spending this time, and i would like to congratulate your staff for doing a lot of work and in the last two or three years. there is a lot to do, and i do not think we are half way there yet. the biggest problem they have is when they do nothing. the person who wants to use the service is very angry when they send a letter and they get blown off, and they go to a lawsuit it gives the right -- go to a lawsuit. it gives the right of responsibility, but there is no other action. there is no public body that

will enforce this. the 16 08 is of limited value. there is a way to do it, and the more the city staff helps them to see a way to do it, the easier it is to move toward saying, i am going to see what it takes if you cannot fix anything, that may not as expensive as it would have been.

i am happy to see you are focusing on restaurants as a place to start. all of the early lawsuits were again restaurants, because they make so many changes to keep customers coming, and they were the first people to be sued, so i think they are the best group to start with. they have a lot of customers, and they have great responsibilities. i would hope dbi can go further than that sending out notes curator -- sending out notes. i looked at it. if i got it, i might put it on

the long list from my a a very good -- from my bank. i would like to see them expend to a larger range of small businesses and work their way up to see if you can hit 50,000 or some number. the other way is to let the small businesses know you can do some facilitation. the fire department figures out how to make your place more accessible. the one thing they can do this address this. it is something not accessible very good they think they are ok, and they have laid a time

bomb. you know the first reaction is going to be, i got a permit. the better you do that job, you are also providing another permit for small and businesses. >> next speaker please. >> i liked the suggestion of having dothe dbi. we have the legislation that could potentially trigger mandatory. most people do not realize there is such thing as a structural

exercise only. is untitled 24 -- it is titled 24 construction cost reagan most people will realize that should take care of their requirements, but it does not. people need to be notified and informed. accessibility is a much more complicated they, dense if you have to deal with it, you are going to have today and the accessibility consultant to help you. i appreciate the efforts to put

this out there. this is a constant effort. outreach is crucial. >> any further public comments. next item. >> and next item is item number eight, commissioners comments. . >> what i see is some category of notification davis -- notification, and we are seeing how they are notified on whether they have made efforts of meeting compliance as a general note. >> we have talked to the tax of treasurer's office of ways of

doing this, and their preference is not to do so, because they want to use the to communicate with business. our office is making a commitment as part of on going out to reach. -- out of reach. the office will be provided in our office and with all of this. our office will be sending a welcome level, -- welcome

letter. there are other things the businesses do not always get informed of. let us know, and we will help you through this. >> one radical concept is when you sell a property, you have to disclose a certain amount of information in terms of the components of the building. you have to disclose accessibility issues with the properties as a condition of

sale. >> public comments are closed. next item. >> item #8, this item will allow the commissioners to provide closing comments to the joint meeting. >> comments from the commissioners? we have public comments on that. seeing none. >> item #9 is the general public comment which will allow members of the public to suggest new agenda items for consideration. >> public comments?

three minutes. >> i am from the college of irresponsible growth. -- of the responsible growth. i heard the president start opening remarks with what i understood to be speaking about education and discovery, and you have taken us on a roller coaster of information, and i would like to thank you and all the speakers who brought information. as i was listening, i kept going

from here to another place, another country, another state, perhaps another clennon -- perhaps another planet, and i wonder what i might be thinking there. i could come up with only words such as grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre, and unprecedented. you have within your power the gift of changing that, because the customer is unhappy with how things are, and you must change it. i know you are planning and

thinking about that, because if you do not, san francisco and will not be a place where people will want to do business. they will want to live here for many reasons but not do business, and that is unthinkable. this is the year of the golden robert -- rabbit, and i understand what one wishes for will come true, and my wish is that you make san francisco a better place to do business. thank you. >> any further public comment bowman -- public comment? seeing none, next item. >>-#10, new business allows

future consideration for a joint commission meetings. >> i just thought are worried and roll it in one. i would like to thank you for being here tonight. a great big cross and -- agreed they thank you to the commissioners for being here. for new business going forward, as we mentioned at the outset, we hope to have the planning department involved, and perhaps in the next meeting we will condense the items into something smaller and to dig deeper and make everything

better for the future. just a reminder we will hopefully have that as soon as possible. i know staff will get working on that, and thank you, and everybody's. >> i wonder if we can include the health department for the process for restaurant food service to have somebody be of assistance for that. >> absolutely. can you make a note of that? >> wasn't there one point where you said we could have a central location?

