all important to cathedral hill and also the senior community town. there's a couple of things that are before the planning commission that are of particular interest one is the adaptation of the japan town area and two is the focus on the gary rapid transit we're having a lot of problems with the crossing in japan town and would like to have special interest in or those areas. thank you very much >> good afternoon president fong and commissioners and director ram. i'm steve i'm the executive director of the senior center located in the heart of japan

town. i'm here as the executive director from the expansion in terms of all of the 13 years invested in this resolution to write an endorsement. i've sent an endorsement but also want to make it very, very clear that the center does support and asks for your endorsement as well as the dhs. yesterday when we were here i talked about the japanese-american customarily to senior seminar so most of the constituents came from japan and particularly produced a good environment until we all they were evacuated in 1942 to those

different contraction camps. this meant life stopped for us. in terms of that when they concluded and came back to san francisco our community came back to san francisco and had to rebuild their lives. this resolution commissioners is the first time historically through a community process of 13 years plus a one hundred years before that has any kind of direction to go forward for things we believe in. this could not have happened without the planning staff beyond a agency the redevelopment agency but it's affected us what we have

produced today. this is a great process of working together within the community. we beg to differ but collectively we can work together on a common bond. thank you >> thank you. >> good afternoon again commissioners aim paul wormer. i've been involved on the japan town planning for a number of years now they drew expansive boundaries that included my house and i acted as a liaison for the proposals. i really want to compliment the planning staff and particularly steve for dealing with a less than unanimous community in forging consensus and bob doing

a good job of hurting cats. i want to on the record the real disappoint i have is one of the property owners declined to attend any meetings. and when proposals come forward in the future when may not purport with the community objective i think it's important to bear in mind that people decided not to participate when they koifb constructive. thank you >> hello, i'm ben. and faculty at the san francisco state university. in the college of ethic studies

where among other things i teach japanese-american history. so through this i feel i've felt i'm a stakeholder that was the reason i became a participant in the japan town organizing committee in addition to my own personal connections to the committee through the board of supervisors for the japanese-american national library. i'd like to affirm the japan plan but i'd like to speak from the angel of academic he teaching in the university and would like to stress the importance of doing what can be done to preserve such a rich and a culturally diverse community

especially in connection with the social and cultural heritage. it's a long-standing mission even if ethic studies even if being a upper place in the country that links the you thought to bay community and through this mission we as faculty encourage and seek to create opportunity for our students to experience things in their own community whereby i hope in their later crazy they'll give back to their community. many of the students are here today to learn about the relationship between community

and the business of the city. every semester we bring students out to japan down u town by also other asian-american communities for events and research as well as intirmz so over the years this has involved any students to the communities. thank you >> thank you. any additional public comment? >> good to see you again legislative aid to supervisor breed. the supervisor was planning to be here today but i want to over a brief statement. starting first with a big thank

you to bob and every other member of the communities that's been so helpful in this process. san francisco japan town is the oldest japan town in the united states over 1 hundred years old. it's an important community in the western addition i have my own histories the cherry bloom and the shopping and in my youth bowling. it's so. important we protect the cultural and economic communities of japan town. we've worked together with the assistance of san francisco plans department and presentation i was to make sure we keep the japan town in san francisco. keeping in mind of what happened to our japanese-americans in san francisco it's important we

protect this jeweler by endorsing this resolution. i offer high full support of this resolution. thank you >> i'm going to call a couple names and come on up (calling names) whoever is ready. >> good afternoon, commissioners i'm and my family are long term residents. my family owned a shop in japan town. we've been here in the community for 50 years. i'm here to ask for your

support. the dhs is 50 years of dialog from business and property owners and community organizations and neighbors and planning department staff. it's a expensive and systematic plan it incorporates the visions and goals for cultural and economic stability for japan town. there are only 3 remanding japan towns in united states san francisco is fortunate to be included in one of these cities but it is important that measures obeying be taken to preserve it. we have an opportunity at this time to make a difference and do something constructive in empowering that will have positive benefits. with your adoption of j h s as city policy we can insure there

