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tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  April 11, 2018 3:00pm-4:01pm PDT

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as well. we had some very good conversations. a special thanks to my cosponsors, supervisor peskin and others for being so supportive and representing the italian-americans and the heritage we should celebrate. it's a special year this year as the italian heritage parade will be 150 years old. i'm looking forward to. this ordnance seeks to honor all italians and italian-americans for their past and future contributions to san francisco. it seeks to celebrate their immeasurable contributions for generations to come. thank you, everyone, for coming out today. i look forward to hearing for everyone who came out. thank you. >> commissioner safai: thank you supervisor for your leadership on this. i'll just going to say a couple of words and then we'll open it up for comment. i also want to recognize the hard working
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italian americans that i represent in my district. we have the italian-american social club, the sons and italy, the plumbers and electricians, those who built this town. we have the rosi family that were at least a third owner of the flower mart. we have so many different individuals that contributed to the development of this city. they are the every day people that i still represent and still live in this city. i'm very proud to be a lead cosponsor here today. i'm going to hand this over to her so she can call up the speakers. thank you. so public comment you have two minutes. supervisor stefani will call your name. please come forward. jennifer hodges. emilio
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antinich. >> don't go anywhere. i'm going to thank you. i'm going to thank you right now. when this first came up you had the where with all and you made an amendment that said nothing in this section shall prohibit the city from providing funds or support to events that use the holiday using the name columbus day or other descriptives. you saw that italians were no in the room or native americans. before you run i want you to know that we saw that. i'm in support of this. the catherine is your name. she was correct -- yeah. she was also very
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supportive of moving legislation forward and catherine stefani. i think the important thing to know is that columbus day actually became part of the italian heritage because we were d discriminated against. we were ethnically discriminated against. so columbus day was our way of saying, no, wait, we are americans, we do belong. in a city like san francisco we are valuing immigrants and illegal immigrants on a national scale every day. we are going to blow with washington on it and not realizing that we are kind of looking down at the same population. i just really want to thank you for taking this on and taking this into consideration and realizing that it is the same population we support today. thank you.
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>> thank you very much supervisor stefani. thank you so much for your kind words. my name is romanio and i'm the president of the society. i was born in italy but i came to san francisco as a director of the italian institute. i went to new york and then san francisco. i'm an italian-american. san francisco needs a celebration for the italian americans. my children and my grandchildren, they need to identify with the discounts to celebrate their heritage. so thank you very much for bringing us back. thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to celebrate our heritage. thank you. >> commissioner stefani: marvin -- i think this is marvin rouse.
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i can't -- >> thank you very much. so i wanted to speak as someone who was neither born into an italian-american family nor indigneous people's family. i have had feet in the ground with the culture my whole life. the first five years of my life i was in an scilian-american community. my best friends have been italian. a man who is like an older brother to me when i came to san francisco is an italian american. i wouldn't be living in and owning the house i live in right now if it wasn't for the help that i received from them without even asking. just a total generosity of this. in the mid 1970s i lived with, worked with and assisted native
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americans. i lived with them for most of the year. my feet is in both cultures. my son today plays in a you remember -- number of different bands. two of the bands he's the only non-southern italian american in the band. the two other bands the bands are politically active native american bands. he's the -- the same thing; he's in both cultures and we have to honor everybody. we can't take away, we have to add to. i think this is a really good idea and i thank you very much and i hope this goes through. i want to say when i walked in and looked at the agenda and saw this was agenda number 5 i said that's a good sign because that was joe demagio's number, the greatest baseball player that ever lived. >> commissioner stefani: excellent point. i'm going to call first names because i'm having a hard time reading the last names. so we have joe?
