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tv   [untitled]    January 19, 2015 1:30pm-2:01pm PST

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and some them doing this kinds of work. the other question is i think it would be important to have someone from the mayor's budget office also involved because i would imagine there are budget implications to some of the recommendations, so i would sort of say if there is someone from the budget office that is involved as well, so if there are specific actions that are needed where money or other things that are needed that they have a role, but i want to thank supervisor cohen. i think this is exciting and i look forward to working on this. >> okay. i just want to clarify just some things. this is a conversation that we're having about an ordinance to amend the administrative code to establish the gun violence prevention task force and this task force will advise the departments and policy makers
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on methods to reduce gun violence so we're discussing the membership and the duties of the task force with the legislation. also i want to call -- there's been a lot of reference to the budget legislative analyst report which is available today for the members of the public. it's a good read and talks about things that are important. there are three key things i will put into this particular ordinance. first of all this body is defining performance metrics to evaluate non-profit organization and department heads using money, general fund dollars. second, this report specifically calls out that the board of supervisors needs better information on gun violence prevention programming in order to effectively appropriate money. believe it or not there are 11 departments that receive almost $50 million and there is inconsistencies
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under the definition of what is violence prevention? what is a strong program versus an inadequate program? so this legislation will require the department head toss come back to the board of supervisors to make a report. >> >> on an annual basis and they're going to be reporting on their program performances. the third -- this body will recommend ways of leveraging funding to supervisor campos' point and if there are federal or state dollars available and identifying and going after and again the fourth under lining purpose of the body is also to build effective city department practices so that we are more informed how we're making decisions, where we're making them and how we can continue to move forward. i have a few suggestions on the membership and i'm going to read to you
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what the legislation has spelled out. this is for members listening and in the committee room today. the first seat shall be held by a current or former resident owned by the housing authority appoints d by the board of supervisors. the second seat shall be held by a current or former employee with a community based organization affected by gun violence appointed by the board of supervisors. the third seat shall be held by a clinician who has worked with victims of violence appointed by the board of supervisors. the fourth seat shall be a parent who has been affected by gun violence appointed by the board of supervisors. the next seat shall be held by a person who has engaged in gun violence appointed by the board of supervisors. a sixth seat shall be held by a member of the
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general public appointed by the board of supervisors and i would like to propose an amendment here. colleagues i would like to propose that we reserve the sixth seat for an academic in the field that has some field of expertise. i think it's important that we're anchored in an academic body of work. the seventh seat shall be held by a registered nurse who works with victims or perpetrators of gun violence also appointed by the board of supervisors. the next seat shall be held by a current employee of the district attorney's office appointed by the district attorney. i would like to amend this that this seat shall be held by a current senior staff employee of the district attorney's office appointed by the district attorney. the ninth seat shall
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be held by a current employee of the department of public health with a background in providing mental health treatment appointed by the director of public health and amend this to say a senior staff employee within the department of public health with the background in mental health. the next seat shall be held by a currentchee on the human services agency appointed by the director. i would like to amend this to read that this seat shall be held by a current employee senior staff member of the human service agency. next seat shall be held by a current or retired member of the police department appointed by the chief of police. the next seat should be held by a senior member of the police department.
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the 12th seat shall be held by a current employee of adult probation department appointed by the chief of the adult probation officer. again that should read a current senior employee. the 13th seat shall be held by a current employee of the san francisco unified school district who has experience recognizing and working with at risk youth appointed by the board of education provided if they decline to appoint by member by the date listed the board of supervisors shall appoint an individual with experience and identified working with at risk youth and it's a again a current senior employee. all members of task force shall be residents of san francisco so those are the suggested amendments and the distinction within current employees and senior employees this is serious business we're
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dealing with and i want to have decision makers at the table influencing the policy as we move forward. >> can i ask for clarification mainly because i have been talking about seniors a lot? would there be any misinterpretation when you say a senior staff member? i am not trying to be funny. i want to make sure that we have the right word. >> sure. deputy city attorney john gibner. every department has its own hierarchy and structure, and ultimately it's going to be up to the appointing authority, whether the district attorney or the probation department or the board whether the appointee fits in that higher level in the department, but the term "senior staff member" is appropriate for this kind of ordinance. i think it designates that this has to be somebody who is a higher level employee of the department.
