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tv   [untitled]    May 10, 2011 3:00pm-3:30pm PDT

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one step in the right direction, which is to accord a group of children, a group of youth that currently are not being given due process -- to give them due process. those children who are, because of their immigration status, subject to deportation -- giving them the opportunity to have their day in court before they are reported to immigration is, i think, a very smart move. we welcome and appreciate that step. i know many members of the community who have met with the mayor are very happy to hear that step. that said, as much as we appreciate that step being taken, even if that step is taken, we still will not have full compliance with a lot duly enacted by this board of supervisors. awful compliance means giving
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every child in san francisco who directs with a criminal justice system to process. i will respectfully submit that while i welcome this change, it is simply not sufficient. mayor lee, i would respectfully comply you act with the ordinance we pass and engage with full implementation of a lot duly enacted by this board of supervisors. under the constitution and the oath of mayor takes, you take the oath to abide by the laws duly enacted by the legislative body. this body has not enacted that law. in that law, under california law, needs to be respected to -- to the respect that what the best policy is, it's not up to the executive to second-guess the legislative branch. if there is any second-guessing to be done under california law,
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that second-guessing can only be done by the courts which means a lot should be complied with unless there is a finding by the court that the law is illegal. no finding exists in this case and therefore, we once again ask the mayor of san francisco to comply with full implementation. we are talking about a very basic principle at the heart of our judicial system which is the principal in this country you are innocent until proven guilty. if you deprive a group of children of the ability to have their day in court, there's a very real possibility that the children you will be reporting to emigration are children that are in fact not guilty of that of which they have been accused. we as a society cannot function if this tenant of an ascent until proven guilty is not at the core of how we do business. once again, i asked the mayor to
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reconsider his decision. the united states supreme court has made it very clear and it has been a lot in this country for quite some time that children in the united states have a right to due process. the fact that they may be undocumented does not deprive them of that right. the united states supreme court made it very clear in response to an effort by the state of texas to deprive undocumented children of the right to education, the u.s. supreme court made it very clear that undocumented children are persons within the meaning of the u.s. constitution and that as persons, they are entitled to due process. writing for the majority, justice brennan noted that we reject this argument, whenever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a person under any ordinary sense
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of that term. even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful have long been recognized as persons guaranteed due process of law by the fifth and 14th amendments. this opinion makes no distinction between an undocumented child being accompanied or unaccompanied. there is no reason for the mayor of san francisco to make that distinction. in fact, from a public policy standpoint, that distinction does not make sense. as the advocates have indicated to the mayor, there are a whole series of procedures already in place that ensure the right balance between public safety in due process is struck, as was noted by the caucus in the letter dated may 1st, there are in place procedures that in sure you do not have individuals who should not be released to the public released.
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these safeguards are in place with the very purpose of ensuring that there is no improper release of a child. that means the court system already takes into consideration whether or not the individual involved presents a danger and because of that danger, that individual should be released. this system already has the safeguards needed to make sure that does not happen. not only that, but you have not only a system that considers the placement of a child, but you have the check and balance of the court of a judge actually looking at the placement to make sure it is appropriate and to make sure the public interest is taken into account. without belaboring the point, i respectfully ask the mayor to reconsider his position and provide every child in san francisco the due process accorded to them by the united states constitution.
