tv [untitled] July 22, 2014 2:30pm-3:01pm PDT
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since the 80s the manning department continue the dez nation of open space in our general plan. obviously the benefits of open space across our city are undeniable. it simply increases our quality of life like none other. great cities have great parks and we have the ability now today to act of that inventory. people have called it the mission delores park of the north. whatever we want to call it, it's likely going to be the francisco park, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform a neighborhood. the three year collaboration with the francisco park working group has not only included the neighbors, but again, all the citywide organizations that have come to support this project and i want to list them.
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the immediate neighborhood groups that have formed this include the aquatic park neighbors, russian hill improvement association. i want to thank mayor ed lee for his support all along the way in this process and my cosponsors. first of all david chiu who i have had the opportunity to share governance over russian hill with and we share a board there and he's been a lead cosponsor along the way. supervisors davis campos, london breed, katy tang, wiener and yee. i want to thank the members of the budget and finance committee which passed this ewe than mousely. the san francisco parks alliance, san francisco beautiful, sierra club, omega boys club, china town ymca, san francisco league conservation voters, middle poke neighborhood association, china
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town development center, san francisco tomorrow, galileo high school which sits next door and we'll have amazing opportunities to many other organizations. i also want to take an opportunity to thank so many people who have been involved in this project from the city perspective. first of all, again, i mentioned to our public utilities commission thank you for all of your efforts. i want to thank our rec and park department. thank you for your leadership, phil, stacy bradley, your team has been amazing throughout the process. to the working group from san francisco reservoir, i want to thank everyone involved. leslie, your support and leadership has been incredible. i want to thank our city's
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office, who spent a lot of time with our puc and rec and park departments, as well as in particular from my staff, margo kelly whose support has been unbelievable and we would not be here without her efforts over the past few years. again, from my perspective, certainly someone who grew up using this area, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity that i don't think we can pass up. i'm so proud of where we've come over the last three-and-a-half years. it's's been a labor of love for everyone involved and this is such an opportunity for our neighborhoods and san francisco, and i ask for your support. >> thank you supervisor farrell. supervisor kim. >> thank you. wanted to talk a little bit about my thought process around this conditional jurisdiction transfer which is i have really spent the last month-and-a-half really debating about. a lot of thinking around the
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open space acquisition funds, but i wanted to call out today, in the life of the fund i'm concerned we haven't spent any of the funds in high needs areas. i represent one of those districts. i have if fewest and smallest parks along with district three. our district has 0.17 acres of open space per residents. 0.17 acres of open space per resident and in comparison with the district with the most open space that's district two, 25 acres per resident. for me, i know that last year i supported using the open space acquisition fund for the square. the neighbors really did a lot of work and a lot of neighborhood planning and fund raising to leverage those funds to acquire that site and today, begun e i will be supporting the francisco reservoir for the same reasons i supported it last year.
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i want to commend supervisor farrell. clearly three years of work has gone into this. a lot of neighborhood groups, a lot of coalition building. it's great to have another large new park for san francisco and it'll clearly serve galileo high school, as you mentioned, as well as other communities, but going forward i really hope that we, as a city, take a hard, strong look at making sure we're ensuring equity with the remaining funds. i hope that the next vote that i take will be for a high needs area, particularly of course in district 6 or 3 and of course, in the districts that are absorbing growth, which includes the southeast sector. i wanted to name some of the concerns i have on the future ongoing use of the funds, but i want to recognize the work that's gone into putting francisco reservoir into place today and appreciate there was a lot of negotiating with the
