respect for the speakers and to facilitate and move forward the process. with that, why don't we hear from our first speaker? >> san francisco. [speaking foreign language]

ladies and gentlemen, my name, as you know, abdullah. i am here to open your eyes for the manager letter he give many of us, one copy here, one to my neighbor. he ask him to pay $1,100. the gentleman, he have 81 years. another letter to my neighbor, virginia. she's 85 years.

he ask her to pay $671. another one, he owe them or he said he owe them over $1,000. another neighbor, and myself finally, he ask us to pay him money for what? i pay my rent. they pay their rent. something's wrong. somebody taking -- i must have courage to wake him up, not only him but the people here who are with him. i say it before, i say it again. you're never going to be the god of my building and you never give us paper as harassment. we have rights to sue the city,

to hire some people like you. we want to know why you charge us for all this money. if you try to come out of, i have right to take it to courts and i have rights as i did before to -- as all the people in my building. i would like to tell to my friend, happy birthday. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. don't accept money from the friends and foundation. you may be wondering in these difficult times out public library is doing. if all you care about it money, the public library is doing

great. the library has guaranteed funding. the budget is up almost 1% over last year. as a condition of that guaranteed funding, the public was promised that the funding would have a priority for books and open hours of service. the benefits for retirees is up 3.3. staff costs are up 1 million. of course, service on the debt is $2.5 million and the library's fund reserve is $10.5 million. what happened to the priority for books and open hours? in fact, the public was promised a minimum service hours of 1,211 hours per week. the current schedule has been cut by 14% and the schedule is only 1,040 hours. the library is taking $1.6 million out of the books and materials budget and reducing the book budget by a full 15%. in city hall, fooling the voters

is considered evidence of sophistication. the public has been asked several times and they always place materials and collections as the highest priority. what was the guaranteed funding for? branches are closed. service is down, and the supervisors are powerless. the real priority was to make it a public-private partnership. if you are on any place in the public, political spectrum, on the left, the public library is an income stream for your enemies. without accountability, democracy has no power and we are slaves to those who control the means to discriminate information. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors,

president chiu. mr. birthday, welcome to 40. i'm here to ask for all of the supervisors' support for the resolution that supervisor daly has entered on behalf of the compassionate community, because this upholds our intent for over five years as we've worked together as a compassionate community in our support of government. i'd like it see everyone who can stand or raise their hand who is here in support of this resolution so that we may use our time wisely. thank you, supervisor daly. and i have here with me a letter of determination which i'm going to read a portion of. a new operator may proceed with an application to continue the operation of an existing n.c.d. and a change of ownership will not trigger further review from the planning department or public hearings from the planning commission. what we have here from the

acting, i believe acting acting zoning administrator is a violation of the public process that was set up for the checks and balances for our collectives to maintain the compassionate programs in san francisco. we were set up as collectives by the highest law enforcer in california, which is attorney general brown. you cannot have a change of ownership for a collective. and when the collectives don't have to go through the public process, we will once again be back where we were over six years ago with a complete and outraged neighborhood groups and patients who weren't able to assure faith, access and compassionate care. i urge everyone to vote in support of this. it supports the work we've done for many years. and i'm concerned because it circumvents the non-profit earring statements. thank you.

president chiu: thank you. next speaker? >> good afternoon. i'm douglas chef and i've lived in san francisco 58 years. i would like to address my comments on the general subject of asian victims of crimes. i thank supervisor daly for bringing up the issue in regards to the china town underpaid workers. somehow, i was expecting three other supervisors to speak in support of daly's mentioning of it. somehow, i didn't hear the three of them say anything. so, in my opinion, i thought that was kind of noteworthy, whichever way you want to take it. secondly, i also got information earlier today regarding a settlement involving the city and county of san francisco. in my opinion, it seems like the city and county of san francisco is wrong and i would like to

mention that mr. michael lu should be given credit for fighting for his right, because it seems like he is a person that used to be the victim. so i would like to thank mr. male -- michael lu, for giving an example where asians won't play by the typical stereotype where we lay down and let people step all over us. last item, i would like to say is that i'm still trying to figure out where is the immemoriam for david macklehatten, famous broadcaster of san francisco. i made a verbal request in the offices of one supervisor and according to my research, that immemoriam has not been issued and according to my interpretation, the reason used was very flimsy. i attend to make a written

