job. >> commissioner lee: thank you. i have a question for you bennett. if someone asks you or i could ask you -- that's my job. what you're doing differently now than in july and why that would -- why that is going to change how things are going to be if we lift the restriction, what would your answer be? >> my answer would be i think there's a lot of reports -- well, it's simply really just sticking with what's working and always improving. you can't get complacent and say okay, let's put as many security guards on or this many staff and make sure it stays the same. it's more of staying on top of it, weekly meetings and making sure everyone is staying on top of what they're supposed to be doing. as far as, you know, if there's going to be more or less staff

on, definitely not going to be less. if anything there's going to be more staff on. with everything that is going on, a lot of people just think our venue is closed, so we anticipate with marketing that more people are going to come to our venue. it's really just staying on top of it honestly. >> vice president thomas: any other questions? all right. thank you. then i know we have public comment. how many folks want to make public comment? i think you've all been here before. you know the drill. three minutes each. please introduce yourself. >> good evening. i'm the district manager for the top of broadway cpd. it's good to see you all again. i was part of the original effort led by the community in

cooperation with central station to inform the commission of some of the grievances that community had against hue lounge, one of the concerns was sound and leaking of sound into the alley. i feel like we've beaten that enough tonight. i think bennett has provided materials that were exactly what the commission asked for and i think bennett should be commended for his outreach to the community and i think our main gripe from the get-go, we didn't see this type of dialogue before bringing it to the commissioners. i'm glad it's happening. the second concern we brought to the commission was the violence. and when i say violence, that was the consistent record of fights we have regarding 447 broadway, which is hue. and i mention the litany of fights reported to myself as a representative of the cpd, and i

listed those in the summary of correspondence i sent back in june, in which you had the pleasure of looking over. and from that summary, i just wanted to call back on a quote from john windsor who is with security intelligence specialists, who is an excellent -- very professional, can't recommend him enough. he works with the cpd shortly before going to hue and john definitely knows his stuff and i respect his assessment. but from that summary they sent back in october 2016. he says there are changes i immediately am making -- this is right after a massive fight in which the block was shutdown. there are changes i'm immediately making and extremely clear of what the venue needs to change in so far as sound level, procurement, management and staffing increases and bottle management. this sounds familiar, this is what we're talking about

tonight, november -- that is october 30th, 2016. so we have gone through the motions of profani bringing thie the commission and bennett is asking you to make a decision on his good word that he has changed for the better. well, if that was the case, he would have changed before we got to the commission level. we brought this to commission because we felt we weren't making headway creating a dialogue with bennett and the top of the -- it has no aversion to night life. this is broadway we're talking about in san francisco. we want to see responsible management of the night life venues on the block and that was the basis of the original concern. at this point, yes, we have seen great improvement in the past few months, but it seems to me at least because of the conditions placed are working. >> vice president thomas: thank

you. the first beep is the warning you have 30 seconds left. >> thank you very much. i'm andrew diamond and i live at 2 rollen street unit one. i lived there 11 years now and things on broadway and hue nightclub are probably better than they have been in years and years. my only frustration is what took so long. we have complained about the noise issues for years and told bennett about the issues for years. i am a little concerned with two things. one of which is just what the total noise in the back of the club -- there's a lot of talk about the front and back, we're impacted by the back of the club, we're at the back of the alley. i know bennett said he did 100% of the sound proofing, i wish it would have been done years ago.

there's more that can be done. some of the side doors they don't use for the main entrance but they let sound out and one of the doors particular, we notice a lot of sound that comes through. i'm hoping that this is not the end of the sound proofing, that more sound proofing can happen because i really think that that will solve all of our sound issues. the second issue with the way sound is done is, bennett tells me he's in compliance with what the commission has set. and i'm not a sound expert. i met with bennett saturday night at 9:00 and he went in and turned on the club music and we were in front of my home, it was not an issue. friday night was not an issue. the thursday before that, it was an issue. on saturday night after we met, it got louder as the night

progressed. i appreciate it when bennett turns the volume down. he has given me contact information for all the clubs. i appreciate when he takes action, we notice it. a little volume change in the club makes a huge difference to us. i don't understand -- to me, you talk about decibel levels and i go on the internet, what does 80 or 70 mean. it's a huge difference. and you know, we bought a sound meter and we see this was on saturday night and i don't know if you can totally see this, but it basically bounces around in the 70 and hits a little over 80 and -- you know, it can just be brought down a little bit, i think it solves all of our issues. i have taken action in my own home. there was talk about materials used. i had two windows and i sheet rocked over them and added a