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anyone named joe want to testify? i'm having a hard time reading. and then luchinardi. paula. >> good afternoon. my name is joe. my wife and i live in the russian hill section of san francisco. we've lived in san francisco for almost 50 years. i was born on columbus day. i grew up in new york. it was my mother's birthday as well. we always had the day off and it was always a day when i was taken to some place in new york whether it was the bronx zoo or statue of liberty and so on. that's kind of like a background. for coming to san francisco 50 years ago i arrived the day that joe aliato was elected mayor. the thing center struck me having come from new york and arriving in san francisco was the incredible diversity of san francisco, how welcoming it was not only in the year '67 of the flower children
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and this new movement of music and children but to the population that represented the world. i remember in 1974 as a young d.a. we had a case that involved the challenge to the composition of the san francisco grand jury. in the final analysis of that case it was determined that in order for the grand jury to represent in proportion all of those differen different ethnic groups it had to be 108 people. that just gave you some feel for howdy -- how diverse san francisco was. i've been involved in the aitalian -- italian community and russian community. there's some incredible contribution, some of which you remembered and remember that that was the italians that invited others to come to san francisco. it was this -- so the sense that we are
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still contributing, italians are coming to san francisco even know because of the welcome mat that we put out for them and they continue to contribute to this special place. thank you very much. >> hello. thank you. my name is luchinardi. i'm italian. i was born here in san francisco and a native of san francisco, grew up in the bay area for most of my childhood. i'm very familiar with the italian culture here in the city. we grew up with the joy of celebrating columbus day and i think something throughout all of this interesting situation we have with the people and
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columbus day something is being lost about the spirit of columbus day. i think when we celebrate octoberfest and germans celebrate octoberfest and i have no german in my blood but i still celebrate octoberfest and enjoy it and drink the beer and have the sausages. everybody chooses to celebrate these holidays whether it's saint patrick's or cinco de mayo coming up in a few weeks. the spirit of the holiday is about the italian culture and the italian heritage, it's not about trying to go back in history and rewrite history or focus on only good things or only bad things. we are just here to celebrate. we welcome everybody in every way to
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celebrate the italian-american culture and also the indigenous people. i hope that we can further this that there might be an opportunity to have two separate holidays so the value of both will be respected. thank you so much. >> commissioner stefani: i'm going to call a few names. isab isabella, monica, nick, gueto. >> thank you, supervisors. thank you supervisor stefani for endorsing us. i'm a lawyer, a journalist and a former candidate for the italian
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parliament. i see this iteration now to being very tough. i want to stress one thing, we have to be very proud of our italian roots. for me i i'm italian but i understand the italian americans because i'm working with a lot of associations for italian americans. wherever you turn in san francisco you see something that remind that san francisco is full of italian examples like supervisor stefani told us from fisherman wharfes where a lot of fisherman were working. there was the founder of bank of america and the first one who gave money to the poor italian immigrants here to give credit to them. in fact, the bank was in italy first. let's not
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forget that. please don't discriminate us for being italians and give us a day to celebrate our roots because we are proud of our roots and our history. thank you very much. >> first of all, thank you supervisor stefani and to the other supervisors for the consideration of this ordnance. you're going to hear a lot of good things here. it's a wonderful ordnance. i hope that the rest of the country takes this formula and starts to apply it to other places so we start having a -- instead of a devicive situation the but where people are coming together. thank you again. >> i'm going to try to do this
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with a guest speaker here. my name is nick fagoni, i'm with the coalition of italian childrens organizations. that's 22 organization that is came together. that was in advance of a sad day and that's when columbus day was taken away from us. through a tremendous amount of community energy, a lot of people that you see here today came to meetings, we workshoped, we came up with some ideas, we actually launched what we think is a very successful grass roots effort to collect petitions, we gathered thousands of signatures and i got a wiggly worm so she's going to go. we collected thousands of signatures all from grass roots efforts. not a single person was paid to collect those signatures, which we are very, very proud of. we think that brought a lot of people to the table to come up with this ordnance which we are very much in support of for
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italian-american heritage day. the lemonade that we made from these lemons is we are now very well organized, thought out, motivated and energized to do for things. so you'll be hearing from us at chow bay area. thank you so much for the support and for the passage of this ordnance. thank you. >> hello. i'm monica. we are first and second generation italian-americans in support of this ordnance. while i am no expert in child development i know how important heritage and culture experiences loo -- like this are for our children to understand who they are, what makes them special, what makes them part of a community and actually helps them to appreciate and respect other cultures. so i thank you for consideration of this day and the ordnance which two italian americans in san francisco is a significant way in which we teach our future generations.
