initiative, the indian basin and the bond projects. project life cycles are part of that strategic effort. a comprehensive assessment of our park assets to inform the 2019 parks bond as well as a proactive approach to park maintenance. the second table of the capital plan includes all known acquisitions which was part of jordan's presentation moments ago, within the time frame of the five-year plan and indicates whether the future park is located in an equity zone. the final table of the capital plan lists all of the current

and future projects that we have in our pipeline that is expected to be done between now and three years from now. this table lists by name the neighborhood and the district. this table also cross references to three of our strategic plan initiatives, the status of all the current projects and the projected timeline. this next slide sort of highlights some of our capital projects that are ongoing now. one which is very important to us is the carbon, india basin is another one. garfield pool is another highlighted project here. finally, this slide sort of

provides an overview of the equity analysis as provided by the charter language. i'm proud of the work we are doing in this effort. thanks to phil's leadership on this and taylor. the top table sort of highlights the capital plan initiatives that specifically address equity. all of this equity initiatives are currently ongoing and include planning for building new parks in high needs and growing areas. collaborating on the civic center initiative. india basin is another one. in addition to the equity metrics, our equity metrics we use to evaluate the department's capital expenditure plan as a whole. this sort of illustrates our commitment to the equity zones.

i want to emphasize in this slide, as you see, 53% of the department's total capital assets are in equity zones. 88,000 for one thousand people in equity zones compared to about 31,000 for the rest of the city. with that, i end my presentation. i will be happy to answer any questions you have. >> president buell: thank you. >> secretary: is there any public comment on this item? okay. being none, public comment is closed. >> president buell: i don't see any questions. chair would entertain a motion. >> so moved. >> president buell: moved and seconded. all those in favor. [all ayed] >> president buell: thank you. >> secretary: next item. california maritime infrastructure authority

membership. >> good morning commissioners. i'm the harbor master and what i'm here to present today is the membership in the california maritime infrastructure authority. what this does is it gives us opportunities for further investigation, support for any potential financial information we need. it is a group that supports many of the ports and harbors in california. there is no fee to join. it's basically just that they require a board to approve. and so, that's why i bring it here to you today. take any questions. >> secretary: is there any public comment on this item? okay, being none, public comment is closed. commissioners. >> just a quick question. we're not already a member? >> no, we're not. [laughter] >> okay. that was pretty cut and dry. >> president buell: entertain a motion? moved and seconded. all those in favor. [all ayed] >> that was really impressive,

scott. [laughter] >> secretary: next item is item 12, recreation and park department budget fiscal year 2018-19 and 2019-2020. >> good morning. my name is derek chu. this is my first time presenting before you. so, i'm very excited to get with this presentation. i'm here today to present and discussion the recreation and park department's budget for fiscal years 2018-19 and

2019-20. the city's budget process has begun and we're here to talk about the current budget outlook as well as where we're progressing in our development of the budgets for '18-'19 and '19-'20. currently, the city's budget outlook is mixed. revenues continue to be strong, but the city's expenditure budget is growing and outpacing the revenue budget, resulting in a deficit of $88.2 million and a budget year plus one deficit of $174 million. this is resulting in the mayor's office calling for budget reductions across general fund departments as well as asking all departments to absorb all cost increases and not allowing for any additional growth in

department budgets. fortunately, due to proposition b, the department is not required to meet the budget reduction targets for the next two fiscal years. the budget -- the department will continue to budget $15 million in general funds to support capital and deferred maintenance projects and the department will use new revenue and year over year revenue increases to cover costs and enhance the budget. so, as i noted, the department will absorb all cost increases using revenue increases as well as cost deficiency savings. the budget includes 3% on salaries in both years healthcare costs will rise. salary increases are 12% in

budget year and 4% in the budge year plus one. we are assuming average year of 2% increases in work order budgets to other departments. so, to put our current year budget in context, our budget is $221.5 million. it is comprised of $162 million in operating budget and $60 million in the capital budget. our person innocent positions budgeted are 954. -- permanent positions budgeted are 954. so, our budget is made up of three funding sources. the open space fund, which continues to grow, making the open space fund a very vital part of the component of our budget revenues. we also have general fund subsidies from the city, which will grow by $3 million per proposition b and other

expenditures that the mayor added. we also have earned income and bond funds as part of our overall budget. and this details some of the highlights in our earned revenue line items, including garages, program fees, concessions, permits, golf and the bond funds at the bottom. i would note that if you are looking at the memo that i provided, there is a typo in the table and it's corrected here on this presentation. again, by way of context, as a department our main goal is to deliver services and to ensure that we use our money efficiently, our resources efficiently. as you can see from this chart,

