and when i think of words to describe charles gall man, i think of integrity, objectivity, and a commitment to get the job done. as you've pointed out in charles gall man's biography, his works has covered the gamut. he has gotten up in the middle of the night many times to respond to officer-involved shooting, often beating many members of the san francisco police department to the scene of these critical incidents. and with that in mind, i'd also like to thank cathy, charles' partner of so many years, who has supported charles in his tireless commitment to follow the evidence, to get to the truth of the matter. and charles's objectivity was really reflected in the number

of people from the san francisco police department and the command staff who attended charles' retirement party last week. and when they spoke about charles, and even though some time the occ is thought of as that other department where there could be conflicts between the police department and our office, the members of the command staff said that chief investigator gall man always operated with integrity. and, so, i'm taking this opportunity again to publicly thank charles for his commitment to the goal, to the mission of the office of citizen complaint to promptly, impartially, and fairly investigate civilian complaints of police misconduct. thank you. (applause) >> before i turn it over to mr. gall man, i also want to

recognize our chief of police. and again, it's a testament to mr. gall man as he's about to retire, we have our chief and deputy chief present. >> we couldn't leave because it's charles. so, 15 years, we've been together many, many nights. i, too, want to thank his wife for allowing him to be the investigator that he's been. he is so well regarded by all the officers. and these are the officers that have -- that are being investigated by him. so, i mean, classy, fair, objective, getting to the truth of the matter as director hix said was what he was always about. and that's all a police officer ever asks for, is just -- we just want somebody to be fair. and charles has always been that guy. so, we will be forever grateful. we hope you can find somebody close because there's nobody

that's going to be like this. we wish you all the best and thank you for 15 years of being fair. >> thank you, chief. (applause) >> mr. gall man, it is our honor to have you in this chamber. the floor is yours. >> david, i'm truly humbled by the kind words that you've said, director said, and chief has said. i just tried to be the best person i can be. i have respect for the great citizens of this city and county. you've allowed me to raise my children and for my wife and i to have a relatively good life. i'm a bernal heights resident. that's where i see david sometimes at safeway. folks, i thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to serve you. and, chief, i wish you the best. god bless the citizens of the city and county of san francisco, san francisco police department, and those folks who serve to protect and defend us in our military. thank you so much.

(applause) >> thank you, and congratulations. colleagues, that concludes our commendations for today. why don't we go back to roll call and starting with supervisor farrell, supervisor farrell, you are finished with roll call. madam clerk, do you want to call on the next supervisor? >> thank you, mr. president. supervisor kim. >> thank you. today i am introducing the

first in a series of ordinance that will finally kickoff the creation of two new parks in district 6 which as many of you noaa long with district 3 has the least amount of public open space per resident in the entire city. it's a result of organizing efforts that began over 12 years ago and i'm excited to finally see this project realized. because of organizing it began so long ago i thought it would be helpful to provide some historical context to understand the significance of this project to our residents in the market and the cop in, valencia, and stevenson neighborhood. between 2000 and 2005 many of our residents initially united to halt the rebuild of the freeway ramp. and when they failed in doing that they mobilize today get themselves onto the central freeway highway advisory committee and lobbied for $5 million for the project itself to be spent within the immediate area. thousands of meetings later, the cac was able to come up with a plan for the funds and

the transportation authority initiated the central freeway replacement and [speaker not understood] project study of 2005 which sought to identify and prioritize potential projects that would help improve the surrounding neighborhoods impacted by the new central freeway project. the proposed improvements developed in partnership with the community are collectively named the south of market west improvement project and will include a skate park and a dog park for this neighborhood. based on what we felt the recreation needs of the city and the neighborhood were, both parks are going to be built on the caltrans right-of-way parcels underneath the central freeway between valencia and otis street in order to authorize the city to build and operate and maintain the sites and facilities, our office has been working with the mayor's office to negotiate a final lease agreement with caltrans. today's ordinance is an amendment to our park code just to define these right-of-way parcels as parks and also authorizing our pd's park patrol to patrol the leased

area. it's really exciting to see these designs finally come through and to know that they're going to be recreational opportunities under the freeway similar to actually another part of our district, the south beach area where we have built basketball courts, volleyball courts and dog runs under the 2 80 freeway and making use of this normally dead area to be open space that enlivens the neighborhood and fulfill needs of our residents. i just want to give special recognition to robin havens, the former president of the mccoppin neighborhood association now who works at the mayor's office of economic development for all of her work on this plan. and also recognize susan parker and lynn valente members of the mccoppin neighborhood association and were persistently tenacious ensuring this happened. thises was more complicated than we thought it might be and i want to recognize kelly

