we need these programs so more older adults can find meaningful and necessary employment in san francisco. we rely on federal funding, which was cut in half six years ago. please consider increasing these programs so the city can benefit from the expertise and inclusion in our workforce and community of older adults. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. could i also call up judy goddis, marie jobling and winnie yu. come on up. thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm alisha crawford. the san francisco reserve program matches older adults and adulted with disabilities with non-profit employment and other sectors government agencies. we are in our second year of the program. it's housed in the community living campaign and we've placed over 35 adults in meaningful employment helping to build the capacity of these non-profit organizations here in san

francisco. reservists are bringing an average of 50 years of experience and knowledge and truly desire continuing to contribute to their community and in a meaningful way. they have jobs that run a wide spectrum from social work support to garden stew address to marketing strattists to bilingual community outreach. 38% have a graduate degree. and in surveys we've taken, 95% of them feel their work contributes back to their community and they feel they have contributed on a daily basis in their work. the experience among older adults and adults with disabilities in san francisco runs deep and wide. to continue living in this city, they need to work and they want to work and they want to work making an impact. in san francisco, as you've heard, 25% of the population are older adults and adults with disabilities. and we have more reservists waiting that we can't yet place. there are plenty to be placed and plenty who want to work but right now we're unable to grow

the program, due to a lack of funding. employment should be made available for everyone at all ages and given that we have 61% of san franciscans lacking economic security, programs like reserve need to grow and accommodate as the city grows with it. employment is needed at all ages. we encourage you to provide additional funding to think about employment programs for older adults and adults with disabilities, the vitality of this city depends on your support of programs like this and others that put all of those who want to go back to work in employment. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> my name is rebeca shotwell. i was one the first people to go through the reserve program. in 2008, my finances went kaput and i had to find a job. who is going to hire a 68-year-old woman. i'm 70 now.

i called the department on aging and i got someone who told me there's a new program in san francisco called reserve. check it o i checked it out. they were fabulous. the two geniouses, maria and kate, i wentz to their meetings and filled out their paper work. within a few weeks they placed me down at the aquatic park senior center where i worked for about six months and one of the great things about reserve is they pay our salaries so it benefits the local business community because they don't have to pay for the help. they get free labor. i was just hired recently by ncphs which runs the senior center so i'm now a permanent employee. reserve did its job. it placed me, it got me hired and i am now contributing to my community. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon supervisors. my name is maria.

i'm actually city and county retiree. now for almost three years. i love that it allows me the time to come to these chambers and advocate for the causes i believe are important. thank you for your attention to this matter. as an occasional trainer with community living campaign and also as a board member for senior and disability action, i seen the benefits for the reserve program and i'm also delighted to hear about the other programs spoken about today. so one of the things that i know is that economically, this does give a boost to those that unfortunately are now in a informatioposition where they hd and modest incomes. i'm also here to talk about the more intrinsic value of what it's like to be able to have older adults and people with

disabilities and the creditability that it provides for the members of our program at s. d.a. and the participants that are greeted and assisted by appear advocate that is a part of the reserve program. it's also important, i believe, to note that there's also value when there's a multi generational work environment as well. there's some to be said about the work ethic and years of work experience and how to problem solve in the real world. so i would really encourage continued funding. younger workers would also be rewarded and benefit if they are open to the mentor ship from older adults and people with disabilities in the workforce. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please.

>> hello i'm betty trainer on the board at senior and disability action and also with the community living campaign. i'm speaking strongly in favor of the reserve program. i'm looking for work and they're seniors and already spoken today. and there just isn't enough money to hire them in these different positions. i also know from the other side, an organization that wanted to have more people from the reserve program to work in her garden program but there wasn't the money there. and so i think this program that just needs to be tremendously expanded the need is there. i can talk from personal experience. i retired from full-time work about 10 years ago. i unfortunately never had a job where i got a good pension and so i'm basically living off of income of social security. so my savings is dwindling and i was fortunate enough to get what some young people would call gig