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puc to ensure the drawdown of the fund would happen over a course of time as we're depositing more open space reserves into the acquisition funds. one last thing, as land become more eks pensive here in san francisco and the parts that are developing, i want to make sure that our funds are enough to cover the cost of land acquisition to ensure that there is open space in areas that are becoming more dense and also to figure out how we as a city can ensure that it's not going to be neighborhoods that have the funding capacity, that has the ability to fund raise and have existing neighborhood infrastructures to support acquisition. there are neighborhoods -- i know this discussion came up a lot about varying different schools and ptas and their anlt to fund raise for their school and it was a discussion we have at the board of education. i hope we can have that
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conversation here, particularly in low income neighborhoods. the tenderloin could be an example. how can we make sure that we're able to make up for the fact that these residents may not be able to fund raise and how can we support secure inging those sites when the neighborhoods don't have is that type of capacity. i want to support this today. in acknowledgment of the work that i feel that supervisor farrell's office has done over the last three years and making the best, i think of a situation that's before us. i would have like today have seen some development. i think how uzing will continue to be in need on any of our surplus property and i think that's another thread of conversation we can have otherwise, but acknowledging we're at the point we're at today with the site, i will be voting yes for this. >> thank you. president chiu. >> i want to lend my voice as a cosponsor on this project and
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mention that while this is a project that's often viewed as a district 2 project, we're honor and my district 1 is actually two blocks away from this site and as supervisor kim just acknowledged our neighborhoods have the least amount of open space and are the densest set of neighborhoods outside of manhattan. with that context, i want to also just sthang all the community organizations that came together and had a vision over many years and did the hard work. i want to thank supervisor farrell for his leadership, as well as the members of the community that have agreed to support this, not just with your personal support, but also financial support. i believe when this project is done no one is going to regret the open space and park we're going to see. i know all of us, as we support this project, we are also
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equally committed to making sure that future projects get done,that, again, can help us recognize the beauty and wonderful community spaces that we have in our city. with that, thanks to all the hard work and i hope we're able to get this done today. >> thank you. supervisor campos. >> thank you. i'll briefly say i'm very excited to be a supporter and cosponsor of this project. when i heard about it from supervisor farrell and starting hearing about the level of this community and making this happen, i was really impressed and really think that this project presents an example for other parts of the city for how communities can come together to push for something like this. i think that supervisor kim is right in terms of the importance looking doing that
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is the fact that i think that they tried to spread the period of time as long as possible to make sure that the impact on the fund was as minimal as possible and i think it's greatly appreciated and i can't wait for it to be completed. so thank you to the community and supervisor farrell, congratulations. >> supervisor yee. >> thank you. when supervisor farrell discussed this project with me and my first reaction was of course. it's within of these projects where it seems like i have a lot of history in san francisco so [inaudible] and so forth. like supervisor breed, going to school at galileo and knowing how limited our fuel is at galileo, any open space for the students there would be
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appreciated. it even goes beyond that. i actually spent the summer in one of these summer jobs working for the department of works , i guess. and around the reservoir with the amount of weeds and bushes and everything else -- it's nicer now than when i was growing up when it was almost totally jungle there. my summer job was to clear the jungle and spent quite a few weeks doing that. and i always thought, wouldn't it be great if we had a park up here? and that was my thought at the time at 17 years old and here it is where supervisor farrell has sort of taken the lead on that. before i actually committed to it i looked at what he was talking about in terms of the finances and looked at the open space funding and to see -- to
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make sure this project, as valuable as it is, doesn't deplete completely the open space funding because like supervisor kim and like supervisor campos, when they mention equity is important to me growing up in china town and being in the open space committee in chinatown and fighting for those couple of square feet of open space over 120 -- 20 years to get it and i understand how difficult it is. i'm glad, supervisor farrell, this you put this project together. i'm glad that you were very sensitive in terms of not depleting the open space funding so that as we move forward in the future that places like district 3 can have access to funding to provide more open space for their residents. thank you very much.
