you for inviting me here today and proud of the fact that we've been able to survive for 25 years in san francisco. it's a tough thing to do with the price of rent and the cost of doing business in this city. it has been a very good successful run and hopefully i will be able to consult with whatever new business comes in around town that does the same thing we do to continue that trend. >> thank you, supervisors. i would like now to recognize our district colleague, supervisor scott wiener. >> thank you, mr. president. i don't do v many of these

special commendations. when i do it's always for a very very special person in the district. today i want to honor someone who on my behalf and also on behalf of president chiu and i imagine will be on behalf of the whole board, someone who has been a terrific leader in the city. that is champsey. i think i assume everyone has worked with in his capacity in 10 years at walk sf. she has done an amazing job over the years and elevating the organization, elevating the critical issue in our pedestrian safety in our city. she has been a long time volunteer and board member. i

believe when there was a gap in executive director, she stepped in and ran the organization as a volunteer. and, you know, we know that pedestrian safety is in incredibly important in or city but it's an issue that for a long time got a lot of lip service in the city. a lot of city talked about it a lot but not a lot was happening. she really played such a critical role in really helping transform walk sf to incredible organization that it is today. she's also a constituent of mine and in addition to being a great pedestrian advocate has been a great neighborhood advocate. really played a very productive role in helping us navigate through dolores park renovation of the design process. that was a very challenging process and she's there every step of the way

helping organize, helping make sure that all prospective representative in the process and i'm very appreciative for that. so it is my great honor to honor you today as you step away from the walk sf board after a decade. and, so, i also of course, today, we also have a surprise commendation. i want to also call elizabeth stem, the director of walk sf. as you know, did it surprise you? good. you like surprises. that no one can do it alone and elizabeth came on a number of years ago to be executive director of walk sf to relive

of his interim position and elizabeth you took on, i know we are losing you, you are going on to start your family. you have done such a tremendous job to continue the path forward for walk sf. what i really respect about you is that in addition to being a tenacious advocate for pedestrian safety, you really understand that you can't just view any mode of transportation in a vacuum. that for pedestrians to be safe, to have great streets to walk on, you also have to have great public transportation, you also have to have a bicycleable city and also have to have safety for vehicle travel. i have seen time and time again that your willingness to get involved in all sorts of interesting transit issues, that may not be directly about pedestrian safety but support pedestrian safety and that kind of broad

thinking and transportation is really critical. so it's a great honor to honor you today and i don't know if president chiu, you want to add anything. >> thank you, supervisor wiener, first of all let me say, my staff and i have said we should honor you and he beat us to the punch. we are happy in joining others in thanking you. pedestrian safety is one of the biggest challenges that we have. while we know that most of our san franciscans walk, it's something we take for granted. the fact of the matter is that the two of you have in unique ways advocated an incredible position in the last few years to make more head way than we've had in many years to come. since the first board of supervisors and i

still remember when you speak and the authority when it comes to policy, i want to thank you for that and i hope that we'll find other places for to you serve in our city. elizabeth, i know you have a different kind of a future and look forward to you and your child walking safer streets in san francisco. you have been strong and passionate and yet also being sophisticated and dealing with the challenges that we face from a policy standpoint. from me and from many of us, we are going to miss your respective leadership at walk sf, but i have a feeling that you are not going to be walking too far. with that we have a couple other colleagues that want to say a few words. i think there is a radio or something that is on? >> great. perfect. thank you. if i can ask supervisor kim if

you have a few words to say? >> thank you, my first board meeting, i called for two hearings. one was on bed bugs and the second was on pedestrian safety. during my year of campaigning. one of the issues that kept coming over were public safety issues. as you know it's a walk throughout our district. it's not just district residents, it's many people that work and shop. you are the first people that were here when i came to work for office. i remember the data and reports and plans that have been worked on and put on the shelf and stung and shocked that we had these ideas. simply for slowing down the speed zone and something that would be

with unanimous support even though we had come up with this plan few years before i came into office. i just want to thank you for so many reasons. one for advocating and making our neighborhoods safer. i see some of our resident leaders here that you worked with and our former president of our southeast mission bay neighborhood and some have talked about friends that they know about friends that have been hit or killed on the streets. i remember them saying that vehicles are like weapons and we have to understand that impact they have as drivers. i'm someone who has walked solely used walking as a means for transportation. i grew up in new york city. i didn't get a drivers license into my 20s. i didn't ride a bicycle until a 2 years ago. so walking was my

main point of transportation. i value pedestrian and also want to ensure their safety. thank you for your work and you made your work easy for us to implement. i really look forward to working with both of you. and you have been doing this as a volunteer and i feel so bad when i couldn't participate and walk to work and you reminded me that i was the only supervisor that did it a few years ago. elizabeth, we look forward to working with you and look forward to this next stage in your life. >> supervisor yee? >> yeah, i just want to echo my colleagues comments. i really haven't had much of a chance to work with both of you. i have had some opportunities on the school board and so forth, but i realize that just because elizabeth you are not going to leave. it's just part of who you are and as we all know

