tv [untitled] February 6, 2011 2:00pm-2:30pm PST
2:00 pm
bicentennial and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the mexican revolution. >> one of the great area biographers has stepped out of that role and we asked them to create a special work working with 6 x ordinary dance companies that we have assembled dancers from all of these companies to present a united work in celebration of the bicentennial. >> dancers from over 20 countries are staunch cultures are participating. >> one of the things that is inspiring is how many are being invited back to their home countries as cultural ambassadors from the u.s.. we are teaching them in committees so that the next generation here in america and
2:01 pm
2:02 pm
2:03 pm
2:04 pm
grant run through the office of economic [inaudible] we were able to provide additional training. it is augmenting the green skills academy. supervisor chu: it looks like you will be adding an additional position in your budget. what will occur with that original position? >> we will be letting go of that position. supervisor chu: any other questions for the committee? supervisor mirkarimi: just for the unexpected, can you explain what neighborhoods in the city may benefit from getting this?
2:05 pm
2:07 pm
supervisor mirkarimi: neighborhoods geographically, like the mission, soho where we have actually seen the most enrollments are in the southeast visitation valley neighborhood. we have had an uptick in the last year. supervisor mirkarimi: since the city college satellites hosting this, is in there anyway you can also encourage the john adams camped se visitation nine
2:08 pm
neighborhoods. we have had a significant uptick in the western edition in the last year. and chinatown. supervisor mirkarimi: since the city college satellites that are hosting this is in the south, southeast, isn't there any way they can also be encouraged? and john adams can is near the western addition or chinatown or what have you that we can actually also have outposts for the training in those city college campuses as well? >> we are limited by the facilities that are required. you need april is a given amount of space and could dent. with our other programs and
2:09 pm
academies, we are actually partnering with the john adams can around our health care academy, which of course has lab space. city college and we are therefore somewhat confined on the facilities needs and restrictions we have. we try to ensure that we are partnering with as many of the campuses as appropriate. it does require that folks travel. we do provide, if needed -- typically they are needed -- travel vouchers, muni passes and things like that on a monthly basis. supervisor mirkarimi: i am looking for a nexus of those people entering these jobs, these opportunities and jobs and training, are they x offenders? i would like to see what kind of data we have for those people
2:10 pm
formally incarcerated. i think the assumption would be for especially low income communities, that would suggest a higher rate of those suggesting reentry. i would like to see if that is true or not. i would assume that you all are keeping data on this? >> absolutely, your assumption is correct. we have is a given number of ex- offenders or folks who are in contact with the criminal- justice system and all of our programs. we do keep the on that. one of the restrictions we have, frankly, for the most part, that is self reported. most folks are comfortable working with our office and community-based organizations which is to their benefit to disclose any criminal background that they might have. we offer a special set of services through a program that
2:11 pm
we call reentry navigator, to help folks who may have had gaps in their resume and need additional training, supports in order to deal with that issue to actually get a leg up. that is something that is layered on to a program like the academy. i would be happy to provide actual data and numbers to you. supervisor mirkarimi: feel free to follow up with my office. supervisor chu: supervisor kim? supervisor kim: when we are talking about the numbers, visitation ballet, the diversity, and gender makeup. what programs are you basing that on? >> that is primarily our sector academy of which we have three. we have the city academy, which the committee is familiar with. that is our construction sector academy. we have our green academy and we also have a health care academy
2:12 pm
that we were able to launch. we received additional stimulus dollars through our federal bought at. supervisor kim: how many people have come to the academies? >> i did not bring those numbers. they are still in progress. it has got to be close to 1000, at this point. i would be happy to provide those numbers. supervisor kim: i am very interested in the number of people served, which neighborhoods they come from common gender, ethnic breakdown, and if they are former convicts. you touched on out reach. how does that specifically happen? >> it happens to our community partners. minicab goals in terms of the number of potential clients that they are required to do our reach to. happens in a group setting through orientations. we have a calendar of monthly
2:13 pm
orientations that happened throughout the city at our one- stop centers where we invite folks to come and learn about the academy's, about the trading options, understand the prerequisites required. there are income requirements in many cases as well as to understand what a job in that industry may look and feel like, and if that is something that they are interested in. after folks have gone through one of these orientations events, which are fairly informal, we have seen anywhere from 18 people at each event to some of the larger one where we have had close to 100 people show up. from those orientation even ask, folks who were interested in continuing are basically assigned to a cdo-career advisor or specialist.
