pushback, no issues, and it's moving everybody away from having a straw. our tenders tells me there are two reasons. one, women like them with red wine because they don't want to get their teeth -- it seems odd, but a bartender told me that. and then the other one was having something for handicapped people. i have a friend who is a quadriplegic and she has to have a straw. most people with disabilities have a tendency to bring their own straws. i can just say it's been a financial savings and widely accepted by the public. >> president adams: great. thank you. any other members of the public? >> hello. i'm jamie lions. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. i'm a small business owner here. i own a company called ecopliant products.

i wanted to have a quick comment with inventory and price. the business i started about a year ago was to solve this exact problem, as someone who cared about the environment and participated in beach cleanups and talking to restaurants. i realized it was hard for them to get aardvark straws, which is really the brand that people know, in terms of quality and durability in paper straws. so we created a company to hold inventory. we bought inventory to prepare for the demand and to be able to provide locally at a cost that's affordable to the restaurants, bars, clubs, hospitals in the area. so we've been operating for about a year. i have inventory. i offer free, next-day delivery to restaurants, bars, clubs, in the area and our price is about 50% cheaper than what it would be if you bought directly from the manufacturer. so i think there will be a lot more of me of and why think that inventory will be prohibitive. i think the market and demand

will create business opportunities for others and there will be more of month -- manufacturers and distributors to allow this to happen. >> president adams: great. thank you. any other members of the public? seeing none, public comment supervisor closed. commissi commissioner dwight? >> vice-president dwight: eliminate straws altogether? is that going to work for you? >> commissioner corvi: i hope so. [laughter] >> president adams: is that it? >> vice-president dwight: yes. >> commissioner yee riley: thank you for changing the food vendor to producer. that makes sense. the 10% requirement of re-usable cups and -- is that enough, 10%? if i have 100 people, only to have 10 re-usable cups?

and then how do you determine the attendance of an event? is it the honor system or how are you going to enforce your -- you know, this law? >> hi, everyone. i'm alexa kelty, department of the environment. i work with jack and ashley at the department. the events -- we'll work closely with the permitting agents, so department and rec park and sfmta, they manage the permitting process for events. on that permit, they will say how many attendees they estimate. so we'll be basing their goal, their 10% goal, on that attendance number. does that answer your question? >> commissioner yee riley: yes. >> the street closure, i was using sfmta. it used to be sfdpt.

yeah, that one as well. so we'll work closely with all of the permitting and port property to make sure that that language is in the people -- permitting process. >> president adams: commissioner ortiz? >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: thank you, everybody, for your presentation and your time today. i have more of a curiosity question. there are fast food chains that brand their straws as part of the way they drink their beverage or set their beverage apart. have you gotten any pushback from them? >> president adams: she's public. you can't. >> great question. i personally have not. we've been watching out to smaller businesses. one thing i can say is that one of the things that people bring up is a cold beverage, a lot of people drink their iced coffee or other cold beverages with a

straw and starbucks is starting to use a strawless lid now. it looks like a hot coffee lid but it's clear and has the same opening and so i think like what everybody is talking about is the market will respond to this and that's the lid that could be used at a mcdonald's or burger king pretty easily, or they could switch over to the paper straw version. want to add anything? >> president adams: any other commissioner comments? i will chime in then. i like this ordinance. i think it's already happening. wherever you go, you are seeing paper straws. i know when i was in the south bay, there was a couple of places down there that have gotten rid of them altogether. i'm in seattle once a month. i see the big change up there. and even with starbucks up there, they have changed.

this goes along with the plastic bag ban and everything else. and this is what we need to do to change the environment. so i remember when the plastic bag ban came and everybody was freaking out about it. now everybody has -- we have bags in the trunks of our car. >> not me. >> president adams: yeah, you have rickshaw bags. the public just gets used to it. as far as cost, i appreciate what you said. i was concerned about buyers and how you feel because you deal with it. i would not mind adding the city stuff when we do our motion. do we have a motion? >> move to support this legislation as presented.

>> second. >> is it motion with an amendment that the city consider allowing city vendors to apply the cost of complying with this law to its invoice to the city? >> yes. i will take that amendment to my -- >> president adams: yes. that's a good one. okay. so we have a motion by commissioner dwight. seconded by commissioner yee-riley. we'll do roll call. [roll call] >> president adams: motion passes 6-0 with one absent. >> thank you. very very much.

