an animal rescuers are buying them and then turning them into animal care and control, and that has been creating a problem. we may need to address this in the future, and i think that there certainly should be some sort of compromise that will work for both sides. the grandfathering the five businesses that are selling small animals and allowing that to continue, even if they sell their business, allowing that model to go forward but prohibiting new businesses in the city, so we are just going to keep a watch on where this goes. that concludes my report. president yee riley: thank you. next item, please. clerk: commissioners, item

number 10, the permit a committee report, which allows the jered report and recent committee activities and make announcements. -- which allows the chair to report. >> i will have that next month. president yee riley: thank you. next item, please. clerk: item number 11, the outreach committee report, allowing the chair to report on recent committee activities and make announcements. >> the status of the vacancy report, do we have an update on vacancies? -- vice president clyde: clerk: we do not have an update, commissioner clyde. vice president clyde: ok, we did discuss outreach to the

businesses, and i have to say that this month has really been concerned with outreach regarding the alcohol mitigation fee, and that outreach has been significant, and i would really like to recognize the efforts of small business in coordinating the dissemination of information to the small business community. the turnout in the committee hearing, budget and finance and policy, it was really remarkable, and, you know, largely due to your efforts. we discussed, of course, the progressive tax structures that are no longer on the table, as well as businesses that are currently not being taxed, and i have not had time to go more in depth. i am sorry, business sectors. we did have a far ranging discussion on business sectors that are not currently taxed at the local level, but i have not had time to organize a report on that.

we did of a discussion on the department's 2010 budget, and there was no new business. because our hands were full. thank you. president yee riley: 80. next item. clerk: commissioners, we are now on the president's report, which allows the president to report on the small business activities. president yee riley: well, i attended a meeting on community development, and there was a great presentation from the mayor's office of economic and work force development on their goals, objectives, and the funding strategy, which was very educational for me. legislation and policies, and commissioner dooley already reported it, and august 3, that was the day we had the new commissioner, commissioner

kasselman, sworn in, and commissioner o'brien also gets sworn in. so that is it. thank you. clerk: commissioners, items number 13, vice president's report. vice president clyde: i would like to begin my report by recognizing a woman who gave extraordinary service to the small business community and to the san francisco community, joanie chang, who passed away a few weeks ago at age 41. she was a compliance officer with standards enforcement. she was charged with implementing the groundbreaking san francisco law that created

healthy san francisco, and the reason i would want to recognize her is that she was a real model in how to educate the community, how to communicate with the small business community. she did it with grace. she did it with just great intelligence and compassion, and i think that the small business community should really an extent -- note should really extend our -- should really extend our sympathies. she was taken way too soon. she believes newborn twins and her partner, -- she leaves newborn twins and her partner. she was only 41 years old, and she is diagnosed with cancer seven weeks ago, -- was diagnosed with cancer seven weeks ago. for the members who would like

to send condolences, there is a website that was created by her friends and family. it is www.giveforward.org/ bakeanapple, and i would like to think the office of supervisor campos for providing this information and, again, to her partner, and to the new twins. i would like to send, you know, our condolences and our appreciation. thank you, so i am just going to move on. i did attend a convention with bettie yi. she is our representative to the state board of equalization. she made it very clear that she did not favor a patchwork of regulations regarding the

alcohol industry because it is so difficult to work. she did make it clear that her office is not interested -- her office is interested in keeping small businesses operating, and her office will work with businesses that are having trouble meeting their tax payments. she was very clear in response to members of the public. the state board equalization now requires substantial deposits from businesses, businesses, who do not have track records or businesses that are changing their corporate structure. that was brought up at this meeting. her office is responsive to the synthesis go small business

community. please contact and the board to work note payments and to work out schedules. she is focused on we are still in economic crisis, and she emphasized that she did not want to see businesses closing. she also discussed marijuana and the challenges of legalization and taxation of the marijuana industry and challenges of the industry that is threatening to pick up and leave if they are taxed. this is going to be extremely challenging.

the merchants organization in north beach did note -- did have a presentation, and i will encourage everyone to support this fund project. thanks. president yee riley: thank you. next item, please. clerk: next item, commissioner 14, commissioner reports. vice president clyde: i have been trying to keep the small business public more informed about the proposed congestion pricing that is being proposed by cta, which is creating a very large corridor in our city that would be charging a fee of entry

and exit, morning hours and afternoon hours, perhaps in each direction, and the possible impact that might have on our small businesses. i attempted. attended a workshop cta last month and brought up some of the concerns of the small business community which i attended a workshop. -- i attended a workshop. also, phil did a report on this for channel 5 news, and it was also mentioned in the column, so i just want to continue to keep putting this in front of the public as much as possible so we can get some feedback and have folks be aware about what the potential costs might be in the business community. president yee riley: thank you.