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>> supervisor wiener. >> thank you mr. president. so i'll join in thanking supervisor farrell and also all the folks in the community as well as rec and park staff who have worked for many years to move this forward, but also i think we need to make sure to thank the voters of san francisco for creating the open space fund and having the foresight to say it's a very small portion of property taxes should be set aside for open space work, and particularly for the acquisition of open space and when you look at what we've been able to do, it's pretty amazing and we're going to have abeven better park system than we already have. i want to say that having gone through this process with town square, and thank you for supporting that project, which is almost fully funded through non city dollars right now in terms of the creation of the
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park, but having gone through that process, it was always my understanding that the plans for [inaudible] which had growing quite large if we hasn't acquired anything for a while was going to be town square, francisco reservoir, the inne and i think we're all -- i know i'm very committed as i know supervisor kim is and you all are to make sure we get more open space in district 6 and i'm sure we'll be able to identify a wonderful site for the community there. it's a very citywide effort because these parks because -- i still have people that will tell me that delores park is just a neighborhood park. but these are parks that are enjoyed and used by not just the entire city, but in a lot
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of instances, the entire region and i know francisco reservoir will fall into that category. it's going to be amazing. i want to thank everybody who made this happen. it's an exciting day. >> i will be brief, colleagues. i want to thank ern thank everyone for their comments. we were able to negotiate with being thought about right now by a rec and park department for acquisition can get completed. a lot of talk with supervisor kim and i appreciate those comments around district 6 open space. you have my commitment to work on that together. i think this is something we need to do across every single neighborhood of our city and even with these acquisitions that are currently being planned, including what we just planned with 900 innes, we're
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going to have $38 million left in this open space fund so plenty of opportunities, but something we need to be very proactive about. i think to a comment about the ability to be privately fund raise it's a very valid comment. one thing we talked about, i think this process is starting to bring new people into the fold of being philanthropic with the rec and park department and opening eyes about how transformative a project can be for a neighborhood. i think that's, to me, what is really exciting about this project is a lot more people coming into the fold to really think about what we could do in terms of our parks and leveraging some of our private citizens, philanthropic abilities. lastly i'll say it's not just three years we've been working on it. this has been in working for decades within the neighborhood so i don't want to dismiss that
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be at all. this has been a reservoir sitting dormant for over 60 years and being talked about for decades across the neighborhood and city and today we have a chance to change direction of the francisco reservoir forever. again colleagues, hope to have your support. >> thank you. with that, let's take a role call vote. >> supervisor kim i, mar i, tang i, wiener i, yee i, breed i, campos i, chiu i, cohen i, farrell i. there are 10 is. >> the resolution is adopted. [applause] and with that, let's go to item 35. >> item 35 is a motion to order
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submission to the voters 2014 an ordinance amendsing the business and tax regulations code by adding a new article 8 to fund food and health programs. >> supervisor mar. >> thank you. thank you so much colleagues. i know this has been an effort and years in the making. this san francisco tax is about the health of our families, communities and neighborhoods. i think the opposition that's already emerged, big soda xhaens, the american beverage association and others creating astroturf to mislead voters, i'll ask you don't be fooled. this is a reasonable common sense measure that will help, if passed, provide tremendous health benefits to those who need it the most. that's why i and supervisor
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wiener, cohen, campos, president chiu and supervisor avalos have all worked together for over a year, but that's on top of the many years of work by health that have laid the ground work for where we're at today. we began work not only when we looked at health experts from bay view and hunters point and mission district and chinatown, but also our community coalition advised us to make clear that this is a major priority. diabetes, obesity, liver damage, metabolic syndrome, tooth and dental decay are hurting many of our san francisco communities and the root causes are several, but we know that the lack of healthy options and healthy alternatives to sodas, energy drinks and sports drinks are really an important issue, but
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the tactics of the big soda corporations and others that are saturating our communities with advertising and marketing are one of the big problems. i think we mentioned earlier that my daughter is a teenager. the classmates of her generation, 1/3 of them currently are obese, but if we do nothing today, 1/3 of these children today will develop type two diabetes in their lifetime, that's one in three of this generation. that's not right and it's a national problem, but a local problem here. we know that for african americans and latinos, about half will develop type two diabetes. we have to do something about it and this is a common sense approach that is one step forward. to learn more about the epidemic, we asked the budget office to study the impact of harmful drinks in san francisco
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and only looking at sugary drinks alone, they estimate it costs san francisco citizens between 48 and $61 million every year. we as colleagues on the budget committee and others agreed we need to take action. together with our grass roots very broad and deep community coalition we've developed what we believe to be a very reasonable soda tax that will reduce consumption. now or chief economist for the city says it could reduce it to as much as 30 to 40%, that's reducing the consumption of harmful beverages in our city and it would raise by accepted 2 pennies per houns, about a quarter per can of coke, would generate potentially $50 million a year that would be