will always be a japan for san francisco and future generations. thank you very much >> good afternoon president fong and members of the planning commission and director ram. i want to thank all of you as well as director rams patience and very professional support for this whole process. many of us here do i have been involved since the beginning of this process and we really appreciate this commissions support. i'm the chair of the japan town task force board of supervisors and i'm here to ask for your support for the resolution that's in your packets that's from 23 different community organizations and entities including businesses to support the resolution in our packet. i know within the last

twenty-four hours you've gotten e-mails from different individuals but we ask you to support of the resolution in our packet. one of the things that i just wanted to acknowledge is i think part of our planning, you know, we're not really addressing the issue we're in a transit corridor and this is going to become an issue and we'll have to deal with it. the same thing as a the density issue many folks wanted to have no interest in that so people are supporting this but that maybe an issue in the future. i also want to acknowledge the work of bob our executive director without his leadership and his ability to engage every

aspect of the community that wouldn't have happened. he asked everybody to stay at the table but it's difficult as we all know all of us have long been involved in community processes and it's not easy to do that but he has had the ability to gain everybody's respect and everyone will give their opinion to him and he's be able to balance all of that so thank you, bob and thank you, commissioners >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners i'm the representative to the japan town organization committee. it's a japanese-american federation. i joined this process because my

minister was i think he was the president of the committee at that time, he got this letter and when i saw it i leaped. i said wow, i need to get involved by the way, i didn't want a plan that was demerol detrimental to future japan it up. first of all, i want to thank many people involving the commission. because which this came to the commission the commission realized it was a plan that the community really didn't agree b upon and the community really didn't have a chance to respond to the original plan of japan town. so with the community process it took much long-range than anticipated i think it was about 4 years. we were told and thanks to

director ram he allowed us enough f t e's to carry on. i want to thank all the planners that were part of this and paul was - he's made this so the community can grasp. steve really become very valuable to us even in the 11 hour so steve earned his keep and shelly thank you for your efforts of the heritage portion. so thank you to all of you. my greatest fear when it first came out i was afraid the result was something similar that happened to seattle and

sacramento they lost their japan town. so i hope we're stronger and will allow japan town to prosper for this and future generations. in fact, i think it's the most important thing we have a basis we are cognizant and i urge you to adopt the dhs. thank you >> good afternoon, commissioners and director ram. i'm karen. i'm a member of the japan town organizing committee i've been co-chair of the land use and built form committee and i've served on all the committees. you'll heard about our process

it's been collaborative it's been open and it's been arduous. i mean, we get in their we fight, we try to educate he each other and work together we check things we go over and over wus we have a process but a it's produced a good document. the same thing goes for the resolutions that are before you. we worked on those we thought about the language what was included and not included and it's very disturbing that yesterday we had a member of our committee blind sided us what a proposed amendment.

the preservation system handled it embrace fully but they recognized it's not a part of our process and it could have been. so i understand there maybe an amendment submitted asking this committee to accept an endorsement or support of the s public works resolution. i would ask you not to include that because what happened there greatly disrespected the process you that asked us to have and we feel is important to have. it's so important going forward that the community can trust one another and know we're working together and the city agencies who we come before and ask for support and approval support the kind of work we do and hold us to the highest standards and

make us live up to your expectations and don't allow others to undermine us. there maybe other parts of the content we don't dispute but the process was entirely wrong. you've heard from all those folks here how much they have felt this process has worked on many levels bringing the community together and producing a fine piece of work for our community. please support that. thank you >> good afternoon, commissioners i'm ryan i'm the director of programs and community affairs of the japan town center. so director ram i'm saying the same speech as yesterday.

