conditions taken care of right away. i think that is great. but with a club like this, there has been an incident in the club with a gun inside, that leads me to believe that was not the first time a gun was in that club, but the first time it was used. i am not confident this is going to be handled correctly. >> all right. >> if there are no other requests, this concludes the tuesday, november 9th meeting of the entertainment commission. thank you for coming. the biggest issue

in america today? segregation still exists... racism... the repression and oppression of women the educational system stem cell research homeless people cloning government health care taxation announcer: so, is there anything you're doing to help make a change? i'm not really doin' anything. ummmm [sighs] got me on that one...

because we have a great waste water system here in san francisco, we do about 80

million gallons of waste water here in san francisco, which means we basically fill up 120 olympic sized swimming pools each and every day here in the city. we protect public health and safety and environment because we are discharging into the bay and into the ocean. this is essentially the first treatment here at our waste water treatment facility. what we do is slow down the water so that things either settle to the bottom or float to the top. you see we have a nice selection of things floating around there, things from bubble gum wrappers, toilet paper, whatever you dump down the toilet, whatever gets into our storm drains, that's what gets into our waste water treatment and we have to clean. >> see these chains here, this keeps scum from building up. >> on this end in the liquid end basically we're just trying to produce a good water product

that doesn't negatively impact the receiving water so that we have recreation and no bad impact on fish and aquatic life. solids is what's happening. . >> by sludge, what exactly do you mean? is that the actual technical term? . >> it's a technical term and it's used in a lot of different ways, but this is organic sewage sludge. basically what it is is, oh, maybe things that come out of your garbage disposal, things that are fecal in nature. it's sludge left in the water after the primary treatment, then we blend those two over and send them over to digestion. this building is built to replace tanks here that were so

odoriferous they would curl your hair. we built this as an interim process. >> is there a coagulant introduced somewhere in the middle of this? . >> this coagulant brings solids together and lets the water run through. that gives us more time in the digestion process, more time to reduce the amount of solids. these are the biggest ones in the world, like we always like to do in san francisco. they are 4 meter, there's none like it in the world. >> really? wow. >> three meters, usually. we got the biggest, if not the best. so here we are. look at that baby hum. river of sludge. >> one of the things is we use bacteria that's common in our own guts to create this reduction.

it's like an extra digestion. one of the things we have to do to facilitate that is heat that sludge up and keep it at the temperature our body likes, 98.6 degrees. >> so what we have here is the heat exchanger for digester no. 6. these clog up with debris and we're coming in to -- next wet weather season so we always come through here, clean them out, make sure that we get maximum heat exchange during the colder wet weather. sludge season. >> rubber glove. >> right here. >> rubber glove, excellent. all right, guys. >> thank you. >> good luck. >> this is the full on hazmat. . >> residual liquid. we're taking it time to let it

drain. we don't want to get sludge on it necessarily. take your time. stand on the side of it. . >> should we let it release for a while? . >> let it release. >> is that the technical term? . >> this is the most important bolt on the whole thing. this is the locking bolt. it locks this thing right in place. so now. >> take your hammer and what we want to do, we get rag build up right in here. the hot water recirculates right in here, the sludge recirculates in here. the sludge sometimes has rags in it. all we want to do is go around the clean the rags. let me show you how. take the slide hammer, go all the way through the back, go

around. >> got you. >> during the real rainy season, how does that change the way dealing with this job? is it a lot more stuff in there? . >> what we do, charles, we do this quarterly. every four months we go around and clean all the heat exchangers so we don't have a large build up. . >> go around? . >> yeah. (sound of hammering). >> what i'm trying to do, charles, is always pull it out on the low stroke. >> right. so you are not, like, flying

out. now talk about clean up. . >> then where does this stuff get deposited? . >> we're going to dump it in a debris box and it will go back to the plant. >> if you think back, the romans came up with a system of plumbing that allowed us it use water to transport waste away from the hub of civilization, which enabled cities to grow. . >> you have a large bowl, a drive motor and another motor with a planetary gearbox with differential pressure inside there. the large mass up there spinning separating the solids from the liquid. we have to prevent about once a month, we go in there grease those, change the oil, check