jobs. i have one where i take minutes for a board meeting and i get paid for that and i get paid for wonderful work with seniors through the community living campaign. this is helping me to pay for my food, et cetera, so my savings doesn't go down. i'm not just the only person, i'm representing so many seniors that were just living as far as income from our social security and we need these jobs. please, help us. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, i'm judy. i want to tell you my story. i spent my whole career working in non-profit agencies. mainly as a grant writer. and they did not pay pensions. on the side, i was doing a lot of advocacy for parents and children in the public schools. i decided it was time to retire from my full-time job and start

an advocacy program. so they gave a going away party for me and the next morning my son called and said that his wife was going to die. she had a brain stem tumor. so i immediately went to santa cruz and spent the next couple years in santa cruz in classrooms and at home, i never saw so much cound reand shopping and taking care of the family and i began taking classes. which was the only thing i had energy for really. and i realized that we weren't talking about aging, this is a program for older people. and i was aging and we were all aging. i started looking into it and started a program there and realized i wanted to get the

word out in the community about older people and began writing for a neighborhood newspaper. i've been at your office many times. and i've been at your office too. and an article in your paper this coming month. it was really rewarding. a lot of people learned something about it. my goal is when seniors are isolated at home, they should know what is happening in the community and know where to go for services. and so, eventuall eventually mad we now have a senior beat. >> thank you, very much. the next speaker is coming up, can i call charles minister, benjamin chung, and nikki and kristen peterson. >> thank you board of exercises.

my name is winnie yu. we're a non-profit organization in san francisco. we help immigrants and older adults stay active and be able to live independently in their homes and communities. i like to summarize our workforce services that we provide in addition to the social services which we also provide for continuum of care. self-help has a series of job readiness workshops to help immigrants and older workers be job ready to secure employment directly or enter vocational connectioning to get the skills they need to be competitive in the job market. our employer engagement focuses on helping job seekers develop skills that match the jobs available in the job market. our staff of career advisor helped with job coast case management, follow-up, to support job seekers to get a job and also keep their job after placement. in the last year, annually, we

help over 360 older workers through our workforce services and we provide a range of vocational training tracks for entry-level workers to access inindustry in the city, hotel housekeeping, in the hospitality and personal caregiver home health aid training for the healthcare industry. we have workplace bridge programs that help job seekers gain the english skills needed to access vocational training and also community college systems. some of the challenges are priorities is develop being secure workers especially those who have multiple barriers to employment such as language. outreach to and more entry level job access and job placement after training and help more incumbent workers access advance training to increase their earning potential and move into

entry level jobs. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm the director of the community living campaign. and an older adult with 67 years behind me. i want to thank you for holding this hearing this morning. many have spoken to what a great challenge it is for our city right now. more than half of us seniors and people with disabilities lack economic security. social security and s.s.i. are nowhere near enough to help us make ends meet and we're 25% of the population. you've heard how non-profit programs have provided an example of what is possible but the funding is so minimal. participants hit a wall if there aren't pathways to more opportunities. on the other hand, while the challenge is great, the opportunities are even greater. we, seniors and people with disabilities, are this vast reservoir of time, talent, experience, commitment to

purpose, and to serve us. so hire us, engage us, keep us connected so we can help others. just imagine if you were able to mobilize more of us to teach computer skills and online safety to our community. the peer navigators to help people access appropriate health, physical and behavioral health services. to help people learn how to use all the transportation options now available to avoid being isolated. organize neighborhoods so they are prepare prepared for emerged people can look out for one another in a crisis. be dementia coaches to families struggling with a loved one with alzheimer's. men tore high school students to successful leah ply to college. the time is now. we can't wait. we help make the city of wonderful diverse inclusive creative city it is and we want to stay. we look to the board of supervisors to help support this movement for economic security. we look to the mayor's office for strong leadership and clear

