concentrate on
1:06 pm
as your term as supervisor? >> i think one of the things that i really want to concentrate on is making sure that we are collaborating more because as a city we're growing, resources are being stretched thin. and it's going to be important that organizations collaborate, city departments collaborate, that we don't just operate in our own little departments and our own little sections of the city, but how do we come together to make sure that, for example, upper haight, a lot of great businesses, a lot of great opportunities for internships for young people to grow and work in these particular businesses. so, my goal as supervisor is to begin the process of connecting people so that, you know, we have folks who are living in the community, working in the community, growing in the community, and supporting one another. it's one of the things i care about most and i'm really looking forward to bringing people together as a survivor. >> great. it looks like we're out of time so we're going to have to wrap up. but thank you so much for joining us today on sfgovttv
1:07 pm
meet your supervisor. >> thank you for talking to me. >> we were talk to london breed from district 5. watch for the next episode of meet your supervisor when we'll be back with another one of our city supervisors. for sfgov tv, i'm linda melkonian. ♪ ♪ supervisor chiu: i fully appreciate the concerns raised by some tenant leaders. i would never supported the project if i did not feel comfortable that tenant rights have been protected here with parker said -- part merced.
1:08 pm
i say this as one of the few tenants on the board of supervisors, who has been a staunch advocate of tenants before i was elected and with my votes on this board. my parents immigrated to the united states in the 1960's, and i was the first kid born in the u.s. my parents sacrificed everything so that their kids could have the opportunities that they wanted when they came here. i grew up in the boston area, live in different parts of boston, went to a catholic high school in dorchester, which is a section of boston. because of my parents work and the opportunities they gave me, my brothers and i were all blessed to go to harvard university. it was intense. i stayed there for college, for law school, and i also have a master's in public policy there. those are subjects i decided to study in part because i was very interested in public service and public policy issues and government. i ran for office in part because
1:09 pm
i wanted to serve the city and really protect all that is so special about what san francisco is. >> we've been talking for years about how important it is to build new neighborhoods, to develop affordable housing, make sure we have transit-oriented sustainable green development that really is worthy of a 21st century san francisco. what we're doing today -- and, frankly, what we're doing this year will have impacts on the city for decades to come. thank you all for being part of this, and i look forward to that mid-cutting. i moved to san francisco 15 years ago for all the reasons that we all love our city. our cable cars. our hills. the diversity of our neighborhoods. and have loved every minute of being here. >> like many of you here, i did not actually grow up in san francisco. i grew up in another part of the country that was not quite as tolerant or quite as diverse. san francisco drew me, as i think it through all of us,
1:10 pm
because we live in a very special place. i just want to say on behalf of the board of supervisors -- we have a special responsibility and a special leadership role in the world. as we come together, we symbolize all of this date we have in humanity, the faith we have in the fight for civil rights, the faith we have, frankly, as a common family. >> i consider myself someone who shares the progress of value that need san francisco's -- many san franciscans hold dear. >> i do believe that a majority of this board share the same progressive values, and i think there is a danger and an overly narrow definition of what is progressive. we have to remember that being progressive stance for values of inclusiveness, of tolerance, of acceptance, and we need to think
1:11 pm
hard about how we characterize various votes of either being within that definition or outside of that. >> before i ran for office, i worked in san francisco as a criminal prosecutor and a civil- rights attorney and really got to understand how much of a beacon to the rest of the world san francisco is for social justice. i also been spent a number of years helping to grow a small business, got to understand the innovative spirit here in san francisco. at night, i volunteered as a neighborhood association leader and also as the chair of an affordable housing organization and learned so much about the challenges facing our neighborhoods and facing a really special tools that are the urban villages that we live in. sen for assistance -- facing really the special jules -- jewels that are the urban
1:12 pm
villages that we live in. san franciscans during campaigns read everything they are sent in the mail. love to meet candidates. a gauge with them in conversations. i also learned how important it is to build bridges between communities, particularly communities of diversity we have. i was just incredibly honored to have been elected in november 2008. my district really encompasses the ethnic and economic diversity that exists throughout the city. as a result, i think my district is really emblematic of the entire city. you can find every political perspective that you could possibly want in district 3. so oftentimes, the interest of my district and the city really are quite a line, so i do not have to think about this difference is probably quite as often as some of my colleagues may have to. i in particular want to thank the mayor for his decision to protect our nutrition programs. this is something that i think we all believe is incredibly important at a time when we have
1:13 pm
seen massive federal and state cuts, for us to hold the line locally and stand up in the city of st. francis for our seniors and our nutrition programs and families. i think we have a lot of challenges right now. we are still in the midst of the great recession. we all know way too many folks who are struggling in a minimum wage jobs pirouette of folks who have been laid off at work. i think as a city, we need to do much better at creating an environment where we have more jobs and more economic development. i know that all of us are committed to ensuring that we have a budget that not only provides basic city services that we have come to expect but make sure that we take care of our most vulnerable. whether it be our at-risk use, our seniors, are disabled, our working families, folks who are out of work. i know something that every public servant who is here is committed to. adding with all come together as a board, as a city.
