and if people could just come forward and line up on the left side of the room. mr. tennisson please come forward. >> good afternoon. i am steven tennis and i want to thank you for allowing me to speak supervisors. i am going to deviate from what i was going to say. i think there is an aspect that need to be talked about that hasn't and that is wheelchair accessibility in corner stores. by their nature they're very small and when i think of wheelchair accessibility i think of a person in a wheelchair that can get in the front doors and maybe up to the sales desk. okay, the counter, excuse me, but when the person has to look down the aisle or beyond that they can't so they need help and i mean unfortunately the stores are small and i don't have any idea what can be done, but perhaps

in the language of your bill supervisor mar that part of the redesign of the store if at all possible take that into consideration and i don't know if that has been talked about but i think it's extremely important because they're part of our population, part of the people in san francisco, and i think they deserve that type of recognition that they should be able to go into a small store, corner store market and be able to get into some milk and bread, whatever without asking for someone's help. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. my name is fred and a food leader justice. i have learned -- [inaudible] about nutrition that i had no

idea about nutrition before. i learned how on eat healthy and have a family. i came from the food -- a lot came from [inaudible] and now i teaching my family how to eat healthy. i guess everybody needs to eat health and he stay alive and i guess i just wanted -- being a food leader would help a lot of people live longer. i support the healthy food leaders. thank you. >> thank you for giving the tour of the tenderloin and supporting healthy food. next speaker. >> hi. how are you guys? >> good. >> hi. i am [inaudible] montez and i am 21 years old. i live

in bay view and hunter's point and currently working with turf and the [inaudible] force and part of [inaudible]. as you know there are over 1,000 tobacco outlets in san francisco and a huge problem we're faisessing. living in the bay view has exposed me to the bay view everyday. i remember walking home and stores on the corner and many times there were people smoking outside and exposed to secondhand smoking and as a result i got asthma. another issue was healthy food and it was an issue for my parents to offer me fresh fruits and vegetables everyday and my parent his to drive across town to get the food and it's helped me make a positive healthy

change to the community and this policy has given me the opportunity as a young person to buy healthy foods and lower tobacco support as well. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi. good afternoon supervisors. i am tammy wong and a tenderloin resident and leader with the coalition. i am here today to support having a more healthy food in my neighborhood. with a healthy program. we have been working on the assessment in the tenderloin. we reach the time and [inaudible] food products sold in the store. [inaudible] in the area. now, we working -- now, we are working with the store to get them open so that they will sell the fresh products and more healthy for

-- it is really important to give our community [inaudible] healthy nutritious food and live a healthy live style and work with them and carry less products and tobacco and alcohol and we are happy you are doing this change and want to see healthier option in our community. we have the right to eat healthy in the neighborhood we live in. we ask you to please support the healthy retail program. thank you for your time. >> thank you for your leadership in the tenderloin as well. i will call a few more speakers. [calling speaker names]

next speaker. >> hi. i am vera pitman and i am with the project and in support of the healthy food store program. i teach individuals to eat healthy and nutritious in the community but if they have no food to buy how can they eat healthy and nutritious? so i want to say i'm in support of that. >> thank you so much ms. pitman. next speaker. >> hello i am tran lee and i am a resident in the tenderloin neighborhood. i am in the leadership program at the development center and i have worked with the tenderloin healthy corner store coalition, so i am here today to support healthy store program [inaudible] because as a resident in the tenderloin i want to make some change on the

quality of the corner store in the tenderloin and even though my family live in the tenderloin but we do not shop in the tenderloin. we always go out to get the groceries because the corner store doesn't offer healthy products us to shop so i am here today to hope the supervisors could do change on the quality of the tenderloin corner store and my family in particular and all the resident s in general could have access to the food in the healthy store. >> thank you. i can say that the doctor has done groundbreaking research and we owe you a lot of props for helping workers tell their story in chinatown. >> thank you very much and i am a third generation san

franciscan that can't afford to live her now but still love the city and i am grateful to speak to you briefly. i am speaking to you as a doctor and we were working with residents around issues they identified and the number two issue -- number one was crime. number two was access to healthy foods. they couldn't buy healthy foods in the local stores. they were very upset about this. we were able to do little things. we brought in mini-markets from the farmers markets once in a while but we couldn't do much. we got stores to stop selling dixie cups of alcohol at 9:00 o'clock in the morning for 25-cents but we couldn't get them to sell healthy foods and this new proposition is a game changeer

and as you mentioned supervisor mar there is evidence based. there is evidence in philadelphia and more importantly the evidence in bay view hunter's point and i have seen the various groups working there with the city in that neighborhood. i know it can happen in the tenderloin and that in turn will set a precedent for the city and the state and the country. thank you very much. >> thank you doctor. next speaker. >> great to see you. i am dave sieler and representing t and dc and on the board of directors for the tenderloin corporation and i met you at the meeting for healthy corner stores and i have met jane and good to meet you scott. i support the healthy retain incentive program for what everybody said about t i know somebody mentioned about the life expectancy within the

tenderloin or that area they also live in. i was looking on my computer about zip codes and the life expectancy equation. if you live in a bad zip code area the life expectancy is much lower than someone in a desirable zip code so that is note they looked at there. i also looked on the computer six habits of highly successful people on the internet they looked at and people that are successful get up ahead of time, work time and may look at a newspaper or period on the cal or a civil help book and may do exercising and. >> >> and eat a healthy breakfast. people who are successful think about their health a lot. they

get out there and think about being healthy and exercising. the reason for that the more healthy you are the more productivity you are equates to more money you can make and that makes sense. that's important. i like the to talk about -- i think that allowing retailers -- the retailers that we're talking about to participate in the program allows them to be responsible to communities and be accountable to the constituents. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> i'm going to call a few more names. [calling speaker names] next speaker.

