tv [untitled] March 5, 2012 2:00pm-2:30pm PST
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city city you know that it is true we need entertainment whinnied in good from you i say city i say city i do not want to find that we do not have entertainment and are not even one dime i say city you know that it is true we need good entertainment and we needed from yeaou ♪ >> thanks. supervisor wiener: thank you. by the way, we have now gone through all the cards. >> hello, i am is small business owner, and we were mentioned earlier. we were trying to put up a
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nightclub at 43 sixth street. we keep hearing that there has been pushed back from the city. we're fighting this constant battle to put a bar in that location. i wanted to also mentioned that this has been historically a bar in the same location for over 40 years. so i do not know why there is a push back all of the sudden now. as far as our business, we're definitely committed to putting the security there. surveillance cameras, a lot of lights. make the facade lignites so that it brings a lot of professionals that the mayor's twitter tax break would bring in that neighborhood. you want to make it vibrant and safe for responsible, committed people. so this report really encourages us, because it really shows that nightlife is not something to be feared and to be afraid of, but to be encouraged.
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're making sure that we are keeping it safe and keeping it clean. and one of the other things is also we want to promote bollywood music in san francisco. there's no venue that currently promotes these kind of minority groups. we want to promote that to our club. so we're hoping that the city really gives us more encouragement and support us in this business. thank you. supervisor wiener: thank you. next speaker. >> lynn that chapman from -- linda chapman from nob hill which is not mention that is a major center of entertainment and i am a native, lived here in the 1960's. it was lovely. i lived for about 20 years in the theater district, and i loved it.
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it was a pleasure to here the music from the gold dust or biscuits and blues, but that is because there were not in a residential area, you see. and much of nob hill is a dense residential area. i am going to try to play something so that you will hear what it sounds like in the dense residential area. but anyway, pulled streak -- pulled street is the residential neighborhood district, and parts of it is now unlivable. there is a senior housing building there. unfortunately this is not playing for some reason. it did earlier. the resident manager of the building across the street, where residents have been there 20, 30, 40 years, and many are older and have heart conditions and other conditions, they cannot sleep. from 10:30 p.m., sometimes until 3:30 a.m.
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that was like last weekend. from 11:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., it is like a wall of sound. i am sorry, i cannot fix it. now they want to turn this into a big rock venue in masonic. there is very poor public transportation up there at night. all of these young people drinking, because now there is actually a license, which there never was before, a 47-type license. so it is replicating of their but only so far intermittently what has happened down on polk street. thousands of people from out of town come, and they combine hundreds. you cannot walk down the street. the noise is a wall of sound like a football game for hours on end. what are the costs to the city in policing?
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not that the police can do anything. they say they're so overwhelmed that i do not have the staff. the injured in the commission has been contacted over and over by the resident manager who reported this. [bell rings] and they have done nothing to enforce it. nobody is enforcing except the fire department sometimes. people are having to move. then the property owner has to give notice to the people who might move in. you know, it is damaging property values. restaurant customers cannot come to these areas anymore. retailers are damaged because these premises move in, not only did the drive up the rent, but they did not bring in customers during the day. and nobody wants to come to the area anymore. [bell rings] i will bring this another time. supervisor wiener: thank you very much. next speaker. also john and steve. >> hello, i am tom murphy, a musician and entrepreneur and co-chair of the recording academy is advocacy committee.
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i have spent almost three years now working with the entertainment commission and the arts community and venues. and many people involved in our night life. and i want to thank you for commissioning this study and for the controller's office for giving us a wonderful starting point to have a healthy dialogue. many people have mentioned that this is a complex relationship between businesses and neighbors and a police and artists and technology that requires these different groups to begin to understand each other's position, to try to come to agreement on what is best for the city as a whole, recognizing each individual's goals and objectives and needs, but also recognizing the larger picture. this study begins to touch on what i see as a much larger picture. but there are so many other businesses that are a little bit more difficult to measure that
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are directly related to music and nightlife that we have talked a lot about the growing technology sector and midmarket and trying to attract new business and new employees and new ideas. and many times a year there is a conference call sf music tech conference, and it brings thousands of music professionals and entrepreneurs to san francisco to discuss how to revolutionize and adapt to these changes in music and the industry and economics. so many of those companies are headquartered here in san francisco. so this study is a great starting point to recognize that the diverse ramifications that we as a city have taken for granted and recognize on a cultural and subjective level, but now we can begin to talk in more concrete, objective numbers
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about employees, revenue, taxes, and economy. i want to thank you. and i look forward to working with everyone else continually on ways to revitalize this industry that we all are very dedicated to. supervisor wiener: thank you very much. mr. wood? >> hello, supervisors could i am john would. i have not been around the nightlife scene as long as mark has, but i have been around for a while, long enough to have been involved in trying to negotiate a lot of the squabbles that have happened between nightlife and special events and neighborhood groups and the police department. one thing that has not been said today, jocelyn did it say that running in nightlife business can be difficult. part of that difficulty is that night life often becomes the scapegoat for social problems
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that the nightlife owners did not create but that they have to deal with. and so, when an incident happens like a fight or a shooting, even something that happens a block away from the club that the club owner has very little ability to impact, that will, because of sometimes the tragic nature of it, the club will get blamed on a map -- automatically, even though they really had very little ability to affect that are not. so what is great about this study is that it proves how important this sector is to the economy, and that gives a little bit more weight to the political leadership that is necessary to force intelligence solutions into these complex social problems and not have the knee- jerk reactions that have occurred in the past that put all the blame on the club owners
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and then add all kind of additional costs into the running of the venues and nightclubs that take away from their ability to hire jobs. and many clubs go out of business and even some have left this city. it is because of this process of knee-jerk reaction that occurs to admittedly difficult situations sometimes. but with the proper political leadership that said that this is important and the word has spread out throughout the bureaucracy that we have to work together and create better solutions. that has not always happen, and that has led to the problems that mark talked about. fortunately with this new generation of supervisors, and thank you to scott for pushing this and seeing the importance of its, we can create those solutions, working together with the entertainment commission, the police department, and not have the process that everyone has been stuck in that mark alluded to. thank you very much.
