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tv   [untitled]    July 31, 2011 1:30pm-2:00pm PDT

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benefit agreement, what are some of your thoughts? >> my feeling is that the biggest community benefit is that it will have that space filled. >supervisor kim: no, not something that is being filled, but something that you would like to see for the neighborhood. >> well, i know that there have been lists of various things that i have read about, but my main concern is that the storefronts from fifth street to 10th street be filled, and that is going to automatically take care of revitalizing the neighborhood and making it alive again, rather than the kind of slow death that is spreading throughout the city.
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supervisor kim: so you are interested in bringing in more small retail and businesses into midmarket between fifth and 10th? >> yes, that is my main interest. one of the things that i went to add one of these meetings was the great white way of market street in the 1940's, and that was a very vibrant time when market street -- it was before the war, and during the war, it was a vital center of activity, but it was not really high class. it was all kinds of people that were there. i think something like that would be wonderful to have brought back again. i do not know if that is possible. supervisor kim: which is why it is great that you're involved. their role is to brainstorm with community members on how to bring in businesses to vacancies along that corridor. thank you. any questions? ok. i am going to see now if eva
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pirring is here now. >> hello, everyone. my name is eva pirring, the represented -- [unintelligible] i have lived in the tenderloin for 23 years and have been married for 21 years. i have raised four children, one of whom used to be a foster child and is now under my guardianship. the ages of my children are 20, 19, 18, and nine years old. two of my children are attending universities, and one is attending a beauty school. one is a fifth grader. all my children have been raised in the tenderloin area. i am an active member of the tenderloin filipino-american community, and a fundraiser
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manager at the street barnabas church. my past job was working in a bank. i worked there for 19 years, until i got laid off, and i found a new calling in health care services. currently, i am a full-time healthcare provider, in addition to working part-time. being a tenderloin resident for a long time has given me a different perspective of our committee and of the residence in it. our community needs change, but we want this change to address our needs. we want to stay in our neighborhood, and it is only the preservation of affordable housing and to create economic opportunities for lower-income families and their residents by making economic development work for our salma and tenderloin communities that this goal will be realized.
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one of which is to ensure the employment has entry-level jobs and are made available to our residents. the second is to create new programs for the kids. third, encourage companies who were looking at the midmarket to have internship programs and summer jobs for our kids. also, cleaning up and the safety of our residents are some of the concerns i will advocate in the community. thank you so much, supervisors. supervisor kim: thank you. you mentioned your children. where do they go to school? >> ok, my daughter, my oldest daughter goes to usf, a junior college. then i have my son. he will go to san francisco state university as a freshman. supervisor kim: where did they attend school previous to that? >> for my other ones? oh, they used to go to high
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school. they were in the sacred heart. in middle school -- [unintelligible] it was funded by, and the have scholarships. that is why i can afford to send my children there. supervisor kim: andover elementary? >> they went to a catholic school. i think it is closed already. supervisor kim: i am asking because i am hoping that members will be able to connect companies into schools as well. and that is a great school. >> yes, it is a very cool -- very good school, and luckily i could afford it. they gave the opportunity for my children to go to a private school and to have a good education. supervisor kim: do you still have good working relationships with the individuals at the school as well? >> yes, and i am a member of the
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parents counsel at the school. supervisor kim: ok, great. thank you. any other questions? thank you. >> you are welcome. supervisor kim: since there no further questions at this time, we will open it up for public comment. if you have public comment on this item, please come up. two minutes, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is steve, with tndc. we elected support steve, brad, and mara for their respective seats on the advisory committee. they bring a lot of skill sets that we feel will help round out the committee in quite a good balance with residence, with the resident seats as well.
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so thank you, again, for hearing this issue of the cac, and we hope we can move forward in a productive way on the midmarket issue. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is angelica. we're here to support eva, ste ven, arad, mara, jesus, and linda. we feel these individuals will truly represent the neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods. we hope you'll consider the application. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> good afternoon. i am here to support eva, brad, and jesus.