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>> thank you. >> so that -- we have one more presentation. laura are you here? laura moyer? i want to acknowledge laura from the department of dcyf. are you planning on making a small presentation? >> [inaudible] >> okay. sure. great. so we've got a representative from dcyf in the committee room today. i also want to acknowledge charlie maui motto from the department of public health who is here if there are any questions. there are no further presentations. also maria sioux is also here, the director. i don't have anything else if you guys want to continue. >> would you like us to ask for public comment? >> oh please, yes. >> any public comments on this
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item? i know -- you know, it's okay and line up on this side and you have two minutes and state your name. >> hello supervisors. i am barbara. i'm a bay view resident of 21 years and the director of the bay view opera house major bayview institution for the last five years and i wanted to express my support for supervisor cohen's proposal and i really appreciate it that she took this initiative i believe after a shooting that took place around the corner from the opera house and a senior was actually injured. i see the gun violence everyday. just in the past two months it happens i was out on the street two times and each time a shooting took place when i was talking to somebody. it's
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extremely alarming. last week it happened. a woman coming off of the muni platform was hit. she had nothing to do with anything. it is dangerous. i was talking to a store owner and indicated that the foot traffic around the area has decreased and business for this business decreased significantly in the last couple of years and we were talking how gun violence was a significant factor of that and people are considering the area to be unsafe and telling the children not to attend that area. we also run youth arts education programs out of the aprohouse. we work with schools that bring the children over for dance painting, whatever and whenever there is a shooting near third street they stop coming and disrupts our program and also paid for by city funds and it's disruptive because the children are scared. the teachers and parents are scared because there might be
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retaliation come up and usually happens and after i few weeks they come again but clearly it's an untenable situation for the youth in bay view and i have seen no decrease in gun violence since i have been working there. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors. i am david on theomonac, a 10 year residents of the by view. i am in favor of this proposal put in place and to see results. it's alarming to hear the amount money out there to support this initiative. as a resident i don't think i have seen results from this money, so being in bay view we suffer from some of the highest incidents of gun violence so we're asking for the city of san francisco to adopt a goal of zero shooting city wide
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and to use this gun violence prevention task force to achieve that goal. it clearly sounds like we need better coordination between the different city departments which are tasked with reducing the violence. i think we're need a system of measuring the effectiveness of anti-shootings or violence prevention programs. in 2014 over 700 bay view residents signed a petition asking the increase of gun locator units also known as shot responders and asked the city to commit to investigate each incident and gunfire as an emergency and commit to identifying the principle sources of firearms in bay view and visitation valley. the proposed task force legislation doesn't provide everything that is needed, but this is a good start. as a
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resident i read the weekly police read from my district, and it seems like in the last two years almost the number of items reported involve a gun. a lot of aggravated assault and going up hitting someone over the head, stealing the cell phone, purse, and it's with a gun so this needs to stop. it's rampid. that's the majority of the things on the weekly reports. thank you. >> thank you. >> supervisors and supervisor cohen thank you for bringing this forth because we need to have a discussion. just real quick i think again what we have been saying for a long time now is a major disconnect between the city and what is really happening on the ground throughout the city when it comes to violence and guns. a lot of these programs and a lot
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of the things that comes out of the mayor's office is redundant. it's be honest. it's saying the same thing another way and whether you have allen nance come up six years ago to talk about gun violence or a new representative or paul henderson talking about it. it's the same thing and it's unfortunate that we create an atmosphere where you got non-profit organization running around fighting for little crumbs and you still have the same issues we have been talking about. i have been coming here for 15 almost 20 years so there anything i heard out of the mayor's office all the way back to jordan and now mayor lee. i think we need to be honest with ourselves. bring all of these organizations together and really look at their books because some of the organizations you want to go out of business because if we're counting that we're doing a