whether you drive a car, ride a bicycle, take public transportation, we all end up being pedestrians. as everybody and my colleagues know pedestrian safety is really important to me and i take it to my district and i'm still hoping to get my plan within the next month or so so that we can roll things out. much of my interest was really supported and motivated by both of you. thank you very much for all that you have done. >> and supervisor mar? >> i just wanted to add that the leadership from elizabeth and the safe routes to school and so many changes. i met walk sf advocate with the masonic every time over 5 years ago in

working to help build coalitions that are representative and have a really and deserving point of their history. i'm hoping that we continue to work together on many issues and that we get more people active in making our streets more complete and safe for people. thank you very much for your great work on behalf of our city as well. >> a couple more. supervisor campos? >> thank you mr. president, i don't want to repeat all that has been said. i just want to say that you have definitely made me a better policy maker, you have educated me on issues around pedestrian safety. you have really saved people's lives because of the work you do. thank you very much. >> supervisor avalos? >> thank you. i really appreciate your work in the

city. to repeat everything else everyone said here. you have saved lives in this city and you have maybe a better policy maker as well. i look forward to working together in the future. thank you. >> and with that, why don't we turn it over to our honorees. >> thank you, i'm deeply humbled by all of your words. thank you very much. when i first started with walk san francisco, people asked me what's motivating you to do this? i said walking is what everybody does but nobody cares about. i certainly cannot say that it is something that nobody cares about. even amongst all of you, many of you participated in walk to work days, you called for hearings, you've pushed for improvements in your districts. about a month or two ago you passed legislation that basically said

that we need to elevate pedestrian issues to where they should be. that they can't be subservient to other issues. i want to thank you deeply for that. there are a few people that i would like to thank. i really don't feel like i could have done this without them. some long time board members. steinberger, katie who now works for the mayor's office. i want to thank some of the other advocates, lee an and with the bicycle coalition, tom king at livable city and finally i want to thank elizabeth for the great work that she's done. one of our first initiatives was to make safe school zones around all of our schools, 50 miles an hour zones for safety for children to be able to walk to school. at this time i didn't know she had an alterior

motive, but now we do. i think it's an important thing to state that children do get hit by cars at a disproportionate rate. we love to talk about how to too keep families in san francisco and it's important to recognize a very important issue in that. with that i say thank you. >> i was surprised. thank you so much. it's been a real pleasure to work with each of you on each of your districts and citywide. it's been really exciting to have safer school zones, to have our city be the first one to have 50 miles an hour speeds around 181 schools. so far beyond any other city and we get calls about that and i hope that we can get more of california to do that. i really appreciate all of your advocacy on the mayor's pedestrian strategy and making sure that that really happens. we really

fixed the streets for safer walking because i do intend to be walking a lot probably with a stroller. thank you so much. thanks to all the volunteers as well. manish as pablly one of the longeest term for volunteers. thank you. >> [ applause ] our last commendation for

the day by supervisor avalos. >> thank you mr. chiu. i would like to call cynthia munoz who is the chair of the committee. i represent a district that is 50 percent from my district come from another country. san francisco is 35 percent. we come from all over the world, from asia, africa, middle east, russia, ireland, latin america and we have great diversity from where we come from, but we also have very similar needs. one of our greatest needs is having a strong unified voice

around asserting our rights as people in the united states and the san francisco immigrant rights defense committee plays a strong role in that. locally and actually at the federal level as well. they have been part of our work around an insuring that we have done comprehensive and insurance reform and it's a progress and it would have not been done without the work and to make sure the community has a strong voice to assert new policy moving forward. today is a great day in terms of what we are doing in san francisco. we are going to be introducing our due process for our ordinance for today and that's based on organizing work by the san francisco rights committee. i want to say thank you and give you a commendation that is worthy of your great work in organizing. we have the strongest if not the strongest

policy in the country. that is about the work going on, not just for months and perhaps years in the making. that is the consolidation of power that creates change. i want to say thank you for all your great work. the defense committee is joined by several, many organizations, i will name them. cynthia munoz is wearing the t-shirt, mujeres united, the california policy center. also the immigrant rights defense committee does a lot of work of building a stronger base of community support. just today we had a great press conference that is mostly organizeded by domestic

violence consortium. women speaking out about and that was part of the great organizing that they have done with the defense committee. i want to say thank you for being at this momentous occasion. in the next few months we'll pass this on the great work that you have done. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> before you speak, i know there are a number of us that want to say a few words. i would first like to also thank supervisor avalos for acknowledging the incredible work that you and your colleagues are doing. as the son of immigrants, as someone who service in a board where a majority are sons and daughters and grand sons and grand daughters that knows how important this is for building