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supervisor wiener: thank you very much. >> thank you, supervisors. i am here to talk about the need for been used to revolve over time and change. i have been working for the last three years with the california masonic memorial temple, the owner of the masonic auditorium on nob hill. a 3200-seat venue now, completed in 1958. it has not undergone any substantial rehabilitation or changes since then. we did get permits for the city in 2010 to renovate the said her -- of the center, add seats, make it more like the fox and oakland, where the city of oakland put in tens of millions of dollars to renovate that venue and modernize it and make it appropriate for these days. unfortunately is superior court judge put us back in the process
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again. i want you to keep in mind when, later this month, you hear the next a masonic appeal of issues that were raised today in this hearing, it is not a nightclub. it is a concert venue. we're talking about an 11:00 p.m. closing time, 11:30 p.m. closing time on weekends. but it is important that you recognize the importance of these larger venues as well that bring people to san francisco for concerts'. they have a multiplier effect. they're not nightclub's the large venues. in this case, masonic happens to be in a mixed use neighborhood, both residential and commercial neighborhood. there are some residents in the area who are dissatisfied with the existence of it at all and are trying to close down the avenue. and i wanted you to be aware of these issues and the economic issues that were raised when you hear the appeal. a couple of statistics. we estimate when the venue is renovated and back open for
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business, about $2.5 million annually in tax payments to the city -- in peril. $75,000 in tax payments to the city. $5 million to $6 million in capital improvements to the menu itself. it is important to the economic generator. thank you for this hearing. supervisor chiu: is that the live nation project? >> they have been hired. >> how large is that, if the project is approved, compared to like another that it team -- >> that has about 8000 capacity. masonic is about 3300. it is the middle range. right now, just the opera house and davis hall has that capacity. those are pretty much completely booked.
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so this is the only venue of that size in san francisco. supervisor wiener: so that appeal has been calendar for -- it says march 27? >> either the 2327. >> this is march 27. any more public comments? seeing none, public comment is closed. i just want to thank everyone. i agree with some of the comments made the this is really a starting point. there is more work to be done. but i think this is been a great first step. so thank you again to mr. egan and everyone involved. mr. chair i moved to continue this to the call of the chair. supervisor chiu: thank you, everyone, for testifying. i want to make sure that we're going to be following up together on focusing on the music industry's impact as well, hopefully looking at some of the data from this report more
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specifically on the musicians, music industry, and other music venues. and the other issue is, wanted to appreciate jocelyn from the entertainment commissioners and folks for being here today, too, for also doing such a great job trying to mitigate the impacts of the industry in different neighborhoods. i think ms. chapman, who spoke earlier, i want to thank her for bringing the concerns of residents been doubly the entertainment division's debt and commissioners can help in the process of bringing their career awareness to entertain me, which is such an important part of san francisco's life culture, and can be appreciated, but residents can be expected as well -- can be respected as well. we're continuing this to the call of the chair, without objection. is there any other business before us? >> no, there are no further matters. supervisor mar: thank you,
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movement. stephen de staebler's developed in an area dominated by abstract expression. even his peers saw his form. >> he was able to find a middle ground in which he balanced the ideas of human figuration and representation with abstraction and found it even more meaningful to negotiate that duality. >> another challenge was to create art from a meeting that was typically viewed as kraft material. his transforming moment was an accident in the studio. an oversized vertical sculpture began to collapse under its own weight and spread onto the floor. he sought a new tradition before him, landscape sculpture. >> you feel this extended human
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form underneath the surface of the earth struggling to emerge. eventually, it does. it articulates his idea that the earth is like flesh, and the archaeology and geology in the earth are like the bones, the structure of the earth. this tied in with his idea of mother earth, with the sense that we are all tied to nature and the earth. >> a half dozen bay area museums and private collectors loan the massive sculptures to the museum for its matter and spirit retrospective. but the most unusual contributions came from stephen himself. a wall of autobiographical masks and hence from the early decades of his private study. >> he had one of the most beautiful studios i have ever been in. when you walk in, your first impression is of these monumental figures that you see in the exhibition, but if you
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went into the back corner of his studio, there was a series of shells with these diminutive figures. he told me, these are the heart of my studio. these little, and held intimate study is that he referred to as his sketchbook. a painter might make drawings. stephen de staebler made miniature sculptures. >> during the 1970's, he was inspired by the monuments of egypt. he assembled a large rocks of clay into figures that resembled the ancient kings and queens. he credited a weathered appearance by rubbing glazes' into the clay while still wet. the misfires from his killed were brought in his backyard in his berkeley home. he called it his boneyard. in the last year of his life, he dug up the artifacts from his own history, and the bones were rearranged, in the were slimmer figures with wings.