>> we talked about that. we can certainly put that on the agenda item as well. something like the environmental exemption would be something justified as taking up, because it is so complicated. suddenly when you have three minutes to speak, and now you make one point or three points, and you finish in a minute. i think it should be coming out in future discussion. we definitely want to make a point of fact. commissioner clyde: with

specific topics that are very -- for planning, wouldn't it be possible to meet jointly and discuss the mark could that be of a proposal to have a small working group between planning and the small business commission? >> i think that is a great idea. i think we will have to consult with legal. i am understanding, a working group set would be commissioners

across the commission. >> commissioners from a different commission but a working group. >> i think that is a great idea of a. i think we should check to make sure we are not violated any legal rules or laws on that your good -- on that. >> i would like to thank my colleagues and commissioners from small business. i would also like to thanks staff for coming tonight and of course public comments. i think it is agreed that you set your and are concerned about what goes on at these hearings, -- it is great that you are concerned about what goes on at these hearings.

that is it for me. >> is there any public comment on item number 10? seeing none, we can move to item number 11, adjournment reagan moved to adjourn? >> seconded -- adjournment. move to adjourn? >> second. >> we are now adjourn.

>> welcome to "culture wire." i'm here with james lee, and exhibiting artist, and we will have a chat today about the body of work you are presenting. after you left the military, what prompted you to go back to a place where the u.s. is engaged in military action? >> it is interesting. the population of afghanistan is around 29 million, and there's probably no more than 80,000 u.s. soldiers serving in afghanistan right now, but if you look at the stories that

come out, you think the numbers are completely reversed. all the stories are about americans, and you see almost no images of stories about the afghan people themselves, so if you look at the dominant representational paradigm uc today, it is all about foreign soldiers. my idea was to try incurred counted to that a popularized narrative and focus on images and stories that really reflect that lived experience of conflict through the eyes of the afghan people. >> you are exhibiting with three other photographers. it is true all three of them have really focused in the areas where a lot of u.s. and allied forces are seeing action, are actually involved in combat, so your story is different than theirs. what does it mean to show your body of work along side of the stories that probably are more familiar? what kind of juxtaposition does

that create for you as an artist? >> i think the strength of bringing the two different stories together is i think there is a real danger in focusing only on surface similarities between conflicts. when people look at a body of work and say that they see in this conflict photography, and it reminds them of somalia or iraq, i think that is dangerous because i think there are very unique elements to each conflict, and if you do not focus on the distinctions, you start to create a broader, watered-down topic, which is armed conflict, so i think it is important that when we focus on conflict, we make sure we do not just generalize, but we allow specific places and voices and people to be heard and we do not make these generalized assumptions about what conflict is like. >> the other photographers in the show, what is local, and the others are from new york and new delhi. what do you like about some of their work? >> in a big fan of the fact

that he approaches photography from a non-traditional point of view. he also cunner has a mixed view of cameras themselves. he calls them toys. >> he uses these cameras that one might assume our toys, but he also says all the toy cameras are cameras, so it does not really matter to him what he is using to take the images as long as he is getting the images he wants. and because they are taken with these film cameras, they have a very different feel than the other pictures in the show. one of the things i want to talk about is that lindsey's body of work is running down one side of the hall, and it is all about women in afghanistan and how they serve and their special interactions with civilian women and communities, which is the special role that women soldiers play in afghanistan.