direction with the city departments to work together with the non-profit and business sector. just imagine the possibilities. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you. charles, senior disability action member and also active with reserve. i got turned down by two jobs this past week. going through the process. i was born in a working-class family and working is part of my d.n.a. i worked in heavy industry and also for the government. since i've been retired, i haven't been laying around drinking beer and watching television. yesterday, and monday i was on the picket lines with the u.c. workers and a lot of my older adults were there also for that important struggle. i was in supervisor's chambers a couple days ago about the same

subject. jobs for seniors and people with disabilities. i go up to sacramento, i was up there friday for defending three anti fascist youth who had been victimized for fighting to defend themselves against fascists a couple years ago, they're being prosecuted. i keep active. i am active with senior and disability action. i go up to sacramento. there's thousands of people like myself who worked all their lives, who are on fixed incomes, not making a hell of a lot of money, we can use the money and we can use that social environment that we've been used to all our lives. hell, i was working when i was 10-years-old. it was part of our lives as kids. pg&e have been laying people off and now they got caught with the

fires. people like myself that can be put into jobs there? i bet all these u.c., they've been going after contractors laying off union men and women and hiring contractors and paying them minimum wage. and they sure got money. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. my name is kristen peterson i'm the chief and services at the arc san francisco. the arc has been around for 65 years and we serve adults with developmental disabilities. when you hear the numbers you've been hearing this afternoon, about individuals with disabilities and their unand under employment, the individuals that we support nationally are employed at about 11%. that is their employment rate. which is shocking. at the arc, our employment rate is about 45%, which when we do

an event we get a big round of applause for. if you take a step back from that, that is horrifying in a city where unemployment is under 3% currently. we have wonderful partnerships with oewd, department of rehabilitation, the regional center, as well as many of the companies here in san francisco. but one of our most significant gaps is not the demand, as far as our clients wanting to work and wanting to work full time, or the demand of employers wanting to hire. it's our ability to be able to staff our programs. we are fighting against increasing costs of running our business. the minimum wage rising significantly as within our organization for six years. the difference between our wages that we're able to pay and the minimum wage keeps getting smaller and smaller for specialized work. i would like to encourage the

city, it look at how your funding programs like hours and when r.s.p.s go out, to make sure they're not just focused on new people and programming but sustaining the programming core to individuals with developmental disabilities. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. christine. i'm an attorney here in san francisco and the first thing i did when i went to usf law school was i 'em employed the americans with disabilities act on my own behalf. fell under its protection and was able to graduate from usf law school. and then advocated on bow half of the disabled to give back to that community to make up to say thank you because if it were not for the americans with disabilities act i would not be an attorney today. and so, as you look around the

room, you see people from all back grounds here advocating. it's time we change the word disabled. people with disabilities are able. they are capable individuals as they come from all different back grounds and now that the act will be 30-years-old, it's time we convene a grand jury or some sort of task forced to take a look at how we are serving the citizens of san francisco and see how our graduates from the san francisco unified school district are tracking. are they 'em employed, have they found employment, where are they now and are they shut in? i would like to talk about individuals with aspergers. in the next 10 years, more than 500,000 individuals in the united states will be suffering from or have the autism spectrum. of those individuals, 85% will

be un'em employed. they will be college graduates without employment. they will not have jobs. are we serving them well having them graduate from college and have nowhere to go. i believe that we did public-private partnerships with the san francisco chamber of commerce. if you look at this diagram you'll see the non profits we have in the bay area that work to try to help these individuals. yet we have absolutely no coordination. >> thank you. next speaker. the next speaker is coming up i'll call tyler sutton, june' dwanis and joe ramerez. >> hi, i'm mimi aragodi.