layer of quiet rock on top of that. we're doing things inside my home that we don't get the use of the windows anymore but it helps us live and i'm just asking bennett and unite club to just keep going, not end now. >> vice president thomas: thank you. any other public comment? yes. welcome, three minutes. >> good evening commissioners. i live at 2 rollend. hue and management, bennett have made a lot of effort to improve their operation. the sound, we still get at times excessive sound noise, particularly base where it vibrates walls and windows and so on and so forth. it's very penetrating.

so, the term you use, i forget, but to reduce that base level definitely makes a difference. they do have a front lounge and i believe they have a back lounge, if that base could be reduced in both of those areas that would be beneficial. as far as some of the questions the commissioners asked bennett and security, what would you change or by lifting your stipulation of closing at midnight, what might change or what would you do differently if we allow them to stay open to 2:00. we all know the later in the evening it gets and the more alcohol that's consumed, the more difficult it is to control the crowd. the participants in the venue. and i just -- i hope you take

that into consideration based on the past experience of the operation. i hope bennett can be successful under those regulations. there's no problem with the operation when it stays at a reasonable sound level and the patrons are not creating a dangerous environment for those who live there along with other people on broadway. so thank you for your time. >> vice president thomas: thank you. all right. commissioners? >> i was going to make a comment -- >> vice president thomas: that was it for public comment and public comment is now closed. commissioners -- do you have questions, comments, opinions, motions. >> commissioner perez: i want to ask the staff if they have a

recommendation or feedback on what we should do as far as lifting the hours. >> that is really within your purview. sorry. we just give you the facts. >> commissioner perez: only one violation -- >> yes. >> commissioner perez: since changing -- >> yes, only one violation period. >> commissioner perez: thank you. >> i do have thoughts. i think, you know, six months ago we were all here and i think we were inundated with a significant amount of very compelling but substantial evidence that bennett and his team weren't living up -- that

was a fact. that was the allegations at least. it seemed to me years before that, that bennett had been promising results to neighbors and the neighbors didn't feel the results were being followed through on and that seemed to be a factor to me. i do believe and i think it's clear that the conditions we put on the licence actually caused real financial and business pain to hue, i think any nightclub forced to shut down a deejay at midnight is not going to be successful, generally, with maybe some exceptions around. and it did seem that that pain we caused for the first time maybe in the neighbor's mind at least led to tangible results from hue where they actually started in the neighbor's minds and police mind and community

mind to follow through on some of the promises they felt were not followed through on before. to me, it seemed at least personally that hue was not -- this is my own opinion. i don't know if it's true or not, but that hue is not ready to be open until 2:00 a.m. before july. to me it seemed they had not done the work required to be a responsible good operator. that's just what it appears to me. it does seem to me now that under the pressure of real pain and that they have come around and they have acted as good operators for this period of time, especially as the sound proofing came on, the noise was mitigated more and more. i feel comfortable taking the

training wheelin trainin training wheels off again and operate until 2:00 a.m. with the caveat i think they understand now and will understand and hope they do, it's very easy and will be a lot faster and more swift for us to reconstitute the pain or bring back the pain which is really the only power we have as authority here. to me, i'm comfortable with it. i want to say we're going to pay very, very, very close attention to hue. we have to be and we have to be for all the reasons the community and violence and public safety, etc cetera. but i am comfortable with removing it. >> vice president thomas: and just to clarify, we -- there were a number of conditions added, one was about limiting the hours of entertainment to

midnight -- >> the hours specifically. some of those should stay for sure. >> vice president thomas: others were adding more employees to bottle service, sounds like was happening. informing the neighbors, which has been done and needs to continue and i feel like, you know, hearing the neighbors coming and saying they're finally getting the communication they want is one of the biggest wins of this. but we're specifically looking at lifting the condition around limiting the hours and just to clarify, that's the one that you're the most interested in mr. montoya. yeah. okay. >> commissioner lee: so, my opinion, all club owners should have a chance to, you know, be an operator, be good neighbors and work with their neighbors.

