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tv   [untitled]    July 7, 2012 5:00am-5:30am PDT

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ongoing use of the money for a supporting urban agriculture. thank you for introducing this legislation and i hope you support it and i look ford to working with you on making a better. >> i am with the center for urban education about sustainable agriculture. we are best known for running the farmers' market and the mission is to promote a sustainable food system. thank you for introducing this legislation and thank you to the city of san francisco for taking a food system perspective on policy. we appreciate what has been done and we feel supporting urban agriculture is an important part of the food system as a whole and we support this legislation
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and support all of the amendments as brought forward by the urban agriculture alliance. specifically, i want to bring up a couple of points. we have urban and agriculture in our name and we get a lot of calls for people wanting to have gardens or people from other parts of the world looking to us as a model and i feel it would be really important to have a coordinated body and funding for that. i hear a lot of frustration on the part of our residents for not having a place to garden. although there is a beautiful, contact -- compact city, there is not a lot of space and not a lot of land. someone in coordinating the land that is available, we get delegations from all over the world looking at san francisco as a model.
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thank you. president chiu: if you have been called, please line up on the right hand side so that we can move along. >> i have a copy of the letter that i wrote to you guys. i'm an owner of a landscape contracting company and we grow food here in san francisco in people's backyards. we are also a member organization of the you a and ask that you support the ordinance and amendments we have suggested. i also have some language here about exploring how urban agriculture can provide employment opportunities. as a business owner, i know
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there are employment opportunities out there and exploring is good but i think we should step further and in hands and create these opportunities. if we could get the overhead going. i don't know if someone knows how to operate this, but i don't think i do. what i am proposing is changing some wording at that last bullet point. thank you very much. before we get to that, i want to mention i am and favor of the oversight body. that would help oversee this
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program. that is not our position at this point but it is something i feel strongly about and it would be a good way to get oversight from different businesses. i can not read what i have if we cannot show it on the overhead. he essentially, as it stated before -- [tone] v. new program should explore how urban agriculture should provide it -- if we could change it to enhance job programs including low-income and use persons and create employment opportunities and incentives to hire san francisco residents for their food growing programs. feel free to talk about that and it would be great if we could
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get other folks in the city the opportunity to learn these things because right now there are not a lot of comprehensive programs in the city. the closest place is santa cruz with comprehensive programs. would be great if we could have a program where employers like myself could hire from. >> i am a community organizer and i focus on doing food security issues. we operate the tenderloin people's garden. just last year, we gave 3,000 pounds of fresh produce away. i want to give my support to this ordinance and i think san francisco should be leading the
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way in the global -- the urban agriculture movement globally. there is no reason we should not be leading the way on this. we need to look at not just the environmental aspects, but the social components. i would like to see some of the language in this ordinance focus on low-income communities, especially around access to food and job training. i know that is a systematic issue we are facing, but i think we can start looking at it through this legislation. there are a lot of folks here that don't have a lot of access to fresh food and this type of urban farming holds potential to increasing access for low-income people across the city. i have a letter of support i would like to hand off.
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>> good afternoon. i'm from kaiser permanente a. i have a little laryngitis today. i'm the community and government relations manager for the government center and i'm pleased to be here on behalf of kaiser permanente to show our support for this ordinance and its amendments. we have had our own community garden initiative for just over four years now. we support community gardening programs in 10 of the 11 districts and we're working on the 11th, which is supervisor chiu's district. part of our overall mission is
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to help the communities we exist in and part of that is creating programs around healthy eating, active living, wallace, prevention, and structural public health. community gardens are a wonderful example where communities can engage and people have access to fresh produce and it supports an alliance with our goals and the cities, we believe. we are thrilled to be here and we look forward to being supporters of the ordnance and continuing the community garden the initiative. >> i am a resident of san francisco and member of the community garden. i've been a member for four or five years. i want to speak to the community
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building aspect of the garden. it is a wonderful to have fresh produce for your meals, but there is an equally beneficial aspect, which is the value of people working together, learning from each other. one of the things about community gardens that are special is that it is across generational. we have children, grandparents like myself, all age groups can learn and participate and to participate in our community garden plots. it is a great process of community building and we meet once a month to work on projects around the garden. i want to support this proposal and stress it has many beneficial aspects. thank you very much.