i have been going to the arc for seven years and i work at the academy of science sciences. i've been there for seven months now almost eight and nine and i have autism. i've been trying to get a job for years. the reason i think the arc is a good place for help because it helps people get jobs and fin find -- go to school. the thing is, i have been working for, i've been with dan for years and my group and --

sorry. i forget what i was going -- the reason it's hard for me to find a job is because i have autism and my concentration is impaired and i never could trust myself in a job. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. next speaker, please. >> hello everyone, my name is benjamin and i have been in project search for a long time. it's a really great program for people with disabilities and it can help us get a job. i wish that we could have more

paid job in the city because we need money to survive. i hope that people with disabilities will also have, let's just say, i don't know what to say. >> thank you. >> great, thank you, very much. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is tyler sutton and i was diagnosed with high functioning autism at the age of seven. i'm very interested in government and politics and i have interned for the former district 9 supervisor cam post as well as the hillary rownan. >> you are the best. >> while i was studying politics

at usf. i graduated with a b.a. last year. both of arc and the san francisco department of rehabilitation have tirelessly supported me in my search for a job that makes good use of my strengths and interests. i'd like to thank everyone working for those organizations. i hope that some day i can put my unique strength and talents towards making this city a better place and ensuring everyone finds fitting, fulfilling work that i am. and to that effect, i say fund these people. >> thank you. >> i just want to thank tyler for his amazing work and my office for so much time and how much you contributed and helped our constituents. i just want to thank him publicly for that amazing work. >> thank you. [applause] >> hi joe ramerez, the managing

director for employment services at p.r. c. p.r. c.'s mission is to help people effected by h.i.v. and aids, substance abuse and mental health issues to realize opportunities that integrate legal, social and health services that impact wellness and potential. i also sit on the h.i.v. and aging group. work group so i'm representing vincent, who advises d.o.s. and one of the things they're recommending is an employment program for people with h.i.v. as we saw, a lot of the great services, the new emerging disability, aging population is people with h.i.v. and aids. and they also don't have the punitive return to work benefits so more and more are seeking income potential. we are partners with the department of rehabilitation, the office economic workforce development, and part getting the zero initiative in this last year and we placed 153 people, 9

# 6 of them using the d.o.r. services and we'd like to make sure homeless populations get the case management services in coordination with employment ser visions as majority of the people we see have homeless or are marginally housed. if we could start imbedding those services that would be better. right now they're not embedded. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm juno. i'm the executive director of support for families. thank you for hearing our voices today. i am a parent of a youth with disabilities. who is actually now an adult. i'm here to talk about youth can bis abilities and special healthcare needs. those are the ones that grow up to be adults. disabilities is a part of our national commission. yet challenges that youth with

disabilities experience are crushing. youth with disabilities are at a higher risk then their non disabled peer for abuse, neglect, dropping out, homelessness, juvenile justice system as well as joblessness. good news is, research shows that they can reach their potential with appropriate and timeless services. they can have success. if we want our youth to work, we have to set up a system to help make that happen. families and providers need information education and support to assist them in getting the services. they need assistance in negotiating assistance whether they're at a regional center, education services, in-home support services. s.s.i., d.o.r., medical medical, institutional teaming and last but not least, we need to provide a coordinated system of

transition services. to give our youth the opportunities they need to grow up to be contributing members of our community. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. if there's anyone else who would like to make public comments, please lineup on the left. >> hello, supervisors. jessica layman with senior and disability action. you've heard a lot of great comments today. i wanted to thank you for taking the time to hear from us and think about it and to continue and figure out what we can do as a city. i really want to highlight i think we're at an exciting time where the way we talk about aging and the way we talk about disability is starting to shift from this negative idea that oh my gosh, people are going to take over and what are we going to do so people are a resource and seniors and people with disabilities bring such amazing experience and perspective to our community. and i think marie job ling took

credit to say you know, we have people who can do amazing work and with programs like reserve and csep so i hope you build them, as well as looking at how we can train businesses and non profits to understandablism and ageism and at the city level, right, what we can do to provide incentives to make sure people are in jobs where they will contribute so much. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. good afternoon. my name is ricardo perez. i'm a regional specialist. i wanted to quickly let you know that one of the programs that we do assist with businesses and other departments is disability etiquette training that is commonly known as windmills. we offer that free service to anybody and everybody that needs it. aside from including education about disability we discuss about ageism.