we've all gone through it. when you have a situation like this and a lot of energy has been put in here to try to rectify these issues and it's not perfect and i'm still not convinced that it's fool proof, there's still a situation where i think that there's still possible leakage and i think that the operator could change the settings, i mean, you know, it's still not really perfect science but it's going to be the operator now to really -- he put himself on the line, on camera, saying a lot of things, making a lot of promises. you have a great head of security that knows what he's doing but as an owner, as a previous owner of a club, finances and everything, you could cut back on security and things could go the other way. you as an operator, obviously you're fighting to keep your club and i believe second chances are in order, but if it happens again, we took a lot of

energy to get here. and there's a lot of bad things being said on both ends and i don't appreciate a lot of it, but at the same time, it's the business we're in. i'm okay to give a second chance, but i tell you, if we get more, i'm not even going to negotiate anymore. i'm kind of like -- bennett, this is it. if we lift the condition, in my opinion, there's still things you can do to make that thing either quiet -- in compliance or not. and you're going to have to be on it. and i think you have the tools to have it, but what you'll do with it, i don't know. i won't block lifting the time. i mean you gave me the data finally, which i have been looking for for months.

if you stay within this parameter then you should be in compliance. if the neighbors still have a problem, they can go in other legal actions against you. as far as the city goes for me anyway, i think we have done everything we can and it's up to your own ability as an owner to stand up to it. so -- >> vice president thomas: commissioner frost? >> commissioner frost: i was impressed with the security director's presentation as well. but then you listen to one of the speakers and they talk about having heard this before. i remember back when it was brought to us we heard of a lot of different people in the community that had tried to work with him and finally it comes in front of us and he gets forced

to work with us. i'm still a little concerned and like one of the speakers said, closing at midnight and 2:00 are a big difference for consuming alcohol and what happens when you consume that amount of alcohol. i think one of the speakers from the club said that people think we're closed. is that is -- do they have less of a crowd and why they have less problems. they're not open until 2:00 and drinking less. is that part of the problem. i'm getting goose bumps right now. we have a guy who had to pay money to close up his windows, he had to affect his property because this gentleman wouldn't listen to his complaints -- excuse me, he would listen to

them and nod and smile and say he would do something about it. to me, that's not working with anybody. the only reason he worked with us is because we directed him to and that's why it went that far. i think it needs to be extended longer. i don't think six months is enough time to gauge this. like commissioner lee said, it's hard, it's his livelihood. i totally understand that. i can't sympathize with him, i have never been in that position, i don't know. but i can sympathize with the people who live in the area and tried to talk to him. seems like the speakers that come up here and talk about this -- we have seen a lot of people shake their fists and somewhat

unreasonable, but his neighbors seem reasonable to me. as far as giving them another chance, i would like to. but i think the neighborhood has given him plenty of chances. >> i want to echo what commissioner frost mentioned, it took a long time to get to this point. there were a lot of neighbors who came frustrated with the lack of response and or the operator would say one thing and smile and not work on what he was going to say. i'm glad that we seem to be heading the right path forward, but i agree with you, i think six months may not be enough. so i think we need to make sure that he stays on the right path. and i just want to say, i want to thank the neighbors who came here and thank you for your patience. i know it has been a long time coming and thank you for your patience. it takes a lot of time and

effort for you guys to come here. just keep on it, make sure to keep us informed what is happening. we can't be there 24/7 like you are. i want to encourage you guys to keep us abreast on what's going on. >> vice president thomas: do you have comments? i -- i mean, it's clear that there's been a lot of very positive change and it's really impressive to hear that from everyone. it may not be change as much as everyone wants, but everyone is getting some movement towards what they want. i am not entirely convinced -- i feel much of the change that has happened has been because of the attention and focus and, you know, having you come back again and again and that's been part of driving this positive change and i'm not entirely certain

that the difference between midnight and 2:00 a.m. is actually what has made that. that was more one of the tools we had. i'm willing to move forward and lists that, but i'm also interested in probably having you come back in another six months, do another hearing and check in again about how this is going, is it still positive change going in the right direction and you know, i know we will be keeping a very close eye on what we hear from our inspector, what we hear from the neighbors. what we hear from the police department. the cbd, others in terms of what's happening. i would be interested in moving forward with a motion to lift it for six months and then come back for another hearing and hear how things are. so i know that's -- you know, i think we're a bit split on do we keep things in place for another