request to a different supervisor, and i hope we will not be disappointed. thank you. president chiu: thank you. colleagues, we actually did issue that immemoriam. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is reverend randy webster. i'm here to speak regarding supervisor daly's resolution. san francisco is a sanctuary city for medical cannabis. that doesn't mean that san francisco is a sanctuary for big pot, m.c.d. permits, shell games and outsider infiltration of our medical cannabis community. what it does mean is that our city and county have expressed a commitment to ensure san francisco medical cannabis patients, safe access to their medicine. the recent attempts to misuse our city's m.c.d. permit process illustrates a real need to

re-evaluate our existing protocols, tighten up loopholes and in all ways ensure that medical cannabis patients of san francisco are protected from those who would take advantage of our sanctuary status for personal enrich. the situation requires immediate action. outsiders are already moving in. their game is to buy up properties with existing m.c.d.s, raising rents at existing m.c.d.s, then taking over the existing permit. this is abuse of process. we need to stop it now. we need to set a message to all those who see san francisco as an easy mark. what we need to do is two-fold. something to stop the atrocity from continuing right now, and a long-term solution so that things like this are not allowed to continue. the m.c.d. permits should be property dependent, but should not be property dependent but

applicant dependent adjacent to the property. that is the named applicant or project is the permit holder of record, and declared as such on the property site. when and if the permit holder moves, abandons or dissolves the project, the permit does like wise, unable to be used by anyone else. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker? >> good afternoon. my name is katherine smith and i'm from hope net. i had a root canal this morning, excuse me. i don't know if you can all understand me. but i'm here to support the assuring safe, affordable and quality patient care, the bill that daly is putting forth. and i, too, am wary that the noncompassionate people are going to come in and take over our dispensaries.

i'm going to read you what the city said about us. it says that we're a non-profit facility affiliated with national hospice and palliative care organizations, among other organizations, we serve approximately 100 patients monday through saturday, there's approximately 700 regular paying patients. we have about 100 people we give compassion to free of charge, another elderly, veterans discount. most of our patients live in our neighborhood and they're over 45 years old. we also have an activist resource center on mission. we feed another 50 people in the neighborhood. now, if somebody else takes over, say, our dispensary, all those people that are being helped in our community, how is the neighborhood going to have

any say over what kind of help or what kind of people are going to run these things? i think that these letter of determinations was a loophole. it needs to be shut because if we don't shut it, we're going to lose some of our best compassion and, you know, the government, the united states, all of us, are in big trouble economically and everything else. so any little help, i think. president chiu: thank you. next speaker? >> my name is 17, san francisco native and disabled veteran. i'd like to say that i'm against pit lie ordinance. i'm in favor of free switch and as a proponent of free speech, i'd like to say that any harassment that i might run up against during my political activism only inspires me to

redouble my efforts to have my civil rights, including free speech. i am in favor of chris daly's measure. i feel that m.c.d.s should have to go through the permitting process if they change ownership and also there are many underserved areas of san francisco that i think some of these outside interests could put a spot in. i'd also like to take a minute to think about someone that's near and dear to my heart. you may or may not realize that 25 out of every 100,000 people in america commits suicide. speaking of the group of people that would be older, unemployed, noncollege graduates. as a homeless street musician most of my life in san francisco since my military experience

left me with some post-traumatic stress disorder, i'd just like to say that even one suicide sets a bad example to the youth of america. thank you very much. >> my name is steven anthony wordsly and i flew in this morning from istanbul to speak to you and the north beach merchants association in efforts to save clay tower. clay tower is intention for the last five years is to change clay tower, the mural rotunda into a beer joint. and i think if we really look at this hard, i think the artwork in clay tower is art. shouldn't this be run by the arts commission because this art has nothing to do with parks, nor does it have to do with

recreation. now, i personally successfully recommended clay tower to become a national historic site. we celebrated that. did the park commission allow me even a plaque to commemorate that? no. they consider me kind of an enemy to them. and, in fact, every one of you standing here were elected to your office and i congratulate your position. the supervisors of rec. and park are not. it's like a club, and they cannot and will not oppose the mayor. the mayor's concern, obviously, is budget cuts. clay tower -- i don't know if you've been in there, but it's -- and i speak as a third generation san francisco san franciscan. my grandmother lived through the great depression. - it is a beautiful respite where you can see the whole bay and get away from the busy city. there's radical art. and then there's also protectionist art. but, in fact, two-thirds of the

