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tv   [untitled]    February 8, 2013 2:00pm-2:30pm PST

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before we enter a emotion to convene in closed sessions, is there any member that wants to make a comment? seeing none. at this time we asked members of the public to please exit the room >> during the close session the committee voted to forward item 6-11 the full board with recommendations. >> thank you cannot entertain the motion to close to close session. we can do that without opposition. anything else on the agenda? >> no madam chair.
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>> seeing none, meeting is adjourned. >> let me welcome everyone for coming out to this great kickoff event. mayor lee, supervisor chiu, distinguished guests from the community, city family, all of us coming together. last year we held a pilot project on stockton street to help the
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merchants and support the merchants in selling their merchandise. we were able -- we were very successful. we got a lot of great feedback from the pilot. so this year again, we are doing the second year of the pilot. all the agencies and the community and the merchants, we got together, and talked about how we can do better. and without further delay, i will ask the mayor to come and say a few words, who is a big supporter of this project. mayor lee. >> thank you mohammed. [ applause ] >> i am very happy to be here. is this okay? all right. all right. [ laughter ] all right. first of all, happy new year to everyone. this is what i'm looking forward to every year and i
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know the merchants and residents and all the small businesses are excited. a year ago board of supervisors president david chiu and i and members of the community discussed how we can continue the economic vitality of the city and clearly we registered a big support for small businesses. i wanted to make sure that everybody neighborhood in the city has a chance of cultural celebrations. when it comes to chinese new year, there is a huge celebrate in chinatown. we're a huge destination for visitors, a lot of people come to chinatown to celebrate chinese new year. as people come here, we wanted to help our small businesss with offering some additional space for them, but also make it even safer for our
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pedestrians. because if you have ever observed chinatown during the chinese new years, and david and i have been quite specific observers about this. you will see families and kids walk into the street in the middle of big buses and cars coming in. we didn't want that to happen. we didn't want anybody's safety to be compromised as we celebrate this new year's. because that would obviously be a serious hindrance. our public health director barbara garcia and transportation director ed reiskin, public works agencis, our wastewater management, our police department, we have all gotten together to say how can we do this smarter with our small businesses, our chinese chamber, our stockton street
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merchant association and all work together to make this a safer experience for everybody? we came up with the idea that maybe we could simply expand the sidewalk by allowing everybody to use the sidewalk properly, but that the storefronts could have some additional space to offer their goods, when the chinese new years is happening, and when people are wanting to buy all the things that they want to do to celebrate the new year's and to come down here and be safe. so this pedestrian expansion of our sidewalks was the idea that came forward. we piloted it last year as mohammed explain and thank you to dpw's great work, the pilot was successful. it was successful all around, particularly with our small businesses, particularly with our chinatown youth center and the people who are here to protect pedestrians. all the agencies got back in a very enthusiastic way to say we
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can do it better this year and get everybody's involvement. so it isn't just the pressure on the police department, that says we got to be safe. it is everybody working together on the front-end to produce an experience that is positive for everyone. so i want to thank supervisor chiu. i want it it thank him for his leadership and the leadership of our constant street leadership. they get a little economic bump. that was the year of the dragon that we wanted to do something bold. the year of the serpent is like the mini dragon. it is there to also continue that great experience, but also make sure that we're safe for everyone. and so i want to register that we're going to do this again beginning this saturday. it will go for a couple of weeks before the actual start of chinese new year's, which is february 10th, but that leading up to it, all the merchants and in particular the small
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businesss along stockton street will get that economic bump as we work with chinatown youth center and all the wonderful non-profits that keep everybody safe on our sidewalks and have that positive experience. this is a great time for the city to celebrate. of course we'll be there from february 10th leading up to the great parade that we have that invites thousands of people here. i know the merchants association, the neighborhood associations, the chamber of commerce all see this as a positive way to celebrate our new year's and get everybody involve in a positive way. i'm here with all the different agencies, our parking and traffic to mohammed and his wonderful staff working with our police department, working with sfmta, and the private sector as well. we're already looking at even better practices of picking up the garage earlier, getting the streets cleaner and making sure that we do everything to
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celebrate positively. everybody clean their house before chinese new year's. get rid of all the bad stuff that happened last year. [ laughter ] bring in the new spirit. this is the way to do it. as we celebrate and i am looking forward to not only a great new year's celebration, but something along the lines of some local football team that we want to celebrate as well [ applause ] thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, mayor lee. and like the mayor said, when we work here in chinatown or in district 3 there is someone that is always there with us, whether it's the broadway streetscape improvement, or the many projects that go on polk street or all around the neighborhood, please ask supervisor david chiu to say a few words >> good morning everyone, happy new year and happy new year of the mini dragon.