we also discuss with the businesses how we can better accommodate in order to be able to employ any individual that comes through d.o.r. or any of our vendors and agencies that we happen to work with. just want to quickly let you know that we can is assist with that in case you need that. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is joyce. i'm active with senior disability action and among other things. i was sitting back there and i'm also signed up with reserve but i haven't been assigned a job through them yet. with my experience this past two months, i had -- what do you call, a garage sale with my neighbor across the street three doors down. and i'm thinking, i went online

yesterday and there's a huge need for a senior housing and i'm thinking, hey, i can help with homes staging, which is you decorate the house. actually i pushed a heavy cabinet and i'm thinking a job for seniors and not too shabby for 70-year-old. even if i can't lift stuff, there's a technique they say, i can decorate with paintings and set up a dining table and estate sale. there are so many disabilities we can do. i'm thinking please fund us. there's so many possibilities. senior housing and i can help with that. >> thank you. >> hello, my name is dianne cannes and i consult with community living campaign and other national and local active aging programs. and i just want to emphasize a couple of things i heard today,

notely, from the oewd representative that their work is focused on specific and unique challenges facing the city with respect to employment. hopefully you heard that person and others talk about the issues of confidence or almost too much training to find work. i think that probably rises to the level of a specific and unique challenge. programs like reserve, which i work with marie to help start, are critically important. they are drops in the bucket. the narrative about ageism and the possibilities of older adults to contribute has to be extended to the private sec to and the very sector oriented needs to be integrated with a specific and unique challenge. and the opportunities of older adults. so if there's a way to connect the dots here, that would be terrific. thank you. >> thank you. are there any other individuals

who would like to speak in public comment? seeing none. public comment is closed. >> i just wanted to make some comments first thanking supervisor ye for bringing this hearing forward and thank you for your incredible work. i've been choking back tears half the time through this hearing because thinking of my father during this process. he is almost 80 and worked well into his 70s while he was physically able. and just it was out of need. it was out of financial need. how much discrimination he faced trying to stay in the workforce. if it wasn't for my mother's pension, as schoolteacher, they would be living with me. there's no question in my mind. social security is not enough

and our time for people to survive on that if it's your only source of income. and so, i just want top express my incredible support for these programs and to say that reserve is cutting edge and we should be funding it to make sure that wait list of applicants is met. i'm very supportive of that ask and request. it's such a benefit, not only to the businesses and organizations where seniors and people with disabilities are placed but to those people themselves. it's such a win-win situation. it seems like a no-brainer but i know it's something that we're fighting hard for. so i just want to express my appreciation and support for the final program and to really just thank you all for your tremendous advocacy and support.

>> thank you. >> well, i was going to say something. you can say something and you close it out. frankly i was just going to express my gratitude to you for holding this hearing. i do want to thank all of the people from the various agencies and especially the public that came and commented today. as i said, this issue of people with disability and access to the workforce. i want to give a shout out to positive resources center which has been a leader getting people into the workforce. it's been an issue we have been watching for over 20 years and so i'm just grateful for the attention that's being brought on this today. >> thank you. thank you colleagues for being so patient for these two long items i had on the agenda today. i felt it was really important. like said, my office is going to continue meeting with the

department folks and hopefully bring in other people to see how we can move forward. i felt it was important we needed to have a hearing to shine some light on this for the public to hearing and i think we did the presenters today, they did a great job in really highlighting what the needs are. basically, we're seeing that there are some efforts being made to address these issues but i'm -- even with the resources we have, what we think exists with data, it's not enough. number one. number two, i don't think it's even that accurate to reflect what the real needs are. i think we're underestimating the real needs. we're going to move forward and i think all the departments are underring that's a concern, how do we get better data on this

issue. because as she was mentioning in her presentation in opening it up, the number of people that just gave up are really hard to figure it out and i know, talking to quite a few seniors, they seem to be in that category where they're not in any data set. they would love to be able to feel confident if they look they can find something. i think the funding piece is really something crucial. i'm hoping that in the mayor's budget, it's going to be reflective of some of these needs. i'm hoping the department folks can bring it back to the mayor so say look, there was a hearing. it's real obvious that these type of services are sorely under funded and something i hope support in the budget as we