>> thank you supervisors. i would like to thank the supervisors for putting a lot of effort on this and i also think as a source of debate or controversy this is a complete non starter. i can't think of anyone that would disagree with this i am behind you 100% and hope it goes forward. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon supervisors and thank you for this legislation and by the way i am nella manual. i am the tenderloin community coordinator -- >> one of the best places in the city. >> i'm the coordinator of [inaudible] and mccallister so i am here to support this legislation because this is really in need in the tenderloin. we need to make the tenderloin green and healthy. by this legislation i'm looking

forward there will be a great success. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for your leadership on so many levels. >> thank you. good afternoon supervisors. i wanted to share a different perspective. i am a public health official in the city and i love it and my parents own liquor and tobacco stores and come from a different country and as immigrants here i actually asked them last night. "how do you feel about this issue of bringing healthier foods into corner stores?" and i thought my dad was going to argue with me and he said "where we live shouldn't dictate our health" and they had the opportunity to come here and live healthier lives and i think they want that for their clients and customers as well and having the ability to have help to do that is really important, and i think speaking from a family of business owners we are grateful

to have you all recognize that small businesses are anchors and thank you for your support. >> thank you. while i empower the amazing young people but your group as well and thank you to the young people for speaking out. you have been one of the driving forces as well. connie ford. >> thank you supervisor. i am connie ford and i am one of the co-chairs of jobs for justice and we started a few years ago with unions and community groups and risen to 30 unions and community groups and organizing and fighting together to create this city and maintain this city as we all want it to be fair and equal to everyone. one of our key worries actually is of course about jobs and about formula retail stores moving in and what happens to the

community, so we absolutely salute the good work done in the bay view and the food justice work in the tenderloin and now coming forward with this legislation that we support 100 percent. we like to thank supervisor mar, supervisor kim, president chiu and supervisor cohen for recognizing this, not only to provide healthy food and resources in the community, but to support good jobs so as we go forward the jobs of justice has a whole program and this is just one leg of it and we have to work together to ensure that this group of small businesses stand forward and support all of the labor standards that we have passed here in san francisco as well so it's all tied up. good jobs and healthy communities so thank you very much for your support.

>> thank you ms. ford and the last speaker that i have cards. if anyone else would like to come forward please do that now. >>i colleen from st. anthonys and we know that nutritious food is important for well being and we are a neighborhood with many small corner stores that sell processed foods and sodas and cigarettes and we have people living with disabilities and low income people in sro's and low income families struggling everyday and we serve many as our guest. people struggle to get food. lack nutritional and culturally appropriate in the

neighborhood and limited to go out of the neighborhood to buy food. when they run out of food we see them in the dining room too. we support the healthy food retailer program and promotes healthy food and we're excited for the retailers to do and providing them with the existence and technical support to do that. expanding the number of healthy food retailers would let the neighborhoods be safer and secure and fighting against malnutrition and exists here in san francisco and poor health so thank you for sponsoring and co-sponsoring this legislation and we support it. >> thank you. is there anyone else from the public that would like to speak? mr. chairman can we close public comment? >> public comment is closed. >> i want to thank everyone for

speaking. i am sorry for rushing. we still have quite a few items and i want to thank the folks and the grass root community efforts and labor and community alliances and small businesses for being here. i said it earlier but this is a win-win-win for health, for small businesses and healthy future for the neighborhoods. it's amazing and inspiring they want to help other neighborhoods as well so it's about neighborhoods supporting each other but i am proud to be working with supervisors cohen and kim and our president david chiu on this and thank you to the coalition and i urge your support colleagues. >> thank you. is there a motion ? yeah. >> motion to move this forward with recommendation. >> okay. and colleagues can we take that without objection? so ordered. madam clerk can you

please call item four. >> item four is a hearing to review the parklets and impacts to merchant corridors and the proliferation. >> my apologies. supervisor mar is the sponsor of this hearing. >> and i committed trying to get through the hearing as quickly as i can. today we're hearing about the benefits of a unique san francisco creation called parklets and the benefit and impacts of parklets in the city, a new form of open space in our streets and our neighborhoods. san francisco is leading the world in the innovation of a new creation of public open space called parklets. the world's first parklets were installed in san francisco in 2010 and staff from planning are the key visionaries with community

