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tv   [untitled]    August 9, 2011 11:00am-11:30am PDT

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we say, go to this website and they go and get the information easily. >> a picture tells a thousand stories. some say a map supervisor chiu: i fully appreciate the concerns raised by some tenant leaders.
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i would never supported the project if i did not feel comfortable that tenant rights have been protected here with parker said -- part merced. i say this as one of the few tenants on the board of supervisors, who has been a staunch advocate of tenants before i was elected and with my votes on this board. my parents immigrated to the united states in the 1960's, and i was the first kid born in the u.s. my parents sacrificed everything so that their kids could have the opportunities that they wanted when they came here. i grew up in the boston area, live in different parts of boston, went to a catholic high school in dorchester, which is a section of boston. because of my parents work and the opportunities they gave me, my brothers and i were all blessed to go to harvard university. it was intense. i stayed there for college, for law school, and i also have a master's in public policy there. those are subjects i decided to
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study in part because i was very interested in public service and public policy issues and government. i ran for office in part because i wanted to serve the city and really protect all that is so special about what san francisco is. >> we've been talking for years about how important it is to build new neighborhoods, to develop affordable housing, make sure we have transit-oriented sustainable green development that really is worthy of a 21st century san francisco. what we're doing today -- and, frankly, what we're doing this year will have impacts on the city for decades to come. thank you all for being part of this, and i look forward to that mid-cutting. i moved to san francisco 15 years ago for all the reasons that we all love our city. our cable cars. our hills. the diversity of our neighborhoods. and have loved every minute of being here. >> like many of you here, i did not actually grow up in san francisco. i grew up in another part of the
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country that was not quite as tolerant or quite as diverse. san francisco drew me, as i think it through all of us, because we live in a very special place. i just want to say on behalf of the board of supervisors -- we have a special responsibility and a special leadership role in the world. as we come together, we symbolize all of this date we have in humanity, the faith we have in the fight for civil rights, the faith we have, frankly, as a common family. >> i consider myself someone who shares the progress of value that need san francisco's -- many san franciscans hold dear. >> i do believe that a majority of this board share the same progressive values, and i think there is a danger and an overly narrow definition of what is
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progressive. we have to remember that being progressive stance for values of inclusiveness, of tolerance, of acceptance, and we need to think hard about how we characterize various votes of either being within that definition or outside of that. >> before i ran for office, i worked in san francisco as a criminal prosecutor and a civil- rights attorney and really got to understand how much of a beacon to the rest of the world san francisco is for social justice. i also been spent a number of years helping to grow a small business, got to understand the innovative spirit here in san francisco. at night, i volunteered as a neighborhood association leader and also as the chair of an affordable housing organization and learned so much about the challenges facing our neighborhoods and facing a really special tools that are the urban villages that we live in. sen for assistance -- facing
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really the special jules -- jewels that are the urban villages that we live in. san franciscans during campaigns read everything they are sent in the mail. love to meet candidates. a gauge with them in conversations. i also learned how important it is to build bridges between communities, particularly communities of diversity we have. i was just incredibly honored to have been elected in november 2008. my district really encompasses the ethnic and economic diversity that exists throughout the city. as a result, i think my district is really emblematic of the entire city. you can find every political perspective that you could possibly want in district 3. so oftentimes, the interest of my district and the city really are quite a line, so i do not have to think about this difference is probably quite as often as some of my colleagues
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may have to. i in particular want to thank the mayor for his decision to protect our nutrition programs. this is something that i think we all believe is incredibly important at a time when we have seen massive federal and state cuts, for us to hold the line locally and stand up in the city of st. francis for our seniors and our nutrition programs and families. i think we have a lot of challenges right now. we are still in the midst of the great recession. we all know way too many folks who are struggling in a minimum wage jobs pirouette of folks who have been laid off at work. i think as a city, we need to do much better at creating an environment where we have more jobs and more economic development. i know that all of us are committed to ensuring that we have a budget that not only provides basic city services that we have come to expect but make sure that we take care of our most vulnerable. whether it be our at-risk use, our seniors, are disabled, our working families, folks who are
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out of work. i know something that every public servant who is here is committed to. adding with all come together as a board, as a city. we should come together as san franciscans, and, colleagues, at this time, i hope, and i asked that we unanimously vote for ed lee to be our next mayor. this is also a historic day for the asian-american community. for a community that has been here in santa francisco, for over 160 years, i am a product of that community. i know the ed and all of us of asian-american decent feel the legacy. i want to thank all of you who have been part of this historic moment to make this happen. and say that this is obviously not just about a chinese- american community or an asian
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american community. this is about the american dream. the idea that anyone of any background of any color from any part of the globe can come here and sunday be at the very top of what our community is about -- and someday be at the very top of what our community is about.