47% of our personnel resources are put in park maintenance. 26% is in recreation and aqua c aquatics. as you look through the other slices with a fairly small amount in administration, with a focus on getting direct services to our visitors to our parks and facilities. this chart shows the breakdown of where our funding is. the vast majority of our funding is supporting salaries and benefits for our recreation staff and our park staff, our maintenance staff. as always, our strategic plan guides our thinking and our commitment to meeting the goals and the mission of the strategic plan as well as the operational

plan and the capital plan. and per proposition b, we also look through the lens of equity, using equity metrics which was mentioned earlier, just to ensure that low income neighborhoods and disadvantaged communities don't to receive resources, services, enhanced services so that they too can thrive along with the entire city. so, the department is looking at growing program revenue, looking at the open space fund and looking at leases and concessions as ways to grow our budget so that we can continue to enhance our existing budget and services that we're providing. we're also looking at cost deficient says as far as utility usage. it was mentioned our decreasing use of water, our use of power and electricity.

we're also working with the department of technology on using city wide technology to create efficiencies within our department. as always, we are going to be providing a great amount of outreach to the community, working with our partners, working with our community advocates and supporters in the field. we will have two public budget meetings as was previously meeting. one at betty ong rec center on february 1st and one at eng l -- ingleside police department on february 8th. we have a staff brown bag lunch scheduled, prozac meeting scheduled as well as other meetings as requested from our

community. the next slide shows you our timeline. we're here before you today to present an overview of our budget planning. over the next several weeks, we will have the community meetings. our budget is due to the mayor's office on february 21st. and on june 1st, the mayor's office will present the budget to the board of supervisors. so, again, i will be back on february 15th with the full budget plan for consideration. i want to give thanks to maria sutton, our finance manager and alex, our budget director. i'm new. this is my seventh month and it's truly a team effort from top to bottom. and thank you. >> president buell: thank you very much, derek. may we get public comment and then we can see if commissioners have any comment. >> secretary: is there any

public comment on this item? being none, public comment is closed. >> president buell: commissioner harrison. >> commissioner harrison: is there any projected savings from using the filtered water versus the fresh water in irrigating our parks? >> yeah. down the road there will be cost savings and efficiencies we will realize. we are still in talks with -- >> the answer is bye bye using less water we actually do save money. but reclaimed water, recycled water is not necessarily a cost savings yet because it's new technology and new processing. so, i don't think i expect us to achieve -- >> commissioner harrison: will it be even? >> i think it's a little too soon to tell, commissioner harrison. golden gate park won't be on line until 2021.

it is possible we could actually take a look and see whether we could do a apples to apples analysis where we are using reclaimed water. it is hard to do the comparisons side by side. old versus new. but i don't anticipate that to be a huge cost savings. >> commissioner harrison: thank you. just curious. >> president buell: mr. ginsburg, did you have other comments? >> yeah. it is related to this budget process that there is a charter amendment that is at the board of supervisors being discussed that addresses city baselines. we're not the only -- which we have, which is under both the open space fund and proposition b. proposition b was a modification to our open space funds. for purposes of talking about this, the open space fund is our

baseline. the dignity for aging and adult services and a variety of others that sponsors of the proposed charter amendment of supervisor peskin and supervisor tang. there have been -- they're collecting feedback. obviously there's a fiscal debate about what is the appropriate amount of discretionary authority in the budget process and how many -- our set asides and baseline good. this is a debate that has gone on since the beginning of time i think. so, as originally drafted, it had some pretty potential serious impact. i think it still needs some more work and i know there are a lot of community organizations paying attention to this. i thought the commission should be aware of it. for us, i think one amendment that was made yesterday is very

