corner of 23rd and cap. there will be a reception to follow at cafe la boheme. hope everyone can attend. thank you. supervisor chiu: thank you, colleagues. today, i'm introducing a resolution concerning sb 223, concerning the vehicle license fee, sponsored by senator mark leno. as many of you probably know, in 2003, governor schwarzenegger really did damage to our budget by rolling back the vehicle license fee. he rolled back a vlf that had for 50 years been in place. the move cost our state about $6

billion a year, including hundreds of billions of dollars to san francisco -- hundreds of millions of dollars to san francisco. we considered raising the vehicle license fee back to the 2003 levels, which would have brought the city close to $50 million. there was a super majority of the board that supported that, and it was also supported by our local chamber of commerce and labor unions. unfortunately, in order for us to put this to san francisco voters, it would have required a state law change that governor schwarzenegger vetoed. senator leno earlier this week introduced the legislation to make the change that would be required to allow san francisco and other localities around the state to decide for ourselves whether or not we should bring our vehicle license fee back to the 2003 levels that have been in place for 50 years. i want to thank supervisors wiener, avalos, elsbernd, and mirkarimi for your co sponsorship, and i ask my colleagues for your support.

i also had two in memoriams for two great artists that recently passed. the first was jack baker, a constituent of mine on nob hill. over the weekend, the san francisco police department found him the victim of a tragic homicide. he was someone who was very well liked by my constituents. he had mural work in our local neighborhoods. he was a very quiet, peaceful man, and i know that there are many neighbors who are grieving today and hoping for justice with regards to jack baker. i also had a second in memorial for another wonderful artists and arts educator, dan kristen, who passed on after a short but intense battle with pneumonia. he was someone who could have worked in the professional theater and had done so but actually chose to apply his considerable gifts towards educating young people in our public schools as a credentialed

teacher at the school of the arts. dan was someone who was the heart and soul of that school for so many students. he mounted hundreds of shows brilliantly, which were seen by thousands of students, parents, and community members. i actually attended his open-air " -- "seussical"production last year, and it was tremendous. i know there are many within the arts education community who understand that at this time, a bright light has gone out within the arts education world. the rest of my items i will submit. >> thank you, mr. president. seeing no other names on the roster, that concludes roll call for introductions. supervisor chiu: thank you. at this time, if we could go to general public comment. >> the next item is the opportunity for the public to adjust the board for two minutes on items within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board

including items on the adopt without consideration but excluding items already considered by the committee. if a member of the public would like a document displayed on the overhead projector, please clearly states such and remove the document when the screen should return to live coverage of the meeting. supervisor chiu: each speaker shall have up to two minutes unless you are translating in another language. first speaker. first speaker. >> [speaking foreign language]

[tone] ladies and gentlemen, i would like to tell you i am here today as the oldest american egyptian native.

i cannot deny where i come from. i would like to thank everyone. 5000 people walk with us in the midi up -- the middle of the city of san francisco. i would like to thank each one of you. i would also like to thank john avalos. he came and spoke with us. it does not matter where i come from, egypt or any other country, but we are here like family. thank you very much, john, and thank you very much for each one of our people who support us. 5000 people going to be in the city when i organize them. to let you know that we are not easy to play games with us. i grew up in tahrir square.

26 years, one i m eight years old. i still remember, i still know where i come from. i love this country. i love each of the people who supported me. thank you, god, and thank each one of you guys. god bless america. thank you. supervisor chiu: next speaker. >> hello, supervisors. i'm a human rights activist. probably, you have seen me several times in here. however, most of my people are somewhere else. i do have a comment and a request. the first comment i have is i would like to thank you all for your hard work toward the major issues that our community faces,

such as budgets, health, education, crime, drug use and drug cultivation, which destroyed our community. i understand that you try to do the best he can to serve our community. however, the kind of environment that you have today has turned your office as board of supervisors to a court house. you address the issues after they have happened. you take the hit like anyone else in the streets and try to sweep it up after. i would like to encourage you to take a step ahead by addressing the issues before they happen. one of the main involvement you can do is try to get involved with -- directly with our u.s. government by advising them to make the right decision towards the issues and causes of

destroying our community. basically, we have no money today because of the war. the war that killed civilians abroad overseas, especially in the middle east. we all know where our problems and disasters came from. it came from the bad decisions that take place in the white house. to date, the u.s. government's realize that they did spend a lot of money for no reason just to support dictatorships in the middle east. what happened in geneva? there is a revolution. in egypt, there is a revolution we cannot even denied. [tone] supervisor chiu: thank you very much. thank you very much. next speaker. >> thank you, supervisors. the public can be given three minutes. stop the corporate rate of our public library. i have recently described the