>> b.o.s. file 180320, catering as accessory use in neighborhood commercial districts. ordinance amending the planning code to allow catering as an accessory use to limited restaurants in commercial districts under certain conditions. >> i will be doing the presentation. commissioner safai's aide was going to be here and can't now. i will walk you through. catering as an accessory in commercial districts right now is not permitted. it's not permitted in neighborhood commercial

districts unless the catering use provides products for retail sale in the same location where the caterer is using -- or is in use of -- is using, excuse me, the place to make their product. this amendment would permit catering to limited restaurants only and limited restaurants are one of the definitions that there are type 20 liquor license, which is only offsale beer and wine in neighborhood commercial districts. the catering use does not operate more than 70% of the total time permitted for the limited restaurant in terms of total time committed. the caterer is not -- does not serve directly from the lot to

the clients and is not allowed to require retail items at the catering site, the restaurant where they do catering. so what they're saying is they do not want the caterer to be doing deliveries from that site or to have uber eats come up and pick up food. so it's truly just -- they're making their product, their food at that site. they can take it offsite if they're doing an event, but not meant to do takeout/delivery type of catering. so, again, just to be very clear, the catering can only -- as an accessory use, can be done at a limited restaurant for 75% of the time that it is in operation. when the business is closed,

there's no accessory use catering taking place. supervisor safai chose to limit it to limited restaurants to ensure that the regular restaurants maintain their activated use as a regular restaurant. and this was a recommendation in the retail study list of recommendations. the planning commission heard this last week and their recommendation was to allow this city-wide. part of the reason -- to go back -- one of the reasons for the requirement for limited restaurants in neighborhood commercial use is only allowing for 70% of time and not

operational hours was to reduce the amount of noise in the evenings. so while the planning commission did not opine on this, it may be something that the planning commission was to apply it citywide. there are uses in c3 areas where you really don't have where there would be noise. could a caterer operate in the off-hours at that location? that is something that the commission may want to consider. it's fairly simple. it's not as expansive as the discussion that the commission had during cannabis, not that it would be specific for cannabis, but the need for figuring out

how to open up the restaurant environment and the kitchens for needed commercial space. so this is one step being taken in that direction. so i'm happy to take any questions. >> vice-president dwight: educate me here. this is a distinction between limited restaurant and full restaurant? >> limited restaurant, and i have the definition right after your tab, so limited restaurant, i mean, it offers -- the distinction between a limited restaurant is that it either does not have beer and wine or it has as type 20 license. a restaurant that has any other type of alcohol is considered a restaurant under the planning. so we no longer usefu full serve

restaurant. most of the definition is around liquor license. >> vice-president dwight: so limited restaurants are open fewer hours than those with full liquor license? >> typically and typically more daytime hours. >> vice-president dwight: and so the idea is to use the expensive asset, building out a kitchen, to allow additional use of that asset? >> uh-huh. >> vice-president dwight: okay. >> president adams: any other questions? does this affect you? you guys do catering. >> yeah, i mean -- i mean, keeping in mind, brick and mortars are still paying more, but this is a need as we're moving into the era of not having brick and mortars. >> president adams: exactly. i get it. since we have no questions,

let's open it up for public comment. do we have any members of the public that would like to comment on item number 5? seeing none, public comment is closed. do we have a motion? or any other questions? >> move to support the legislation. >> second. >> motion by commissioner dwight, seconded by corvi. [roll call] motion passes 6-0, with one absent. >> president adams: great. next item, please. >> item 6, director's report. update and report on the office of small business and the small business assistance center, department programs, policy and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor,

and announcements regarding small business activities. discussion item. >> commissioners, i have a fairly short report today but i did want to let you know that the commission secretary position, i sent an email, has been posted. so we have another two weeks while that posting is open. so please share it. the budget reserve that i mentioned at the last meeting, we've got through the process and that budget reserved for historic preservation fund. there was $281,000 sitting in reserve that was released and we're able to use that to fund the rest of the rent stabilization grants being processed through this year. and that went very smoothly. and then i do want to just take a moment to talk about the

hearing that the commission had at the end of may regarding the pet store formula retail at 4049 24th street at that location. there's been some discussion around -- and we had this back in 2009 and 2010 that the -- if the commission's ability to weigh in and make a recommendation to the planning commission is legitimate when the project sponsor is not there to present and so just want to remind the commission that, yes, the commission does not have to hear from the project sponsor. we're not -- you're not adjudicating and weighing in on that particular project in the manner in which the commission is. the small businesses that were concerned about the impact of a