move forward. i certainly will -- you can count on me to look at this issue as one of the priorities in the budget. i can't thank you enough for coming in and sharing your stories. i am hoping that some of my colleagues here maybe and other colleagues on the board of supervisors would join in my effort to promote this issue and highlight it and give it the resources that it really needs. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> how would you like to -- >> we can close this item. >> without objection this file is closed. mr. clerk, do we have any other business before the committee. >> there's no further business. >> the committee is adjourne

♪ >> not only did the total death on our streets from traffic collisions decrease dramatically in 2017, pedestrian deaths did as well. since 2013, fewer pedestrians have been killed on our streets. this is really good news. you know, no one wants to see the accidents on the side of the road, no one wants to experience going to a crime scene on the road knowing your loved one has

been hit by a car or sadly tragically killed. this is about bringing that number of 20 from 2017 down to zero. we don't want another death on our streets because of human error, because of anything that we can avoid. if we change our behavior, we change our roads and we do a better job here in the city and county of san francisco. >> my ask of the public, number one be aware of your surrounding, be aware of the law, be aware of the street signals and crosswalks and try to work within the laws designed to keep you safe. look at where we were and look at where we are. this vision will be a reality. >> we all have to remember that all of us, all of us every single day, no matter how you get to work, school, wherever you go, all of us are always pedestrians. this impacts all of us. >> school starts again on

monday, so i hope as you are reporting today you will encourage people to slow down, to be mindful, to recognize that you're going to have more cars on the street on monday. we're going to have more kids on bikes, more kids walking. please, be slow, be safe and be mindful. >> i just want to urge everyone at the sound of my voice to make some corrections. if you operate a motor vehicle, think about it, think about the person standing on the corner. think about how fast you're driving. think about the stop sign you're about to come to. just think. and just doing so, you'll help someone live another day. i guarantee that. i guarantee that. ♪ >> all right. so good morning, everyone. thank you for joining us today. you know, for the past four months, as mayor of the city of

san francisco, i have from reside residents across our entire city up and down the ladder about the streets of san francisco. our streets are filled with trash and debris, and it is unacceptable, and i've said from day one the cleanliness of our streets is going to be one of my biggest priorities as mayor of the city of san francisco. san francisco residents are fed up with the conditions, and i am the first to say that i feel their pain, and we are doing something about it. so last week, along with a number of people who are here behind me, we announced a comprehensive budget proposal that we're going to move forward with to aggressively cleanup our streets here in san francisco. we are no -- we know that our conditions on our streets exist across our city. it's not confined to one neighborhood. every single neighborhood is feeling this pain, including

right here in the castro district. so this plan that we announced last week includes 44 new street cleaners throughout the city of san francisco, four in each supervisorial district that will have material impact in the conditions of our neighborhoods, in particular our commercial corridors. we're adding five new pit stops to address the feces and urination issues that we are seeing in many different neighborhoods here in san francisco. and also talked about and announced a dedicated team to picking up syringes and needles across the entire city of san francisco. family members and individuals should not have to step over needles on the way to school, on the way to work. it simply doesn't need to be part of our landscape here in san francisco. and we are also growing our fix it team, sandra, who runs or fix it team, and does such an amazing job. how about a round of applause for her. [applause] >> the hon. mark farrell: we are expanding it to ten new

districts in san francisco. because they do such an amazing job in san francisco. when there are areas to be picked up, when there is anything that needs to be done, they are there doing it, doing such an incredible job. but we need to do more. we need to put our foot on the gas pedal, and as mayor, until i leave office, i am going to do it, and street cleanliness is something i am going to address. we have a big effort to cleanup our streets. san francisco residents do, as well, and now today we're going to have some bigbellys to help us with that effort. and sorry, i had to go there with that line. so today, we are announcing five new bigbelly trash receptacle here in the castro district and 15 others in different neighborhoods throughout san francisco. now these bigbelly trash cans, as you will see, there's going to be a demonstration at the