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this second item is an item i will be introducing today. it is a lot that relates to something i mentioned last week -- is a law that relates to something and mentioned last week. my office has been working with supervisor mar on a variety of strategies so that san francisco continues to be a national model for addressing the crisis of wage theft. in fact, this thursday, at the government audit and oversight committee, we are holding a hearing on how all relevant city departments are working to combat and address the issue of wage theft. as i mentioned last week, wage deft cost workers in the united states billions of dollars in legally mandated wages each year. wage that harms responsible business owners to follow the rules, the are playing by the
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rules, paying the workers as they should be paid and who, as a result, are at a disadvantage as far as the businesses that do not follow those rules. today, with the co-sponsor ship of a supervisor mar, and others, i am introducing an ordnance to amend san francisco's minimum wage ordinance to improve our office of labor standards enforcement ability to make sure all san francisco workers are paid at the san francisco minimum wage of $9.92. the ordinance is to insure timely enforcement of minimum- wage laws so that divorce actions are completed within one year. that is because we recognize it is important these cases be resolved in a timely fashion and if a case cannot be resolved
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within that year, that the would lead to great harm to the employee and if olce is unable to resolve this case within a year, you're going to have a problem. we want to make sure olse is properly staffed and have the staff to properly implement this ordinance. that is one of the objectives, to make sure we had a discussion about whether or not those resources are in place. the rest, i submit. >> thank you. supervisor mar: thank you. i would like to thank supervisor kim for raising the issue of undocumented use and due process for every child and i support the broad coalition led by the police commission and immigrant rights and civil rights organizations demanding full due
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process rights for youth. there is no halfway about it, there is no 99% about it. we have to abide by the civil- rights of young people and the full implementation of the organs of laws and policies of this board should be implemented and i urged the mayor to work with us to achieve that. i also want to say that i'm going to be joining, like many of my colleagues, the san francisco bicycle coalition in biking to work day on thursday. if you are around the richmond district, we will be at the blue danube coffeehouse at 7:45 on thursday. i also want to commend the progress of workers alliance, the chinese progressive association and a supervisor david campos in calling on the hearing on wage theft and drafting the ordinance that will strengthen labor law enforcement in san francisco and allow workers organizations and grass roots and community groups fighting for economic justice
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and workers' rights for years to bring this important ordnance forward and to keep it driven by the grass-roots organizing in chinatown, the mission and other districts as well. at 3:30, we will be honoring the number of people within the san francisco unified school district because this is the 25th anniversary of the young at art festival. i'm proud as a school board member that i and others worked on a visionary strategic plan for our school district that includes joyful learning and promotes creativity and well- rounded children. i think this san francisco unified school district festival of student creativity is a great beacon about joyful learning and creativity within our school district. i would urge people to join us this coming saturday for eight days at the museum and other venues throughout the city to support the many students in our
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school district and the work of 2000 students with live music and theater. my daughter has often performed past six years at the festival and i'm looking forward to seeing all of these students are at the museum as well. it is a testament to our great school district arts master plan and especially the efforts to make sure we have strong funding for the arts and music with in the schools. i also wanted to announce that i joined a number of asian american and other mental health professionals celebrating may 10th as asian pacific american mental health day. at the state building a few minutes ago, i joined pioneers in mental health and community mental health efforts with the richmond area multi-service is promoting asian american health, especially mental health within our communities. the last point i want to raise is this coming saturday, may
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14th from 10:00 until 2:00, i office has worked with the self- help for the elderly, kaiser permanente and compassionate care and 30 other organizations to hold our seventh annual richmond district health festival at the richmond district community center on 18th avenue. we hope you will join us for a lot of great free health testing and food from the vegetarian society and free giveaways from bicycle helmets for children too many other types of community-based activities. we hope you'll join us and the rest i will submit. thank you. >> thank you. supervisor elsbernd: i ask the board we could adjourn today and the memory of [inaudible] who passed away last night.
