helped so many over the years. ricardo is an impressive individual and he holds a bachelor degree in educational psychology and is a priest of the afro (inaudible) tradition. born in columbia he came to san francisco 25 years ago because he wanted to commit his life to community service and to community work without being labeled a communist and without putting his life at risk. this unfortunately was something that was pretty common in columbia in those years. also, as i black, gay man, he encountered severe discrimination, in columbia that threatened his life and i think that it is important to really highlight the very important role that black men and women have played in latino countries and history and culture. coming to san francisco, also, enables him to join his

father, originally from the island of saint vincent who was himself an important leader in the mission district for many years. he was also a non-profit leader, an activist and a journalist and founded the first spanish newspaper in california. xh is pretty incredible that he has followed in his father's footsteps and it is an honor for me and beautiful for me to recognize these two generations of mission activism with ricardo and his father. on behalf of district nine, on behalf of the mission thank you for all that you do. and for your wonderful spirit, and for your ability to help people heal, for your ability to help the people thrive and for always thinking of others, finally, and i wanted to go back and note that congratulations are

in order to ricardo and his husband, hernandez and they recently married and in fact that i think that you are newlyweds two months ago and they married after being together for 23 years. so congratulations. and it is truly an honor for us to count you as a member of district nine and to celebrate all that you have accomplished and we are grateful for all that you not only accomplished but continue to do for the community. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> this is hard to be -- highly psychotic client at the resource center. and so i just want to thank you, supervisor david campos and i want to thank laura goose man the director of the resource center and a place

where i can fully express my passion to help people. and a place where simple but powerful miracles happen every single day. i wanted to thank my husband for you know dealing with me for the past 23 years. and i mean, i just want to invite you guys, if you really want to experience what is the miracle, come to the vaoe source center. thank you. [ applause ]

>> congratulations and thank you for your patience and waiting today. >> and last but certainly not least, supervisor christensen. >> certainly not least, i would like to ask menza to come forward, our most patient honoree because i have aseeded to the request to be brief and i don't want anyone to think that he is lacking in any qualifications service to youth is always especially valued and inspiring when that service is provided by the young. my optimism quotient

increases, minta has served for four years on the board of urban services ymca for those of you don't know that is a y, program that goes out in the community it do good works, and has participated in a wide variety of out reach programs for the y, he has participated for 9 years, with the big brother and sister program. and helping kids realize thir potential through mentoring. and he has gone beyond the usual sports and homework mentoring, to promote science and technology, education and to the bay area youth, by serving on the youth professional board at the exporatorium. and he is an exceptional leader because of his continued commitment and hard effort in proving not only district three, but all of san francisco he is one of those people that when you call around and say what do you think about this guy for an award, every single person said, what a great idea. so it is very much my privilege to add him to the

panthion and honor him today. [ applause ] >> i just want to say thank you for president klit ensen and thank you to the board. for really special thanks for all of the other honoreed today and i am a relatively young guy and i have been around for ten years and when i hear the stories about the amazing work that they had done and the obstacle that they had to overcome to do a lot of that work and this year and impact and in the african american community it is humbling, i feel like i actually probably benefited more from the work they have done than anything that i have done to try to give back. and it is inspiring and i take it to a call of action to do anything that i can to

continue fighting for the cause, i will wrap up with that, thanks to all of the others, and that is what keeps me going and thanks to the support of the board, thank you. [ applause ] >> congratulations and thank you to supervisor christensen for being the only supervisor to follow the directions of the board president. but to my colleagues i just want to say thank you all for participating in today's black history month celebration and you all have made some amazing selections. clearly, there are so many individuals out in our great city doing some amazing things and so this is just a

small, small group of individuals who truly are inspiring who continue to believe their daily lives and work hard in the community and make a difference in the community and we are just so happy to be able to just take time today and recognize you and honor you here at this amazing chamber and we hope that you will continue to do some of the amazing work that you have done, to bless our city and bless our community and so thank you everyone for being here today. and with that, we must continue the business of the board of supervisors. and we will return to roll call, beginning with supervisor avalos. >> okay. >> so supervisor avalos? you are up for roll call for introduction, supervisor yaoe you thought it was your turn or weiner. >> i actually called on

supervisor avalos but it is supervisor weiner. >> okay, supervisor weiner. >> okay, thank you very much, madam president and i have several introductions today. first as you may have followed in the press in the last few weeks, we are seeing a situation where more and more drugs including hiv drugs are being placed or reclassified as so-called specialty drugs. by various insurance providers, and which means that instead of paying your standard $15 or $25 or $50 co-pay you have to pay a significant percentage of the cost of the drug which could be hundreds or even approaching 1,000 dollars a month. and in january we learned or i actually we learned that in january, kiaser reclassified quite a few hiv drugs as specialty drugs which dramatically increased their