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president chiu: are there any other members of the public to wish to speak on this topic? please line up on the right hand aisle. >> it good afternoon, the supervisors. i am an urban farmer and resources toward native and part of the hayes valley farm community. i did submit a brief report to all of you via e-mail. i won't go into details because it has been covered by a lot of people. thank you for introducing the legislation. i support it and i am glad to see it included the most current draft of the legislation. i think it is a good start and i think we could dedicate a lot more. the benefits of urban
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agriculture to quickly some up, i support the legislation and welcome a cohesive program. recreation, education, blade reduction and the transformation of urban space. i know people have a wide range of opinions and experiences and i hope many of these community members comport to share their views and we can help to shape truly effective legislation that provides for a fully funded, fully staffed urban agriculture program for the city of san francisco. i would also point out any program created will most certainly benefit every district of the city. with job creation and job training, i would like to emphasize there are many people in this city who grow hungry and the growing of the food is not to be overlooked as a great benefit. thank you.
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>> i am a physician working for a community clinic. i'm not reduce -- representing the clinic, but i am representing the fact that i work with politicians that one of their primary problems is improper nutrition, namely obesity. the lack of knowing about food, not having land to grow food, however when i bring up community gardens and so forth, they always seem interested. i'm asking for your support on this wonderful legislation and i agree with the amendments for all of the communities in san francisco, but especially the mission district. thank you.
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>> my name is j. rosenberg. i have worked and volunteered with many of you throughout the city. i am one of the co-founders of hayes valley farms, i teach agriculture and farming culture, incorporating the landscape with human habitat and finding ways for all to work together. in the past two and a half years, i've had the opportunity to meet many people and so many of these people have responded to the volunteer opportunity to say it is amazing. we get a chance to design the world we want to live in even if it is just for a little while. i think that is a great perspective. for a brief time, they're given a chance to research, educate, and demonstrate what is possible
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in urban agriculture in partnership but the city, we were given a grant to start the program and support from the san francisco park's lines. once again, as development and real estate and all the exciting things of the future city come to fruition, the notion of an term used project is being questioned and is of concern to many people, the idea that you can do something temporarily and see benefit to that. when we first received a notice -- if i may go on for just a moment here -- when we first received notice a year ago that the development plans were going to proceed, we were excited about the opportunity to sit and work with the mayor's office and a number of neighborhood and community-based organizations to identify additional spaces. one of the lessons i learned
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was an urban farm is something worth understanding a little about. [tone] it's not always going to be a very large space. what i would like to see is a community that has spaces throughout the neighborhood. some available for thing slyke composting, some for tools, some for class's and i don't think we need to have it all in one large space, but many spaces. as i stand here before you, i teach at the community gardens as well as two days in the bayview doing a job training program with some of the most at risk use. i'm confident the enthusiasm is there and they're our capabilities for these things to become very productive.
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the last thing, i want to touch the talent from the people's garden and the tenderloin -- san francisco continues to be a leader the rest of the world looks to in response to social, environmental, and economic crises we respond to daily here and i look forward to this legislation being a big part of the future. i have a copy of the report and i would like to share that with you. president chiu: are there any other members of the public who wish to speak on this topic? >> i am interested and very much in utilizing the resources we have in san francisco and not using any more of our money to
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do any more research on how to do airports. we have a big community that will be receiving five years from now and a university known for building the best of the best engineers and the world. people from around the world come to san francisco university to graduate and to get the best. why can't we use those guys to do the research on the best merino we can build -- supervisor mar: you were talking about the previous item. >> we opened it and we closed it. please try to speak any urban agriculture program.