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please consider their application for cac. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is lorenzo. i am here to support my friends. i know them. eva, jesus, and linda. a believe their good candidates for the cac. thank you so much. supervisor kim: thank you. >> i am here to support jesus, eva, and linda. give them a chance to serve the community. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment at this time? public comment is now closed. i really want to thank all the
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individuals who have applied for this committee. something that we actually urgently need to get the committee is to start meeting as soon as possible, so we appreciate people applying under such a short time line. one thing i was really hoping for was the diversity on this committee. tenderloin and south of market is incredibly diverse, with many different constituents. so that is something that is a very important to me. second, i want to ensure that we have a community voice in the process. because we have companies that will be moving in. one that is already moving in will have tremendous resources that they already want to bring to the neighborhood. we want to help guide them to ensure that it is in a way that most benefits the community speed up when we have jobs coming in at a local purchasing and contracts, we're able to connect them with members of the community that are familiar with their small businesses and how to do workforce development. so our residents can also
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benefit from the new jobs coming into the neighborhood. also, other infrastructure needs that the company may be interested in supporting as well. so having a familiarity with the neighborhood, and also having connections to residents is really important to us. i know we have a number of applicants. very qualified. it was great to meet all of you today. i am really excited as some many people are so committed to central market. i know it has been in the works for decades. an hour of this is privileged to be a part of that right now and working with many of you. is great to meet so many individuals who want to be more and more involved. i know that we only have one applicant for the next one. if there's no opposition, i think we might be able to move those forward. i do not know if there are any thoughts there. >> i will make a motion to move eva to seat one. first, let's make a motion of the residency waiver. supervisor kim: we have a motion for residents to rave worked
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for mr. brad paul. for seat 5. we could do that without opposition. >> we do this with recommendation. supervisor kim: i am actually -- i would really ligke mara blitzer on the committee. we wanted to have commercial real-estate. i had thoughts about continuing this. but i think she's definitely highly qualified for this seat and will bring an important neighborhood perspective. actually, i am wondering if we can just continue this seat to the end of this meeting. why don't we, however, move
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forward with some of the other seats. seats two, three, and 10 and 11. something, currently, we do not have a latino or african- american representation on this committee. district 6 now has the second- highest number of african- american residents in the city. so it is important for me to ensure that we have representation from that community. linda pierce is african- american. although she was not able to come to the commission was able to speak with our office. i was very impressed with her background, not just because she is from the same school as i am, but she's very committed to that neighborhood and is fairly familiar with the tenderloin. we also have jesus perez, who is a latino residents in the south of market. michael zonta, by the way, it is nice to finally meet you in person. i know we have communicated over e-mails several times. your understanding of the new
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developments and to what is going on in the neighborhood is incredibly impressive. clearly, you understand what has already occurred and where we're headed. i know you are also very active in the the midmarket pac and a central market. however, this committee is not so focused on vacancies. it is really on advising on community benefits agreements with companies that are coming into the area, think the focus is slightly different from your interests. but i really do want to work with you on ensuring that we're doing the best that we can to bring businesses into the neighborhood and fill up a lot of the open space that can be readily used by businesses. so i do have a leaning towards putting in jesus perez and linda pierce in seats 10 and 11. are their objections to that? >> i will say that i agree with you and appreciate the thought on diversity. there are lots of ways to get there. again, we're blessed with a ton