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he was the vice chair of the board for the last two and served on the board and selected to the city of san carlos in 2007 and was elevated to the office of mayor earlier this year. omar was a great man, a great guy. i really enjoyed serving with him. he was one of the most intelligent public officials i've ever come across, one of the wittiest sense of humor, i can't remember the details of the argument, but at one. earlier this year, he made an argument where he brought in a roll of toilet paper and gave us the history of the invention of 12 paper and explained how that tied to the budget. i know it makes no sense here, but he was actually able to tie it altogether. a brilliant guy with a great, great foresight for the future needs, particularly in housing and transportation for the peninsula for the region, great
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champion of cal train and a champion of the city. he never backed down from a tough fight. he is truly what i would imagine any voter would want in a public service. certainly somebody i was proud to call a friend. he had all the characteristics you want in a friend. i will miss him and i know his city will miss him and undoubtedly the peninsula will miss his wisdom. if we could adjourn in his memory, i would appreciate it. >> without objection from the full board. supervisor avalos: i want to thank supervisor wiener for his question to the mayor. however, i feel the response is not robust enough. i want to look at how we can do something a little more dramatic for the city, and a special look at the needs around workers and
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families living in this 11, 10 and 4, the southern part of san francisco where we have a greater concentration of single- family homes. we have a real foreclosure and housing crisis and foreclosure crisis in the southern part of san francisco. i think it warrants a response from the city. i have seen a map of the city where we see defaults happening concentrated in the southern parts of the city and its overwhelming when you look at the figures of houses in that part of town. we are losing a great deal of our wealth as a city. losing family wealth and community wealth. when a family is foreclosed on, they leave the city, often and we know it is often latino families and african-american families and the best thing we
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can do is stabilize the ability of families to support them paying their mortgages. one strategy we have looked at someone in the past, at least run first time downpayment assistance for first-time home buyers is of the housing bond. i want to propose starting a process of working on sustainable community housing bond. that would look at our sb 375 goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by promoting development in key transit areas of the city, so we have a big portion of it. i want to propose for affordable housing construction and a big part is to support people looking to buy a home or who are finding themselves close to underwater on their mortgages. that we could have some support from the city to prevent
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defaults on loans and going into foreclosure. i am proposing the ability to have a silent loans to be able to help families with mortgages. first-time downpayment assistance programs and to be able to help families get some funding to be able to do energy efficiency work on their houses and be able to retrofit their homes for seismic safety and put in energy generating devices in their homes. our middle-class does not have the ability often to put money forward to be able to make these improvements on their homes and i think that combination of these measures would help stabilize families at risk of default and foreclosure. the city has had a lot of struggle putting forward a housing bond in the past. i think we have not quite had the right formula to do it yet. if we are able to have a portion that is going to support current homeowners or prospective homeowners, i think we have a better ability to
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pass an affordable housing bond. it's essential we do this as a city to meet our greenhouse gas emissions goals and develop around those goals in the future. what i am talking about today is asking the city attorney to start drafting a bond measure. i'm not sure if it's going to be for this november. it could be for this november's ballot. time is of the essence. we have to do work on the community side and the city hall side to have people come together to make this a viable. i want to work with community housing to move this forward as well as a homeowner groups to see helicon find a formula that's going to work. i think it's something that will be useful for many people across the city who are at risk for default and foreclosure across
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separate -- across san francisco. >> thank you. supervisor kim: onto concur with my colleagues around the sanctuary city ordinance. i want to thank the supervisors have worked on this and i gets important -- and know that our mayor has a long history of working on civil-rights and immigrants rights issues and my hope you would commit to a full implementation of this policy. he is working to expand due process protection for families here in the u.s. and i hope we will continue to the full implementation. i want to give a quick update -- the mayor referred to it on the pyre of that happened in district 6 last wednesday night. it was a for alarm fire that
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started around 5:30 in the evening. unfortunately, the fire snaked its way from the first floor of a way to the third floor and through the roof. the building is now and habitable. there are now approximately 48 units in the building and 143 people have been displaced. we were able to work quickly to open up the recreation center to be a temporary shelter for wednesday night and thursday night. we were able to get a number of residents and 32 individuals housing at the baldwin hotel about two blocks away. we are still looking to identify more folks. many are staying with friends and families as they look for more permanent housing. our office will be working actively with them to make sure we get them replacement housing. i wanted to thank the san francisco fire fighters and the
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volunteers of red cross to come out to work with residents as they lose their home. it is a tragic experience to be a part of. the staff who came back at 8:00 or 9:00 and stayed all night to make sure the recreation center could open. they had just been read flooring their gymnasium, so it was fortunate there is no programming going on that week. that allowed us to have folks stay for the next two nights. i also want to thank my office. they spent the entire night with me ordering pizza, distributing food, answering questions and putting together cots and laying out blankets for all the residents. the rest i will submit. >> thank you.