1:14 pm
we should come together as san franciscans, and, colleagues, at this time, i hope, and i asked that we unanimously vote for ed lee to be our next mayor. this is also a historic day for the asian-american community. for a community that has been here in santa francisco, for over 160 years, i am a product of that community. i know the ed and all of us of asian-american decent feel the legacy. i want to thank all of you who have been part of this historic moment to make this happen. and say that this is obviously not just about a chinese- american community or an asian american community. this is about the american dream. the idea that anyone of any
1:15 pm
background of any color from any part of the globe can come here and sunday be at the very top of what our community is about -- and someday be at the very top of what our community is about. >> to address these concerns, i have made a series of amendments to the resolution that capture the spirit of the policy but would allow continued conversation with the task force and other stakeholders about how we do metering. i believe strongly that the city needs to start developing toes to help create affordable housing. in our housing element alone, we talk about building a 60%
1:16 pm
affordable, but we are currently not doing that. it is important to start the discussion about creating tools of measuring our affordable housing and creating tools to enforce that. i grew up in new york city, one to my parents who had immigrated here to the u.s. actually, i started really becoming active in working with the community when i was in high school. came out to california for college, went to stanford. i was always politically involved. when i was a college student, i worked on the initiative to get rid of affirmative action in our public government system. currently, we have 3 legislative items that are pending. the first is going to be coming to a final vote on tuesday, our mid-market uptown tenderloin task exemption legislation. it is basically an incentive to
1:17 pm
encourage businesses to come to mid-market. in particular, where we have the highest commercial vacancy. and then when i graduated, moved out to san francisco about 12 years ago. i always loved sanford cisco in college, and i just wanted to try it out. i started working in economic development policy. i was a community organizer for six years. i worked with young people, parents, and families around issues that concern our neighborhoods, whether it was improving muni lines, affordable housing, public schools, or just planning issues in neighborhoods. we just had a hearing last week, and we are trying to do some work around bedbug enforcement, which is a major issue in the tenderloin and of hill and 63. a hearing will actually be on thursday, april 7, 10:30. we're doing our first hearing on
1:18 pm
pedestrian safety. i think public safety is a huge concern. it ranges from both low-level crimes to pedestrian safety, and so that is a really important issue to me. we are probably more than double what every other district has. and that are preventable. and we can do better. district 6 is one -- home to one of the most diverse constituencies. we have the poorest residents in san francisco. we have lgbt. we have immigrants, people of color, youth, and a high proportion of seniors in the city as well. we heard that people want to see more jobs, want to see access to more jobs for our residents. we want to see more preventive instead of just reactive. we want to see after-school programs versus the police picking them up because they are out on the street, which i think our chief agrees with. i actually ran for the board of
1:19 pm
education in san francisco and got to serve a term on our school board. what really surprised me was how much i enjoyed it. i loved it. i love meeting with families, meeting with youth, meeting with teachers, visiting schools, and getting a deeper understanding of what it means to make our system work better. the one thing i really enjoyed was i got to run within a district instead of citywide, was that i really got to know voters and residents. i actually enjoy campaigning more because i had time to knock on doors and the voters individually. i'd love it. i actually really enjoyed being out on the field. so i spent a lot of time doing it because i got to really get a deeper understanding of what people care about and what people's concerns are and also what people loved about the district and the city. i was talking with the mayor yesterday. he was very interested in seeing how the good work with our
1:20 pm
office -- how he could work with our office. i would love to see how we could support small businesses because they are the heart at san francisco. they provide 60% 07% of the jobs in sanford cisco, and they provide it locally, and they are not going to offshore their jobs any time. i am not an opponent of cleaning up the tenderloin. i love the tenderloin. i love what is right now. i recognize we have a diversity of books that live there and people do not want to see open drug dealing. i do not have a problem with people lit think -- people out on the street socializing. i think that is good. that to me is more -- you know, it is part of the character of the neighborhood. i get to represent one of the most exciting and dynamic districts in the city. it is where change is happening, so i think it is exciting in terms of how we can model what it means to be a smart growth neighborhood, how we can use transit and housing effectively to serve our city and also to do
1:21 pm
a lot of the new green policies that we have developed over the last 10 years. supervisor wiener: what we have here is a very important project and a very important mission and a completely reasonable objection of neighbors who are concerned about a five-story building going in on their block, which is something we see in san francisco all the time, and there is nothing exceptional or inappropriate about people taking issue with the size of a building. i grow up in the philadelphia area, in new jersey, went to school up and down the east