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of great applicants for different seats. the were in person that i would be most excited to have would be mr. michael zonta. i think there's a danger here that we try and squeeze to much at of businesses before they come in here. i think having his voice on the committee would be a great addition, and i think there's a true danger in san francisco that we face, that we continue to squeeze everything out of businesses before they come in and create an environment where the dollar to be here. that is a huge danger in this, despite what we have done here legislatively over the past six months with midmarket that we had that exist, and i think his voice would be a great addition. i would be in favor of putting mr. michael zonta on it. supervisor kim: my one response to that is only just that his interests appear to be more about vacancies in midmarket, and that is not what this committee will be working on. i do not see this as extracting from companies. twitter has already made clear what they think they can
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provide. we want to make sure that they are able to do it in a way that is relevant and works with the neighborhood. twitter is very interested in hiring residents in district 6. but they do not necessarily have kind of the expertise or know how to do the outreach in the neighborhood, so having someone who knows how to help them do that would be what i hope the role of the committee is versus and extracting sort of situation where we try to get every last drop that we can from a company. that is my hope for this committee. supervisor farrell: there are 11 seats on there. again, if people try to get too aggressive on community benefits agreements and say they need to much, that is the problem that has been here for a long time with their business community and why think that someone with mr. michael zonta's perspective would be a good addition. supervisor elsbernd: i hear what everyone is saying here, but i am fine with the chair's
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nominees. i think mr. michael zonta is someone who is not a shrinking violet, and if he is not on this committee, i have every expectation that he is going to continue to be a very strong advocate, regardless of whether or not he is on the committee, and his voice will continue to be heard. it is a voice i have respected a long time and will continue to respect, whether or not he is on the committee. so i am making the motion to send forward jesus perez and linda pierce. supervisor kim: ok, i do appreciate that. we also have several members -- and i believe and seeds two and three are interchangeable. we have three applicants. gregory, felice, and steve. steve, i know he has expertise in the area of job creation and work force. i would like to see him on this committee. gregory has a background in mental health, which is actually
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a very large issue here in the tenderloin and can be a barrier to employment. felice brings a perspective of the arts, which is also an important component to the midmarket area. i am glad to see both of you apply. i would actually love to have all of you on the task force. this is, again, a tough one for me. i certainly want steve in seat three. my colleagues thought to unseat two? >> i will go with the person who is generated her career as generating jobs. i appreciate what is done with the nonprofit, but i think that felice, having a dance studio, being an employer, is a good perspective. the experience would be a good
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fit. >> and i absolutely agree that stevens should be on the committee. supervisor kim: felice, i have one more question. you are aware that on the committee, your business cannot -- this is actually something that was challenging for us, because a lot of folks knew that there company or organization cannot be a beneficiary. so the organization you're running in brady -- bringing dance to the plaza, which is something we're interested in, your company cannot be a beneficiary of this for businesses coming to the area. is that something you're comfortable with? >> absolutely. actually, i have beespecifically not targetted midmarket sticklers of the last six months. because that is something i want to bring to the district. we have worked with our board members to do not reach to
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corporate organizations to raise money for events of the district bwi so that perfectly fits in with our vision to serve the community. not just another group that is trying to make art. supervisor kim: ok, thank you. i would support felice denia and steve suzuki to the seat. gregory, i appreciate your thoughts. mental health as a barrier and something we need to address. we have someone else on the committee the words and mental health already. on balance, i think it would be good to have someone in the arts as well. but i think your voice is very important, and we hope to continue working with you on creating jobs for our residents. so we have a motion to move eva to seat one. felice for 2.
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steve for seat 5. brad for seat 5. jesus perez for seat 10. and linda pierce for a seat 11. we can do that without opposition cannot elect to continue seat nine until the end. if that is ok. thank you very much. i just want to thank again all the members who have come out today in the middle of the work day for this committee. madam clerk, would you please call item number two? >> gehring to consider appointing one member, a term ending january 31, 2013, to the mental health board. there is one seat and two applicants. supervisor kim: thank you. may we have ms. lena miller?