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>> even if you knew nothing about his life or career, you sensed there was an artist dealing with this fundamental issue of life and death, the cake, netting back together, and you feel there is an attempt to deal with mortality and immortality. there is a seeking of spiritual meaning in an existential stage. >> during his 50-year career, stephen de staebler worked to form and out of the clay of the ground and give it a breath of life. matter and spirit gathers the many expressions of his meditations. and gives the viewer and insight into the artist's life. learn more about the retrospective on line at
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>> is good afternoon and welcome to the special rules committee. i'm joined today by supervisors and david campos and supervisor farrell. are there any announcements? >> please make sure to turn off all sell funds and all electronic devices. all documents to be cleared up as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. all actions on today's agenda will be on march 4. supervisor kim: could you call items #one and two together? >> ordinance amending the campaign in governmental conduct code and municipal election code to modify expenditure ceilings
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for the city is public financing program, and to amend at the date on which candidates must file the papers. item number two, a motion submitted to the voters of the rising the amendments of the campaign and the government will conduct code and minutes elections code to add just expenditure ceilings in the public financing program in response to the supreme court ruling in paris on a free enterprise obverses bennett, just public financing deadlines and threshold and advance canon that filing deadlines that an election to be held on june 5, 2012. supervisor kim: the two items before us are largely is similar. one of them i introduced with supervisor campos and avalos. this was in response to an
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arizona court ruling, a case periled a trigger that allows for more public financing dollars ticket to a candidate in response to a third-party independent expenditures was now considered unconstitutional under the first amendment freedom of speech. while many of us on the board disagree with a final ruling the supreme court had decided, it does impact the public financing program we have put together in this city and county of san francisco. i want to acknowledge that a supervisor farrell and supervisor elsbernd where the first to bring this to the attention of the board. i do want to make sure we spend some time working with community groups and those who work together to put together the first city public financing program and our ethics commission to put together something that was a little more comprehensive. the second item is an initiative
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ordinance to get the balance -- to the ballot on june of 2008. both measures are similar and i can go over the brief differences between the two, but in case we are not able to pass this through the board, because this program is so important to many of my colleagues who want to ensure there is another mechanism that we can make these changes to the public financing program if we are not able to do it as an ordinance. briefly, i want to acknowledge that john is here from the ethics commission. since october, we have had this measure go through the ethics commission i believe twice. we were able to get a lot of good feedback from community advocates who have been working on public financing for many years and are ethics commissioners. i'm happy with what is coming before us today. some of the main changes we're seeing is that we are raising the qualification for any candidate running for board of
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supervisors from $5,000 to $10,000 in campaign contributions from at least 100 san francisco residents. we also want to raise the bar for incumbents so they have a higher bart to qualify so any incumbent supervisor candidate will have to raise at least $15,000 from 150 city residents. candidates for mayor would be kept to the same bar, but in -- an incumbent mayor would be required to collect at least 75,000 from 750 residents. in terms of the availability of the funds, the city would it -- would disperse them to can't it's no earlier than 142 days before election. we heard many constituents who are concerned about canada to that taken public financing, particularly in the mayoral race because they felt they could not
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drop out once the full field of candidates were revealed. we want to ensure candidates did not stay in the race because they were publicly financed and would not have stayed on to take on city funds. we changed it from february until one week after the filing deadline, which would insure and its filing with no abrupt of the candidates running and could make a decision at that point and want to continue to be eligible to be public financed candidates. for the november general election, this eligibility date would fall in mid june. there are an number of other changes made. one was that we would no longer be doing one to four matches. we have reduced that down to two. the last change we made was that
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candidates to run for the board of supervisors and mirror would be required to file nomination documents 146 days before elections. after some consideration, we thought was important to move the filing date to june so there would be more certainty for candidates who were running and for any serious candidate, they should be able to declare at an earlier date and set a more concrete pool of candidates in terms of competition for the november race. i have no further comments. i want to allow supervisor campos to say some words and i would ask john from the ethics commission to say some words or answer questions from my colleagues. >> thank you very much, madame chair. i would like to begin by thanking you and your staff who have been working on this for
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quite some time and for bringing item one forward i'm proud to be a co-sponsor of that item and i would like to think hillary in my office to has been working with me on this for quite some time and i want to thank all of the people who have been involved in these issues. thank you for your commitment to this issue and while i recognize there are differences of opinion on something like this in terms of some members of the board, i think we have been a model for how to the public financing and i think it is something we should be very proud of. i want to thank supervisors farrell and elsbernd. even though we
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