scandals to the privatization produced in our san francisco public library. i have also described how the library has become an income stream of private fund raisers without social responsibility or accountability of any kind. how they are able to accomplish this is no secret. the san francisco public library has a reputation as the most egregious sunshine by later in the city of san francisco. when the president of the library commission violates someone's right to make public comment, the sunshine task force found a violation so egregious it was referred to the ethics commission, which has issued its report and found that the library's conduct "falls below the standard of decency, good faith, and right actions impliedly required of public officials." the library has shown its contempt for decency by failing even to acknowledge and ratified the violation by

reelecting the violator as their president. there was a time when this would have been considered and outrage, and yet, this is all too typical of the library commission as the most flagrant privatize are in san francisco. as an essentially private institution, contempt for democracy and accountability has become part of their institutional culture. their attitude is, of course, they are anti-democratic. they are raising millions of dollars from the city's corporate elite. the public library has become a private income stream, and obstruction of democracy is what the builders expect for their money. you know very well the forces of abuse that are unleashed when you allow private forces to raise private money with no accountability. therefore, the damage to our civic society is in measurable. -- immeasurable. supervisor chiu: thank you.

next speaker. >> [inaudible] and i have come before you several times. and supervisor mar's subcommittee on the homeless and the conditions that are there. i have asked you if you would be so kind as to do a task force looking on how specifically african-americans are treated in the church, the religious place. i have had the most horrendous things happen to me with what they called denial of service. they can pull you out on the street. i'm asking you to do a resolution to do a moratorium on seniors to not be thrown out of city-funded programs or the

episcopal st. vincent depaul providence. the staff is so incompetent, and they treat us with such disrespect and with such cruelty that it should be criminal. you must give my committee credence to have ross, kim, mar, set up a task force, and we will not stop there because senior white mothers have fallen through the cracks of the social institute into the social service so were. this senior abuse of the nile and neglect as if we are not even there, and if it was not for us, you would not be here. they took it out of the homeless proposal because they wanted to shift this all to their private hotels and newly built senior housing. we want a shelter.

we want to live free just like the crackheads and prostitutes who are now using it as a flophouse. we want this committee to have the power to enforce $60,000 to us, and a warehouse, so we can have a safe place to even communicate. these boys are so fierce and the staff is so ridiculous that you can add even file a complaint -- these bullies are so fierce. supervisor chiu: thank you very much. next speaker. >> yesterday was 5444 days from the jubilee, and it can still be said the it has been 777 weeks because the date is not over. we are becoming more opposed to the bible as a nation and as a people. [cell phone rings]

that's not me. supervisor chiu: may i ask for the phone to be turned off? thank you. >> i clean carpets for a living. when i mention that we're now at 7077 weeks from the jubilee, somehow, i just think obama is going to meet jesus. do you know what he said to me? i could think of worse things that can happen. he is not a christian. i can tell. if he was, he would want all of his rulers to be christians, and as far as i know, he did not get born again, but i was thinking that will be a perfect time for obama to this date, on abraham lincoln's birthday, a spiritual way on the very day that abraham lincoln came into this world. i think of the ramifications of that. he would shut down guantanamo bay, stop the torture, stop planned parenthood. sometimes, i pray for hillary

clinton. i think about the ramifications if she got born again. that would be so awesome. she was satisfied bill. all he would have to do is a wink at her, and she would died on the bed, knowing her christian obligation to satisfy him. as far as the cfr goes, she would spurn it. you can watch her kiss of to the council on foreign relations and thank them for giving her directions. absolutely amazing. she would say, "no way. i'm a christian now. i'm going to serve the lord jesus as a senator and call for a new 9/11 commission investigation, by the way." israel had to be in on it. larry boyd silverstein -- [tone] supervisor chiu: thank you very much. next speaker. >> i would like the camera to remain on the overhead projector. again, i'm here to talk about

the rent petition i have talked about several times before, and what i view as to be the rent board closing policy, which is, open the " screw you if you are a tenant -- "screw you if you are a tenant." it says at the time of purchase of a property, if you anticipate filing a petition, you should required documentation of capital improvement as a condition of closing escrow. it is often difficult to obtain these records from the prior owner after the transaction is complete. throughout the entire red board process, the owner did not make any effort to deny the fact that the reason they could not for this the numbers here were because they had failed to take the necessary steps to ensure that they have the access to those. if you look at the khaki

instructions, the ones most of you are probably familiar with, to the civil grand jury, there is a qualification there for a basic standard of care, and it says negligence is the failure to use reasonable care to prevent harm to yourself or others. person can be negligent by acting or failing to act. person is negligent if he or she does something that a reasonably careful person would not do in the same circumstance or fails to do something that a reasonably careful person would do in the same situation. going forward the next few months, it will be up to you to decide how a reasonably careful person would have acted in any position when they turned in this missing a whole bunch of items. if you look at what is missing, basically, they are numbers which could have mitigated or perhaps even called the past to be invalid. supervisor chiu: thank you. at this time, i would like to