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thank you. >> costanza, manueli, annette, leo, bertina, giovinni. >> my name is costanza and i want to thank supervisor stefani. i'm a member of the americano. i was born in san francisco and i've been going to columbus day parades since ability 1938. every year. we do need an italian cultural day because there are too many italians and too many people of other former nationalties who don't know enough about their
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backgrounds. having holidays for italian cultural heritage is a very good thing to do. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is manueli. i'm currently the first vice president at the san francisco italian athletic club. i would like to urge you to vote in favor of recognizing italian-american heritage day on the second monday of october. italians have played a role in building san francisco and i believe it should be officially recognized and celebrated within the city. i'm very pleased that we found a compromise instead of removing the day to a shared day and i would like to thank you for this consideration. thank you very much. >> good afternoon. my name is
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annette. i was born in san francisco and i've lived all my life in san francisco. i am in support of the italian heritage day and the people day. i'm here to remind our san francisco people that prior to starbucks the only place to get an expresso was cafe trias. now that it's, you know, popular, italians bought it. also pizza became -- came from italy. san francisco is known as la picola new york. that's where all our immigrants came through. my grandparents came through there. i just wanted to tell you that i'm in support of this ordnance and i do hope that it is successful in keeping the idea for our future generations, the
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italian and non-italians who come to visit our city on a steady basis. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is leo. i am the president of the california law enforcement columbia association, which is a chapter of the national chapter. during my 30 year law enforcement career i had the privilege of serving as a special agent and a u.s. deputy marshall and i was assigned to san francisco. personally i am the son of two immigrants from italy. i grew up in the district. i grew up in a household that we didn't speak english. my experience was the italian community from what i understand from my history that
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we had i think more italians in the early 60s than in north beach at the time. i intended sacred heart. that was my opening to the vast and different heritages and people that we have in san francisco. i had the opportunity to travel across this great city on a bus every morning and go to sacred heart and meet a number of people from different backgrounds and different ethnicities. i'm here to show the support from my board of directors at the association and to be recognized. i thank supervisor stefani. you mentioned the great contributions. if you look in the annuals of the city the italian names came up in the previous fires that burned this city of the ground. those were the regular people. that's not to take away from the great
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names that we know that built the city. we have the workers that still work today, day in and day out, support their families. i think the other important note is that the italian heritage day is no way to pick one heritage -- >> [bell ringing] >> commissioner safai: also rich, christina and nick. those are the last cards i have. if i didn't call your name feel free to stand at the side and you can speak after everybody else. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'd like to thank supervisor stefani for proposing this ordnance for italian american heritage day in san francisco. i'd also like to thank supervisoooor safai with
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kind words. i'm a committee member with the italian-american organization here in san francisco. now in our 83rd year, established in north beach and fisherman wharf. i would like to express my full support on behalf of the society and as a member of chow in support of this ordnance. i believe it's very important to as we beautifully already said by so many and by supervisor stefani and supervisor safai the important contributions historically and culturally and economically from the italian population in san francisco. my great grandparents immigrated here around 1900 to san francisco and were part of the fishing community that helped establish fisherman wharf and the fishing industry. fisherman's wharf is now a world class tourist designation. as
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well as the fishing industry is very important to our economic well being. i would like to also bring up that importance of recognizing the economic contributions of the communities primarily established including north beach and fisherman's wharf. in addition to tourist attractions they are culturally rich, as what was said by the food and kricontributing to the diversity of this city. i think it's very important. >> [bell ringing] >> hello. i'm steve. i'm a 13-year resident of san francisco in the richmond district. i filled out one of the cards. you can't call the name so i hope you got it. it's okay. i think one of the