formula retail entity, it was their responsibility to -- they were scheduled to present to you. it was their responsibility to present to you a compelling argument for you to take action on any set of recommendation. and they decided that they would not take action to support. i just want to make sure that -- there's been quite a bit of discussion after the scenes after the planning commission vote, which voted not to grant the conditional use for that project site. that, yes, the commission's action was completely appropriate. so you were there to hear from the small businesses. they -- you chose that they made a compelling case and took your action. and i made it very clear to the

planning commission when i presented the commission's response that it's rare and exceptional that i'm before them on the commission taking action on very specific projects. it's not something that the commission does and takes it very seriously. and the times i've been before them have been around pet stores and so there's this tfor -- historic in that pet stores are small and an important entity to preserve. i presented but the small businesses did a very good job and really presented and were

well-choreographed on different items and elements to prove their case. if you have any questions about that, i'm happy to take them and i just wanted you, in case there were questions and comments from behi behind the scenes that -- that the commission's action was completely appropriate. and then today there was a press conference in chinatown with the chinese consolidated benevolent association, six families, with director huey, going to be doing around the accessible business entrance program, so it was to invite the predominantly chinese press to get the word out about a workshop that we'll conduct on july 16 in chinatown and thank you, commissioner yee riley, for

attending and speaking at the press conference. so those are the key items that i have and am happy to answer any questions you may have. >> vice-president dwight: i just want to say that i attended the hearing for the c.u. and want to commend director for making her remarks at the commission hearing. the two commissioners mentioned while they were deliberating their decision that both our hearing of that and our decision on that matter and the director's presentation both made an impact on their decision process. so sometimes we make a difference. >> president adams: we are the office of small business. any other questions for the director? seeing none, open it up for public comment. do we have any members of the public that would like to comment on the director's office? seeing none, public comment is

closed. >> excuse me, president. i realized there was one other item. i know we have a long list of new business items. so this week i am preparing that list and the timeline. so i just wanted to respond to that so i will get that out to you by the end of the week. >> president adams: thank you. next item, please. >> item 7, commissioners' reports, allows president, vice president and commissioners to report on recent small business activities and make announcements that are of interest to the small business community. discussion item. >> president adams: only thing i have is that i did attend the council of district merchants dinner at the olympic club. that's all i have. >> commissioner yee riley: i also want to mention i attended a press conference this morning with director. and it -- the department head of

d.p.i. was there and he's bilingual, so it was really good that he gives information in both languages, english and chinese. and the six company, the directors, a lot of them were mono language. so it's helpful. i was there to explain the events and answer questions about the a.d.a. and a.b.e. so it's important for some of the merchants and business owners to attend a workshop. so far, only 7 or 8 people are signed up. we need to have a lot of information. so we're pushing for it and make sure that more business owners and property owners attend.

it would prevent them from getting into all kinds of troubles. >> president adams: it was smart going through the six companies. >> commissioner zouzounis: i thought the speakers and lineup and to hear about a lot of the collaborations between merchants and schools and work force development that doesn't get a lot of credit, whether it's collaborations with i.c.a. and internship programs, that was great. i also attended the african-american chamber of commerce event. it was a great event. i'm also continuing to field calls after the passage of prop e and i'm looking to hear back from the department of public health and the city on a more precise timeline, whether it's

inmr implementing a ban on flavored tobacco or not. and people are freaking out. >> i attended the healthy spot c.u. meeting as an observer, just to observe. i was curious to see what the commission was going to do and how they were going to make them decision. i was very impressed with the mobilization of the merchants and citizens and the residents in noe valley in opposition. it was an interesting process to watch play out and see if it had influence on the commissioners and i think that it did. i don't know where -- i can't know which way they were leaning

before they came into the room, but it was very clear that they were taken aback by the number of people that were there for public comment. a lot of people made public comment. it's in the record how many. it must have been 30, 40 people doing public comment. and it was actually even the public comment was well orchestrated. people did not dwell on exactedly the same issue. theres with a range of issues. so it seemed that they will been well organized. even had t-shirts printed up that said deny on it so it was clear who was in opposition. it was an interesting exercise of democracy here in our city. >> president adams: come to my neighborhood. it's like that. [laughter] it's a monthly occurrence. >> and as we told people that came here to testify, the two

legacy businesses that we inducted most recently, that it makes a difference to show up.

those people here. we impacted the decision process by the actions that we took and the message that we delivered at the hearing. it can be done, and when we are passionate about the issue ourselves as commissioners and passionate as business owners and neighbors and residents, we can affect change. a lot of times people feel like their vote doesn't count and they are part of the anonymous crowd. it is not so. we have more impact, i think, than going to the polls. you take very specific action on very specific issues and you can affect people's decision process, those wh are the gatekeepers if they are the decision makers or mayor. >> any other commissioner reports?