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>> that's what we have forms for. supervisor mar: is there anyone else would like to speak? let's close public comment. president chiu: i would like to thank all of the folks who came out today. there has been a lot of frustration about the fact we have seven different agencies that impact agriculture but we were not able to see the type of coordination i hope will arise out of this legislation and hopefully we'll have more full- time staffing and make sure the declining resources and our budget is something we will be able to address. i would like to think the city administrator's office, the rec and park department, planning and real estate. in particular, have to think the urban agriculture alliance and all of you who have been
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working together to create a vision not just a san francisco being a green city, but being on the forefront of the urban agriculture movement. i would like to summarize the changes we have made. we introduced a new version last week and some of the changes includes a new language that for the upcoming fiscal year, we would have at least one of full- time employee for this urban agriculture program. we included language to require the strategic plan to include budget and funding sources to make it explicit the mayor and administrator will consult with relative -- relevant departments and ensure once the program is in place, we will seek public and put from stakeholders and including the language to conform with agriculture and public health
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laws. to make explicit the rooftop audit will identify suitable roofs and not make final determination of the suitability. language that would allow changes to the completion date should be processed result another time lines. broadening the definition to include non-food plants and will include in the duty to ensure existing spaces are fully utilized. there was one other change that was made that i would like to propose an amendment today. that refers to the language around job training and employment opportunities. there was a suggestion that we reference we want job-training opportunities for low-income and used as well as think about employment opportunities for a san francisco residence. i think that language is worth putting in. i would like to suggest on page
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4, subsection 7, line 11, that we state one of the duties shall be to explore our urban agriculture can provide new opportunities and enhance existing programs for all san francisco residents and how employment opportunities and incentives can be created for employers to hire a san franciscans. i thought that was useful to add to this language. i would ask for that amendment and ask for your support. supervisor mar: -- supervisor olague has joined us. supervisor ma
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supervisor olague: this is something i find very exciting. i have been trying to reach out individuals engaged in this work, particularly there is a lot of strength in the african- american community and a lot of folks there who are actually expert on african american farming and this sort of thing. we are hoping in august to have a conversation and presentation from the rosa parks senior center which is adjacent to the buchanan mall. we hope the mall will be used to replace some of what we will be losing when the hayes valley farm ceases to exist. we're glad we got a six month extension. i would love to have more time than that and hopefully we will continue to engage in
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conversations to that and because some of the work going on is pretty incredible and i would encourage anyone who hasn't been there to go by. they have beehives where they produce honey. they have rehabilitated the soil through composting efforts. it is a beautiful sustainable project and there is a see the farm there pyrrhic if it is amazing what can happen when people come together spontaneously and create a beautiful space in the middle of an urban environment. i am hoping when -- i don't know that a task force will be created but as we focus on the issue of urban agriculture, i hope we can identify some spaces that are publicly owned.
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there are a lot of underutilized public space and i realize these soil needs to be rehabilitated but i think there might be a way we can work on sites in between development. there was some talk of this a couple of years ago but maybe we can start looking again at publicly owned, under-utilized sites since the idea is one that is being discussed. i look forward to having discussions with public health. therefore the lot on community health impact studies, i think that directly links to this issue of our urban agriculture. finally, i do support mr. allen's amendments of around the employment of the use and that sort of thing.
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the urban agriculture issue. will it be held in the department of the environment? where will that be? where will it be located? >> if i could answer, right now the city administrator's office is talking about the best place to house staff, said that decision has not been made, but that is something that i hope that the city administrator can make in short order. the idea was to get the department's shopping. >> -- supervisor wiener: dph be an obvious choice, i was just curious. supervisor mar: thank you so much to president chiu, and all of the various urban farms and gardens that participated in
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this. i think that the seven overarching goals are important for the one-stop shop, july 1, 2013. the garden resource centers across the city are expanding efforts looking at surplus properties from different districts and places. by highlighting the different gardens and farms within the city. i know that the alliance has identified sites within each of our districts. i also know that the waiting list for the community garden in my district on 16th avenue near fulton has a huge waiting list. i think it is a good goal that residents seeking plots should not have to wait more than one year or access to apply their other efforts. i am appreciative that the president appreciates the
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advocates from the alliance that they have made for funding in the position and incorporating as much as possible from different stakeholder groups. i would love to be added as a co-author as well to expand its of that san francisco is a leader in urban agriculture around the country. thank you. supervisor cohen: i also have one quick comment. i wanted to also comment on the fact that the haight-ashbury neighborhood council, the recycling center, they have a lot of relief -- there is a native plant peace to that project and plots that people are using to plant. i believe that they've worked collaborative lee with the farm over the last couple of years, and it is a great way the different communities come together to change the information and work towards
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creating a sustainable city. i wanted to give a shout out to hank for their efforts in this also. >> thank you. colleagues, we have amendments before us. can we -- supervisor mar: colleagues, we have amendments before us. can they be adopted without objection? can they be moved forward without objection? thank you, thank you everyone. [applause] i know that i think as part of this year's budget process, but will have a conversation about funding for these urban agriculture programs. stay tuned, we will likely have conversations over the next few short weeks about this topic. thank you for being here. miss miller, please call item no. 4. >> item #4. hearing regarding the needs and issues faced by the san francisco seniors living in single room occupancy.
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supervisor mar: in calling for this hearing, along with supervisor olague, this is an issue of dignity and respect for seniors who have difficulty living within the tesoro -- sro's in the city. now we have some data and clerestories, data for moving forward legislation that will hopefully improve the lives of some of our most vulnerable residents, seniors and people with disabilities living within these hotels. this will face increasing challenges as they age in place. the official san francisco policy is to support seniors to age in place, but there is no comprehensive strategy for serving those who by choice or circumstance live