out here to pick up people who are waiting. i talked to the captain about that, and these cabs come out in five or 10 minutes and pick up our residents. i would like to see more on the board here with daly city, since daly city does share. so, anyway, i am not as good as steep as a speaker. residents have a choice to call an illegal bad company here. they do not have insurance. they are not inspected. which leaves the residents in these dangerous cabs. other cabs have the ability to

serve the residents, especially the elderly ones. they are the only company that excess payroll transfer programs and carries the same insurance and even harder programs. no. when yellow cab would be there, that is 10 minutes. i do not work for them. i just want to make you aware of what is going on. we want to give our residents -- we want to get a residence in a tampa -- in a timely manner to where they're going. president mazzucco: thank you very much. next speaker. >> good evening. mary harris. i think the last time i spoke was in the bayview or you were looking at the attributes of the next week, and i just want to say great job.

so, my i came for two reasons. 1 i said before and i am going to keep saying it. it is the request that we did to keep our captain for a year. you have given us great captains at ingleside, but the revolving door happens a little too often. it takes a good year to get to know all those community groups the captain mentioned. and, so, we are very happy to have mahoney, but can we just keep him a little while so we can get some good work done? that would be appreciated? the other thing i wanted to mention is, the other night i was at the district improvement

association, and janet clark from the d a's office gave a report about the work she has done in making restrictions force smoke shops any paraphernalia they sell. there were six different shops in the ingleside and mission. she gave full credit to the great work of the ingleside police making the convictions and getting the work done. i wanted to make sure that the police commission knew that she really appreciates the great work and the cooperation and by working together like that, we will be able to clean up stuff in the neighborhood and make some really serious restrictions on minors, but those materials not being made available to minors, monetary restrictions if, no, they sell things they are not supposed to sell, stuff like that.

thank you very much. president mazzucco: thank you. any further public comment regarding the capt.'s presentation? >> i just wanted to say something because he was talking about the tests. we keep giving to many permits, new permits for new cabs. they go to the airports, they wait for long rides. the people of san francisco do not have new caps. anyone can put something on their car and become an illegal taxicab right now. -- the people of san francisco do not have new cabs. in san mateo county, we have all these pirate cabs. we need to stop giving new permits in san francisco. and also, i have a best friend

at yellow cab. he is telling me there are so many calls a day, most people are not served. never send -- they never send a cab to them. most people wait two or three hours. president mazzucco: thank you very much. any further public comment? hearing none, i will close public comments. now for commissioner comments regarding captain mahoney's presentation. i just want to say, thank you. it was a great presentation. there was exceptional police work in those two instances. these are cases that you do not read about. you have great officers in english side station. a strongly-staffed stations. we appreciate that.

we also appreciate the get together you are going to have on august 29 in reference to john young. i personally worked on that investigation for a year in the u.s. attorney's office that led to the arrest. when a police officer is killed in the line of duty, it is never forgotten. that is a fact. it was an honor to work on that case and thank you for continuing to honor sgt young. commissioners, anything further? >> marlene brought up some good questions about a language access. i wanted to ask, how many bilingual officers are bad angle side -- at ingleside? how are they making sure that they maximize their language tools for the community. going back to translation materials, what is going on in that area? >> i have been there for five

weeks, so i do not have a total number on how many people are on their speaking different languages. i read the reports every day and every time there is someone that is a victim or a witness that need a translation service, it seems every time we have one of our officers to the translations themselves, as opposed to to bring the service. i would have to get that answer for you. as for the website, primarily in english. if we have a need for translation, we have the opportunity. we will work with community relations to get that translated. >> i noticed there were materials translated in different languages. the safety messages at my time. are other materials being developed contemplated and are handed out to committee members also translated? any gatherings or other rich were community members? i know there is a large asian

population in the district. >> everything that goes out to the community, i will recommend that it is translated in spanish and cantonese. if i am putting out a community alert for a robbery series in a certain area or any kind of uptick in crime that i need to post, then i will certainly crime -- contact community relations and work with them, the immigrant affairs, and have it translated and send it out. rarely will you see me and something ought with one language. >> captain, thank you so much for a three presentation on a number of different aspects about the ingleside station. very glad to see such a broad reaching program and operations. i would like to hear more about your distracted driver campaign. you did not actually have any statistics that one along with that, the way you did with your robbery abatement operations.

is there anything you can share with us on that? >> the distracted driver campaign is just part in, still in the implementation phase. i had a staff meeting a week ago where i laid out a number of operations at my officers are handling. that is one of them. the impetus behind it, i am looking at lowering traffic collisions. i plan to use a coordinated approach where i used bicycle officers to ride around different areas because they are sitting up high, but at the same time, not necessarily seem like you would in a black and white with the bells and whistles. identifying people who are talking on cell phones, doing what ever, and then radioing to a motorcycle unit who is close by to make a traffic stop and then citation to the driver for talking on their cell phone. >> is the program directly

targeted at cell phone users? perhaps individuals such as iphone had gone? i see a lot of that while driving. is it directed at that, as well as other distractions? >> it is directed primarily towards the violation of law. you hit the nail on the head. i would love to have california have a law that you cannot read the paper or eat what you are driving. i find that to be just as much as a distraction, but now, they are not a violation. >> if i did not eat and drive, i probably would not eat half the time. i will try to cut down. >> thank you, on behalf of the commission, for your presentation. thank you for putting this

together tonight and think you to the members of the community that came out. we probably need to address the issue with reference to the website. next time they come on here, we will probably have a bigger turnout. language access is important, so we should look at that website to see what is going on. >> we hear this a lot and obviously, there were some other things occurring. chief, if you might say something about -- we get the request a lot more. could you just talk about the factor that do not necessarily allow that? i guess you thought about that. you have been moved around.