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beauties of italian culture is there's a reason why you have a north beach and san francisco and north end in boston, little tidiane cheik di italy in new york and benson hurst in brock -- brooklyn, it's because we are an open society. we allow people to come in and share the culture. san francisco is an open culture. we share and we open up. i think that suits well with italian cultures as well. the two go together real well i think. i'm in support here of the -- of italian heritage day. thank you so much and have a nice day. >> my name is rich, an italian-american, 100% third generation. i want to lend my
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name to support the heritage day. i think it's a great step forward. i would like to add a couple more italian american achievements for the record. world war ii the italian-americans were the leading ethnic group in supplying men and women to fight in world war ii. that was not behind the lines but that was real action fighting up in north africa, sicily, the italian campaign and on and on into normandy and so forth. so we provided something between depending on your reference points a million to a million and a half fighting men and women for world war ii. additionally we have the italian nuns, saint francis cabrini who started the school system in the united states that took in many
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of the orphaned children in the cities. most primarily in beginning of the irish orphans in the 1840s and 50s and 60s. you know, it goes on and on. also we want to recognize knights of columbus who also have a nationwide organization. all these things the italian people did in spite or in the face of a lot of discrimination and a struggle, both from where they came from in italy and then when they came here the welcome mat was not necessarily out. so we've come a long way. i think you've heard from the tone of the people here that we are doing this in -- >> [bell ringing]
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>> commissioner safai: each speaker only has 2 minutes. sorry. thank you. >> i'm christina. i'm a member of la dona, an italian organization for italian women in san francisco. i just want to re mind everybody that san francisco gave you the bragging rights for the city that you have today with the italian community as has been pointed out before. we gave you fisherman's wharf, started the crab industry, founded the largest bank in the world, rebuilt the city after the 1906 earthquake. i understand that the supervisors want to right a wrong when they took columbus day and changed it to indigenous people's day. 75 years ago the
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italian community was discriminated against in san francisco just because we were italians. during world war ii we were not allowed to go out after dark, not allowed to go down to the water front. we were scrutinized that we might be the enemy because we were italian. men, like my own father, fought for this country in the great military. if you want a right a wrong, acknowledge your discrimination of your italian citizens who were the very people who built this city and gave you all the things you have to brag about. that's my opinion. the italians of san francisco must definitely deserve an apology for that humiliation and discrimination. we have not asked for that because we don't is for much. you took our day away and we have not been tooting our horn loud enough when you realize what we have done and to take
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away the data celebrating italians. you can right that wrong now by renaming that name to italian-american heritage day and you will consider this as a heartfelt thank you to what the -- >> [bell ringing] >> good afternoon. my name is damica. my four siblings and i have come to america 60 years ago. our parents instilled in us the importance of embracing our culture but also not forgetting our roots and our tradition. our most pressured memories were trips to the civic center, golden gate park and the colorful trades in north beach and columbus day parade now known as the italian heritage day parade. for our first
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generation children and second generation grandchildren in this city we feel it is very important to keep the second monday of october as italian-american heritage day. just let's not forget what the italians have contributed to san francisco and to the country. i'm in favor of keeping the second day of october as italian-american heritage day. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is nick. i've been standing here deciding what to say other than i support this. it was a shock when i heard that we were switching the day to native american heritage day. it was kind of a surprise to just take
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away columbus day. then i thought, while standing back here and sitting here and listening to everyone i thought of my grandparents. catherine, you know how old one of my grandparents are and the other one is not doing well. i thought of the history they have had in this city. they have been part of the city, italian americans being part of this city, just working folk, just part of the fabric of what makes our city great. to take away any kind of recognition, any kind of -- just anything that would just give someone like -- some people like that recognition is amazing. we do need to honor the native americans of this country. there's no doubt about that. being part indian from independent ye-- india i know tt we have an inclusion area. to take away something that honors family, that honors everyone's family here today was a surprise