seeing none. do we have public comment on commissioner reports? seeing none. public comment is closed. next item. >> item 8 new business. new agenda items for future consideration by the commission. discussion item. >> commissioner. i have been engaging the mission regarding the bus line. i have copied the director and president adam os it. i have asked and they have agreed to come to the presentation and how they could do the mitigation regarding the impact on small businesses. >> do they have to do it on the 16th? >> obviously, they saw what happened on the mission corridor, and, unfortunately, we are trying to mitigate that. they knew this going on that 25% of total sales was going to be affected. there is a 25% decline in the

corridor. foot traffic has declined considerably as well so they are trying to do better outreach, but this is an opportunity to give them feedback, you know, see what we can do. >> i know we are going to have department of public health come in and talk about prop e. i hear from and i don't know if you hear from it. i heard from two smaller stores, liquor stores, they make sandwiches. the department of public health is coming in to make them change the way they cook bacon around stuff like that. have you heard of any of that? >> i want to get more information. i have a small business owner that needs help at the moment. i can't figure this out. they have been doing business the same way for 30 years, never had a problem in 30 years.

all of a sudden the department of health came in to make them change the way they do their business. see if you can help me with that. any other new business? do we have public comment on new business? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item. >> please show the office of small business slide. >> it is our custom to begin and end each small business commission meeting with a reminder the office of small business is the only place to start your new business in san francisco and the best place to get answers to your questions about doing business in san francisco. the office of small business should be your first stop when you have questions with what to do next find us online or in person at city hall. best of all, our services are free of charge. if you have any concerns or

opinions about policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco, please come to the small business commission meeting. if you need assistance with small business matters, start here at the office of small business. >> i item 9. adjournment. >> second. >> all in favor. >> aye. >> meeting adjourned at 3:35 p.m.

. 5 p.m. >> my name is dave, and i play defense. >> my name is mustafa, and i am a midfielder, but right now, i am trying to play as a goalkeeper, because they need a goalkeeper. >> soccer u.s.a. is a nonprofessional organization. we use sports, soccer in particular to engage communities that can benefit from quality programs in order to lift people up, helping to regain a sense of control in one's life. >> the san francisco recreation and park department and street soccer u.s.a. have been partners now for nearly a decade. street soccer shares our mission in using sport as a vehicle for youth development

and for reaching people of all ages. rec and park has a team. >> i'm been playing soccer all my life. soccer is my life. >> i played in the streets when i was a kid. and i loved soccer back home. i joined street soccer here. it was the best club to join. it helps me out. >> the tenderloin soccer club started in the summer of 2016. we put one of our mini soccer pitches in one of our facilities there. the kids who kpriez the club team came out to utilize that space, and it was beautiful because they used it as an opportunity to express themselves in a place where they were free to do so, and it was a safe space, in a neighborhood that really isn't the most hospitalable to youth -- hospitable to youth

playing in the streets. >> one day, i saw the coach and my friends because they went there to join the team before me. so i went up to the coach and asked, and they said oh, i've got a soccer team, and i joined, and they said yeah, it was he for everybody, and i joined, and it was the best experience ever. >> a lot of our programs, the kids are in the process of achieving citizenship. it's a pretty lengthy process. >> here, i am the only one with my dad. we were in the housing program, and we are trying to find housing. my sister, she's in my country, so i realize that i have a lot of opportunities here for getting good education to help her, you know?

yeah. that's the -- one of the most important things that challenge me. >> my dad was over here, making some money because there was not a lot of jobs back home. i came here, finish elementary in san francisco. after that, i used to go back to my country, go to yemen, my country, and then back here. last time i went back was a couple years ago. >> i came here six months, i know nobody. now i have the team has a family, the coaches. amazing. >> i'm hoping for lifelong friendships, and i'm super inspired by what they've been able to achieve and want to continue to grow alongside them. >> i love my family, i love my team. they're just like a family. it's really nice. >> street soccer just received a five year grant from the department of children, youth

and family, and this is an important inreflection point for street soccer u.s.a. because their work in our most important communities is now known beyond just san francisco recreation and park department, and together, we're going to continue to work with our city's most vulnerable kids and teach them to love the beautiful game. >> i want to tell everybody back home, i hope you all make it over here and join teams like this like street soccer u.s.a., and live your life. get a better life. >> right away, just be patient, and then, everything will be okay.