the vibration levels. the operators can tell just by the hum of that machine that it's a harmonic noise emitted that it's out of balance and the machine needs to be cleaned. it will start vibrating and we have vibration analysis machines that will come over here and check the levels. so it's kind of an on-going thing that you have to stay on top of on a daily basis. >> handled properly, you take organic residuals, as we call them, that are leftovers of our society and turn them back into some energy. and we have another ability to take that sludge and get a nutrient value for crops there. we actually are running a kind of composting energy recovery system.

>> well, this is a dirty job. we try to do it safely and we try to do it without imposing too much on the public. people want to flush their toilets and have things go away and not be bothersome again. we do a lot to try to accomplish that. i'd like to invite you to come back any time you want. once you got this in your blood, you are not going to be able to stay away. the raging waters are fun and when we do digester cleaning i really hope you can come back. that's quite a sight. >> yeah, that sounds interesting. >> i really appreciate you coming by and it was a >> thank you all very much for taking the time to be here.

as chief gascon promised, we're keeping you abreast of our changing crime statistics on a quarterly basis. of course, as you knew with the new model of policing, we do that more often and technology and data is really driving so much of our deployment and strategies in terms of crime fighting and crime prevention in our city. the good news is we were audacious in our goal setting earlier this year. we had some stretch goals. we raised the bar in terms of our expectation. we came into the year with among the lowest homicide rates we had seen in a generation. in fact, till the early 1960's, we had no seen homicide rates as low as they were last year. there were some that felt it was inappropriate to set the goal of continuing that trend downward in terms of the homicide rates in particular since lastior some had suggested was an anomaly. we felt differently, not only

in terms of the goal setting, but we felt that last year was an extension of a trend that we saw happening occurring in the middle part of 2008 and the summer of 2008. that trend continues now into the new year. while the statistics, you will see in the presentation the chief will provide very shortly, shows that homicide are up by one homicide, 3% the actual numbers today if they were adjusted show that homicides are down by 3%. the new numbers that we just brought in today actually shows them lower than last year. nonetheless and to the point, we are seeing part one crime continuing to decrease in the city. it was double digits last year and it's down as you'll see in a moment 9% this year. we're making progress. the work that the police department is doing in concert and partnership with the district attorney's office continue to show very positive

gains in terms of reduction in crime. the stats, as always, mean nothing to the people of this city. behind the stats are real human beings, real narratives and real lives. we recognize we can do more. we recognize we can do better. we recognize good enough never is. but i just want to compliment before i ask the chief to make the presentation and the district attorney, to complete our presentation and answer any questions, i want to compliment the men and women in uniform, the men and women of law enforcement in this city. i want to compliment the partnerships with the district attorney's office and the courts. we are making tremendous progress. we are seeing stats that we haven't seen in decades in san francisco. we're seeing a reduction in violent crime and property crimes, the likes of which we haven't seen in decades in this city and we're doing it longwindedly with this point. we're doing it with less resources, that money has not been our excuse. we're doing it with substantially less resources than we have had in the last few decades.

that, i think, is a remarkable testament to leadership and with that, let me give you leader of our police department, our police chief, george gascon. >> thank you, mr. mayor, and thank you everyone. as the mayor indicated, this is really about people working together. it's about the police department, the mayor's office, the district attorney's office, our chief probation office and her department who happens to be here and the community. certainly our federal partners. what we're going to do very quickly is walk you through a powerpoint that will illustrate what the numbers are. i think it's important as the mayor indicated, there are lives, there are real people behind the numbers. i think that is what we should be focusing on. while the numbers tell a story, the numbers really are meaningless unless we put the context to the numbers. the fact that there are less people being victimized in our city. as a matter of fact, we were looking at a study that was published a few months ago, actually at the end of 2009 where they took three different