end, are different than your normal trash cans. they have automatic compactors inside, allowing them to hold five times the amount of waste of any normal garbage can. they tick recycling, compost, and trash, and they're outfitted with wireless technology, real-time technology that alerts those when these are full to come pick them up and empty them. that means no more wasted trips to pick up half full garbage cans. you know, we are the technology capital of the world. we should not be afraid, and you know i believe as mayor, we should embrace technology to benefit the daily lives of our residents, and we are doing that today. we are making this investment now in partnership with our small business leaders. our community benefits districts are the ones that really do the work on the

ground. i want to thank andre who is here today for all of your work in the castro, and we are partnering with them to install these new bigbelly trash receptacles, but also to maintain them going forward. we are going to cleanup our city here in san francisco. we made a number of announcements last week. today is just another step in that direction, and i want to make sure to reaffirm my commitment to the residents of san francisco that cleaning up our streets is going to be one of my biggest priorities, and we will not stop again until the day that i leave office. i look forward to seeing these trash cans across the city of san francisco. we are going to swallow up the trash with our bigbelly garbage cans, once again. so with that, i want to thank everyone for being here. we have a number of speakers, and i would like to introduce and bring up supervisor jeff sheehy, who's right behind me. and i want to make a quick comment about supervisor sheehy. there has been no one, since i have become mayor, who has been more forceful in his advocacy

of cleaning up the streets of his district than jeff sheehy. you can clap. it's great. we have gone on neighborhood walks. we have walked this commercial corridor right here with our department of public works. there's no supervisor more focused on cleaning up the streets of his neighborhood than supervisor sheehy. and with that, i'd like to hear from him. supervisor jeff sheehy. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you, mayor farrell. thank you for those kind words, and i really want to thank you deeply for your leadership on this issue. it's been a challenge, but the inno-nateti innovation that you're bringing to this, the resources, it's making a difference, and i know the people in my district, we're grateful. i also want to thank the department of public works because they have been so steadfast, so diligent in cleaning up this neighborhood,

in cleaning up the district. it's a struggle because we know that this is an ongoing problem, and i think your new initial initiatives are going to help us turn the corner on this. we are moving forward on this. i want to thank the community benefits in the castro for their leadership. these things are great. compacts, signals when the trash is full. and i do want to note that recology is here. recology is doing a great job. this is allow them to be enormously more efficient, so as the mayor said you're not emptiying half empty trash cans, you empty them when they're full. we've seen the problem. we have the open trash cans, people rummage in them. they overflow, and sometimes that creates a mess. so andre, thank you for your partnership with recology, with the mayor.

i'm going to address you, but sandra zuniga, i can't say enough about you. she comes in, she solves problems, she works so closely with the community to identify problem areas and find solutions. she was telling me, for instance at glen park park, we have a little flower stall that was graffitied up. and you know, she just went and painted it herself. that's the type of attitude she brings towards san francisco. that's how much she cares about this city, so i am honored to introduce sandra zuniga, who's director of the mayor's fix it team. >> good morning, everybody. thank you for that introduction and thank you to both mayor farrell and supervisor sheehy for their leadership in this city. special thank you to mayor farrell for giving me this

assignment. being able to work on these bigbellys has been fun. so fix it, i run the fix it team, and what we do z we work closely with communities, talking to residents, listening to residents to find out what concerns they have, and we want to act quickly and effectively to help address those. in the castro, we've been working here about two years, and we've seen improvements, a lot of great improvements to the castro. one of things that's a great concern is litter and the amount of litter we see around our city, especially trash cans, when they've been rummaged through or overflow especially when the wind blows and blows them away. so we're happy today to show you not just an efficient can but a very pretty tran ca-- trh can in the castro that we hope will bring new life, new energy to people who are shopping

here, passing through here to use the handing, throw their cigarette butt or bottle away in the right place. today's announcement is part of a larger strategy that fix it has to make improvements in neighborhoods based on what we hear about from residents, so we plan to implement new strategies in neighborhoods across the city, and find out what works and when something works, we can replicate it in other neighborhoods with confidence. i really would like to thank all of the community benefit districts who are working with me on this project. of course f andre aiello with the community benefit district, and several others who will see their bigbellys this summer, and a special shout out of course to public works, recology, economic and workforce development and kevin from bigbelly, who will give you all a demonstration soon.