significant is that unspent funds in our open space fund can be carried over from year to year for investment in capital purposes. that's what we use those fund balances for. in a world of increasing cost escalation in our capital projects where at the time we do the planning we think the park is $20.04 years later we are looking -- $20 million and, four years later we are looking at something different. those fund balances are really important to us. and so, i'm relieved that it appears that that is no longer on the table. that is a trigger which is very similar to the current one which in proposition b that says in the joint report if there's a deficit exceeding the indexed

equivalent of $200 million as of a fixed date, that number doesn't remain constant, it grows as the budget grows, that based on amounts may not be increased. so, it gives our baseline as op proposition b grows by $3 million a year. if there were that trigger of a deficit, it would be a policy call up to the mayor whether or not to add to our -- to grow our baseline by $3 million. our baseline -- that is in our current language. so, it is not new. this is something the mayor's office felt strong about during prop b and there are baselines that look different for different departments all over the city. there's a lot of them out there now. our baseline is such that we are

expected to absorb our own salary cost increases related to salary. so, that would stink if our baseline were not increased by what is a modest amount that barely keeps up with the increased cost of government. i just wanted to let you know what is out there. it is still being discussed and debated. it is certainly possible that that could end up on the ballot. >> president buell: thank you. commissioner mazzola. >> commissioner mazzola: just to two questions. i'm assuming the fiscal year is june 1st to july 30th? >> right. >> commissioner mazzola: is that realized in the budget? >> it is not really a significant revenue generator that would make derek's top line. we would do it more to provide increase enjoyment to the community and my recreation staff is interested in doing it as i mentioned to you at the

time. the challenges are making sure we can fund security and overtime related to that event by keeping things for overnight. but it is something we have a desire to do. either way, it's probably at the level that you'll see the budget probably not a top line. but still we'd like to do it. >> commissioner mazzola: got it. thank you. >> sure. >> president buell: commissioner bonilla. go ahead. >> commissioner bonilla: are we anticipating having the same level of park patrols and gardeners in this budget or do you think there will be an opportunity to increase those positions anywhere along the way? >> at this point we're maintaining current levels but there is opportunity to look at potential increases. as i mentioned, the mayor's budget office has said no new position, which means we would be looking at alternatives,

substituting positions for new positions. but it's still policy call that the executive team is looking at. >> commissioner bonilla: that's why i asked the question. >> i don't see a lot of position growth in this budget. i do think we may an opportunity to actually turn down our attrition savings if we have any extra funding, which would allow us to fill vacant positions more quickly. all departments are actually expected to keep a certain number of positions vacant to meet that attrition savings goal. but i don't think this is a budget that is going to see a lot of programmatic investment taking all of our available resources and doing what we can to invest in deferred maintenance and capital.

as much as i would love to tell you other wise, i still think we're done pretty well -- we've done pretty well. we are probably 40 rangers short. we can always use more gardeners and rec staff. but what derek alluded to is that we're starting to see some different economic indicators and all departments are expected to be cautious. >> commissioner bonilla: thank you. >> president buell: derek, i have one question. on page three. paid parking is the age number that really decreases about 15% down. what's the genesis of that? >> there were issues with construction at several of our garages. so, we had to accommodate. >> president buell: union square? >> most notably union square. it is a little early. we are still looking at next year's revenue and there's the potential for increase.

>> president buell: go back up. thank you. and thank you for your nine months worth of work -- >> seven months. >> president buell: yeah. thank you very much. >> commissioner bonilla: good work. >> secretary: that was discussion only. so, we're now on item 13, general public comment continued from item four. if you did not speak on item four and you would like to speak on item 13, please do come up. >> public: thank you commissioners, for letting me come back. i want to add to the issue commissioner low brought up about collaborating with other departments. in soma, we are concerned about the central soma plan, if it is adopted. it has a great deal of money. i think it's over $70 million but i don't recall the exact number set aside for open space. the plan has written into it some of the intentions of planning to spend that money. i think it's really, really important and i've talked to mr.