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i want to thank the chinese community coming together for today's announcement, as well as members of the honorary chinese community. this is a conversation that did start as i recall in one of the first meetings that i had with mayor lee when he was elected last year. we talked about how do we ensure that the oldest, historic and most amazing chinatown community in the country can continue to offer a new year's experience that is authentic and reflects the community? and i want to thank the city departments for working together for the pilot program. we learned from that and hope to build from that. special thanks to our dpw crew and our police department and our department of public health to make sure that our pedestrians are safe and our private sector partners from ecology. all of us have come together and of course i have to thank the incredible diversity of our
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merchant community. bennie,pius, all of you who represent the community here. as our economy continues to recover, to make sure our merchants are thriving and this is the idea that will ensure that. i want to thank the folks that represent our residents who are here. we need to make sure we're creating not just a vibrant marketplace and a vibrant community, but we want to make sure that pedestrian safety first and foremost. we want to remind folks that our pedestrian accident rates are still much higher than they need to be. so we'll make sure as we move forward with the program that everyone is safe, the merchants are displaying their wares that leave room for all the different transit vehicles to get through. thank you so much for being here. happy new year. >> thank you, supervisor chiu. you heard from the mayor and supervisor chiu, one of the
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major concerns is pedestrian safety and our partner agency, the san francisco police department has assured us again they will be here and working with everyone to make sure that everything is safe. let me ask captain tom come to the mic to say a few words. >> thank you, mohammed. i wanted to wish everybody a very safe, happy and prosperous new year. as the new year comes we look for ward to the stockton street market. we want all the ped steins stay within the sidewalk. we'll have it barricaded off so no one gets into an accident. since this fair will bring in lots of people and business, we want people to be aware of their surroundings. be aware of pickpockets. put your wallet in your front pockets and just have a safe
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and very prosperous new year's. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. also as many of you know, stockton from corridor has got a lot of merchants and many of them sell food and merchandise. and enforcing compliance and making sure that business goes well. i'm going to ask dr. garcia to come up to say a few words. >> happy new year. the department of public health as you heard pedestrian safety about three or four times again and i will say pedestrian safety is one of our major goals in the health department, along with food safety. we believe pedestrian safety is the utmost importance, but we also believe that the safety of the food, the people will be selling is also important to us and we'll be working closely with the merchants to ensure that they also follow the local and state law as round this issue. expanding the sidewalks and allowing for merchants to sell
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their important goods is such an important process to bring those two together. we're also looking at the bicyclists and pedestrians and walkers and those using transit to ensure safe passage through this new year's celebration. i want to thank the merchants specifically in terms of bringing this idea forward and working with the city departments to ensure that we have a wonderful new year's in chinatown. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> and stockton corridor, mayor bus corridor, mayor major work to ensure that they run on time and a huge partner mta, ed reiskin is not here, but bond yee is here as they were last year. bond, would you come up and say a few years, please.&good
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morning everyone. on behalf of my colleague as the sfmta, we need the cooperation of everyone, pedestrians, merchants, the motorists and everyone else who uses the streets. so looking forward to another successful two weeks. happy new year. [ applause ] >> thank you, bond. as you heard, it's a huge partnership on stockton street, there are many, many merchants, but representing the merchant group and someone that we have worked with in all details, making sure that the barricades are in the correct space, making sure that all the merchants understand what the rules are, making sure that everyone knows how things are going to work. if there are complaints, who to go to? our partner in the community, pius lee. >> thank you. mayor ed lee, supervisor david chiu, president of the board of
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supervisors. dpw mohammed, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of chinatown neighborhood association and merchants of stockton street, we want to thank you for your support and also especially our commissioner bennie. our chinatown chamber of commerce is here. and chinatown merchants association for their understanding, cooperation and joint effort to help the chinese community continue a long standing cultural traditional program. the chinatown sidewalk merchants display program from january 26th through february 9.
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as you may know that it is the chinese tradition and custom throughout the world, merchants would close their businesses for the first seven days to celebrate the chinese new year. that is why mayor lee announced today the sidewalk merchant day program. it's for the those in the bay area to come to chinatown and prepare for the chinese new year for their families' parties. under the leadership of our director mohammed, all the merchants have been well-instructed on how to comply with all the sidewalk rules. last year the pilot program, we had experienced some problems, but now we are confident that
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we will do a much better job this year and i can guarantee you, mr. mayor, supervisor, director, we will do a much better job. thank you for all of your help. thank you. >> thank you, pius. [ applause ] >> i'm going to ask henry low from the chinese benevolent association. >> thank you. happy new year. i have been in chinatown for a long time, and this year, it
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seems to be different, you know? everything seems to be more prepared, and more orderly fashion. this year, the new year will be much more progress and hopefully. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> so all the details you have. this saturday, the crews will be out, seting up for the chinese new year. it's a great time for the families to be out. happy new year!