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directed to our communities. also, i should say that the taxes on drinks with added sugar, caloric sweeteners is a tax on distributors, not on small businesses so the types of drinks not included are 100% fruit or vegetable juice, milk substitutes like soy and rice milk, baby formulas, meds cal foods and diet drinks. the reduction in consumption will be from 18 to 40% and the proceeds will prodominantly serve the needs of low income san francisco citizens, but it is for the health benefit of all. the revenue up to 50 million will be spent on ending hunger, increasing nutrition education and physical fitness activities throughout our city, 25% for community food and health
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access, health water bottle filling stations, oral and dental health, another 25% for community and physical activity. 40% to the san francisco unified school district, school lunches and breakfast, nutrition education, physical education and sports programs; and 10% for community based health and education programs. all of the funding, every single penny will be guided by an accountable community and professional members on a steering committee as well. in conclusion, shape up sf and grass roots community activists say there are three prongs in strategies to counter unhealthy foods and drinks. one is education that this soda tax will help to fund. the other is reducing the consumption of harmful beverages and foods, which this soda tax will help to reduce by significant amount. and lastly, it's about
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increasing access to water and alternative to sodas and harmful drinks and i think this soda tax achieves all three of those prongs, but it's one part of a broader effort in our city to encourage healthier eating and drinking in our city. it's a combined imfasz increasing access to healthy foods and drinks and promoting physical activities that makes this such a strong proposal for our city. we could become the first city of any city in this country to pass a tax like this for the health of our children. lastly, i wanted to thank for all the work to develop this proposal, not only supervisor wiener, cohen and avalos, but especially jeff from supervisor's wiener's office, mr. chan from cohen's office, who have put tremendous hours with our broad coalition as well and many others as well for working with us. i think we're going to win in
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san francisco as this goes through the ballot in november because of our strong grass roots coalition where parents, many from the ptas that have supported it on a citywide level. many youth activists are learning about health equity and organizing in our communities. many doctors, nurses, pediatricians and health researchers are really a part of our grass roots effort, teachers and nurses and professors and many others in labor as well. so with that, i would like to ask for your strong support as we let this go guard to the voters on the ballot for november. thank you. >> supervisor wiener. >> this is a long time coming for november as we become the first place in the u.s. to adopt a soda tax to begin to
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seriously address the serious health problems that these drinks are causing and to seriously invest in our city's nutrition and physical health and so forth. you know, there are times when we, as, like, the leaders have an idea an proposal and you go out to the community and say what do you think and try to build support, and that's one way that we do legislation. there are other situations where the exact reverse happens where you have an idea that's been building in the community for years and years and the community comes to elected leaders and say please help us move this forward and that's what's happened here. it's been such an honor to work with our broad community coalition, the entire healthcare community, our broad parent community, our parks community, so many labor unions and to work with my colleagues,
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supervisor mar and cohen in particular, to really help move this coalition forward. this is long overdue. these drinks are helping to fuel the explosion of type two diabetes in our country, our city. it is not acceptable that children are being diagnosed as prediabetic and we need to take this step to help address and improve the health of our city. this measure, we're going to hear all sorts of misinformation as we have over the last year from the beverage industry and we just have to make sure that we are telling the truth because when the facts on are your side and you get those facts across you will win. we already have a broad grass roots campaign and we are going
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to have a healthier city as a result. i want to thank everyone that's helped get us to this point and ask for you support. >> supervisor cohen. >> good afternoon everyone, again, i want to associate myself with many of the comments you heard earlier today about this forward thinking i them ing item that we've heard about today. one thing that's consistent is we have the ability and momentum to bring about change and from my perspective this is a crucial piece of policy because it's really dealing with an issue that has had an adverse affect on the african american, latino and pacific islander community to the point where it's killing us. and i believe whole heartily
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this is a life and death issue and we cannot wait longer. bullets are not the only thing that are killing african american males. we also have sugary beverages that are also killing meme and we can't continue our communities to continue to suffer from the health problems, particularly from these diseases that are a ttributed to the sugary beverages. some very striking and startling statistics that are out there when we talk about the health disparities within our ethnic communities. 50% of african american youth will contract type two diabetes in their lifetime. i would be remiss if i were to sit back and allow this to happen stepping up and putting forth a measure that could change this trajectory. neerply one in four youth will
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have previous years of service diabetes. i mean, we've had hours of hearings and we reviewed numerous amounts of statistics about cost, about where and how the large soda industry spends their money, who they're targeting. the overwhelming data that supports the health disparities that i know and see everyday. so i hope to have your support today as we we continue to bring this measure to the ballot this november. thank you. >> supervisor kim. >> thank you. this initiative has really been a policy struggle for me since i was introduced a couple of months ago. i want to start off by saying that i absolutely support the intent of the legislation. i do believe at
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