ginsburg about this. it's very important that park and reck has input on how that money is allocated because in the past some of the development plans, park and rec has not had a voice. so, we've got other open space that is not what the community needs or wants. so, i think it's really important that we collaborate with other departments. the central soma plan is enormous and it will have enormous impact. some of this money, it's a very large amount of money, could be allocated to things that we don't really want. it's creating a very large park potentially over at 5th and bryant over by the tennis club. again, that's a neighborhood that's coming, but it really doesn't serve the people that live there now. it's part of that ring that's been created around the middle. i just want to reiterate i think it's real important. phil, i think we agree on this,

that park and rec has a strong voice collaborating with other departments. thank you. >> president buell: thank you. >> secretary: is there any other general public comment? being none, this item is closed. we are now on item 14. closed session. i believe we have one card and that is kevin sullivan. and again, as a reminder, you have three minutes. >> public: good morning, i'm kevin sullivan. i'm the director at pg&e. i've spent my whole career looking at impacted sides and trying to figure out how to best reuse them and manage them and clean them up. i'm here to address the questions about the east harbor marina. what i really want to reaffirm for you is our commitment to the environment, our commitment to doing the right thing out there.

your commission and pg&e, we have a lot of common interests. park and rec need to dredge the site to keep it operating as a marina. we have an interest in that there's historical facts from gas plants that operated about a hundred years ago that are underneath the harbor. we've been trying to figure out a way forward. we have designs for a large dredge project out there. the more our team looked at this, the more i think people just said this does not feel like the right answer. it's a heavy-handed approach. it has a lot of impacts of the actual construction. some kind of questionable environmental benefits and importantly, very high costs. we're talking tens of millions of dollars here. our team went back to the drawing boards and said what's the best thing to do for the environment and can we look at this through a different lens?

can we come up with something that might be for attractive to the citizens and to the parties involved? what we came up with, i handed out earlier a one-page sheet. an alternate propor sal that would -- proposal that involve a gradual modification of the use of the marina to a more open public access habitat creating space on the waterfront. it's a very conceptional design but we see a lot of benefits we would like to commission to look at. reduced impacts around construction. we see much more public access and we think that's something that the commission would be interested in rather than access for a small number of boaters. depending on how this design ultimately worked. we could open that part of the waterfront for much greater access to a larger swath of the

public. we think this design could be more climate change resilient and it could save tens of millions of dollars for both the city and for pg&e. we would like to engage in a dialogue around this. we would like to explore the ideas with you and your safai to see if there might be kind of a win/win option out here that ultimately would benefit the citizens and be more environmentally friendly in the long run. thanks for hearing me out. >> president buell: thank you very much. >> secretary: is there anyone else who would like to maybe public comment? being none, public comment is closed. commissioners, we need a motion and a second to vote whether to hold closed session to confer with league counsel. >> president buell: moved and seconded. all in favor. [all ayed. >> president buell: from a procedural standpoint we will take the second item up first because we're going of some staff presentation and that will

facilitate our being able to deliberate in closed session following that. go ahead. >> secretary: i was just going to say we need to ask everyone to please leave. and unless phil has asked you as a staff person to stay, we need to ask >> secretary: okay, we've now reconvened to open session. so, we have two items. possible report on actions taken in closed session.

we need a motion whether to do a report on actions taken in closed session or not. >> president buell: move to not release. >> second. >> president buell: moved and second not to. all in favor. [all ayed] >> secretary: and then vote to elect whether or not to disclose any or all discussions held in closed session. >> president buell: move to not release. >> second. >> president buell: moved and second t to not reveal discussions. -- seconded not the reveal discussions. >> this eye them is designed to allow commissioners to raise issues they believe that commission should address. there will be no discussion of these items at this time. commissioners, are there any items? >> president buell: commissioner anderson. >> secretary: could i get you to speak into the mic. >> commissioner anderson: i had a question based on ms. wild's presentation about those two

parcels in the 1100-block of mission. is that something we need to follow up on? it's sort of new to me. i apologize. what do we do about that? >> secretary: we can't have a discussion. >> president buell: maybe staff can respond. >> secretary: is there any other? >> president buell: see none. >> secretary: any public comment? >> president buell: seeing none. >> secretary: this item is closed. item 16 new business agenda setting. is there any public comment? being none, this item is closed. communications. public comment? >> president buell: seeing none. >> secretary: this item is closed. 18 is aadjournment. >> president buell: moved to adjourn. >> secretary: thank you commissioners.

i'm nicole and lindsey, i like the fresh air. when we sign up, it's always so gratifying. we want to be here. so i'm very excite ied to be

here today. >> your volunteerism is appreciated most definitely. >> last year we were able to do 6,000 hours volunteering. without that we can't survive. volunteering is really important because we can't do this. it's important to understand and a concept of learning how to take care of this park. we have almost a 160 acres in the district 10 area. >> it's fun to come out here.