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to me that our supervisor had done that. i'm happy to say that we are getting this rectifirectif rectified hopefully today. thank you for doing this. as you know i'm in full support so thank you. >> hello. i'm a youth commissioner for district 11 but i will speak on behalf of myself. i'm about building bridges and communities. we have made it district 11, the culture and the society. i have lived there my entire life. i do believe that we need to celebrate heritage and culture. as a first generation latino i love the fact that i can celebrate cinco de mayo has a holiday. i was distraught with the fact that we didn't have italian heritage day anymore. i
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believe that italians in the city have the right to celebrate their culture, their heritage. i'm so happy to see how proud you are of where you come from. i want our communities to be together and i believe that having a shared day for indigenous people would show the world that it's possible to united all peoples of colors, white or brown. that's very important to an in -- to have in a time that we have trump. i want to recommend this committee to pass this. we cannot forget about our italian people here in san francisco. it would be to go against immigrant communities. it was immigrant italians who made the city of san francisco. it was immigrant latinos and chinese who made this city san francisco. we cannot forget about italians while also talking about immigrant latinos. you know, when i talk about immigration i talk about italians as well.
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when i come here today i want to reiterate to support having this day on this day to would show a unity for building bridges. thank you. >> my name is bruce. i was born in san francisco. i'll probably die in san francisco. i love san francisco. i spent 20 years in the air force as a pilot. i'm very proud of that. i'm an international -- or a senior airline pilot right now. i fly all over the world. my favorite place and i always tell everybody when i come back here is here because it's the best. what makes it the best? what it makes it the best is we are inclusive. to the degree that we are exclusive causes problems with -- you can see that with senior management
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right now on the federal level. if people feel they are excluded bad things happen. i highly recommend we include everybody, including my people, the italians who i am with 1 or 2%, love being italian but we are all together here and let's include everybody. thank you. >> my name is rose. i wanted to say i'm in support of the designation of the second monday in october as italian american heritage day. a lot of things have already been said that are important. i guess what i just wanted to add on a personal note is my -- all of my great grandparents on my dad's side came here as immigrants. came to new york city, took a train across the country and tried to help establish community, doing
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what they knew how which was fishing. i think as that generation has died off their children have died off and it's important to remember the contributions of those every day people, those working class people and i think it's important to have a day to honor them i think as well as the other important italian americans that have helped build this city. so that's it. i guess that it's important to remember and not forget and not take for granted. thank you. >> commissioner safai: any other members of the public wish to come forward, please come forward now. >> any name is yolanda. i am a first generation italian
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american. very, very proud of it. i'm in total support of this holiday. i want to mention that this italian american heritage parade that we have every year is something that everybody looks forward to. i'm not just talking about italians, i have friends that come from out of town. they're not always all italians that come but they all come to enjoy the day. it's a beautiful day, a parade, restaurants, everybody enjoys this day. i totally support it and hope that this is passed. it's something we all look forward to every single year. thank you. >> commissioner safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none public comment is closed. any additional comments >> commissioner stefani: i just want to thank everybody for coming out today. i heard so
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many wonderful things. it's not just about the big names that i mentioned, it is about the every day italians, the workers among workers and, you know, the nonas putting sunday dinners on the table. there's so much culture and so much rich family life and i'm just so grateful to hear from all of you and thank you for coming out today. >> commissioner safai: supervisor yee? >> commissioner yee: i also want to thank the public for coming out today to support this. i grew up here on vallejo street. for those of you who know the city well enough, it used to be part of the north beach area. i have to say that the only bragging rights my uncle had going to school was joe demazio. that was the only player i heard about until i was