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hello, and welcome to the department of elections ranked-choice voting instructional video. this video is part of the department of elections' ranked-choice voting outreach campaign and is designed to educate san francisco voters about ranked-choice voting. today we will learn what ranked-choice voting is, and who is elected using this new voting method. we will also talk about what the ranked-choice ballot looks like and how to mark it correctly. finally, we'll see how the ranked-choice voting process works and show you an example of an election using ranked-choice voting. so, what is ranked-choice voting?
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in march of 2002, san francisco voters adopted a charter amendment to implement ranked-choice voting, also known as the instant run-off voting. san francisco voters will use ranked-choice voting to elect most local officials by selecting a first-choice candidate in the first column on the ballot, and different second- and third-choice candidates in the second and third columns respectively. this makes it possible to elect local officials with a majority of votes, more than 50%, without the need for a separate run-off election. in san francisco, ranked-choice voting applies to the election of members of the board of supervisors, the mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney, treasurer, assessor-recorder, and public defender. ranked-choice voting does not apply to elections for local school board and community college board members, nor the election of state or federal officials.
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ranked-choice voting does not affect the adoption of ballot measures. when voters receive their ballot, either at a polling place or as an absentee ballot in the mail, it will consist of multiple cards. voters will receive cards that contain contests for federal and state offices, as well as for state propositions and local ballot measures. for ranked-choice voting contests, voters will receive a separate ranked-choice ballot card. the design of the ranked-choice ballot card and the instructions to rank three choices are new. the ranked-choice ballot is designed in a side-by-side column format that lists the names of all candidates in each of the three columns. when marking the ranked-choice ballot, voters select their first-choice candidate in the first column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice.
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for their second-choice, voters select a different candidate in the second column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice. for their third-choice, voters select a different candidate in the third column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice. voters wishing to vote for a qualified write-in candidate for any of their three choices can write in a candidate's name on the line provided and they must complete the arrow pointing to their choice. keep in mind a voter should select a different candidate for each of the three columns of the ranked-choice ballot card. if a voter selects the same candidate in more than one column, his or her vote for that candidate will count only once. also, a voter's second choice will be counted only if his or her first-choice candidate has been eliminated and a voter's third choice will be counted only if both his or her first- and second-choice candidates have been eliminated.
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we have talked about how to mark the ranked-choice ballot. now let's look at how ranked-choice voting works. initially every first-choice vote is counted. any candidate who receives a majority, more than 50% of the first-choice votes, is determined to be the winner. if no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes begins. first, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race. second, voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their vote transferred to their second choice. third, all the votes are recounted. fourth, if any candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, he or she is declared the winner. if no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the process of eliminating
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candidates and transferring votes is repeated until one candidate has a winning majority. in this example, we have three candidates: candidate a, candidate b and candidate c. in this example, we have three candidates: candidate a, candidate b., and candidate c. after all the first-choice votes are counted, none of the three candidates has received more than 50%, or a majority of the first-choice votes cast. candidate a has received 25% of the votes, candidate b has received 40% of the votes, and candidate c has received 35% of the votes. . because no candidate received a majority, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes, candidate a, is eliminated from the race. voters who picked candidate a as their first-choice candidate will have their vote transferred to their second-choice candidate.