art collection cannot be visited by the public because they're afraid of graffiti. you put graffiti on a fresco, you can't take it out. it's very clear to me that my efforts and my group, the preservationists, suggest that the clay tower become a 501c3 non-profit educational experience educating the world about the great depression. thank you very much. president chiu: thank you. next speaker? >> hello, i'm denise story and i thank chris daly for his quick leadership in defending us not only our community, not only from the arrows from the other cross the aisle of the political aisle, but defending us against our own community, speaking of the candidate's community. and i've heard many good

comments today. there's a solution to this. i guess we've opened up a floodgate for a lot of dispensaries to come here because haven't we lifted the moratorium on cannabis dispensaries opening here. i know there was a moratorium for a while. now we have to deal with defending our community over and over against the corporate interests. so i just want to say, get ready for it and happy birthday, david. cheers. >> next speaker, please? >> i'm steve smith. i'm here from hope net. i'm here to ask -- i'm here to beg you on behalf of the compassion patients of san francisco to support chris daly's motion. to go past these letters of

determination, this allows undesirable people to come in and buy up buildings beyond market price. when the rents go to $15,000, $25,000 a month, there is no room left whatsoever to help the sick and the dying of this city. when we became a sanctuary, people looked up to us. they count on us. now we're counting on you to help us protect them. so i, once again, beg on their behalf, to put this, close this hole in your legislation, and protect the compassionate. we have worked so hard to show the whole country, can be done. thank you very much. president chiu: thank you. next speaker? >> excuse me.

my name is tony frasier. i'm very brief. i got a call from ms. davy who wasn't able to come here. she wanted me to ask about mcdonald's with the little kids with the games. she said that the little kids, at mcdonald's should have puzzles and math, like, for education, and basically told me to tell david campos happy birthday. i'm very brief. president chiu: thank you, sir. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is greg ledbetter, i am the activities director for access with love, and also on the board of directors of cannabis policy. the patients that come before you as well as the patients that are behind me are the citizens of san francisco. i'm here to share a story with

you about a phone call i received. i once used to work with sister reverend randy webster. and upon it closing, the building itself went to a met morphysis of sorts. it once was geared to be a flower shop. then they said, no, we're going to turn around and make a gym out of it. then, just prior to them getting ready to open, they came with this wonderful idea, hey, let's make it a dispensary the way it was. well, the neighbors didn't care -- due process wasn't done in order for that to happen and the neighborhood came out in hordes. the point i'm trying to make is there are outside entities trying to take vested interests of san francisco medical

cannabis dispensaries. the things that are in place right now need to be strenuously looked at in order to preserve the patients' rights as well as the dispensary owners' rights here in the city. let our medicine be our medicine for san francisco, and let our dispensary owners, the ones that are here with compassion for their patients, serve their patients here in san francisco. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next peerk, please? >> happy birthday, david. >> next speaker. >> my name is lance williams. i'm representing bernl heights collective in another part of the city and i really do urge you to go with daly's idea. i'm really quite scared. our landlord said that someone could talk to him just recently and i've talked to other

collectives and they're getting bombarded because this is a loophole and it's just frightening. now, i'm also on the other side of the coin, i live in south of market. and i live right next to hope.net and i've worked next door or on the other side of the street at a motorcycle shop for five years. i watched them. they worked very hard on the community. it took a lot for them to come in there and the community was scared about it at first but they've shown what they can do. i'll tell you, everyone in my neighborhood doesn't want another collective -- it wouldn't be a collective, but profiteers -- coming in and setting up shop. it's quite disturbing. right now -- i don't think i could handle it. and it's really a shame and i really want you to close this loophole as soon as you can. but it's really quite shocking. again, i worked right next door for five years and they're good people. i don't want anything happening to them but i don't want anyone

else coming into our neighborhood and i want to have the voice. if i can't voice it, our neighbors can't voice it, we're feeling castrated. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> hello, my name is theresa cooper and i've worked at a cannabis dispensary in the city. i pride myself in going to family businesses. i'm also very careful about the people that i hang out with. i'm a healer of 10 years. i've worked at the world school of massage. family businesses that have built relationships in the community, built trust, have offered compassion, especially hope.net, access of love. what they offer the community has been built up for many years. so if someone comes in with money, there's no way that anyone can replace what people

have built up for many years. so i would be at a loss for compassion. i would be on the street smoking my medicine unless i had a friend that was home, maybe. i really appreciate theseath