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older. there were many shops and so forth that were named and i just want to throw out some more names because these are places i group up with. the gali was there forever and is still there. victoria bakery i probably ate more rum cakes than any other cake. i don't know if any of you have ever had cakes from them. they were delicious. so sad when you close down. and for some of you that's been really been around for a long time, it was rosi market before the invennition of safeway. that's where everybody shopped. that's where you buy your jug wine of italian wine and so forth. i remember also that if you walked through the area, if you're -- i was too young to
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actually taste the wine but they had places where they made wine and sold it by the barrel i guess in that area. when i moved into the area in the early 80s i thought the italian americans were only in north beach but i said, oh, my god, what are all these things doing here, italian restaurants and the clubs and so forth. so, yes, i think the italian americans deserve a day where they can celebrate and say they are a contribution. i appreciate the earlier speaker sa saying that the italians were also discriminated against. it's something for us to imespeciali imespeciali imespeciali imespecially -- embrace and say why is this this pattern, when a new group of people come in we discriminate against them. we
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should all learn our lessons. i hope we say that we can embrace the new people that come in. that's what san francisco is about. i know i haven't added my name yet, supervisor stefani, i would like to add my name as a cosponsor of the bill. >> [applause] >> commissioner safai: great. so we will be passing this out, a full endorsement and recommendation. i can say to everyone here i made a promise to the bochi ball luncheon members that i would not come back to the next luncheon without correcting the situation so i'll be going next tuesday full of pride right before the board meeting knowing that we will be voting on this next tuesday. so thank you, everyone, for coming out today. thank you for your thoughtful comments. thank you for your patience. thank you for your willingness to work together and compromise. i think it does show that san francisco can lead in an area that could be
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controversial in many other parts of the world. thank you to everyone that came out today. i would like to entertain a motion to send to the full board, italian american heritage day with positive recommendation. >> commissioner stefani: so moved. >> commissioner safai: without objection that item is ordered. congratulations. >> commissioner safai: i want to call an item out of order. commissioner ho has to be somewhere. call item number 7, please. i would appreciate it. >> clerk somera: sure. a motion to confirm or reject the mayor's nomination for reappoint. of doreen woo ho. >> commissioner safai: unless there's some additional comments please come forward. >> thank you for the opportunity to discuss my
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reappointment to the commission. i just want to go over several points, my background with some of you who have not met me and need are refresher. number two, i would like to talk about the establishments since i've been on the commission and my skill sets and why i'm interested in the commission and moving forward and the effectiveness since i've been on the commission as a whole working with my colleagues. >> commissioner safai: hold on one second. i'm sorry. supervisor stefani, if you can take it into the hallway. thank you, everyone. congratulations. i just want to offer commissioner ho respect. thank you. you can take -- thank you. thank you. please proceed. >> okay. thank you. first of all, i'd just like to reiterate i've been on the port commission since 2011. i was appointed by mayor ed lee. so this is any second renewal. i was a banking executive. i've been in commercial banking for 35 plus years, citi bank, wells fargo
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and then a small community bank in san francisco. i serve on two public company boards, u.s. bank, on the hercules board and on the non-profit side on the board of san francisco opera. so it's my engagement althoughs -- also in the starts of san francisco. it's probably one of the most diverse in terms of the activity that we oversee and that makes it very interesting, starting with maritime. you probably know that the new cruise ship terminal that went in place was america's cup in 2013, pier 80 with the import and export of cars. it's activated pier 80 into a very good use. we also took back the
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south beach marina from the redevelopment agency that's now under port jurisdiction. under transportation some of the key things we are doing is water transportation and currently we aring work -- are working on the ferry landing extension so we have more extensions between san francisco and the east bay. also working on the mission bay, new mission bay ferry landing. we have just -- we are still in the mist of associating the ferry with the national park service. hopefully we will continue to also add to the tourism avenue of the water front. on the open space it's another area that i think has been a learning time for me in terms of plans. in addition to the open spaces we work on the greenway and the most important is cove crane park that will be