six months or try to lift something for six months and come back and see if the changes have continued. le >> i like that. there are two sides to me here. and this many cases, i'm very sure what to do and this one i think both sides make compelling arguments here. there's just two things i wants to point out, it seems like the only reason hue started coming into compliance is because of the pain we caused them and that's not what you want to see as an entertainment commissioner, you want to see people doing things with their own regard but the real pain this caused i don't want to disregard. understanding the loss of revenues for six months for a very expensive to operate establishment in san francisco, i can't speak for sure but i

would guess that there was a hemorrhaging of money taking place over the past six months that is something that is very frightening to think about if -- about it returning. right? so for whatever reason people come under compliance, everybody is motivated in different ways. the idea of losing a lot of money over time and that is really painful, which it is for most people, that might be compelling enough to knock operating out of the park. on the other side and this is why i like the idea, i'm terrified we're going to get the same thing the neighbors got, which is, you know, check all the boxes of communication and pretend that things are going to be better and then nothing changes and nothing happens. so i like commissioner thomas's idea to come back for another look in six months and give everybody a chance to express themselves again. and i just want to reiterate

what commissioner lee and i think i said to a point of this is really a last -- this is the last stand for this licence. i think it can remain but if we come back in six months and things have not changed or they have taken a dive or really compelling evidence it is worse, then it's almost guaranteed there will be minimum from my perspective that i'm going to look for very restrictive operating hours. maybe more than midnight. that's what i want to say. >> vice president thomas: we don't want hue to close. we don't want to lose another entertainment venue, but we want hue to be a good operator and good neighbor. and you know, looking out for the safety of patrons, neighbors, the wellbeing of the whole community, so it's a matter of getting there.

and you know, we could even come back in three months if that would make people feel better just to keep some sort of scrutiny on see what happens, but i do feel like, we put some -- this pain analogy, we put pain on, got your attention but then you have to let it up. and make sure that it moves forward. you don't want to keep someone in -- >> commissioner lee: it's not only painful, it's painful for us. it's not an easy thing to -- it's obvious to fix if you're the right person to fix it. there's a lot of things but eventually it all lays here with us. so -- >> vice president thomas: okay. >> our relationship with hue bennett has been very unhealthy and it's almost abusive just from the perspective of the

police, the supervisor's office, from the neighbors, community that has come out. and i personally want to believe you're going to turn this ship around and the way you are taking care of your business, i know we're telling you your baby is youiugly, you have been maki the improvements and investments to move forward and i want to believe in you. i believe in your security team more than i believe in you. i think you have a lot riding on this and i agree with the assessment of vice president thomas and commissioner lee and commissioner bleiman that we should give you a chance to prove to us that you're committed to making the impact and changing the nature of the relationships with the people around you. you have to do better working with the community. and i think you have to make a better attempt at the relationship with the police and

with the supervisor's office. >> commissioner lee: one more thing and then i'll stop talking -- it may be that the hue you have in your mind or want may not be able to operate because of circumstances. i want to say keep a flexible mind on how to operate and make money in that space. if europe until 2:00 a.m., it may be that the programming you wanted to have is not working for whatever reason or the crowds you're attracting -- you're having difficulty controlling them for whatever reason. you may have to adjust and i'm sure you have made huge adjustments and i know how tough that is, but the old status quo can't return basically. we have to find some new ground here. so -- that's it. >> a couple of things.

i think i lost one of them. as far as letting them go back to three days to stay open until 2:00 a.m., i would like to give them -- for you to look at giving him a shorter rope. maybe we do three months -- this commission does three months at one day and then if everything goes well, then extend it to three days or whatever days he's open for six months and then come up for review. but the other thing is, i would like to suggest to mr. montoya that he listens to what one of the speakers said about sound proofing -- more around doors where that person thinks the sound is imnating from or at

least test it to either confirm or refute that it's coming from that door. but yeah, i would like the commission to think about not opening the flood gates but slowly releasing the water by having -- give him one day for three months and then open it for the next three months and come back in six months to review. >> vice president thomas: there are a number of varieties of proposal on the table. anybody want to make a motion? >> commissioner lee: yes, i would like to hear first, the first proposal we had if we're comfortable with that and then to me i would like to dial back from there. we can do it the other way. but i want to make a motion to lift the time restrictions on the entertainment permit for a period of three months, pending a look back hearing -- i don't