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of the voters who picked candidate a as their first choice candidate, 15% chose candidate b as their second-choice candidate and 10% chose candidate c as their second-choice candidate. these votes are then applied to candidates b and candidate c and the votes are recounted. we see now that candidate b has 55% of the votes and candidate c has 45% of the vote. candidate b now has more than 50% of the votes and is determined to be the winner. thank you for watching. we hope that you have learned more about ranked-choice voting and who is elected using this method. you have seen the ranked-choice ballot, learned how to correctly mark it, and learned how the ranked-choice voting process works. if you have any further questions about ranked-choice voting, please contact us at: department of elections, city
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hall, room 48, 1 dr. carlton b. goodlett place, san francisco, california 94102. call us at: 415-554-4375. visit our web site at: wwww
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>> good afternoon. thank you so much for being here. it is really an honor to work with the department of environment on the san francisco home improvement program. we hope it becomes they hit this program in the city. we really are here to talk
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about the financial, as well as the environmental benefits of going green. in san francisco, as well as across the country, what we forget is often our home and the real estate that we own is normally the most valuable piece of wealth that we have in our family. but we also for get that real- estate and buildings also have some of the largest carbon footprint in san francisco, as well as across the country single-family homes are almost 22% of the carbon footprint. in my understanding, we have actually been miscounting the carbon footprint, and we actually undervalued the carbon footprint of real estate in those homes. we're here today to talk about how you can go green with doing some very simple things. some improvement items did you can get a rebate of up to $7,000
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just by putting in new water heaters, and doing ventilation, and we have margaret here, who is a homeowner and a contractor, just to tell you really how easy it is. it is so important when we're looking at our home. our home is one of the most valuable things we have to continue to invest in. many of these minor investments will make huge returns on investment and a huge savings down the road. on average -- most of you know that i am a huge solar advocate and i have solar panels on my home. the return on solar is even more than the return on energy efficiency. energy efficiency often times will return your investment in three years. it is so fast and so easy. we're really here to encourage energy improvement. we want you to be part of this. we did in the assessor's office, we have an annual noticed of the
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best evaluation that went out to every single property owner in the city and the county. over two hundred thousand letters, and each of them got a brochure. there is a copy of the brochure that we mailed out with this wonderful family here, talking about how you can get $7,000 in rebates just by participating in this, just by going ahead and working with solar city and being a part of this. is it is so important that we take the first step that we can take to become greener in our own lives, because we forget how big an impact just our small little, as on the environment when you add it up with all the people in san francisco. i am honored to be joined by the director of the department. she is going to walk you through the program and talk about the great things they are doing. >> before i talk about the program, i really wanted to thank phil for is leadership on these issues. he has been a champion for
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solar in san francisco as well as for energy efficiency. we are excited to have partnered with the assessor's office to get this information to homeowners in san francisco. my name is melanie, the director of the san francisco department of the environment. in an effort to help our city's homeowners afford energy efficiency in their homes, my department has partnered with energy of great california to develop the san francisco home improvement and performance program. this is a program that does offer financial incentives of up to $7,000 for san francisco homeowners, which is an exce looking to do energy efficiency in their homes. as you all know, making home energy improvements will all to save money on electricity bills, as well as gas bills. doing energy efficiency of grades in a home also makes comes more comfortable as well as more healthy.