>> we have a park. it's better to take some of the stuff off the fences so people can look at the park. >> the street, every time, our friends. >> i think everybody should give back. we are very fortunate. we are successful with the company and it's time to give back. it's a great place for us. the weather is nice. no rain. beautiful san francisco. >> it's a great way to be able to have fun and give back and walk away with a great feeling. for more opportunities we have volunteering every single day of the week. get in touch with

the parks and recreation center so come all right. on 5, 5, 4 2, 1 you innovation on or was on over 200 years they went through extensive innovations to the existing green new metal gates were installed our the perimeter 9 project is funded inform there are no 9 community opportunity and our capital improvement plan to the 2008 clean and safe neighborhood it allows the residents and park advocates like san franciscans to make the matching of the few minutes

through the philanthropic dungeons and finished and finally able to pull on play on the number one green a celebration on october 7, 1901, a skoovlt for the st. anthony's formed a club and john then the superintendent the golden gate park laid out the bowling green are here sharing meditates a permanent green now and then was opened in 1902 during the course the 1906 san francisco earthquake that citywide much the city the greens were left that with an ellen surface and not readers necessarily 1911 it had the blowing e bowling that was formed in 1912 the parks commission paid laying down down

green number 2 the san francisco lawn club was the first opened in the united states and the oldest on the west their registered as san francisco lark one 101 and ti it is not all fierce competition food and good ole friend of mine drive it members les lecturely challenge the stories some may be true some not memories of past winners is reversed presbyterian on the wall of champions. >> make sure you see the one in to the corner that's me and. >> no? not bingo or scrabble but the pare of today's competition two doreen and christen and beginninger against robert and

others easing our opponents for the stair down is a pregame strategy even in lawn bowling. >> play ball. >> yes. >> almost. >> (clapping). >> the size of tennis ball the object of the game our control to so when the players on both sides are bold at any rate the complete ends you do do scoring it is you'll get within point lead for this bonus first of all, a jack can be moved and a

or picked up to some other point or move the jack with i have a goal behind the just a second a lot of elements to the game. >> we're about a yard long. >> aim a were not player i'll play any weighed see on the inside in the goal is a minimum the latter side will make that arc in i'm right-hand side i play my for hand and to my left if i wanted to acre my respect i extend so it is arced to the right have to be able to pray both hands. >> (clapping.) who one. >> nice try and hi, i'm been play lawn bowling affair 10 years after he retired i needed something to do so i picked up

this paper and in this paper i see in there play lawn bowling in san francisco golden gate park ever since then i've been trying to bowl i enjoy bowling a very good support and good experience most of you have of of all love the people's and have a lot of have a lot of few minutes in mr. mayor the san francisco play lawn bowling is in golden gate park we're sharing meadow for more information about the club including free lessons log

>> hi everyone. welcome. we're going to start our program today. i'm captain paul yep. i want to welcome everyone here today. elected officials, department heads and thank you media, i know you're getting wet. thank you for being here. first of all, happy up coming lunar new year of the dog. some characters are loyalty and honesty and principles in helping and serving others, thus they make good police officers, scientists, politicians and judges. the office at central station must be convinced i was born in the year of the dog because of the barking i do at the station but i was born in the year of

the monkey. i had the fortune of taking over the station. i worked at central station for retired deputy chief tom, the captain for the years of the dragon, the snake and the horse. during the dynasties, they worked vigorously to end extortion, reduce overall crimes and increase public safety in chinatown. we work hard to continue to build on their successes and legacy. they built great relationships and friendships in the chinatown community and our city family. chinatown has been known as an underserved community. i want to personally thank officials, the mayor, commissioner peskin for their continued support and dedication