pressler who is here, ken rich, [speaker not understood], we had multiple agencies to work with and that always makes things complicated but i'm glad we were able to secure the funding that was needed in order to pay for the lease which actually had to match its current value and it's currently a parking lotv so, replacing this parking lot with open space i think is a huge victory for this neighborhood and also for the market octavia area plan. and lastly, i just want to recognize sunny who attended countless meetings in the neighborhood working to happen. [speaker not understood] lastly i want to recognize ~ -- i'm not sure if folks have seen the updates ayethctiontioner to their phones or the news, hugo chavez the president of convenient swale a did pass away today after his long battle with can certificatev he is 58 years old ~ and was the president of venezuela for the past 14 years and has been an incredible figure. depending on your perspective

of his politics, but is someone i think is widely revered his country he has done around the most vulnerable. ~ and so, i did not prepare an in memoriam, but i thought just to recognize the passing of a leader in our world. and the rest i'll submit. >> thank you, supervisor kim. supervisor mar. >> thank you, madam clerk. colleagues, i'm introducing a resolution today that addresses a dire crisis for san francisco's city college and what they face this year with their accreditation process. and as we look forward also to a hearing that will be coming up later this month at the board. my resolution that i urge support for would help us pass assembly bill 11 99 authored by assemblyman paul fong, but also sponsored by assemblyman bill ting and tom ammiano as well. city college, as you know, serves one in 10 san

franciscans. it has one of our top nursing programs in the state and half of our public school graduates in san francisco start college in higher education there. it also is critical for the future of our work force in san francisco as it trains adult workers and gives them new skills that better their lives and to get better jobs. as we work together to protect and strengthen city college, this resolution is really important in allowing the city college to move forward with more flexibility in its funding. the sanctions that may be placed against city college by the accrediting agency really is being promoted in many ways from efforts that are harmful to this institution and the many generations that have fought for the institution. i wanted to also say that the sanctions placed against city college has led to suffering of a drop of enrollment which in turn hurts its ability to fund

its program. so, this legislation that i'm urging you to support would help create a smoothing formula for enrollment related losses for any community college, not just san francisco, but other institutions throughout the state that are under severe sanction from the accreditation agencies and are also suffering from a dramatic enrollment decline. supporting this bill is one step in helping city college. we need to do much more. i hope with the hearing we will hold we can look at strategies how our city can be more supportive of our city college system. i urge you as you probably are already doing, to talk to students and teachers and faculty members and also others in the administration as well so that we can do our best to support city college in this dire time. also today is a critical day. i know that international women's day comes on friday, but at the california supreme court oral arguments began today on the murder convictions of richmond district resident

claire joyce tempanco. she was the victim of killing -- a domestic violence killing october 22. a [speaker not understood] struggled to achieve justice for her children. she was killed in front of her young children 13 years ago after a major failing of our criminal justice system which failed to protect her from her batterer and abuser and ex-boyfriend. i know that many women's groups from gabrielle a to san francisco women against rape to the filipino women's network and the san francisco domestic violence consortium have been working on this issue for many years. ms. timpanco claire joyce made at least five 911 calls during violent episodes that allegedly perpetrated by her killer and while he was mandated to attend counseling after one of the attacks he failed to complete the batterers's program. police unknowingly released him

after a subsequent attack on ms. timpanko. her case thankfully led to -- led to improvements in how we handle domestic violence cases in san francisco. but it's because of the hard work of our antidomestic violence organizations and women's groups and community organizations that we've made progress. but there is so much more to be done and we cannot stand for this conviction to be overturned at the california supreme court. so, i urge you to check in with the women's and antidomestic violence groups as this case moves forward. this decision could have a huge and long-lasting effect not just on san francisco domestic violence cases, but those throughout the state as well. on a more positive note, i wanted to say that this week is a celebration of our incredible school district's arts program formerly called young in art. it's our school district's arts festival being held across the civic center plaza, the asian art museum this week. i don't know if any of you have been enjoying the art and the

performances, but i have as well. it's a celebration of student creativity, visual literary media and performing arts in our schools. and it's running through sunday, march 10th. i'm really excited that the richmond district schools are participating from frank mccoppin elementary [speaker not understood] as well as many others. as my colleagues, supervisor yee and kim who are also former presidents of the school board know, we couldn't do enough or we can't do everything to support arts without the support of the public and the passage of prop h or the public enrichment -- public education enrichment fund or peef and also our arts master plan that assemblyman ammiano was championed in many ways of prop h and many of you and parent leaders have been over the years. i'm very proud of the work that our school district has done to