cost and this kind of change can have a significant impact for many of our residents and on our public health strategies to try to reduce the hiv infections by keeping people healthy and they have to be on their medication to suppress their viral load. i met with kiaser and i want to give them enormous credit for reversing the decision and removing all hiv drugs from the specialty category, and also reimbursing its members for all of the additional costs that they had paid in terms of the increased co-pays and so i want to publicly thank them for doing that. and however, the issue is much larger. and there are other drugs, that are not hiv drugs, that are on these specialty lists, and arthritis and others, and it is not just kiaser there are health plans in san

francisco and throughout the country that are moving in this direction and it threatens to under mind the affordable care act and it will under mine people's access to life saving medication and frankly, it is effectively a back door to get around the ban on excluding the people for preexists conditions i am calling for a hearing on this issue relating to hiv medication, but other medication for other diseases as well. and asking kiaser to come but not just them, asking a number of different insurance providers to come to us and talk to us about this issue and also talking to the department of public health and the mayor's office and it is an important issue and a growing issue and we need to stay on top of it, i am also today, introducing a resolution to support senate bill, 277 by senator richard pan, and which will eliminate

the personal belief exemption from california vaccination requirements. and i know that we have all been following in the news the really troubling spike in measles, and we need to make sure that our children are vaccinated, and this is not just about individual choice, this is about public health and this is about making sure that every child, and every person who goes to anywhere to a school, to a playground to any public place is not exposed and especially since even those of us who are vaccinated and it is not 100 percent, it is 95 percent and this is a very, very important issue and i give senator pan credit for pursuing this and taking a science based approach to vaccine policy in california and then finally colleagues, today i am introducing interim zoning controls that will apply to the corona and the corbit heights neighborhood to help to slow

down and take a deep breath with respect to a troubling trend of demolishing or effectively demolishing, smaller, existing homes, and replacing them with massive, monster homes and if you have never been to the corona heights neighborhood, please go and it is a beautiful, and state street, and bulcon and saturn and just a series of amazing and unique streets where we have homes that are nestled in the woods, effectively and it is not something that you would expect to find in the middle of a city. and we are seeing more and more of the beautiful modest homes in this neighborhood being expanded dramatically and double or triple in size and turned into monster homes that are really and in the view of many, not consistent with the fabric of a neighborhood. and the legislation is not about adding any additional complication or delay, to modest home renovations and we are not trying to stop the people who want to add an

additional bedroom or do a modest expansion to their home and this is did about dramatic expansions and we are not banning anything, what the legislation will do is require a conditional use authorization from the planning commission under the certain circumstances and it will apply to any project that is proposing to create or to expand a home to be more than 3,000 square feet. if the expansion will be more than 75 percent of the square footage of the home for projects that would or that are multiunit in nature it will have to be more than 100 percent of the square footage in terms of the increase and then on the vacant lots we will require the conditional use when a project greater than 3,000 square feet is proposed on that lot and we will remove a loophole relating to lot coverage and which currently exists in the

code, this will be an 18 month interim control and will give us the time to come up with the permanent controls and i look forward to work with the community and others to make sure that we are looking out for the character of this neighborhood, thank you. >> thank you, supervisor weiner, my apologize. >> supervisor yee. >> thank you, madam clerk, and (inaudible) happy new year. today, well, let's back up a little bit. you know we have basically committed in this city the whole notion of the vision zero and pedestrian safety issues has been one of my main focuses since taking office. as i move along with this issue and have the opportunity to discuss this stuff or to learn about other

activities that the other cities do, it helps us in creating some of the similar policies. so when i was in new york with supervisor kim, which also there at the vision zero conference, one of the things that we heard about was this notion of arming the city vehicles with what we called black boxes, gps system. and so they have done this to all of their vehicles and has, and they basically have said that it has been really successful and so when it came back from that conference, i asked the legislative analyst to study this and get back to us with it. and so, he has come back with the preliminary results. and so today i am introducing a hearing to request that this report from the budget

and legislative analyst on equipping our city fleet with black boxes and the results have been what i have seen so far, we are finding that the data collected from the vehicles, and the devices in the city vehicles can help the city correct and improve the unsafe driving habits, and the appropriate use of the city vehicles and missed vehicle maintenances. this effort is not just limited to new york but other cities have also started this and again, they have found that the results have been very positive. and so in addition to that, if we were to install the black boxes and they have the potential to save the city, significant time, money and potentially people's lives. if across the fleets, 7841

vehicles. and again, we are not talking about needing to arm all of them, or all of them at this point because 30 percent of our vehicles actually are armed with these black boxes. private industry and other governments have found significant and rapid benefits from the use of these system and given the value of the city's vehicle assets is better managing their assets and their potential liabilities will have a city wide impact and i look forward to this conversation and will continue to work on this through the budget process and i want to thank supervisors kim, avalos and breed for co-sponsoring this hearing. i also want to mention that in the same spirit as the ordinance amending the administrative code, we voted on, on the language access,