to public safety and resources to chinatown. thanks to you, we have more officers dedicated to you can wassing -- we have more officers working in chinatown. we have improved traffic safety and safety on muni we will continue to work on. thank you. (applause) >> thank you very much. thank you. >> you have to protect the hair. >> you're absolutely right. hello everyone. i'm the new executive director

and happy to be back in san francisco. we're looking forward to making it another celebration of a crime-free lunar new year. when the event was started 21 years ago it was a time when san francisco was often fearful because of the extortion and pick pocketing that was common. until recently extortion cases were in the hundreds and now down to very few. we're thrilled to say the reports of lunar new year related crimes directly related to our work and building connections with neighborhoods and businesses and folks like you in the community. i hope you join us as we walk the neighborhood to visit our neighbors and share more tips while we celebrate the lunar new year. we'll hold another event like this tomorrow at mr. bread.

we hope to see you there. to help launch one of the san francisco great celebration seasons, a native and someone i have known for a long time, i want to introduce acting mayor london breed. (applause) >> thank you. >> no job too big or too small. (laughter) >> thank you commander lazar for protecting my hair today. (laughter) he doesn't just protect people, he protects hair. good afternoon everyone. i want to start by thanking sf safe executive director for being here and congratulations on your new role. this is another incredible

event. we host it every year. i want to thank and acknowledge, i know many of my colleagues are here and will be speaking, thank you to chief scott for being here and carmen chew. this is a good moment to remind people to be aware. the lunar new year brings so many people to san francisco, but specifically to our great chinatown. and the festivities, although we have a good time and love the excitement of it all, it sadly provides an opportunity for criminals. we need our residents to be vigilant and alert. and please remember, if you see something, say something.

shortly after mayor lee's passing i met with a number of chi chinatown leaders and heard some of their concerns and sadly some of the examples going on, including the asian blessing scams that have targeted seniors. to help address the issues i'm announcing today we're adding two foot patrol officers to join the chinatown central station from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. so a total of seven officers walking the beats and in the area during that time. the two new officers will be joining the one sergeant and four officers of the housing units that are already a part of the shifts. and i want to stop and thank all of the police officers who are here today who continue to serve and protect our neighborhoods and i want to thank captain yip

and the folks at central station for the work they put in specifically. by working closely, we'll make sure the neighborhood is a safe and secure place for all of its residents. i wish you have a safe and prosperous lunar new year. (speaking chinese) thank you. (applause) i want to introduce one of our most crucial partners for building connections between san francisco and officers, welcome chief of police mr. scott. (applause) >> thank you. thank you mayor breed. i'm going to be brief and get you guys out of the rain hopefully. thank you to everybody who came here today and braved the rain to talk about safety for the

lunar new year. happy new year. this will be a prosperous year for our city. this is the 21st year that sf safe has given safety awareness tips for the lunar new year and i know our campaign on public safety is really about the people and keeping everybody safe and making sure people don't get victimized. first of all, i want to remind everybody to be aware, we have had some i believe targeting of some of our asian merchants. we need people to be aware of that issue. i'm going to talk about a few tips to help people with that. blessing scams have been an issue in the community and we don't want anybody to fall prey to that. be aware of strangers, if

anybody is asking for money or jewelry or anything like that, you might want to take caution and be aware. don't follow strangers home and don't bring any to your home. don't bring strangers to withdraw money or take out valuables in their presence. before withdrawing large sums of money or valuables, have a discussion with people you trust in your family first. often times people act on emotion and that's what the scam artists and people who prey on this type of person, that's what they do. they play on emotions. so often times when you talk to other people, you have a chance to collect your thoughts and think twice before you act. please talk with someone you trust in your family or a good friend before withdrawing large sums of money. our commitment to providing education for the merchants is ongoing. we'll have merchant walks, i'm going to rollout the calendar, i think over 2,000 of these --

got it upside down -- but i think they'll be given to the merchants and it has safety tips as well, those will be readily available to remind people what to do to stay safe. also, pedestrian safety is really of the upmost importance. san francisco through the leadership and vision of mayor ed lee has engaged in vision zero and what that means, we want to cut traffic fatalities down to zero by 2024. we believe what was once a distant vision and dream, we're well on our way to make it happen. we need your help. pedestrian safety is very important, particularly in chinatown. it's a condensed area. please don't drive distracted and if you're walking don't walk distracted. those simple things can help