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>> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for having me. i am the founder and co- executive director of the hunters point family. i was very excited to learn about this seat, because i started out my career with an interest in mental health. i thought i was going to be a psychiatrist and a kind of work with youth 1-on-one. but i came of age in the 1980's, which is sent -- when our community really started to change for the worse. we saw the epidemic of crack and also machine guns, and really a lot of pain in our community. as i graduated from college and a look into graduate school and what kind of debris i would pursue, i decided to get a master's in social work, because it would allow me to be a little more flexible with the kind of work that i would do in terms of healing. ultimately, i found the program
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that is known as the hunters point family. we started out as an after- school program. really, the thought about that was that a program that really nurtured young people and worked with them every single day was going to be a lot more powerful than somebody meeting with folks once a week and trying to figure what the issues are. over the years, the agency group from safe haven, peacekeepers. we now have three community gardens, a large work force division, and social enterprise delivering produce. we're about to open a cafe. so now we are expanding into large-scale social enterprise. over the years of we have expanded, we really responded to community needs. at the beginning probably win
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safe haven was founded around 2003 and i was the program director at the gym, we saw an epidemic of violence that even exceeded what was before that. at the time, seeing a lot of the tragedy with the young people, it made me really think a lot differently about what was going on. at that time, i wrote a white paper. as i did the research, i realize that our young people had the exact same symptoms as it did folks with post-traumatic stress disorder. that was one of the ways that i met ms. brooks, because this bill before the mental health commission early, early on -- because i spoke to the mental health commissioner early on. i think my main interest in joining the mental health board is that in bayview hundred point, we really have seen
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almost no response to the violence that has been going on and a lot of the issues as a result of that violence. and having worked with folks from the public health department and social workers out there, really what i see is that people do not really know how to begin to deal with it. it is not that they do not care. it is that the problem is so overwhelming. we recently met with the cultural competency division in mental health with the department of public health, and they basically confirmed that the issue is so big, we do not even know how to begin to tackle it. and that is what i would like to bring. i think that we have some of the most severe issues going on right now in bayview hunters point around, you know, multiple, multiple homicides every year. it has impacted just about every family living there. on a scale, it is overwhelming. but i think that there is hope and folks can be thoughtful
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about the issue, and we can begin to at least be, you know, develop solutions or some type of programs that would be appropriate or something. that is what i would like to bring to the committee. supervisor kim: thank you. any questions? supervisor elsbernd: looking at your resume, one thing, my eye. san francisco senators. you were on their board. what was that? >> i do not know if the head track and field. they definitely had baseball. it was one of the front runners in nonprofits in its debut hunters point a long time ago. there was a baseball team and the big building. he was our mentor. he gave me my first job. i learned a lot about what i am doing from him. supervisor kim: thank you. next we have terence patterson.
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>> the afternoon. i am terence patterson. what i think i can bring to the mental health board is an ability to further the integration of programs among agencies and to extend culturally appropriate services. i will speak on that a little more, but i will just mention a bit of my background. before i came to san francisco in 1971, i worked in philadelphia as a community organizer and also with delinquent youth gangs. i then was the race relations officer and family therapy director at the presidio. i then worked for seven i then worked for seven years at the family practice clinic. i worked in washington for the
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national institutes of mental health since 1990, i have been in san francisco. my interest in integrating programs comes from when i was at san francisco general. we would get children and teenagers referred who had mental health problems. there was no coordination between the school, the social service agency, and the mental health system. i was relatively effective in doing that, in having passion about it, for all of my career is since then because that is the only way that families can be effectively served. as far as extending culturally appropriate services, i have been involved in diversity issues all of my career. i have been involved in
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community organizing. i believe that the cannot deal with the mental health issue in isolation, particularly with a child or a teenager, you must involve the extended family, the friends, the pastors. everyone in bringing services that are appropriate to really make a change in helping children to stay in school and solve whatever health issues they may have. >> thank you. any questions? >> we have the two applicants for one spot. i am trying to get familiar with some of the other a vacancies. one of the qualifications is that if a member has multiple illness. would you qualify?
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>> know. -- no. >> [inaudible] >> the only opening that we have other than a mental event as a board of supervisor member,. i did not give an answer over a number of months, i afforded both applicants here to the rules committee. that is the seat that i have open