2:14 pm
they are essentially case managers with a vocational focus. at that point, they are essentially walked through the rest of the process of enrollment. supervisor kim: how many people come to orientations, how many apply, how many do you accept? >> we have a goal of training just over 700 people in our three academies over a two-year period. we will hit close to our enrollment goals in terms of training. the academies are required to hit a nine% replacement rate for everyone who actually graduates from the training. they are also required to require 90% of those who enroll in training graduate. these are very ambitious goals. given the state of the economy today, our partners are working hard to meet those goals. supervisor kim: but what do we
2:15 pm
actually achieved? >> we are still in the process of running the majority of our trading now and will begin place the services in the next three to six months. supervisor kim: how many apply to our programs? >> many more than that. to answer the first part of your question, how many people come to orientations'? a couple of thousand people coming to the orientations. supervisor kim: you do not have exact numbers? >> i do, and i would be happy to give them to you. supervisor kim: how many applicants do you have? >> we tried to keep those numbers the same. we do not want folks to enter into the application process unless we are pretty secure that they will get in, be eligible and successful in the program. supervisor kim: you mentioned
2:16 pm
minimum requirements. the employment might be a requirement. income might be another one. what other requirements do you have? >> it depends on the type of training. we offer, for example, 15 different types of training in our healthcare academy. as you can see, five or six kinds of trading through our grain academy. so it really depends on what training and job opportunities people are interested in, what those requirements are. many require a ged and a certain level of reading and math ability. we do have additional programs, however, should focus not have their ged or need some adult basic education or skills or remediation in sommap or esl training. we can offer them services there. outside of the academy context,
2:17 pm
sort of, but with the intention of bringing them back in once they meet the requirements. supervisor kim: that goes to my next question, language access. how are you reaching out to other language populations? >> at all of our academies we have staff with language ability supervisor kim. supervisor kim: which languages? >> cantonese, mandarin, spanish, and then access to other translation services as needed. we do see the bulk of our clients speaking chinese and spanish. supervisor kim: is a challenging to take individuals whose language -- the training language that they would need in other languages? >> absolutely. we offer vocational esl options as well. folks can learn the kind of
2:18 pm
specialized vocabulary that may be needed in any particular industry. >> my last question -- supervisor kim: my last question in terms of placement, do you have projects in the pipeline, commitments from labor unions, companies to take on our current trainees? >> it is a continual process. we set out these academies to set up the labor demands, local and regional employers. we convened meetings of those employers on a quarterly basis to update us and our cdo partners in media mean -- in near-term and immediate options, how we can make sure that we are training to meet the needs. supervisor kim: so if we are training 700 applicants, we are treating them looking at the market, with an optimistic view
2:19 pm
that we can get them higher? >> absolutely. we demand -- defined as as a demand-driven system. we are training to meet the needs of job-seekers and local employers. we do not want to train folks for job opportunities that do not exist. supervisor chu: thank you, supervisor. is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item? >> i have here before me a news flash from the office of economic development and workforce. in the first paragraph it says there are these one-stop career
2:20 pm
centers. it mentions a figure of 130,000 visits. i have this here but this lady does not have it. i am representing members of our district. i am representing my experience so that people at home can hear. what is happening here is our federal taxpayer money is being wasted. if, in the last five years, you look at the mayor's office of economic development, there was just a handful. now they have a budget of close to $18 million. i do not know if our attorneys and those that we trust to do a good job audit the mayor's
2:21 pm
office of economic development, but as far as i am concerned, my partners -- we do business in canada, china, south america. we know all about green. the acts that come from the office of the mayor's office of economic development and workforce are not right. we should have had a lot of other people here instead of this lady. it is the first time i have seen her. supervisor chu: thank you. >> this is very shameful. supervisor chu: next please? seeing none, public comment is closed. one of the things, if i could request -- i think there is an interest from the perspective of the board to understand
2:22 pm
better workforce development strategies across the city. not only are their activities through citybuild, the health care program to the office of workforce development, but also programs through the hsa. i think it would be helpful to get a larger perspective of the work force investments the city makes and to perhaps share that information with the members of this committee at a later time. we can have a hearing at a later time to go through those. >> absolutely. i would be happy to share that information. supervisor mirkarimi: may i add to that? it was about three years ago that we took this up to consolidate work force efforts in the city. departments like hsa and others came on board but we were not successful in consolidating every board.