support the arts and continues to do in every way. i think you know the quote by pablo picasso that every child is an artist and the problem is on how to remain an artist once we all grow up. i think the school district through this arts festival shows they are providing opportunities, regardless of income and background, for every child in the district, but of course we need to do more. so, reauthorizing the peef funds and the rainy day funds as well and other efforts to support our district are critical right now as we celebrate the youth and young people's arts festival at the asian art museum. so i look forward to seeing some of you at the performances and checking out the art in the asian art museum on behalf of the youth arts festival. lastly i am producing an imperative item or i have introduced an imperative item today that i urge your support. it along with supervisor london breed who is an alumnus of rosa

parks elementary, formerly raphael we'll. but it's the 40th anniversary of rosa parks japanese bilingual program. ~ and this imperative resolution will declare march 9, 2013 rosa parks jbbp day in honor of their 40th anniversary. jbbp has been an integral part in preserving our city's diversity by promoting the rich legacy of the japanese language and culture and the japanese community since 1973 through their internships and teachings. and i wanted to thank [speaker not understood] and others from the parent group for being a tremendous support for not just the jbbp program, but for many community institutions. as a unique elementary school using japanese education taught by [speaker not understood] or japanese mentors with credentialed teachers standard chi curriculum, their goal which was part of the civil rights movement years ago, 40 years ago, was to protect the japanese culture and japanese american culture that had been

lost during world war ii. march 9th will launch the program's 40th anniversary with a celebration entitled [speaker not understood] honoring our founders, and it takes place at 4:30 at the st. mary's cathedral event center. as we near this date, i ask that you join me in recognizing and honoring these contributions by making march 9th, 2013 rosa parks jbbp day in san francisco. the rest i'll submit. >> thank you, supervisor mar. supervisor tang. >> today i am introducing a piece of legislation that really deserves to clean up our planning code. ~ really just serves it is very tick any kalla justments and i wanted to acknowledge the planning department and our city attorney for their work on almost 300 pages worth of technical corrections that serve to make our planning process as clear as possible. on another note, i ask that we adjourn this meeting today in honor of cameron chang who was a student at laurel high school. supervisor yee actually made some remarks about her as we

were taking a vote to improve funding for more pedestrian safety improvements on fort boulevard. cameron chang was a lowv high school junior and she was killed by an alleged drunk driver this saturday, saturday night in a crosswalk near her home. she had actually been celebrating her 17th birthday and was just gotten off the bus, crossing the boulevard to get home when she was struck. they remember her as an excellent runner on the lowv country and cross track team. a happy person, great student and good friend. so, today i thought we'd adjourn our meeting in hon ore of hamran. >> thank you, supervisor tang. supervisor wiener. >> thank you, madam clerk. today i'm introducing a resolution calling for the mta to implement a city-wide full scale bike sharing program by 2014, next year. bike sharing gives residents access to publicly usable bikes at stations spaced throughout

urban areas. they are especially effective in places like san francisco with expensive public transit and other ways of getting around. these programs not only get people out of their private automobiles and provide people options other than driving their car, but they also free up seats on overcrowded bus he and trains. bike share programs have been proven to lower personal automobile use, for example, in paris. there was a significant reduction in traffic within the first year of the implementation of that city's bike sharing program. and 78% of car owners use bike share for trips previously taken by a car. bike share programs are also good for local economies. and starting this year, san francisco will participate in a bike sharing pilot program that will serve as a small portion of the downtown score of our city. this will include an initial 35 stations and 350 bikes located

from mid-market to the embarcadaro. i want to thank and acknowledge the mta staff for helping move this initial pilot forward. it's good that we're doing this pilot, but we need to move forward aggressively from this small pilot to a full city-wide program. we cannot rest on our laurels once we get this initial pilot up and running. other cities around the country are also starting bike share programs with significantly more bikes. and i want to make sure that san francisco keeps pace with our brother and sister cities around the country. new york city will include 300 stations and 5500 bikes in its pilot. chicago will include 400 stations and 4,000 bikes. portland, a city with two-thirds of our population, will include 75 stations and 750 bikes. this pilot in san francisco

needs to move aggressively to the next step and i look forward to working with the mta and with the bike community and others to make that happen. one of the issues that we must address, of course, is funding. we all know that transit funding is scarce. bike share programs offer an opportunity to engage private partnerships with businesses who can help underwrite these programs. for example, barclays bank ha sponsored london bike share program and that has been an extremely successful program throughout that huge city. and new york city and los angeles will be launching their city-wide bike sharing programs with no public funding by engaging private sponsors. we in san francisco should be looking for a sponsor to help us move forward aggressively. this is a critical aspect of being a transit-first city providing people with viable options other than driving their car, whether it's muni,

whether it's biking, whether it's bike sharing, car sharing, using a cast system, it's about providing people with options. so, the resolution does call on the mta to move forward quickly, pass the pilot, to engage the public so that we can identify locations for bike sharing pods throughout the city, to find the funding including exploring private sponsorships, and to make sure that we move forward and make this a reality. the rest i submit. >> thank you, supervisor wiener. supervisor yee. >> thank you, madam clerk. by now probably everybody has heard about the 16-inch water main break in my district. at 15th and wawona street on february 27th. this was a major break that was severely impacted many of the residents in my district.