assessments of the cost of crime in this country. and we averaged the three different numbers that were provided by the studies. in looking at those numbers, if we were to compare the number of homicides that we have to date and quantify that in dollars and cents to the cost to our community and compare that to just two years ago, the savings are staggering. it's almost $800 million in savings that this community has realized by this reduction in crime. these things do not happen by accident. they happen because good people are working together and making a difference. first we'll begin with the bases for our driving force, if you will. if you recall, one of the things that we wanted to ensure is that we continue to work collaboratively with our community to make san francisco the safest largest city in the country. although we're not there yet, we're certainly moving in the right direction. that is something we want to talk about all the time.

next i want to put the numbers up there for you so you can see, just very briefly, what in short three years' time the reductions in crime of serious crimes in the city. as you see, we're down 13%. if we compare it to two years ago and 9% when we compare it to a year ago. these are year-to-date numbers. next, just another way breaking down the crimes and looking at it. all of you will get a copy of this powerpoint. i'm not going to read it for you. we have a agenda today and i want to make sure that we get to some of the real important points that we want to make here today. those numbers are there for you and you will have access to this powerpoint. what i would like to do now is we're going to have, we have a couple of speakers that are going to come before our d.a. comes up and closes this portion of the press conference and then we'll open it up for questions and answers. one number that i really like to point out to you because

there is no question that without the hard work of the men and women of the police department and their ability to work well with all of the other stakeholders, crime would not be as low as it is. and one of the things that i think is really important to illustrate is how aggressively our men and women are going after violence. this is really illustrated, if we can go to the next slide, please. the one that has the -- the next one. i think we're going perhaps backwards. i'm talking about the one that has violence reduction accomplishments and it has -- there we go. look at the number of firearms that have been recovered year-to-date in the city. 787 firearms. those are crime guns. every one of those guns haze story behind it and they're not good stories. this is what our men and women are confronting on our streets day in and day out as we put them in the places at the time

of the day in order to make sure that we reduce violence and that we reduce the likelihood of carnage in our city. i want to make a point here, i think it's a point that especially now that we're in the middle of an election process, the reason that we're getting these firearms and the reason why crime is down in the city is because in addition to all of the work that is being done by all of the other partners is that we in the police department have the ability to take a look historically where crime is likely to occur, but also prospectively try to analyze, based on the data that we have, very rigorous process, and put police officers where they need to be at the time that they need to be. and if we allow police deployment to be dictated by political forces as opposed to by professionals looking at objective factors in order to

make sure that the limited resources that we have are placed at the right time and the right place, we are not going to see the level of decreases that we're seeing today. this doesn't happen by accident. the 787 guns were picked up mostly because we're putting police officers in harm's way, by the way, but they are there where they need to be in order to find the people that are carrying the guns. and that is the important message that i want to make sure that we communicate to all. we have a couple of guest speakers here today and we're going to be talking, first of all, about a program that we're very proud to be a partner of with the drug enforcement administration. so we're not going to finish this first? ok. i guess we're moving on the fly, we're going to alter the plan a little. i'm going to put you guys later. we're going to have the d.a. say a few words and we're coming back to the rest of this

thing, ok. the ability to be flexible. >> good, and hopefully brief on my part. i wanted to applaud and thank mayor gavin newsom for his leadership around the issue of public safety. it has been a process of dedication, of smart distribution of resources and priority on his part and the success is evident. i want to applaud our great chief of police, george gascon for his vision and for his ability to uniquely because of his career as a law enforcement leader make decisions that are in the best interest of the public safety in san francisco. i also want to use this opportunity to encourage everyone to support his leadership and his ability to exercise discretion and to know what is in the best interests of public safety when he makes decisions about how the resources of the police department will be used, because clearly, he knows what he is doing and we see the results right here in these statistics. i'm also proud of the work of my office because the hard-working men and women of the san francisco d.a.'s office are responsible for the highest