2:23 pm
that makes it a challenge for the office of work force development. for lack of a better phrase, they are the traffic cop. each time one of these grants comes to us, whether under the title of green jobs or something else, it is true, based on public comment -- based on what chair chu said -- there is not much data to that thematically, geographically, and demographically. in the same way that we isolate these questions with police departments, we want to know how populations are being affected. i think it is getting to the point now where oewd figured out
2:24 pm
and anticipate those questions. >> thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. can we have a motion to send this item for with recommendations? without objection. item to police. >> resolution authorizing the office of economic and workforce development to retroactively accept and expend a community services block grant in the amount of $750,000 from the california state department of community services and development, through the economic opportunity council, to support citybuild, the summer youth employment program, and ramp sf. supervisor chu: would you also call item 3? >> ordinance authorizing the office of economic & workforce development to retroactively accept and expend a grant in the amount of $238,000 from the united states department of labor employment and training administration to fund the green jobs workforce development training project, and amendin.
2:25 pm
>> the second item on the agenda, and the community services block grants, we received this grant late in our program. and these were stimulus dollars that were basically sub-granted to our office by the economic opportunity council, to augment some existing programming we had in place that met the requirements of those dollars. what we were able to do with these funds is add additional training services. what we ended up doing was concentrating the dollars primarily in our summer youth program. as such, we were able to surf 530 san francisco youth. they rare given a job opportunities over this past summer. they were also receiving job
2:26 pm
readiness training, workshops, and for those of those in school, a transition back into the educational environment. because we were able to augment the program with these dollars, we will be able to continue our summer youth employment program this coming summer. we were able to start a summer youth employment program with the stimulus dollars a came into our office originally two years ago. those dollars are now expiring. but we will be able to carry forward formula dollars and run another program this summer, which we are happy about. we know there are a lot of young people who need those opportunities to stay off the streets in the summer. we want to make sure we can give as many of them opportunities as possible. we were also able to use this change to give specialized hazmat and abatement training for another 85 out of work construction workers that we would not otherwise have been
2:27 pm
able to serve with these dollars. the additional item on the agenda, the federal training grant is part of the work force investment act funding that was received by our office. these are discretionary dollars that were granted to us in a special grant. we will use these to provide staffing and cdo support really to coordinate the variety of green program that we have running currently, including both of our youth programs and the green academy we were speaking of earlier. i am happy to answer any questions you might have. supervisor chu: on item two, a $750,000 grant going primarily -- almost 100% of that going to contractual services. the 71 is going to fund a position with a bit of contractual services, $30,000.
2:28 pm
>> exactly. supervisor chu: why don't we open up these two items to public comment. seeing none, public comment is closed. -- is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item? >> the first time i was only given two minutes. now we have two agenda items and i am given another two minutes. if this is not mickey mouse in the issue, i do not know what is. you representatives, i think, should be ashamed of yourself to call on people to have public comment but not give them sufficient time to address such issues. what i am saying here categorically -- and i want to start a freedom of information act. when stimulus money comes to us, he constituents of san francisco, that is our federal tax money. what we have a department like this doing is they talk the talk
2:29 pm
but they cannot walk the walk. they take the money and give it to citybuild, city college, cdo 's and the people that really need training, the ones that deserve training, and there is no doubt reach. path office of economic development to talk about this and other. the people at ground zero do not have the information. we cannot allow our taxpayers' money, our federal money to be wasted by an agency like the mayor's office of economic development. it is too fake. now that you are only giving us two minutes, we have a group of people who are investing in these issues. we are going
68 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV: San Francisco Government Television Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on