first off i want to thank the community members and staff and we spent days and hours and years hammering this out. today commissioners i ask you to endorse this document. number one it promotes solutions surrounding the preservation of our count iii community and dhs helps to preserve j toun. and number 2 its power the power when the stakeholders come together to create something positive >> and thee its beauty the beauty that couples u accompanying cites of the community to insure the economical stability cultural

assets japan town stays alive and number 4 awesome. it's awesome that we're strategy gigz on how to preserve historic buildings and the events and activities that took place within those building. activities like the cherry bloom festivity bring people together to get involved in japan town. number 5 beginning. i know that all of us on say originally committee are so they've we're almost done but all we have to do is transform this document into reality we have to make sure that j town thrives in this city. and lastly i'd like to thank and support of the decision of dhs

to put the two things like the j, ymca. we have to consider the possibility of landmarking those together for thigh great grandchildren. i'll have to have children first though (laughter) thank you very much >> good afternoon, commissioners my name is john i'm the executive director of the japan town youth council. i've been in this process since 2001. it's been a struggle, it's been frustrating and it's been very much a challenge and i'm pretty much here to say it's time to

adopt this plan. i certainly have had many spirited discussions about what ended up in this plan. i haven't gotten everything i wanted but i don't think anyone has. everything - everybody has had a say. i've been an executive director for 17 years and i've felt at times the city didn't feel like japan town be a priority for the city's time and stipulation. i appreciate the fact in this case, the planning department did navigate make this community a priority and i want to focus on urging this department and urging the department of

economic workforce development to continue to make it a priority to continue to make it's resources available because i do agree with the statement as long as it took for us to get here this is the beginning of this process. i've been around long enough to see businesses closed and the community rallying around certain aspects of our community that's not here anymore. i look forward to using many of the strategies that from this document to insuring that doesn't happen in the future. i want to thank you all for your time and attention to this matter. i urge tour support and i look forward to working with the planning department and all city department to see the conclusion

>> any additional public comment? >> thank you places, dates, and times arnold townsend. i'm a board member of the african-american complex the representatives from this effort made a presentation to us. just wanted to commit briefly that i think this is an exciting and outstanding proposal before you. it's something that desperately needs to happen. the people in japan town had the benefit or the strange benefit from watching the other part of their community the phil for being destroyed and is it will be if this is not approved and a

they'll find themselves was we do when with have events on fillmore street they'll find the cherry bloom festival in an almost hostile environment as we find ourselves now. it's important this become law and policy because the same meetings, the same discussions were held in the fillmore, the same kind of decisions were made to maintain and keep our heritage but the problem was they were just suggestions. and they were totally, completely go forward. and you then watch our culture and your memories and future being bulldozed. with the idea of bringing gary street back up to grade it's

safe now and so when it happens and the change that will make the opportunities for development and other things that will be created by that it becomes very dangerous to a community like japan town. i urge you i don't have the words as much as i talked to tell you how important it is that you support this effort so this community can maintain it's integrity >> thank you. any additional public comment. seeing none, public comment is closed and opening up to commissioners. commissioner wu >> thank you. i'm really happy to support the plan today. i really want to thank the

supports supportsers this kind of neighborhood organizing takes a lot of diligence and patience but i think it's great to see the department supporting what i'll call the neighborhood determinations for a lot of people to get into a room difficult to come to a skoeng but to find the common pieces. i also want to say that it's interesting starting to a grapple with the organization it continues through this plan and but what this means for san francisco is a challenge and a creative one. i said this in july i think that the gary brt is a real opportunity to do further organizing. you need projects that have money behind them. i know that b r it is very

controversial but if it's going to happen there can be real physical changes that can be made to the link of transportation to japan town that can keep people coming to the neighborhood >> commissioner borden. >> yeah. i wasn't at the earlier meeting but i want to support the process. it's exciting to see a group of people come together over something that matters over the framework. this is something that we struggle with we're not creating a now a community like japan town. there's so many exciting opportunities. and heeding the words of reverend townsend this is the kind of things that don't happen in the fillmore. and some things shut down

recently and that you don't take things seriously that's exactly what happened. sometimes initially it comes up organicly but we have to have the support. it's abatement to know that one of the largest tenant didn't participate and obviously japan mall meet the street in a more friendly environment s as this project comes forward but this is a great vision sea a great way to look at other communities in preserving cultural heritage but i want to commend the community in reaching consensus it's a difficult thing to do so