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ultimately, as he said, if you do energy efficiency upgrades in your home, it does increase the value of your home. the first up in terms of participating in the sf hip program is to call one of our specially trained contractors who can come out to do an energy assessment, to basically look at what some of the measures are that you could do in your home to see these types of energy savings. this is an apparent factor in the program, because the more energy that you say, the more money that you can receive, up to $7,000. it is here with the percentage of energy that you can save, connected to the rebate that you can get. some of the projects that contribute to energy efficiency that could be part of your home energy upgrade includes adding insulation, air sealing around windows, walls and crawlspaces, upgrading or installing high
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efficiency heating and cooling systems, as well as a grading a water heater or a boiler. i did want to urge homeowners to take a vintage of these savings now. we're offering up to $7,000 in rebates for energy efficiency. after august 21, it will go down by about $1,000, so there really is reasons to participate in the next five weeks. ultimately, by helping homeowners make these upgrades, we're working together with the assessor reporters office to ensure that we can meet our carbon reduction goals here in san francisco. we are working to reduce their carbon emissions in the city by 20% below 1990 levels by the end of next year. that is one of the reasons to put together this program, to aggressively how to do energy efficiency in homes throughout san francisco. ultimately, this program, sf hip is a great example of our commitment to visionary and burn the to programs that help to promote social equity, to protect human health, and to
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leave their way towards a sustainable future. we're working very hard -- we have more direct -- very hard to get where we are, but to set our goals, we need to keep pushing the envelopes thef hip -- we need to continue pushing the envelope. sf hip will help us to do that. thank you. >> thank you. my name is margaret wilson. i have been a resident of san francisco for eight years. my husband and i bought a house. we did it with my daughter and her husband, and we share an old victorian with my husband, daughter, son-in-law, and their three children. since we bought the house, we have had a lot of maintenance just to repair damage and stuff. but we have been also very conscientiously trying to do environmental upgrades.
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and we had been a solar city customer. we put solar on our house two years ago and were able to do so with almost no out-of-pocket expense. and we have seen, you know, basically not a reduction in our energy bill, but flat on our energy bill, and we know that is from solar. so when i received a flier from solar city that announced the energy audits, i talked to my daughter and we decided that we would go and do that right away. so we replied and a requested the energy audit. we had a team of solar city people come into our house and go through the whole house, through the heating, you know, the windows, the drafting, how
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we used heating and stuff like that. and as a result of that audit, they designed a program for us that included ceiling cracks and weather stripping, reducing its draft from a fireplace by putting something in to block the draft. replacing in 1950's vintage heater that i had been told in the past was about 50% effective. they replaced it with a new height efficiency furnace, and in doing that, it also had the asbestos removed from the house. i was delighted to get rid of the asbestos, too. that heating system also allows us to better modulate the temperature in the house because it is a multi-story house. it is very hard to keep both floors comfortable.
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but the system that puts in allows us to better modulate the temperature and keep the house comfortable. also, as part of the energy audit, they identified a very hazardous situation we had with an old stove that is leading carbon monoxide. we planned on replacing dead in the future, but we have now budgeted to do an immediate replacement of that stove, so they identified a very hazardous situation, and we now have the opportunity to correct that. so i have been very thrilled with the work that solar city did. they also completed the work in a timely manner. the people were very pleasant but there was absolutely no mess left. i am delighted in the looking forward to our energy savings. so thank you. >> i will just say a few words about how solar city. it is one of the leading full-
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service solar energy efficiency and now electrical vehicle charging providers in the united states, and we're delighted to be working with s the environment and energy agreed california, providing homeowners with incentives to make it easier for them to make energy efficiency and upgrades to their home. we have about 2000 energy efficiency customers in the u.s. and 15,000 solar projects completed are underway -- or under way. i think margaret wilson as a prime example of a homeowner who has seen comfort and health benefits, in addition to environmental and monetary savings. d want to tell us about some of the rebates from the program? >> absolutely. in addition to the san francisco home improvement program, there's a program called the energy agreed california program, and it is designed to help all want -- homeowners make energy efficiency improvements to the home and offset the cost. up to four thousand dollars for pg&e utility customers available
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for doing things that you might want to do already, adding insulation or reducing traps in your home, replacing the water europe -- water healeheater. not only do you save energy and money and reduce your current footprint, but you'll be much more comfortable in your home. >> grade, thank you. again, in san francisco, we're actually a prime target for this program, because the folks who should consider this program the most are folks who are owning older homes. margaret's home was built in the 1880's. we have a lot of homes built in the 1920's and in 1930's. those homes are prime targets for this program in terms of having a leaky windows and older furnaces and water heaters, all the upgrades we would normally do. in addition to this program, we're also going to be working on a green grade. w