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part of the whole development. america's cup was a big event for san francisco and that happened while i was president of the commission from 2012 to 2014. on the development side, probably you're all very familiar because this has been presented to the board of supervisors is we have over seen the mission rock development on lot a with the giants. pier 70 with forest city and the orton development of historic development of pier 70. on the oversight side i think what the port commission has accomplished some key areas, one we have a advocated very strongly and we now have in place a strategic plan that tells us what our long-term road map is, not just the short term transactions. we
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are in the order of completing the water front plan. that's been a 2-year engagement. we've engaged the community city wide, not just the neighborhood on the water front. one of the things you will be seeing shortly in front of the board of supervisors is we have a plan on how to address climate change in terms of updating the seawall which will be a long-term project and $50 billion over probably a 30 to 50 year time frame. lastly i think the area that i have also focused on personally because of my own finance background is to make sure that the port has a strong operating budget, that we've reviewed the capital projects and plans given that we have a tremendous backlog just even to maintain the port in current condition and that we also have sound financial conditions so that we can continue to have bonding capacity because we will not be able to necessarily support all of this out of the
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opti operating fund. so i applied my finance background. i have finance background and general management and i sit on over boards so i'm familiar with oversight verses not getting in the way of our executive director and staff. i would like to mention that we have a very strong executive director and a strong staff at the port so that works very well. our commission actually is a very strong commission in terms of commissioners working together though we are also very diverse in background in that we are not the same and to diversity points of view is very important. the reason that i continue to be very motivated to be on the port commission is because our commission really does hit upon a lot of city wide issues in my ways. we do hit upon housing. we have an affordable housing project on one of our port lots. we hit upon homeless. there's a
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spot on pier 70. we are advocating water transfers. we have also participate in the clean energy initiative, the bicycle coalition in terms of the -- i guess the bicycle ports that we have on port property and the development side. in addition to all the projects the things we are proud of that we have accomplished at the commission is our lbe policy. i think in terms of the number of contracts that the port issues every year, we just had one for the first six months of last year, about $50 million worth of contracts we make sure there there's a strong lbe and we excluded the city's policy. if we had the seawall project that would be 80% lbe. we are open and transparent. we are also
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very engaged with our community. the last thing effectiveness. at the commission we are very careful in how we vet our p projec projects. there's closed sessions, information sessions and open sessions. we have different points of view and we do our home work. every time we presented anything to you at the board of supervisors we received approval from you. i think we've worked effectively and i would like to continue to be in that going forward. thank you very much. >> commissioner safai: thank you, commissioner ho. any questions before we open it up for public comment? seeing none i think you pretty much stated it all. had a very good meeting with you commissioner ho and you stated
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all the reasons to reapointment. any members of the public wish to comment please come forward. seeing none. it's closed. i entertain a motion. >> commissioner yee: i think commissioner ho is very excited to continue in this role it sounds like. i would like to make a motion to confirm the mayor's nomination of her reappointment. >> commissioner safai: wonderful. to the full board with positive recommendation. without objection that item is ordered. madame clerk, item number 8. > >> clerk somera: just to confirm that was a motion to confirm. >> commissioner safai: area. >> clerk somera: now reappointment of william adams to the port commission. >> commissioner safai: so mr. adams is not in the country so we are going to continue this
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item to a later date. if there's any members of the public that wish to comment come forward. seeing none it's closed. entertain a motion to continue this item. >> commissioner yee: move it. >> commissioner safai: so moved. item is ordered. please call item number 9. >> clerk somera: a motion to confirm or reject the mayor's nomination for appointment of victor makras to the port commission. >> commissioner safai: please come forward and address the body. >> thank you. >> clerk somera: please speak with the mic. >> i'm honored to be nominated to serve on the san francisco board commission by mayor mark farrell. i bring with my many