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good job we're lying to ourselves. we have to bury four young black men from the western edition that you know about and all that the chief suhr and the police commission it say we're working on leads and it's a shame and i don't think we can continue playing this game this is a good start to have a representation and get to the nuts and bolts of things but if we're serious whatever we're doing is not working and i am telling individuals and organizations it's not working. we have to try something now. the commission just had a report on the war on drugs. where is that going to go? thank you. >> good afternoon supervisors and everyone happy new year to you. my name is maggie scott and as you know i lost a son and nephew to gun violence and a
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neers to cyberbullying. we had 47 homicides in 2013. the report of homicides in san francisco from 2006 to 2012 was 496. of that number the majority of those 496 persons were african-americans and from district 10, district 5 and the mission district. this is martin luther king's birthday today and to hear about the gun violence prevention task force from the mayor's office is not acceptable to me and the healing agencies and everyone in the city and by men and women sitting in this room that are dealing with the lives lost of the young african-american men that lost their live the other night. had there been white males or gay males the city would have been on fire. there
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would be folks everywhere talking about this. no one came until this group and this room put together the task force and the front line people here put together the vigil in 24 hours to get everyone's attention and we felt it was urgent and necessary. where was the mayor then and where were you all? i am upset and angry we're going around in circles with the same rhetoric and nothing is done and no respect to the leadership in the room and the clergy and front liners and people of violence. it's horrible. you know that we have a task force in sunnydale -- [inaudible] we're going to do it anyway and you know we have been working with seiu 1021 on the health and disparities. people talk about the merchants and we have a health and disparity issue in the city and migratedded out of the city and who don't have
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jobs -- [inaudible] time to put up or shut up. if you're not going to do it we're going to do it. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> good evening. my name is eli from [inaudible] for life and i go along with what sister matti was saying and i heard the lady speaking from the mayor's office and speaking about the guys who go out and supposedly addressing things in the community. well, they're not doing that. they ride through the community. they're not nobody out on the streets. i am on the streets everyday. i'm on the conner of golden gate and fillmore everyday with the youngsters. with the last four that was murdered the last once i talked to. >> >> then to come to a place
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where hear on the news they dehumanized them and made them gang bangers and all of the support from things that they didn't know about. this here has to stop. we just had a guy talking about a terrorists and killing everybody and sounded like he was just wonderful. these things are not happening right. crn -- this new crn is some garbage, straight garbage. that's what it is. they're talking about they're doing. you have dope feigns down there. i am a former user myself but walden house taking over health right 60 and not somebody anybody. we save the lives. these young men that sit on the
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blocks and standing could catch a bullet. we are talking to the mothers and the fathers out there. my phone don't never stop, don't never stop. i got people coming to me everyday about their sons. now we got people murdered who can't bury their kids, can't get no help because the news media paint them as gang bangers. one was just on a break from work. >> thank you very much. >> you have to do something else different. not the same old show. thank you. >> good afternoon. i am ms. jackson and the executive director of foster youth
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service average. we deal with the at risk families. i want to let you know in the foster care system the majority of the children have actually been on the scene when a murder occurred, have siblings who are dead and relatives who are deceased and the whole families are hurting and i want to say that the task force against gun violence it needs to be specifically for gun violence. i understand that the work that the mayor's office has done in chimp ioning domestic violence. they championed a lot of work with human trafficking. i am actually on that task force that works with human trafficking but we're in a state of emergency and that the reality is that these children they need to know their lives are valued, all lives valued regardless of what part of the city you're from. we're all citizens as this country as well as residents of the city and county of san
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francisco, so i would say to have a task force to deal with gun violence in terms of city wide that's what we need, but the reality is that the players, the people who actually you rely on in terms of can show you the true impact of what is happening to our children they need to reach down too. these actual people right here because the reality is that these families regardless of what part of town they're in they have relatives in the bay view that live in the western edition. they're all connected and the reality is that we're in desperate need of funds to help bury these children. we're fighting right now to have the funerals and volunteering our own money. you're talking about $50 million in violence prevention. i just want the mayor's office to know that we need a direct line in