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mr. president, that concludes and no call for introductions. president chiu: at this time, why don't we go to our 3:00 special order. madame clerk, call items 10 and 11. >> item 10 is the board of supervisors sitting as a committee as a whole, approved on may 3rd, 2011 for a public hearing to consider objections to a report of assessment costs submitted by the director of public works for inspection and or bateman of blighted conditions ordered to be performed by the department of public works, paid for out of a blight abatement fund. item 11, resolution approving assessment costs submitted by the director of public works. president chiu: i would like to ask if there is a representative from dpw on this issue. if you could make your report, we will let the public comment
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on it and not let -- and let you respond. >> good afternoon. i'm with the department of public works. i am before you to request your approval for the list of assessment of blighted properties. chapter 80 of the administrative code requires property owners to maintain their property in a safe condition and free of light. since there is an outstanding balance on these properties, we are requesting these assessments be added to the property tax bill. we for the request you remove the following properties from the list because we have received payment in the last few days. these properties are as listed -- 1098 hollister, 1452 bush st.. 1461 kind. 1561 irving st.. 2374 mission. 688 commercial.
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745 sutter. 873 setter. 907 larkin. 1483 jackson. a hundred 75 bush. 667 monterey boulevard. -- thank you for your time and consideration. >> thank you. if there are any members of the public who wish to speak in regards to this matter, please step up. each member should have up to two minutes to respond. if staff wishes to speak to members of the public, i would ask you to take a few moments to step outside and have that conversation. >> good afternoon. i am objecting to any reference to 8071 sutter st. on the referenced just read by this gentleman. the fact is is not a blighted. i've owned the building for 50 years, at least my family has.
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we have never had any problems whatsoever with blight. this is a brand new thing for us. we retrofitted that building seismically back in 2009 and 2010. we have a current renovation problem inside to add an elevator which has been approved. but there has been no construction in the building or anybody occupying a fort 2009 and 2010, yet we have countless notices of graffiti. as to each and everyone of the notices that were put up by the department of our gate, we have complied with it. this is the first notation or reference to blight in the open area that friends our entranceway. when i talked to the inspector
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of the department and explained to him we do not have any be occupying the promises, i have a maintenance man who goes down every other week and the problem is the police cannot do anything with the graffiti. it's just impossible. we are at 871 sutter st.. there are three are university apartment buildings occupied by young people who have nothing better to do, apparently, then use spray paint cans around the neighborhood. this is manifested the route last five or six months by my neighbors as well. [tone] that relates to graffiti. president chiu: thank you very much, sir. you can continue your conversation with dpw, but thank you for addressing your objection on the record.
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thank you. next speaker. it is two minutes per speaker, please. >> my building is located on the corner of height and bush. i have the same complaint. continually harassing us putting stuff on our walls and i have to pay extra janitorial costs and purchase special liquid to clean it. we continue doing that and then i don't understand why i'm getting zapped with a fine. i'm requesting to waive the fine. it's bad enough to be harassed by these people, on top of it in this bad economic situation, carry this extra cost and on top of it, we have to come here and waste your time and our time and do a hearing and pay an extra fine for something like that. maybe you should do something like guiliani a few years back, send someone to chase after these people that cause blight
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in the city. thank you very much. president chiu: next speaker. >> >chiu and supervisors, i think the last speaker speaks my mind. the only issue of want to bring up as i received a notice of blight as well as the notice of graffiti removal at the same time. that gives me no time to remove the graffiti. when i called dpw and complained about it, they said if the light notice was out, you have to pay the fine and it doesn't matter if you remove it. it's a game that we have to play with the people who put up graffiti. we homeowners are not rich and every time they do something, we have to clean it up and it cost us money. on top of it, we have to pay a fine. i have already protested the
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process with dpw that homeowners are not given time to clean up the graffiti and not be fined for it. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is blake williams. i am the home owner of 1718 or waller's street. it is frequently tagged. this is probably the 2430 as time my building has been tagged by graffiti since i bought the building in 2005. we have toucans of blue paint to paint over the graffiti we keep in the -- we have to cancel of of blue paint to paint over the graffiti. once we received the notice that the building needed to be cleaned up, it is cleaned up in a matter of days. a matter of days. however, it has been tagged