this city, we are in the forefront of making us profound and ensuring that our immigrants have a right full seat at the table and that our families are respected in where other states and other parts of the country do not. this is part of your amazing activism and mading ideas like many of us are sponsoring today. we want to make sure that we are truly immigrants, the part of who we are, the heart of our city. thank you for your work. i also want to acknowledge supervisor cohen who has a few words to say. >> thank you, mr. president, supervisor avalos, thank you for your leadership, i want to say thank you to you and every member in this chamber who is hearing my voice today. thank you for all the people who have

an organization, who are very out front and vocal for this important cause and also those who do not attend the rallies but also have their way of enter taining the status quo. this is an important piece of legislation that we are passing. this is a great day for all of us and for all the warriors that are out there that continue to lift the immigrant voice and give voice inform a cause that sometimes has gone unacknowledged and unvalidated. today is an in incredibly victorious day. we are going to claim victory on this. we are going to work to get this passed. i want to say hello, thank you, waned need you and applaud you and thank

you for being at the table. [ applause ] >> we have two other colleagues who would like to say a few words. mr. campos. >> thank you mr. president. i will be brief. i think that what this defense committee has been about goes to the heart of who we are as a country. we are a country of immigrant and by fighting to protect the rights of immigrants who often are a group that is marginalized and you are doing so at a time when it's unpopular to do so whether it's the undocumented youth policy that we worked on and to new phase to fight for civil rights that supervisor avalos is sphere heading and to see

the cross collaboration and the fact that it's not just the defense committee, but the defense committee working with domestic violence community working and working with other communities is a testament to how great and powerful this movement is for civil rights is in the city and county of san francisco. thank you very much. >> [ applause ] let me acknowledge our final colleague to speak. supervisor mar. >> i wanted to thank you also for organizing action where women are in the leadership and women from immigrant communities speak for themselves as well and that building of multiethnic unity within the rights community. i want to say from the 80s period there is this tradition, even before it, but from the no human being is illegal campaign to the struggle for a city of refuge and a city of sanctuary

for our city. the leadership from the bottom up from the grass roots organization has been really significant and i'm very proud to have been a part of this as well. you carry on that tradition as we fight to empower immigrants with comprehensive but humane and just immigration reform. thank you for always standing for principles and for having such a strong voice within our immigrant rights community here but also on a national level, thank you. [ applause ] just to close it off, supervisor avalos. >> one last statement, thank you for making us accountable. >> i would like to ask those from the immigrant defense committee to please stand up. [ applause ]

thank you so much supervisor, avalos for this recognition and all of you for your courage and taking the leadership from immigrant communities and as you mentioned the san francisco defense committee came together at a critical time in our city where undocument youth were being turned over without having a day in court and without being able to inform their parents that they were taken in. listening to the needs of the community to pass the policy that supervisor campos spoke about. we this i that the city of san francisco has always been a national leader because of the willingness to work with community members and with the

community based organizations and to really listen to that voice and i want to thank you for continuing that tradition and continuing to partner with us and to continue to bring change about and san francisco and to continue to be a leader really nationally on immigrant rights and human rights and in a democratic process is truly democratic like it is here in san francisco. we want to thank you on behalf of the san francisco immigrants and this committee and everybody who is here and continues to work hard for the rights of all people. [ applause ] >> thank you. thanks to all of our colleagues for their presentations today and all the members of the public who have come to help cherish our come

accommodations and awardees. madam clerk please call item 35 and 36.: cleshg cleshg health service system plans and contribution rates calendar year 2014. health service trust fund. >> madam clerk please call item 71. >> urging chaosing to immediately begin negotiating a fair and pricing model that provides fee and transparency to report back to the board of supervisors on progress of the negotiations. >> supervisor ferrel? >> thank you president chiu.

colleagues we are here to discuss the contribution health plan for city employees and retirees. i know this has garnered some controversy in the past few weeks and something i have been involved in for a number of months now and thanks for raising issues and pushing the dialogue forward. i hope we are at a place to fight for greater transparency from the city's health care providers that we are doing collectively as a board and i will continue to lead a fight on and also to move this item forward so we don't jeopardize the vital services for 10s of thousands for our employees. i think it's important to note that specifically health care plan

blue shield has been voted on a full package. this is for all system active and retired members in the county of san francisco, unified school district, city college as well as superior court. a few comments on kaiser. i believe that we can all agree that kaiser has not been as forthcoming in the past with data backing up their rate increases. i do believe that it is important to note that kaiser does remain the lowest cost provider among the three medical plan options. in regards to rate increase, i do think it's worthwhile to note that despite some of the dialogue in the last few weeks that the sfh board recommended in approving these rates. more potentially in not approving the rates today that people's

health care and lives are at stake today with this vote. if we don't was this, thousands of people will be forced to move doctors and primary care providers and so forth. as well if we don't pass it out by next week, on second reading we do jeopardize open enrollment and other issues with regards to beginning this system. i do want to recognize my colleagues supervisor mar and avalos for discussion over the last few weeks. a number of unions involved in these discussions and questions and i want to recognize, i see a number of the health board here and i don't know if i'm missing someone, but i want to thank them as well as as the staff, the incredible staff that i'm learning to appreciate more everyday from our health care