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terms of actual accountability -- [inaudible] >> thank you good afternoon supervisors. my name is dj and a community director with community developers in the bay view and i want to echo from the office office violence prevention work and the work with the ipo program in bay view and visitation valley so there are things working that we need to look at but today i am here to support creating the task force that supervisor cohen has put fort. in any given week we shape the lives of many lives in the district and how they're affected by violence as a whole and i am supporting the task force and as an oversight and
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coordination in the city as a violence prevention as a whole and there's a constant theme today to ensure folks in the room are represented on the task force and vocal and out there on the ground and doing the work as we are everyday and continue to do to ensure that all lives matter. thank you. >> [inaudible] i am rico hamilton and a community member of district 5, born and raised there my entire life. i wanted to comment and say as and when we look at this we always get department heads to do things like this and they have not failed but a lot of times they're not as productive and
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good as possible because we don't look at the people on the ground who have experienced a lot of these issues, who have lost children and family members and dealing with the people committing crimes and how do we get those people involved? how do we look at these issues from their perspective and seeing some of their ideas so we can be more innovative? because it's good to get the department heads because they're thinking from that level. how do we get people on the ground that can look at it from on the ground and this is going on in the communities so when the decisions are made the people that don't know what is going on in the community can get a perspective of what is happening out there and i doubt if you're not on the ground and don't know what is going on in the community it's impossible to change anything if you don't know the issues in the community. it's totally impossible. i doubt the people in the communities are given
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100% valid information with mental health and guns and drugs because in the community we don't talk about that with everyone. i think it's key and important when we talk about members on that body that it be really key people that are part of the community so the issues that's really going on in the community can be conveyed to the department heads. thank you. >> shawn richard executive director of [inaudible] against guns. buying a gun on the streets is cheap and life is priceless. that has been our motto for years. easter sunday of 95 when my brother was killed. 20 years i have been doing this. we have been part of the city of and county system and getting funded and made
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significant impact of working with the community. i support a task force only if the people on that task force is from the community and dealing with the issues and affected by what is going on that can make change. we have to be realistically and understanding the impact that folks in the community are the ones that have their feet to the streets and their ears to the ground and they understand what is going o some of you guys don't know that eli crow ward and danielle and myself and car letta prevented a shooting the other night because we know what is going on. during the time during the vigil it was told they were riding around and going to shoot up the area. we made phone calls and we prevented that. that is some of the things you need a discussion about who is really doing the work? yes, i heard the report. do i agree with it? no. i
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don't. because some of that stuff is not accurate because i know what is really going on in the community and i know what is going on in the streets so have to be clear what is going on and who we're supporting and putting in these positions that is going to make a impact. supervisor cohen we had a discussion about this during the campaign and i thank you for bringing this up and pushing it forward but we have to do more and be effective on what we're trying to produce in these districts. five, 10, 11, six and even nine are dealing with homicides. tomorrow it could be four young men of color in bay view, in sunnydale, in lake view, in potrero hill, so i urge the supervisors to be very cautious and take into consideration to support the district leaders and putting them on this task
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force. thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. robert cohen pastor in sunnydale and visitation valley and director of unity. as a pastor i deal with people from a different perspective than all of the people named as possible candidates on the task force. i do support the task force because i think it's necessary for us to get to the bottom line and find out what's going on and what is really going to work. there needs to be some focus but listening to the qualifications in the different seats what i am struck with is the reality though from an academic point of view it will have great credibility because so many of the people have credentials so to speak. i think it's missing -- for example what pastor
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walker who is coming next has. he has been pastoring for a long time. he has dealt with people from the mother, the perpetrator, the victim from a perspective that nobody else has. there is no faith based representation on that list and not only that, which is unique of itself, there is inadequate community representation. that's been said and i want to echo that as well. even though i appreciate the clinician s and the psychologists there needs to be faces of people doing the work on the ground. our children are going back and forth to school afraid of to get to school and afraid in school they won't get home. our young people -- especially from where i