so with that, i would just like to introduce a wonderful partner in this who has been tremendously hard working and really fast at turning around a lot of giving us, you know, ideas, information, feedback, andre aiello, for getting the -- from the castro c.i.d. for getting the first big belly on the ground. >> thank you for that. the castro community benefit district is so excited to be the first neighborhood that will be getting these bigbellys in a special program that has been sponsored by mayor farrell, and i want to thank the mayor so much for his dedication to keeping the neighborhoods clean, not only just downtown but the neighborhoods. and we are -- we'll be working with the city to develop

metrics on how do we evaluate and measure these to make sure they're effective. and as everyone has been describing, the bigbellys work because once you put the trash in, you can't take the trash out, and that includes limiting and preventing overflowing trash cans, which i think we've all seen all over the city. the wind is blowing, and the wind takes the paper or the cup out of the trash can, and there's a mess all the way down the sidewalk, and it blows it all the way down the sidewalk. so we're really excited that this is going to help keep the benefit district really clean. the castro neighborhood benefit district works tirelessly to keep the neighborhood clean, keep it vibrant. we have a lot of different strategies around cleanliness, around safety, economic vitality, greening. we have live performances in

the jane warner plaza? the summer every weekend. everything fits together in a puzzle to encourage more people and more pedestrian traffic in the neighborhoods and in an urban environment. cleanliness is probably the first thing because nobody wants to walk around a neighborhood where there's trash and other things, and worse than just trash in a neighborhood. it's community benefit districts working collaboratively with public works who has been absolutely fantastic as a partner and recology all working together to pitch in and keep san francisco clean -- or cleaner, and a great city. so i want to thank everybody and thampg the city family. they have vust been absolutely great. we've pushed through this contract in like a month, so that's unheard of. so thank everybody. i want to thank the mayor for hez creativity and initiative on this. and now, i think we're going to

have kevin give a demonstration on how these wonderful things work. take care. >> one, two, three, go! [inaudible] >> look at that beautiful jellyfish. the way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel powerful with simple actions to take every day.

♪ ♪ >> i was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. my dad was the rabbi in the community there. what i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. and learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your words. when i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. and then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to get into advertising and do

graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. by the time i was in college, i decided i wanted to be a decorator. but as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. i only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. i found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. i went, volunteered and my life changed. suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. i eventually moved up to san francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of assembly through los angeles county and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about rainforest.

one of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, i'm teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. it was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. the san francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. we realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. the city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of the city feel and i love the symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix provides, we all have the power

to transform our world for the better. we have to provide teachers with curriculum online, our curriculum is in two different languages and whether it's lesson plans or student fact sheets, teachers can use them and we've had great feedback. we have helped public and private schools in san francisco increase their waste use and students are working hard to sort waste at the end of the lunch and understand the power of reusing, reducing, recycling and composting. >> great job. >> i've been with the department for 15 years and an environmental educator for more than 23 years and i'm grateful for the work that i get to do, especially on behalf of the city and county of san francisco.

i try to use my voice as intentionally as possible to suppo support, i think of my grandmother who had a positive attitude and looked at things positively. try to do that as well in my work and with my words to be an uplifting force for myself and others. think of entering the job force as a treasure hunt. you can only go to your next clue and more will be revealed. follow your instincts, listen to your gut, follow your heart, do what makes you happy and pragmatic and see where it takes you and get to the next place. trust if you want to do good in this world, thatmeeting