know exactly how to say it technically. a hearing three months from now to review the decision. >> vice president thomas: is there a second? >> commissioner caminong: i second. >> vice president thomas: this is not staffing, communication with neighboring and not changing anything about the sound. >> my apologies, can you repeat the stipulating three month -- i was trying to ask bennett what days of the week he's currently open. >> commissioner lee: no restrictions on days of the week. can you read the restriction we had. the exact conditions. for time. >> to limit hours of entertainment to 12:00 a.m. daily, that would go back to 2:00 a.m. daily, the other

conditions would stay and we would come back in three months for a hearing to hear from the venue itself, the security staff, san francisco police department, neighbors, cpd, etc cetera to hear how things are going and if we want to then move forward from there or make other changes. >> sounds good. we had a first and second. can i take a vote? (voting) all right. so that is a tie. that does not pass. do we want to try the commissioner frost's -- do you want to make a motion? >> that was a suggestion.

i don't want to extend it at all. i want to keep it in effect as is. that was just a suggestion on my part. >> commissioner lee: so -- okay. you know, why don't we give them a try, three months, okay, and let them pick a day, three months goes by fast. friday or saturday, let them pick a day, to do it until closing and maybe friday until one but all the other days until midnight until we get to make sure the sound thing is all -- whatever. sound, security, whatever is the issue. in three months we review and after three months, lift the whole thing. >> so that's -- so mr. montoya, are you -- are you usually open

on friday's and saturday's? would this help address your concerns? >> we're open friday, saturday, continuously sundays and then private corporate events during the week. >> so friday until 1:00 a.m. saturday until closing and other days of the week until midnight is the proposal on the table. >> sorry friday at 1:00. saturday until 2:00 a.m. rather than closing. >> all right. >> keep the other for now midnight for the other days. and then review in three months, no problems, then we lift the condition. >> just to clarify. friday 1:00 a.m., saturday 2:00 a.m., sunday to thursday until 12:00 midnight. i don't want -- for six months. three months? i don't want to imply that we're

going to automatically lift a restriction based on no problems. that seems a little -- >> vice president thomas: we'll review in three months. all right. >> so that was a motion was there a second? >> commissioner perez: i'll second. >> moved and seconded. (voting) okay. all right. so that passes. with a 4-2 vote. so, with that, we are lifting your restriction for saturday to go until 2:00 a.m. lifting the restriction for friday to go until 1:00 and again, this is with live

entertainment. and we will have everyone come back in three months, again, with the encouragement to keep progress and communication going in the right direction so hopefully when we come back in three months we still have the same positive feedback from everyone, neighbors, police department, alike and we can fully lift the restrictions off of you. so, any final comments commissioners? thank you. thank you neighbors and community members and thank you hue and your team for coming back and we'll see you in three months and hopefully not at all before then. thank you. thank you in particular to the san francisco police department for continuing to engage with us on this and provide your input. thank you.

all right. that was it for that item. very long one. now i have lost my agenda. here we go. that was our final -- official agenda item. our final one is commissioner comments and questions. are there any other comment, questions, updates from commissioners? >> commissioner perez: just happy vallen -- val day for us. >> don't forget condolences to our president. do we donate money to cancer society or something like that. >> something we need to do with the commissioners to take up a

collection. we'll let people know when we hear of a service or -- >> anything we receive we'll share with each other. >> all right. we'll see you all at the summit as well. don't forget. >> do we adjourn the meeting in his honor. >> adjourn the meeting in nick's honor. that would be a wonderful thing to do. we'll adjourn the meeting in honor of nick, bryant's partner. with that, meeting adjourned. ♪ ♪

>> let me begin by saying good afternoon to everyone. i am mohammed nuru, the director of public works. i want to thank everyone for joining us today to celebrate this construction milestone of station number five. it brings me great joy to honor the progress made on this tremendous project located here in the west end neighborhood. this will deliver a crucial piece of city infrastructure to thousands of nearby businesses, residents and visitors. our agency, public works, is proud to have designed a modern fire station that is expected to exceed national accreditation

standards and serve the essential needs of our first responders. it may not look like it yet, in less than a year's time, a seismically sound fire station will be standing in this very place. it is true public works fashion, the project team has been working hard to ensure this facility will be delivered in timely and fiscally responsible manner. on time and on budget. with that said, it's important that i think the entire public works staff, our project team led by our city architect, project managers and i want to thank all the staff from public works who worked on this project. but most importantly i want to thank our construction partner

in this, alton construction, leading the project and getting it this far. you'll hear from a lot of speakers about the station itself. it will be the most resillent station of all the fire stations here in san francisco because it is a very well designed facility and will meet all the standards as i said earlier. we have quite a number of speakers. i'll start by introducing the president of the board of supervisors and supervisor of the district london breed. please welcome her. (applause) >> good afternoon everybody. thank you all so much for being here today. you know, i have a special love for this fire station because i grew up just a couple of blocks from here. every year, every time i look at this fire station, all i can think about when i was a kid is toys.