reduce accidents and fatalities and be kind to neighbors and friends in terms of allowing the pedestrians to walk about the street freely without having to worry about distracted driving. one of our commitments is language access. we know we have a lot of non english speaking residents and people who visit and live in the city. and sfpd is committeed to giving language access to those who don't speak english. so our officers are trained, we have translators and access is a huge thing in the community. we need people to report what they see. we need people to feel comfortable talking to us, the police officer and the district attorney's office and other people in the criminal justice sxm access is really, really important for us. our training is ongoing and we're working with a lot of stakeholders from the community

to make sure the language access is not a problem for anybody. i can go on further but i'm going to stop there. i know we have a lot of people who want to speak today. i want to say thank you for your support and it's a pleasure to work with you and let's have a safe chinese lunar new year. thank you. (applause) >> throughout his time district attorney has been a fantastic partner, including prosecuting the people who committed blessing scams. district attorney. >> thank you. and happy year of the dog to everyone. it's wonderful to be here today, even with the rain. we were talking that we've had years here where we have to wear sunblock and today we wear as

umbrellas. we continue to move forward for public safety in this community and other communities. years ago we would be talking about blessing scams and the first jurisdiction in the country to prosecute the cases successfully and they're not what they used to be. but nevertheless, we need to continue to be vigilant. we're still having people who are victimized and we depend on the media, specifically the chinese media because it's a crime that impacts the chinese community mostly, our phone number is 415-551-9595. it's a 24/7 phone. we take cases and we work with our partners at sf safe who are great incredible partners and the police department. but at the end of the day, this is a collaboration and community

plays an important role. happy lunar new year and thank you for all you do. i look forward to the parade and the merchant walk today and i just want to take a moment and i know it's in all of our hearts, maybe if we can take one moment of silence in memory of mayor lee. this is a community that obviously he had very, very deeply ties to it and we all should recognize that. so if you would take a moment of silence please. thank you and happy lunar new year. (applause) >> now i would like to introduce a 30 year district three resident who faithfully represents the businesses and people at city hall, everyone's

supervisor peskin. >> thank you. (speaking chinese) all right! i want to -- first, i want to thank and welcome sf safe for doing this for over 20 years, what she said is right, we have seen the number of extortion cases drop year after year. i'm delighted to continue to do this to stay vigilant. thank you chief scott and captain yip and men and women of the san francisco police department. you can see how important it is, from our acting mayor that every member of the board of supervisors, we take it seriously. let me leave you with one thought to the media to say again and again, report, report, report. if people do not report extortion, we are only as good as the eyes and ears that we have in the community.

we have language access as you heard, but please, send the message that people should feel comfortable contacting the police, contacting elected officials to keep our community safe. (applause) >> she is smart and solutions oriented representative for san francisco, growing up in a family running a small business, please welcome miss carmen chew. >> i'm pleased to be here with everybody as well. i think there's a phrase our supervisor didn't say in chinese. he said them all. he didn't say (chinese) which means have many children to everybody. happy new year. i'm glad to be here. i really think it's important for all of us to get together to

remind everybody about the importance of reporting crime. we talked about blessing scams, i think our district attorney spoke about that earlier. i think people know the scammers are very smart. they figure out new ways to trick people and get access to your information and money. so whether it is pretending to be the consulate general's office or blessing scam, be aware and make sure you don't provide personal information to people. (chinese) (applause) >> someone who has worked

closely on the issue and long time advocate for chinatown merchants, eddie owl. >> hi everyone. good afternoon. on behalf of the chinese chamber of commerce, i want to thank san francisco safe organization for working to create a safe environment in which our small business can thrive. the fight against extortion is extremely important. especially as lunar new year approaches. for over 20 years, will continue support this effort and educate and encourage merchants to report any attempted extortion

preparing for the upcoming new year festivities. we must remain aware and work with our local police to ensure the safety of our community. thank you. (speaking chinese) (speaking chinese)