anymore reports from the commission? seeing none, next item, please. clerk: commissioners, item number 15, general public comment. president yee riley: seeing none, public comment is closed. clerk: commissioners, item number 16, new business, which allows commissioners to introduce new items for future consideration by president yee riley: the riley: -- consideration by the commission. president yee riley: seeing none, next item, please. clerk: item number 17, adjournment. commissioners, the meeting is adjourned at 11:46 p.m.

--7:46pm. >> welcome to "culture wire." today we are visiting southern exposure in san francisco alison prepares to launch a fantastic new project called beautiful possibilities. we will send them on a two-year

adventure crisscrossing the united states to investigate american history and contemporary culture. it is using a traveling road show as inspiration. she will sit down and talk with residents in search of stories and experiences that reveals exactly what makes us americans. >> beautiful possibility is a traveling research project that i will take on a five-month journey across the united states and lower canada. i document this tore on a map that i painted for the project and also from previous projects called the road map to lost america. on the map i have taken all of the contemporary borders off the map and replaced them with native territories, and then overlaid it with contemporary highways. i have scheduled venue stops at

different areas along the tour, from california to south dakota, that will serve as headquarters for my local research. when i was researching the traveling medicine show, i came across this. they had put out an elixir, and it referred to the elements that came out because of the high stress, high-pressure life, mostly because of the industrial revolution. anyway, i was fascinated by the term american-itis, and i thought it did a lot about the stress-related illnesses, and i was impressed that they picked up on that and the 1800's. i did a survey to see if it was irrelevant element today. i have a series of eight painted banners that are retellings of american history.

i am particularly interested in transition history between native and european histories and retelling them as if they were a popular myth. there is a mix of eras and characters and times drat these banners. -- and times throughout these banners. i use the olympics and the melting pot, or things reduced down, and come out of this reduction. and something else transforms out of it. they had this strict code of who we should be as americans, and then i had andrew jackson fanning the flames. this first contact, down to george bush in 2008. all of the characters that appear are real characters that are taken from my research. we are an interesting mix and i want to provoke wonder about who we are. every one of the characters are taken from actual photographs or

documents that i found in my research on american history. in a lot of my banners, you conceal -- uc the melting pot, the imagery and myth that we use in our culture. talking about these reductions of all these different mixes of people, how you distill the experience. that is something i want to think about, collecting the ideas and ingredients, and i wanted to do the san francisco de lexie. -- elixir. we found a spring water underneath a church in cow hollow. we put rosebuds in the water to attract peace, and it made a meade. it was sitting in the gallery. we distill that through local herbs.

it was really surprising how delicious it was, because we were mixing a lot of seemingly in congruent ingredients, and it was delicious and different from anything you have ever tasted. i would have been happy if it was medicinal. the idea was more important to me. but it was very good. it is something i think a lot about, especially transition history, native americans, how they have this combination of dress, from the clothing from trade companies, mixed with traditional dress. i love how reflective it is of who they are, and also the merging history's coming together. what would we look like if we carry our history with us? all of the merging of cultures, reflected in our address? i am thinking of my own history with early europeans coming in and intermixing with native cultures. the one thing i would like

people to take away from after seeing my work is a sense of wonder and who we are as americans. that we are really these beautiful mixes of people and we should really be looking backwards at who we are. i think we are all kind of historians in our own life, and there are great presidents behind us -- president behind us that could give us insight into who we are. >> oliver road trip on her website. check at often. new experiences will be added after every stop. >> good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. it is my pleasure to be here with our regional fta administrator and our commissioner from san francisco who sits on the metropolitan transportation commission. we have a new development in terms of the muni metro system,

one of which is the beginning of the card installation system. we have nine stations that will be receiving newgate's. and we will be adding another 19 disabled fare gates. what we are attempting to do here is replace the infrastructure that has well tapped is useful life in terms of our fair gates, and we are cobbling that at the same time with a nuclear program, which you all should be aware of and which is the regional smart card that will be used throughout the area for public transit trips in the region. the new ticket vending machines -- we have purchased 40 of those ticket vending machines. customers should be able to go to any metro station and purchase tickets that can be used on all of the systems in the metro region. they are multi-lingual machines. they speak in english as well as