this is where i actually came on the door that was located on turk street, that's where we went to pick up our toys during the christmas holiday because of the firefighters toy program. and so i know tom o'connor who is the president of local 798 is here, thank you for continuing that program and your leadership in this city. you know, there's another reason i love this place is because many of the men and women behind me, this is where they work every single day and my aunt, who was mentally disabled, she would come here all the time. sometimes she would be in a good mood and compliment the guys especially and talk about how handsome they were, but sometimes she had difficult times and the people at station five treated her like family, they took care of her, and i know who is our deputy chief was a captain here during that time, they love michel so very much

and i want to thank you for taking care of my aunt and being there for her. this is really a family, and the folks here, they save lives every single day and take care of this community and love this community. so this station is really not just a gift to our city, it's to demonstrate to the men and women of this department, we want to make sure they have a great station, a station that works for them. a station that is state of the art so they can do the job they're doing for our citizens and city and county of san francisco. i want to say thank you to all the folks working on this, to alton for their work on the construction project, moving on time and on budget thus far. and thank you mohammed nuru for leading construction projects all over the city, i know they're not always on time and budget but that's okay, we'll get to that another day.

and our chief will be saying a few words later and our commissioners. this station is going to be a jewel in the city, it's the station we deserve for our residents. i look forward to being here and cutting the ribbon when we open in one year. take care. (applause) >> thank you supervisor breed. and also i have to say from the bottom of my heart, the last few weeks have been very difficult for all of us. london woke up in the middle of the night and took over the city and really did an excellent job. let's give her a hand for that. (applause) now i want to introduce our partner who has worked with us from the beginning all over our city, whether it's trying to work on systems, whether it's remodelling fire stations or building new fire stations, leading the effort of going

through the whole effort to make sure we have resillant structures and the correct tools that the fire department needs to do its job, welcome chief hayes-white. >> good afternoon everyone. the job is looking great. first and foremost, i want to acknowledge four of our five fire commissioners that are here. the fire commission is under the direction of president cleveland. thank you for your support every step of the way. (applause) as director nuru eluded to, there's been a lot of change and difficulty in the past several weeks and i would like to also acknowledge the great vision and

support always of public safety that mayor ed lee had, if not for mayor lee we would most likely not be standing here. i want to acknowledge mayor lee and certainly president breed, this is near and dear to her heart. this is a vital part of this neighborhood and community. we are all very excited about it. so thank you president breed for being here. and certainly it is a partnership. i have a lot of respect and admiration to my colleague, director of public works, there's a phenomenal team, all those standing here. thank you for what you do. and i want to acknowledge tom o'connor, vigilant making sure we have healthy safe work places and the men and women standing

behind me, members of this very station looking forward -- many drive by each day to look at the progress of the station. hat's off to alton construction. these are the men and women who will be working out of the station, led by the assistant chief here at this division house. we only have two division houses in the city, one at 19th and the other right here. it's a vital part of our operation. assistant chief is with us and the members assigned to engine five, truck five and battalion five, who by the way are still at work, reassigned to local stations. i just wanted to say thank you, great job and we look forward to cutting the ribbon as president breed said. appreciate it. (applause) >> we all know no project happens without the partnership

of the actual contractor. so we're going to ask the contractor from alton construction to come up and say a few words. i will tell you, i have made quite a number of visits to the site during constructions and some of the beams and bolts are the largest and strongest i have seen in construction. being built, i know this is not going anywhere. welcome. come say a few words. (applause) >> they don't usually let us talk at these things. rolling the dice with that one. i'm the vice president of operations for alton construction. we are the general contractor on this project obviously. for the last 20 plus years we have operated almost exclusively in the public sector, schools, police stations and obviously fire stations.