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>> good morning everyone. it's a great time of the year to unveil-- happy new year actually. my name is claudine cheng. i'm speaking as a past president of oca, organization of chinese americans. every year is special; this year is specifically more special because historically the first year honoring chinese heritage was in 1993, this is the twentieth year anniversary of that; we are proud and happy that the
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happy new year series is continuing -- by the united states postal service. oca is a national organization 20 years ago urge the postal service to issue a series of stamps to honor the contributions of chinese americans and we have the support of many local organizations, the chinese chamber of commerce, the chinese consolidated benevolent associations and many other national organizations and national leaders that joined asking the post office to consider doing that. we see the stamp as an important part of the american cultural heritage; chinese-americans are a big part of it. this is a special year, our twentieth year. i would like to introduce our mayor, ed lee,
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this is his press conference. mayor lee has been to many, many if not all of the -- in san francisco. in as many capacities as a public official in san francisco. mayor lee? >> thank you caludine for your work. from the first time when you were in dc getting us excited about our national stamp; really our national culture could be reflected for everybody in america. this is a wonderful opportunity yet again and i know this is the sixth stamp? sixth in the second series. i'm glad to be joined the board president david chiu, our new supervisor norman yee district 7, and rod sengera postmaster
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general for the san francisco bay area. i see the wonderful beautiful designs that ken mack has for our stamp,a reflection of our cultural heritage. i want to thank the representatives of chinese companies and many others witnessing this to unveil this again. we are getting ready for the new year. as people know we are finishing up on what i think is one of the most exciting years that we have had with the year of the dragon. you know as well as i do that so many things happened, somewhat miraculously whether the world series or on our way to perhaps a super bowl, and even the economic recovery. i kind of thing from our own
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culture that it had something to do with the alignment of some great fantastic events that we could not control but that came together. and for welcoming in this new year we call it the year of the serpent but some of us will refer to as as a year of the many dragon. of course i want to recognize carmen chu hao district 4 supervisor as well; she has been a strong leader helping us promote the new year's as well of course taking care of her district, working as a wonderful supervisor. i am excited about this new year too because it has an opportunity to unveil many of our cultural aspirations in the city of san francisco. it has been 160 years, and we know our history well.
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my ascension to this office has been one of those things that people still consider me pretty special so much special not because of me but because of our community. this tab will have international status. gobs of people will want to have it, reflective of not only our history but if i go to washington dc tomorrow we will have an opportunity to talk with the rest of the mayors across the country is to how to celebrate new year's. this would be another example. want to congratulate again claudine and the whole team, postmaster general, is leadership is always been important. and the public service that she does not only in delivering
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the mail and postal service but reflective of the stamp and the u.s. postal service office that we get this opportunity to have a national platform on which our culture affinities can be displayed. happy new year. (chinese) thank you mayor lee. every year the united states postal service in washington dc receives many applications for subject matter to be reflected on a postal stamp. we really want to thank the poster service committee for selecting every year for the happy new year stamp, or the lunar year thing, to be part of the commemorative stamp program. with us today is seven cisco postmaster rog cingara (sounds like). >> thank you for that kind introduction.
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i want to thank you for being with us today and for your support of the united states postal service. i know you have important business in washington to attend to. something about an inauguration. i really appreciate your taking the time out here today and inviting us us to city hall and being part of the celebration. thank you claudine. as always your support and your assistance have been instrumental and it is very much appreciated. thank very much. and thank you all for joining us here today. this is an auspicious ceremony in this beautiful city of san francisco where for the second year in a row now we have been the official first day of issue city for the lunar new year stamp. i might also add that for out of the six stamps in the series san francisco has been chosen
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three times to be the official city. we must be doing something right in san francisco. i am honored to represent the postal service. today is an exciting service. we are proud to celebrate our special time with our friends and the asian community. appreciate the beauty of the stamps for them to use in the new year greetings to families and friends and we capture that beauty this year into celebrating the lunar year stamp. the stamp features the firecrackers that scare off evil spirits and renew hope for the future. the staff is available today at all post offices to help you prepare for the two-year mailings,, greeting cards ,
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party invitations and gifts. we don't have stats available-for-sale at city hall but we do at this table here. we can put the date of issue postmark on them. we have cancellations at lincoln station and also add chinatown for the next 60 days. we are providing the cancellations of those two stations. on behalf of the united states postal service i will like to invite mayor lee and our guests to unveil and dedicate the 2013 lunar new year stamp, year of the snake (chinese). >> i would like to invite representatives from oca and the chinese benevolent association to join us.
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(applause)