move to our 3:00 a special order. if folks are here for general public,, we will certainly pick up after the 3:30 commendations, but i would like to now move to the recognitions that each of us are prepared to give with regard to black history month. first of all, i want to welcome all of you who are here for this ceremony, to honor community leaders and activists within our midst with regards to black history month. we typically use different orders by which we acknowledge folks, and colleagues, what i would like to suggest today is that we go in reverse order based on your district number, just to keep it interesting. it is ok, i would like to start with district 11 because supervisor avalos always ends up going last. i would like to go in reverse order from district 11. supervisor avalos: the first will be last. great. all right. thank you. it is my great honor to commend

the worked of delores mcgee, who is a resident of the omi neighborhood. if you want to come forward to the podium. i have known delores now about three or four years, and if there's ever someone who is like the blue of a community, the loris is that person. it was so wonderful to me delores and to see just what she has been able to create a around her in terms of friendship, especially with a group of women who are doing great work in her neighborhood. delores is one of the persons who really is extending much of that effort that is impacting so many people's lives. she herself is a senior citizen, but you would not know it by how much energy and activism that she has. she is one that has committed herself to working with elders

in neighborhoods, and it is like helping people who live isolated lives find resources around nutrition, health, separating themselves from the isolation that they often live in. that is the great work that delors has been part of. she is a member of the food security task force, the community collaborative, and neighbors in action. she is a lifetime member of the national council of negro women and works for the california state automobile association electronic data system in the information technology field before bringing her skills to the community. she is working for the community living campaign, working with marie, who is here as a community connector, for the ocean view, merced heights, and in will side neighborhoods. she developed and coordinates the food network distribution program come apart during with the san francisco food bank and

temple united methodist church. she is also on me to make sure i do what i need to do for the community. she is currently developing a breast cancer support group in partnership with the california pacific medical center and the lutheran church of our savior. in the past, she has also contributed as a board member of the southwestern neighborhood improvement group and assistant scoutmaster of the cub scout pack 123 and pta president of jose ortega elementary school. mother of two. one of her children who is surviving who lives in mississippi. she focuses her time on five seniors in her community, making sure they get services and resources that they desperately need. her work has brought the community closer to gather to make the omi a safe place to age in greece. she has lived in the community

for over 30 years. she has a degree in human services administration from noted game. delores, it is my great honor to give you this commendation today in honor of black history month. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> to the san francisco board of supervisors, i would like to thank you, first, for having this type of event. i would like to thank supervisor

avalos for considering me for this award. i would also like to thank the community living campaign for allowing me the freedom to express myself in my own community and do the things in my community that i see that are necessary for all of us who live there, and i would like to thank the omi food network distribution volunteers for all of the hours they have put in serving the seniors who are 80 to 100 years old or disabled. i would also like to thank my friends and family for being supportive of the things that i do, and i would like to thank the whole community for allowing me to serve them. thank you. [applause] supervisor chiu: congratulations.

why don't we now move to our next presentation, from our supervisor of district 10. supervisor cohen, are you ready? supervisor cohen: ok, colleagues, i hope you are ready. members of the public, thank you for coming and joining us today for this special commendation that i present to you. i am very proud and very excited to present to you a native son of san francisco. this gentleman goes by the name of desmond bishop. [applause] for those that do not know

desmond bishop, he is a linebacker for the green bay packers football team. for those that do not know football, green bay just won the super bowl for 2011. [applause] the reason why we are celebrating desmond as well as the bishop family today is to highlight not only black history but also to highlight the beautiful things that come out of the southeast part of san francisco. too often, we are played with crime and violence, and it overshadows the beautiful beauties that we actually produced generational leap. desmond was born in san francisco in 1984 and grew up in the bayview-hunters point area. he attended san francisco schools including visitation valley middle school as well as san francisco city college. desmond has played with the san

francisco pop warner football league. i believe it was the rams, right? excuse me, i stand corrected. he went on to a successful athletic career at uc-berkeley, including leading the pac-10 conference in tackles in 2006. in 2007, desmond was drafted by the packers. today, we are so blessed to be joined by dennis and sherry, the parents of desmond. please come to the podium. [applause] this recognition has been earned not only by desmond himself but also the mother and father who created this. [applause] i also would like to add back

dennis and sherry also serve as a shining example of the african-american family together, high school sweethearts remaining intact and raising healthy children. [applause] there is more to this legacy. originally started with a man by the name of mr. curley bishop. please join us at the podium as well. [applause] mr. curley bishop moved from arkansas to san francisco around 1954. he is now 80 years old and still resides in the head-hunters point. [applause]