when our group -- when i said i was going to say a few things, i thought about the common stuff, site constraints like working in a big city and it occurred to me that the aspects of this project are not particularly unique at least for me. this is what we do every day. we work in this environment. and the truth is, the materials that go into a building like this are not often the reason a project like this is successful. it's much more often due to the personalities and work ethic of the people on the ground working on this every day. so you know -- sorry -- i'm happy to have the opportunity to say that the group of architects, engineers and project managers i work with every day out here, sort of lower level are of the highest caliber. you know, the architects who are

here, the engineers are here. shawn o'brien, the engineers, i'm not sure if they're here. and captain mcfarland, the fire department representation at our weekly meetings. so to say that i have been impressed with this group's professionalism would be a dramatic understatement. we operate in the nine bay area counties and have hit every corner of every county and i can say without uncertainty this group is exceptional without question. they're workers, they're not delegators. they get into the problem and get us what we need every day to keep going. we haven't always agreed on

everything. this isn't a fairy tail but the group has been fair and direct with us every single time and it's not as common as you might think. i for one am excited to be part of this team and on behalf of our small team, the superintendent, project engineer without whom i would be under water on this job. bob and shannon alton, disappointed they can't be here today and on behalf of our entire alton construction family, congratulations to all stakeholders on the milestone and a special thanks to the people i work with every day. it's been a real pleasure so far and i'm looking forward to a strong finish. (applause) >> thank you andrew. and all those guys you name are from public works. this project was from a scratch to getting out to contract was

done in-house and speaks to the capability of what the public works department can do, it wasn't like that many years ago. now we have healthy projects and we're proud of that. the next part of the event, we're going to sign a beam. we do have markers that all of the guests can sign. but before i do that, on behalf of public works i want to say thank you to all the men and women of the fire department who protect us and make sure our city runs smooth every day. (applause) thank you, thank you all of you. supervisor breed, commissioners, we have pens over there, if you can start the signing process on the beam. we will sign the beam and allow everybody to go back to work. yes, sign.

♪ ♪ today we are going to talk about fire safety. we are here at the urban center on mission street in san francisco. it's a wonderful display. a little house in the urban center exhibition center that shows what it's like in a home in san francisco after an earthquake. one of the major

issues that we are going to face after earthquakes are fire hazard. we are happy to have the fire marshall join us today. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> we talk about the san francisco earthquake that was a fire that mostly devastated the city. how do we avoid that kind of problem. how can we reduce fire hazard? >> the construction was a lot different. we don't expect what we had then. we want to make sure with the gas heaters that the gas is shut off. >> if you shut it off you are going to have no hot water or heat. be careful not to shut it off unless you smell gas. >> absolutely because once you do shut it off you should have

the utility company come in and turn it back on. here is a mock up of a gas hear the on a house. where would we find the gas meter? >> it should be in your garage. everyone should be familiar with where the gas meter is. >> one of the tools is a wrench, a crescent wrench. >> yes. the crescent wrench is good and this is a perfect example of how to have it so you can loosen it up and use it when you need it. >> okay. let's go inside to talk about fire safety. many of the issues here relate to fire, for example, we have a little smoke detector and i see you brought one here, a carbon

monoxide smoke detector. >> this is a combination of smoke and carbon monoxide detector. they are required in single homes now and in apartment buildings. if gas appliance is not burning properly this will alert you before the fumes buildup and will affect you negatively. >> this is a battery powered? >> this is a battery powered and it has a 10 year battery life. a lot of times you may have one or the other. if you put in just a carbon monoxide detector, it's important to have one of these too. every house should have a fire extinguisher, yes. >> one thing people expect to

do when the power goes out after an earthquake about using candles. what would you recommend? >> if you have a battery operated candle would be better to use. this kind of a candle, you wouldn't want it in an area where it can cause a fire or aftershock that it doesn't rollover. you definitely want to have this in a non-combustible surface. >> now, here we have our stove. after a significant earthquake we expect that we may have gas disrupted and so without gas in your home, how are you going to cook? >> well, i wouldn't recommend cooking inside of the house. you have to go outside and use

a portable stove or something else. >> so it wouldn't be safe to use your fireplace to cook? >> not at first. you should check it by a professional first. >> outside should be a safe place to cook as long as you stay away from buildings and doors and windows. >> yes. that will be fine. >> here we have some alternative cooking areas. >> you can barbecue and if you have a regular propane bark could barbecue. >> thank you for