leaders as well envisioning it and starting in san francisco in 2010 and by january 2013 we have 40 parklets throughout the city in different neighborhoods. i know sb -- sb beautiful is looking at it and in the richmond district we are the verge of opening the first one and having more to come and we look to beautify the corridors in a relatively low cost and not something that is permanent but allows flexibility to make changes as needed and greening the communities and making them expressive and unique and ens r enhancing the

small business sector as well but we learned there are different impacts on parking and some residents and merchants have concerned and impact and upkeep and should it close and this hearing will examine the issues and let community measures to share best practices. i would like to introduce paul johnson to give an overview of the program. >> if i could make a brief comment before that. i want to call you for calling the hearing. i am a huge fan of the parklets program and it's not because my aide created it in the planning department. i think it's part of a continuing trend in san francisco and other cities to create more and more public space and parks are

terrific but they're only part of the picture. having public spaces inside of our neighborhoods and really improving our public realm and you see for example in new york city some of the innovative work they have done and understand just around parklets but larger public spaces whether it's the high line or anything else and it makes all the difference in the world to having a liveable and terrific urban setting, and i will just express my view that some of the challenges that we had around parklets are really because i don't think that the city has even vaguely prioritized the parklet program. we have seen de minimus if any funding in our budget process and we have not seen the commitment that we need to make -- not just parklets but all of the non public spaces accessible so i am hoping to see more

leadership from city hall and more of a budget priority going forward. thank you. >> thank you. and thanks for being here mr. johnson from the planning department. >> thank you for having me. i have a presentation on the computer over there. so i want to thank all of you for inviting us to present. i am paul chas am and work at the planning department and with nick elser and lee [inaudible] and my colleague robin [inaudible] and i have been managing the program and since he left the program who is from supervisor wiener's office and i am glad to be here today and nice opportunity to look at the bigger picture and the policy goals and what we're trying to achieve here, so the parklet program is houseed

within the parks and san francisco's response to this model that has been popping up in cities around the world, and we have a plaza program. we have the plaza -- we have four or five plazas. the two pink ones are being renovated and the ones in yellow are new ones that are coming into the pipeline. today i'm going to talk about the parklets. what i am seeing -- there we go. there was a delay, so the program -- i'm going to go through this part briefly but the program was kind of inspired by some of the work happening in new york city and park and day which is an active civil disobedience and invented also in san francisco. at the

time mayor newsom tasked the department to come up with a program. and i think sometimes we forget just how successful this program is. in san francisco there's a lot of parklets on the ground but these are seen as innovative spaces. in other cities we filled requests. this is an example of the media and i didn't put the local journalism. they're national and international media sources. this is a short list of the cities that have started parklets of their own and you can see international cities like cape town where i was born. that is a photo of a cape town parklet. these are international cities and we get calls from others to start a program. >> actually supervisor wiener and i saw one in mexico and

it's amazing one. >> we will add it to the list. there is a lot of curiosity within academia and journalism and the design profession about this program. i would say a few times a month we get a call from a grad student or city official that wants to start a program and to research the spaces. in san francisco where other cities have pilots up and running and even new york and l.a. and up for a while and there are 40 on the ground in san francisco. we have 15 or so that are pretty close and we are moving another 35 or so parklets forward. some won't make it forward and will filter out of the process but we are seeing tremendous demand and why are the spaces successful? so basically just -- i am assuming everyone knows what we're talking about but if you're not familiar it's a

little open space that a business or organization or similar entity could convert a couple of spaces in front of their building into a publicly accessible open space. there are different scales and types. some fit in one parking space, some in two or three spaces and we have seen a block long intervention on powell street. the pavement to parks program was started with this idea that 25% the city is public right-of-way and despite years -- almost 30 years of some of the progressive policies in the country and the streets first policy and other policies and so on we don't have as much to show for as that we should

and hopefully starting the program to shift the dialogue in san francisco and the goals are to use the public realm, transportation and support local merchants and support activities and when the program was vetted out in san francisco there was a decision that they were open spaces and i think the city did a lot of learning and they feel more public to people. that was a really important decision in the program and these greater ideals that parklets are for everyone. i think another important thing about parklets is that this garage is an example -- it's in an alley and they're trying to convert to a little restaurant space and i

think they spent $20,000-$30,000 in permits alone and that's the cost of a parklet and it's not an insignificant amount of money and there is a whole new class of money coming out of the wood works for this process and they're catalysts of some of the other activities and seeing increased economic activity and so on. also they're a symbol -- or the act of converting a space to a open space is a powerful metaphor. government does important work in balancing the issues of the collective good versus the individual good and that gets controversial but for a large part are parklets a literal analogy people can understand and i think they're innovative. a lot of times

people associate government with paying taxes or parking parking tickets and this gives people something positive to think about the government and whimsical and forward thinking and i would also say that i think helpful in changing the culture of government itself within the city, getting departments to talk to each other. we created this brand where people can experiment and that i think that is positive for the city that expands beyond the individual spaces. and they're cool and they're fast and so you -- a typical open space project would take years of planning and design and environmental review and we've gotten a program here where we can get the spaces on city timelines in a relatively fast amount of time which i think is good for everyone. we have also recently -- since i started working on the program we issued the parklet manuali