spanish and chinese, so we are very excited to be here today. again, 30 years worth of work that these dates have done it, and they have done all that they can carry in over 700,000 people, and these new dates will hopefully be here in the next 25 or 30 years serving as public transportation services here in the city, getting to and from their loved ones, getting to their job, getting to education, so we do not look at these gates as just being steel and rubber and labels. we look at them as an instrument to help people achieve their dreams, and today is an important day. we expect to have the total system outfitted by the end of october. we would not be here if it were not from the parks department, with federal stimulus dollars that came to us from the fda. the project had been sitting on the shelf for quite some time

here at the agency, and we were fortunately able to fast for this project through our partnership with the mtc and the clipper program, through federal stimulus dollars that were presented to us by president obama's economic recovery program. it was clearly a partnership that got us here today, and it is i guess a signal of future unveilings we will be doing over the next couple of months over the -- with other projects that will be coming to fruition. we started this work a few years ago as it related to the clipper card. we started work as it relates to the trolley buses being rehabilitated. we have a host of projects that we are implementing at this time to get our system in a good state of repair, and today is just one of them. with that, i would like to turn it over to our regional administrator -- regional fta. >> i am especially pleased to join you here today and celebrate this wonderful partnership.

this project has been forwarded with $11 million of federal stimulus dollars, and that is only one portion of the upward of $70 million in stimulus money that came to the mta here. we're very pleased to be here today. i would analogize this project almost to that of fine wine. nothing before its time. we have been involved with translink program. we are almost there. not only did the recovery money provide and create and retain jobs across the country, it provided that additional infrastructure funding to get us over the hump. again, we are pleased to join with you today, and congratulations to both of our partners.

thank you very much. >> here it is -- this is the clipper card, so everybody, have a good look at that. i think it is a very handsome looking card. you will see the logo on all the cards, on all the machines. you just put the cards down, and you are on your way to wherever your going -- wherever you are going, and given the -- how shall i say it -- the particular special environment of the bay area, the fact that we can all get around with the same card is a wonderful thing, and mtc is delighted -- believe me, i have been there a long time. it is a great delight and a real treat to be able to have this happen today, so i hope everybody will have a chance to

use the cards and enjoy it. thank you very much, and i'm delighted to be here. >> clearly, there is a group of folks we have to recognize here. we would not be here today if it was not for the folks in the trenches with ft thec s andfmta and federal transit administration -- those are the folks that really brought this to fruition. they have a lot more hard work to do, as when you bring on any complicated technology like this. it does have its growing pains, and we will experience those, but you have a commitment from the mtc and mta that we will try to make this is painless as possible. i think it is a great day to have these new fare gauges, just another indication of how the mta is reinventing capital dollars to make sure the system is reliable and efficient and on

time. we're going to have the project manager of m from theta -- from the mta take us over to the ticket machine. they will give us a demonstration of how the machines work, and they will give us cards from the new gates. we will come back and use the clipper cards on the new fare gates. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to a gorgeous day on treasure island. in the redevelopment director of

the treasure island authority. would you please rise for the singing of the national anthem? >> ♪ o, say, can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hail at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming and the rockets' red glare the bombs bursting in air dates proof through the night --

gave proof through the night that our flag was still there o, say, does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ [applause] >> it is a tremendous honor to be here today on treasure island with the honorable speaker of

the united states, house of representatives, nancy pelosi. [applause] the honorable secretary of the navy, ray davis. [applause] and the honorable mayor of the city and county of san francisco, gavin newsom. [applause] today we stand on the brink of the future of this island by commemorating the historic agreement with the transfer of the formal the -- naval station from a united states navy to the city and county of san francisco. i know i speak for many people who have worked extremely hard to make this day a reality, people on all sides of the table, across organizations, when i say that it is truly an honor and a proud moment. i would like to take a moment to acknowledge our many partners and supporters who are here

today. please forgive me if i do not mention everyone. there are too many of you to name individually, but i would like to recognize, and if you would please stand, former mayor willie brown, current and past members of the treasure island development authority board of directors. our treasure island citizens advisory board, and the treasure island homeless development initiative, one of our great partners, and of course, our private sector partners, the treasure island community development. and to the many folks in the audience, the many members of