conviction rates that we have had in san francisco in over 15 years. in the last few years, we have sent twice as many serious felons to state prison as had occurred before. there was a charging rate for crime that were brought to my office of around 50% when i took office and now it is over 70%. it is because of the important and good collaboration that is taking place between the men and women of the san francisco district attorney's office and the men and women of the san francisco police department. i'm proud of the work that we did earlier this year, most specifically as one example of many cases that we have been prosecuting, where in the early part of 2010 we took several, in fact, nine gang members before the grand jury. we produced over 77 witnesses that discussed the crimes that they were responsible for committing, which include murder, attempted murder, robbery, illegal possession of guns. the grand jury returned the documents in those cases and

those -- indictments in those cases and those individuals are being held accountable for those crimes. it is, again, an example of work that happens because there is the collaboration that takes place, not only between the d.a.'s office and the police department, but also our other law enforcement partners at our local, state, and federal. all in all, we are seeing that we are smart as we have been as a city, in recognizing that there are many layers and many angles which we can approach the issue of crime and violent crime, when we collaborate around that and when we are smart with the resources that we have, those limited they may be, we see that results occur. with that, i want to congratulate and thank everyone and pass it on to the chief to continue with his program. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> next as i was indicating, fighting crime requires that you remain flexible in that you look at the various factors that influence crime. there is no question that drug use and drug abuse is one of those areas that, quite frankly, often drives a great deal of our crime.

and, you know, many people talk about drug use and drug sales as being sort of a victimless crime. the realities that we in law enforcement know that is not the case. drugs actually drive a tremendous amount of violence. they drive a tremendous amount of the other crimes that we deal with. in recognition of that, we have many other partners and one of our great partners is the drug enforcement administration. and we work with them very closely. not only do we look at the illicit drugs and those that are manufacturered by underground type of operations whether it be across the border or here, but one of the problems that we have here is prescription drugs and the impact of prescription drugs and the misuse of prescription drugs has on our society. for that i would like to bring over to the podium, if i can have our partner from the d.e.a., mr. martin and he is going to talk about the prescription drug operation that we have been working with and will continue to, please.

>> thank you. as chief gascon just said, last month on september 25, the d.e.a. with its state and local counterparts throughout the nation conducted its firstever nationwide prescription takeback program. on that day in just a four-hour period, we collected over 242,000 pounds of prescription drugs nationwide. thanks to the overwhelming response of the public that these unused and unwanted prescription drugs have been in people's medicine cabinets for years sometimes are now, have now been properly disposed and communities are safer and more likely to be drug-free. the overwhelming support we got by the public demonstrated that there is a clear need for a permanent solution to the problem of safely disposing unused and unwanted prescription drugs. and the september 25 event

highlighted the value of that recently pass secure and responsible drug disposal act of 2010. the president just signed this into law yesterday and this legislation is going to allow d.e.a. to create a process that could take up to 18 months, but to create a process where we can turn in our prescription drugs, the unused and unwanted drugs that are sometimes in our medicine cabinets for years and dispose of them properly on a regular basis. i guess i want to sum up by saying what chief gascon and our partnership that we have. on september 25, under the chief's leadership and with san francisco police department, we were able to collect hundreds of pounds of prescription drugs throughout the city of san francisco. the chief set up 10 collection sites throughout the city for the community members to be able to drop off these drugs.

the most collection sites of any police department, at least in the d.e.a. san francisco area of responsibility which covers all the way from bakersfield to the oregon border and we really appreciate that. the partnership that we have created with the san francisco police department under chief gascon's leadership, in fighting prescription drug abuse, because we do know it's on the rise in the country and so we formed a partnership to really combat this serious issue. so i appreciate it, chief gascon, thank you. >> thank you so much. what i would like to do is we're going to go off order here because the mayor and ms. harris have a very busy schedule and they have to move on. we have one more presentation. i hope you stay for it. it's about crime prevention and about putting out some public safety tips. i would hope you hang on. prior to that, i want to open it up for some questions that you may have for the mayor or ms. harris as far as the numbers are concerned.