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years of experience of public life. i served on the board appeals. i then became a member of the san francisco public utilities commission where i served for 6 years. after the public utilities commission i served as member of the san francisco police commission and then the san francisco fire commission apoipointed by mayor n newsom. i'm on the retirement board and manage the pension fund. i served on this board since 2010, appointed by mayor newsom and later mayor ed lee. in my personal life i'm a real estate broker. i have a small really estate office where i prosi proside -- provide sales and
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property management. i have a wife of 19 years, i have a son 17 and i have a son 16 and i have a daughter who is 14 who thinks that she's older than her two brothers. i have son who is also 32 and will make me a grandfather this year. the san francisco port is a very valuable asset planning a 7 and a half mile water front piece of real estate. actually, neglected over the years particularly due to its transition from maritime use to developments and recreational use. the changes in growth of the san francisco port need to be done in a very respectful way. the port belongs to the people of san francisco just like golden gate park does and needs to be managed for the people of san francisco. the port does not belong to any
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special group or to a group or developmenters as a category. i will work to operatimize the va of the port, i will work to have a san francisco port contribute to the city economically just as the san francisco airport does. i will work to create and expand public space at the port for the people of san francisco. i will work with the san francisco values just as i do on the san francisco retirement board where i was the lead voice in the retirement board for devesting gun manufacturers, devesting from coal companies and fossil fuel companies. all of this was done while keeping our pension fund profitable and well funded.
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i'm open for my questions the committee may have. >> commissioner safai: any members of the committee wish to ask any questions? okay. i'll just say really quickly, i know that you bring an extensive amount of experience from the board of appeals to the police commission, fire commission and the retirement board and as you noted your experience in real estate and investment. i think those are two things that along with commissioner ho we need people to be thinking about the investment, we need to think about the return on investment and we need creative minds that are continue to continue to be thinking about how to generate revenue at the port so it can be self-sustaining. thank you for the experience you bring and i'm honored to support you here today. >> thank you very much. >> commissioner safai: any members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none it's closed. can we entertain a motion?
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>> commissioner yee: i'll do it. >> commissioner safai: commissioner -- >> commissioner yee: a motion to accept. >> commissioner safai: is it also an amendment as well? >> clerk somera: all of the mayor motions are an amendment. >> commissioner yee: to confirm the nomination of victor makras. >> commissioner safai: order and moved. thank you. commissioner steph stefani, did want to make a motion? i think item number 7 so she can vote. >> commissioner stefani: i stepped out for just for a minute. i want to vote on that. >> commissioner yee: let's see, what did the ethics commission say? >> commissioner safai: there was silence. so a motion to
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rescind without objection. make a motion. >> commissioner stefani: i would like to make a motion to confirm the mayor's nomination for reappointment of doreen >> commissioner safai: tsarn v >> commissioner safai: that's a positive recommend m -- recommendation. >> clerk somera: item 10, appointment of gail gilman. >> commissioner safai: i need to make a motion to move it. can i do that? >> commissioner stefani: after public comment. >> commissioner safai: seeing none public comment is closed. then -- >> commissioner yee: i'll move that motion. >> commissioner safai: without objection we'll continue this to
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the call of the chair. number 11. >> clerk somera: that's a motion to approve or reject the mayor's nomination of v. fei tsen. >> commissioner safai: thank you. please address the body. >> supervisors, thank you so much. i have been the president of the treasure island development authority for the last three years. i want to say what a privilege and a pleasure it is to be able to sit on that board. we have the awesome responsibility of shaping a totally new neighborhood for the city of san francisco. that is an incredible responsibility that we have. just a bit of my qualifications. i have served on different commission ins the city, a major urban design and
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urban public spaces. i served under agnus on the redevelopment agency and was involved in the financing and design for glenn gardens. i served under graham as the director of real estate for the board of san francisco and was behind strategy to redevelop the ferry building in pier 1. i served under ed lee on the treasure island development authority primarily because it's my background in building housing and particular affordable housing. in the last three years we finally are starting construction at treasure island. after 15 years of trying to get the plan we now are starting forward, we are building the roadways, we have deemed a geo technical work that's needed. our