that we will not necessarily go through the -- and work through the administrative process to basically to do what the school district and at our school boards have done for years. and that is, there will be interpretive or interpretation services for all for our board meetings here and not upon request, but, somebody will be here and those languages that need to be here. and i found that it has been a little awkward because we never know when we need them and when you might even know that the day before and it is almost like too late to ask for the translation. and so, it is something that you know it would really relief in the democracy for all of the residents and the citizens that we need to have

this language access for them. so, so this is something that i am going to work through, not through the ordinance but through the administrative process and i just want to announce that this morning for the first time in my district, and in district seven that we are actually and we did a ground breaking ceremony to basically have the first open space creation in our district for probably decades. and this is really a partnership between four different departments and really proud of these departments. who says that they can't work together? they are not only working together but they are providing resources to make this happen. the four departments and this is really off of the library, engleside library and so we have the library and the puc in which we are going to expand the garden area into the puc pathway, which will

then triple the amount of land that is going to be for the open space there. and dpw and the park and rec and so that is just one to acknowledge those four departments that worked really selfishly to make this happen today, thank you very much. >> thank you supervisor yee. supervisor avalos? >> thank you madam clerk. and colleagues, i just have a memorium to introduce for joe lunardo, mr. lunardo was born in luca italy to his loving parents jesapina and lougi, and he grew up in san francisco and was a proud graduate of galelao high school and worked in the groceries as a clerk for 40 years and joe was the president of the am son botchy ball club and as a

member of the elmando and the social club was able to gather the folks around him to celebrate the rich history of italy and as a president of the club, he was instrumental in bringing together a lot of the public pressure to get the botchy ball courts along moscow street to be restored and that is something that the restoration there is part of his legacy in san francisco. and he also had a tremendous number of friends that he hung out there with every day, and you could find him playing basketball courts and he played in the courts and he unfortunately, he did not reach the age of 70 and there were many people who actually in the late 80s are playing, and he was one of the younger ones that were there and there are a lot of members there who will be missing his presence and his leadership, joe is survived and adoored by and his adoored mother,

and loving brother, and emelano, and cousin, and the family, and the late, etalo and the family, and nancy william and family, ida and family and guito and family, and adam and son. and joe also leaves behind many cherished relatives in italy and will be strongly missed by many life long friends and close acquaintances that he met through the associations here in the united states. >> thank you, supervisor avalos. >> supervisor campos. >> thank you very much, madam clerk, and i will try to be brief, let me begin by thanking supervisor ferrill for the resolution that he introduced and i was proud to be a co-responser to address the disturbing things that are coming out of the archbishop op here in san

francisco. and i personally having been raised catholic i personally do not understand the obsession that this archbishop has with the subject of sexuality and homosexually, it seems to be a personal infatuation but when it becomes the focus of what the diacesis doing, it is disturbing and mentioned how pope francis has dealt with this issue and so i do want to quote something else that the pope said about these kinds of issues. and he said, we cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and

the use of conceptive methods, this is not possible, i have not spoken much about these things, and i was reprimandd for that but when we speak about these issues we have to talk about them in a context, we have to find a new balance, otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards losing the freshness and the fragrance of the gospel and it is truly a house of cards. the second point and the second item that i want to talk about is an item that i have talked about many times and as all of you know and the city knows, recently, being announced and they announced last week, actually, on wednesday, that they had just paid all of the back taxes owed to the city and county of san francisco, which was reported to amount to tens of millions of dollars. this has truly been a long

time coming, and myself, senator fine stien and leno and the san francisco democratic party and a broad coalition of community leaders, have been pushing for the payment of back taxes for quite some time, and it is really hard to congratulate a company on paying its taxes three years late, but i am glad that they have finally done so and it is quite a statement about the state of affairs of san francisco in any event, toward that end, i am today introducing a request to the

budget and legislative analyst to look at another issue because this is not just the issue of back taxes that is a concern that i have had when it comes to short term rentals the fact is that we are yet to fully understand and grasp the full extent that the short term rental market is having on housing stock in san francisco. and is having on this housing crisis that we are facing. and the fact is that there are thousands of units and we are not really sure how many units we are talking about that are being removed, and have been removed from the housing market and moved into the short term market and this request is to ask mr. rose and his office to compile a report to detail the impact that the short term rentals have had on san francisco's housing stock and including the impact on rent

control housing in san francisco we would also like to know what the impact has had on the rental prices.

she graduated from the con vent of the sacred heart and attended the university and she has a fearless leader of ifpt local 21 technical engineer chapter for many years and a founding member of the union political action committee. she recently earned her chip for 15 years of living sober, and she was highly dedicated to supporting others and in

recovery, and her interests were eclectic as wide ranging as her activism and she was an ardon star trek fan and eagerly awaited the novels that continued to extend to this day. and one of her favorite writers was butler who she admires much for the body of work as butler shattering of barriers as a black lesbian author of science fiction she also followed college and professional woman's basketball, and one could find ramona and another willing companion in search for the perfect oyster as well and a tribute and a celebration in her life will be held at the country club and located at 4058, 18th street on saturday, february 28th from eleven