we have had city crews and emergency contractors on-site since day one working with residents to resolve their issues. we've replaced water heaters, repaired sewer lines and more. our shared commitment is to be out there helping people until the job is done. unfortunately, due to this area's being a former creek bed, there are now soil erosion issues. on saturday, march 2nd, three homes were deemed unsafe for occupation, meaning they were red tagged, and two other homes were deemed limited access, meaning they were yellow tagged, which means residents can't occupy their homes for the yellow tag, but some areas within the home have limited access. ~ this soil movement in this area is likely to continue for months and the geo tech specialist has been retained by the city to help the ongoing

investigation. i have spoken to mayor lee, sp -- san francisco puc general manager haar win kelly and others to figure outweighs to provide critical resource he to help residents get back on their feet. ~ because of the current process -- because the current process usually takes an extended period of time i am pleased to announce through the city attorney's office we have developed a two-step process so that the residents will not have to pay significant sums out of their pockets for immediate expenses like replacing washer/dreyer's that were damaged, clothes, and other essential item to get them back to work. ~ this is separate from the work already being funded directly by the city as part of the initial response to the accident. the city was out there immediately cleaning out the street and so forth.

this was basically a lake that was four feet high in an intersection that was at wawona and 16th. this is really a new territory for us as a result of the city's thinking creatively out of the box to help our residents get back to their feet. as we get the final settlements i will be working with city attorney to expedite final settlement agreements. i hope to count on the board's support in order to expedite these payments. i would like to again acknowledge the hard working people that have been out there since the main break has occurred. san francisco puc general manager harwin kelly and his staff, [speaker not understood], dpi and others, thank you everyone for your continued efforts and attention and look forward to the support of the board of supervisors to help these residents in the coming weeks. >> thank you, supervisor yee. supervisor avalos.

>> thank you, madam clerk. along with supervisor kim i'd like to acknowledge the life and legacy of president hu go chavez. there are very few people in this world have used the power of their resource he and governments to really challenge the world order and promote self-determination in their country the way hugo chavez has, and that was a great beacon of hope for a lot of countries around latin america that were able to bring forward new forms of government that would actually look at self-determination, free of u.s. -- [speaker not understood] that has been something that's been a blessing for a lot of places around the world. so, i just have to acknowledge that. today i am introducing an ordinance -- i have two co-sponsors. i want to thank president chiu

and supervisor david campos, [speaker not understood]. it's legislation that would remove from our police code language that authorizes the police department to use proceeds from the gun range to pay for membership in the national rifle association. i think this is fairly symbolic legislation, but i think it's important that we align our values as a city, that promote gun control and gun regulation with, you know, our police code. and i just believe that the nra is such a force, a negative force that's out there that has -- does a lot to limit local governments and state and national -- our national government from actually enacting real meaningful gun control. and i think it's important that elected official at all levels are able to stand up to the tremendous power that the nra

weilds in this country. a lot of it comes from gun manufacturers that fund the national rifle association, that trickles down into a membership base that we saw today in our e-mails that we got over the past few days. i sidev probably over 2000 e-mails people urging us to vote against mayor lee and supervisor cohen's legislation regulating ammunition. i think it's important that we can make this small statement at the local level and hopefully that can lead to folks at different levels of government taking action as well. so, i want to thank my co-sponsors, president chiu and david campos, for their co-sponsorship and i welcome other members to co-sponsor as well. thank you very much. >> thank you, supervisor avalos. supervisor breed. >> thank you. i have another nuts and bolts kind of thing to introduce today. last week i introduced legislation to create a neighborhood commercial

district in the divisadero corridor. and today i'm introducing similar legislation for the fillmore corridor. as you know, the fillmore has this incredible history of moments of pain, of moments of suffering, and sadly moments of destruction primarily due to the san francisco redevelopment agency, and there is still a lot of work to be done in that corridor. redevelopment agency is now long gone and there are still efforts to try and really make this area what it needs to be for the community. it's been branded as the fillmore jazz preservation district. it is still unfortunately not realized that as of yet. and high rent and other factors are contributing to the deterioration of this area. and i think that it's important