across from eric copeland's work, which is extremely masculine and black and white and very aggressive -- what do you think about that juxtaposition between their two bodies of work? >> i like lindsey's contribution to the exhibit. she shoots in color, like i do, so it is great to see more color. she has a gift for capturing distinct moments that balance the conflict that these women are facing did today, but also very intimate, very feminine moments. she has one where a female soldier is shaving her legs at the beginning of her day, and it is kind of an odd thing to consider, but, obviously, it happens every day, but most people do not think about the challenges that face women in these types of environments where they continue to be feminine, continue to be women, but they also serve a vital role in afghanistan. she allows viewers to come in and see those kinds of intimate moments you might not normally think about.

>> to our viewers, and actually the curator of the show. one of the things i was interested in with your work and with the other bodies of work i selected was that you are presenting a real human perspective. each of you zeroes in on individuals, and the kind of sensitive, intimate, or private moments. >> if you look at most people's lives today and the way they spend their lives, it is probably not that different from what goes on on some of these larger for an operating basis. they have cafeterias. they have internet cafes. they have laundromats. they have their own spaces where they read, play video games. it is really like a small, microcosm of what they might find back in the united states. >> what do you hope that viewers take away from seeing your body of work or the exhibition as a whole? >> i think it is important for people to question how much we do or do not know about afghanistan, but conflict in general. too often today, i think we see

one or two images and we think we understand what is going on in a part of the world, and we should try to get away from that. we should question what we know about a conflict, where we got the information, and always look for new perspectives and new focus is on topics that we think we already understand. >> james, thank you for spending time with us, and congratulations on the exhibition and letting san francisco see this big body of work of yours. >> thanks. >> welcome to "culturewire." on this episode, the director of cultural affairs takes us on a field trip to the mission district to check out odc's new 36,000 square foot campus, the

largest in the region. >> for san franciscans, odc has a very significant significance. stands for a venerable performing arts organization celebrating its 40th anniversary of bringing fans and theaters to the bay area. standing with me today on "culturewire" is the theater director of odc. thank you for joining us. i mention that this is the 40th anniversary. >> it is indeed. >> i'm standing with you in a fabulous theater that was completed six months ago in time for this anniversary. tell me about how it has been going for the last six months. >> absolutely. in terms of the anniversary, the dance company, which is our

founding body, is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and it is the 30th anniversary, so it is historic for both sides, and the completion of the theater represents in some ways the completion of our entire campus that began in 2005. it has come to its fruition with the completion of the theater. the theater opening was remarkable. one of the things we wanted to do was to make sure that our community really truly -- our san francisco bay area community understood that this theater was for them. we invited 31 bay area companies to do a day-long performance marathon, so we really launched with a feeling of this is for everyone in this community. it was a tremendous thing to bring everyone together around the opening of this building. >> you are part of our creative troika, including the founder,

brenda wey and k.t. nelson. talk about what it is like to keep this campus going. >> it is a wonderful thing to be working with someone who is certainly your co-worker and also largely your mentor. i inherited the theater at a funny time in its life. it needed to make some decisions as an institution about what it wanted to be. whether it wanted to be exclusively a rental facility, it is needed to be a rehearsal space with a really high ceilings -- whatever it was, having that level of leadership that my founding director is also my boss really made that possible. i really felt like i had great stewardship and we were able to make really innovative decisions for how the theater could grow over the decade. >> living with -- living with someone who is both your immediate boss and also a

working artist is also a huge asset. that is one of the things that keeps the creativity flowing through odc. it is a campus about the creative process at all times. >> the theater was part of a second phase of capital fund raising and community support. the previous one had renovated the space where the rehearsal studios are and the school is, sell what does that sort of say about the importance of the odc in the community? >> i think it's spoke to the two very different tracks of our organization. part of what we do is education and outreach. part of what we do is performance on the part of our company, odc dance, and a third part of what we do is this presenting an incubation stage. when we came to people to talk about the theater as a second investment after having built the dance commons, the distinct purpose of the