1:22 pm
coast. i went to undergrad at duke university and law school at harvard. after clerking for a judge, i came out here and have been in here for the last 14 years. i always assumed i would go back to the philadelphia area because that is where my family is, but i was always interested in sanford cisco in terms of the city, culture, the amazing lgbt community -- i was always interested in san francisco. i am an attorney. i started off in private practice, doing complex litigation. in 2002, i moved to the san francisco city attorney's office, where our work on the trial team, doing trials for the city and doing my own cases and supervising a team of attorneys as well. another huge issue confronting
1:23 pm
the city is the deferred maintenance on our infrastructure. we have a lot of infrastructure that has been deteriorating because we have not maintained it properly, from our roads to our sewer system to muni. we need to be much more diligent about maintaining our infrastructure. i have been interested in politics since i was a kid. i have worked on campaigns since i was a teenager. i was involved in campaigning against senator jesse helms when i was in college. when i came out here i was not initially involved politically. i was involved in community work, helping to build the lgbt community center, doing neighborhood work, and i eventually started doing campaigns and gradually got more involved in democratic party politics. ultimately, in 2004, i ran for the democratic county central committee and ended up chairing
1:24 pm
the committee. it was a gradual process for me. by the time i started thinking about running for supervisor, it made sense because of my involvement in the community and the politics. i knock on about $15,000 -- i knocked on about 15,000 doors and a huge amount of people. the best way to learn about the city and what people want and what people's concerns are. i feel like i know so much more than before i started campaigning. i am a good liberal democrat. in the san francisco, miniature spectrum, i am considered pretty middle of the road. one thing about me is i am very independent when it comes to the issues, and i do not vote on party lines. i judge each issue on its merit. we have provided woefully inadequate support for our transition-age youth, and when
1:25 pm
we do not provide that support, we end up causing other problems. it is not like it disappears. these are our youth, who are here in our community, and we need to make sure we are providing services for them. yesterday, we had a hearing on the dcyf budget, and i was very disappointed with one aspect of the budget, particularly the alt and backs were being eliminated -- that all add-backs were being eliminated on a number of different subjects. i do not agree with that. i am in discussions with dcyf, and i am is hopeful we will be able to work something out. my predecessor was always committed to making sure funding occurred, and i will continue to do that, so you have an ally in me. the budget is the most eminent
1:26 pm
issue, and we do have a structural budget deficit in the city, so we need to deal, of course, with the short-term balancing our budget in a way that does not decimate city services that people rely on, but also to address our long- term structural budget deficit, and that means implementing some budget reforms. smooth out our budget process so it is not a boom/bust kind of budget. reforming our pension system and retiree health care system so that they are stable. we do a decent job providing low-income housing. we do a terrible job providing housing for low or middle class and middle-class people, people who are working and paying taxes that we need to have here for a functioning economy, so i am looking for ways to try to fund that, particularly for essential employees like
1:27 pm
teachers, nurses, first responders. projects coming up in the city like the renovation of dolores park, which is a once in 50 years opportunity to define what the park is and what changes we want to make to it. that will be a very significant projects. [inaudible] when was the last time it rained? there are puddles. we elect our supervisors by district, and it is very important to pay attention to the district, to be engaged in projects in the district, but we also represent the whole city. any supervisor that just focuses on the district without addressing the citywide issues is not doing his or her job. every day, i'd make sure i am working both on the citywide issues and on district issues.
1:28 pm
hello, san francisco. it's holy lee here with another list of buzz worthy activity. summer is here and the time is right for feel good fun that won't break the bank. swinging in the union square. this free swinging live dance series is every wednesday through august. arrive early for free dance lessons by professional instructors and enjoy the band's live set. transform your jeans into a bag for your bike our shoulder item. with denim bike bag
1:29 pm
workshops takes place at the mission library. rsvp is required. the community center takes flowers and makes them into small pretty arrangements and gives them away to people on the street. for any events all for being here today to commemorate this beautiful new strut. -- street. this is a wonderful area of san francisco and we are happy to mark this
1:30 pm
completion of this project. what a great new place for the city of san francisco. i'm mohammed, from the dpw. you think of places that are inviting, welcoming, spacious, contemporary, while maintaining it's heritage. you think of easy access for visitors to enjoy themselves and make plans to come back again. fisherman's wharf is a world class destination spot. today it is even better. there have been lots of hands-on this project, many many hours and meetings to put together. besides the strategies for making it work
37 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV2: San Francisco Government Television Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on