just some of the thinking that goes into why someone does not always stay at a station. >> in this instance, lou was a fabulous capt. here. he also had strong experience in crime scene investigation and forensics. the captain who undertook the crime lab recertification and investigation, shepherded that from where it was to where it is, we needed someone who could hit the ground running and keep on going. we consulted with the captain as to who would be a and able replacement. the only person that she could think of a was lou. it is important to keep the

crime lab moving. having capt. mahoney available, it seemed like a great fit. i think it has been. normally, at least as far as i'm concerned, i would but to see the captain see those -- spend those three years that mary is talking about. normally, when someone is promoted, the community is happy for their captain and understands. is when they move around a letter early short of three years that it confound the community. i do not want to do that. >> since i have been on the commission, we like our captains to stay there, but there are a lot of factors that go into the apartment and decisions to move people. the one i generally heard was, we would like to give individuals different experiences in the city. i just wanted to hear some of the other things that happened.

i know you consider that, and it is hard for you as a chief to pass a law, somebody is going to be there for three years. i just wanted to hear, if it can happen, please, but these things that go into consideration when we move somebody. >> [inaudible] >> knowing that mary harris and

mary tran are from ingleside, i thought the transition was critical. and steve career. i did not want to leave you out. -- steve courier. >> the good news is, the heart and soul of the department is not move around. the captains are pretty much uniform in terms of leadership, but you have a strong team out here. >> any further comments? commissioner cahan. >> i just wanted to thank you for the reminder about the language access. we have voted on the language and prayer access -- priority access, doing that more in the future. translating websites, making sure any kind of community

engagement, reports of crime, especially, should be translated so that members of the community know. there is no point in putting them out if half the community cannot understand. not just ingleside, but dropped all district stations. we passed a general order last year on general access but the implementation has been slow. >> we have recovered some items for future consideration but maybe we should look at some more meetings in the future. >> last week, we listed our priorities. i know is pretty soon that we are going to look at that. we will have another chance to do that. >> especially in light of the presentation, the captain spoke about an incident witabout a robbery that was not even

reported due to the language access. fear of the police, not feeling comfortable. that is a strong case for which probably move this sooner than anticipated. maybe next week when we do our scheduling, her priorities are ready to go, and maybe we can move that in to address that issue in the near future. commissioners, anything further? we have completed the presentation of the captain. line item #4. we have had public comment. >> item 4 is at adjournment. >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? aye. thank you, everybody.

years ago on this project. back then, it was an unusual thing to have puc, muni, wastewater -- all those people come together and build up the streets and not come back and tear everything up. now, it is part of how we do business. whenever we have the possibility of doing some work in the streets, we figure out how to do it together and have as little disruption to the people of san francisco as possible. great to be part of this. thank you to the team on this.

thank you, everybody. [applause] >> how about that? we would be remiss if we did not also thank the operators and cable car division staff that not only have provided this lovely backdrop for today's event, but they also provide the great california alliance service that has been running behind you. they also have been instrumental of ensuring continuous service even on buses along cable car lines during the shutdowns and communicating our plans to our customers, with a transport every day. i also want to thank the teams with the cable car project for their diligence in helping san francisco maintain these important -- maintain this important infrastructure. also i want to thank the hyatt regency behind you, garrett delhi chocolates, and all of sfmta staff for making this a

success -- chirar -- ghirardeli chocolates. thank you. >> i believe we are going to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony now? >> 1. 2. 3. all right. [applause]

>> the san francisco ethnic dance festival is one of the jewels on san francisco sculptural crowns. this is in its 32nd year of showcasing the celebrated dance troupes. this year will be one of the past with four new works representing kondo, afghanistan, china, mexico. -- congo, afghanistan, china, mexico. more than a hundred 30 ensembles and soloists auditioned in january for a slot in the

ethnic dance festival. in the end, 37 companies were selected to perform. 26 of those performances are world premieres. >> each year, we assembled a panel of dance experts that is made up of academics, scholars, researchers. people have been working for decades in the field. many of them came to this country in the seventies and have trained the next generation of dancers. they are proud to see many of these students at the these masterful levels. this was one of the best panel'' we have ever had, extraordinary people. at the end of the process, they rank their top groups which are

then merged into a master list. >> performers are judged on stage presence, costumes, and innovation. >> the four programs are created around an exciting and dynamic range so the soloists and groups selected each weekend will have enough dynamic range to be a society overall to are experience. >> hundreds of dancers from different countries need each other, compare stuff, and make new friends. this has resulted in new cross- cultural collaborations'. >> one of the extraordinary things is that it really only happens here in the san francisco bay area. all of the dancers that we are presented -- presenting are from

the area. they have full-time jobs and they spend their weekends nurturing their passion to sustain these extraordinary dance forms from around the world. the audience cannot help but be inspired. >> this year, the festival will feature a special collaboration that celebrates the mexican 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 back to india or bali or whatever will be able to get enriched by these very beautiful art forms. >> thank you for watching "culture wire." and you can find more information