>> good afternoon everyone. good morning and afternoon. i am the director of international trade and commerce in the mayor's office. it is an honor to welcome all of you here for this special occasion. special welcome to the counsellor core who is here with us today. and a special welcome to the many chairs of our sister city committees and to the other city officials who are here from so many departments. and to all of you in the general public. it is an honor to have you here. without further ado, i'd like to turn this over to the man whose idea at this project it was. our mayor, mark farrell. [applause] >> mayor farrell: than >> mayor farrell: thank you, mark. isn't this awesome? [applause] i am very excited here. i talked to our office of protocol, about my first week in

office as mayor. i said why don't we have one of these poles with our sister cities? he said you know what? we can make this happen. here we are. two weeks before leaving office. this is an awesome way to go out. i want to say how proud i am to be here as the mayor of the city of san francisco. on the mayor of a city that prides itself on our sister city relationships. especially in this era today with the federal government, where we are building walls, we are tearing down relationships. we are literally creating tariffs. here in the city of san francisco, we are leading the way in a different manner. we are leading the way building bridges between our different countries and different cities throughout the world. our sister city program in san francisco, it dates back to 1957. with the inaugural sister city of osaka. it was done just a year after president eisenhower in 1956 started the sister city program in our country to really get

citizens involved amongst different cities throughout the world to build those bridges and between our different cultures and in between our different countries. we are literally, now in san francisco with 19 sister cities from 8-z-letter. we are so lucky and so blessed to have so many amazing volunteers and individuals working in the city of san francisco for our sister city committees and for our sister city relationships. and a few quick funds statistics about our sister cities. if you haven't been able to look at the kilometre clock up there, the shortest distance from san francisco is a court, in ireland. there's a lot of people here from there. the longest one is bangalore in india. our smallest sister 60 -- sister city is in italy. it is the namesake of st. francis which our city is

named after. i looked up today, a population of 26,000 people there. be due at a large and small here. we have bangalore, shanghai, sydney, paris, but we do it across the entire little world. thank you for coming here today. this is an awesome monument that will last forever here in san francisco to really talk about and exemplify how we believe our role in international community will always stand and how important our city believes it to be. again, thank you to all of the volunteers. many of you are here today. thank you to all the consular generals for all of your hard work. i want to give a special recognition to anita lee, mayor lee's wife. she is here today. mayor lee was a huge support of our sister cities. he went to so many of them. we went, last year with mayor lee and anita to sign the sitter

-- sister city agreement in kiel which was signed recently. a special recognition to our chief of protocol who is back with us. [applause] and thank you again to mark chandler and certainly the person who i had the initial conversation with, matthew. thank you for all your hard work on this. and last, but certainly not least, thank you to our department of public works. and the s. of nt s.f. nta sign u have made this happen. in any case, thank you for being here. this is a great celebration and we can always come visit here going forward into the future. with that, i would like to introduce a gentleman who has been, there he is, right behind me. he has been the longest, i believe the longest serving chair of a sister committee or the longest-serving chair of the sister committee of osaka. again, it was our first sister

city relationship in san francisco. the gentleman is literally a stalwart in our japanese community here in san francisco. i would like to bring up alan oka moto. [applause] >> while. being introduced by the mayor. that's pretty cool, isn't it? i did not expect that. anyway, before i give my very, very brief remarks. i would just like to acknowledge charlotte again. the chief of protocol. you know, the other day i overheard a conversation between mayor willie brown and mayor -- the mayor of san jose. willie brown -- norman said, i have an airport named after me and willie brown said, i have a bridge named after me. charlotte has topped them all. she has the stairs on the rotunda of san francisco city hall named after her. how cool is that? also, since i am giving out some thanks.

we should give great thanks to mark chandler. the director of international trade. without him, our sister cities would not be able to function. mark, thank you. and then, again, as the mayor said, the right hand man the does all the hard work, matthew. thank you. [applause] you know, i am so honored to represent the 19 sister cities that san francisco has. excuse me. as the mayor said, i am the cochair of the san francisco city association. the cochair with me is kathleen. [applause] and the heart and soul of the sister city, the hardest working person, the most important person is our executive director. as the mayor said to, osaka is

the oldest sister city relationship that we have. last year we celebrated our 60th anniversary. we hope to go for another 60 years. the mayor mentioned that in order to provide better relations between the united states and japan, president dwight eisenhower asked the current mayor at the time, george christopher to establish the san francisco socket sister city association. the mission statement of the sister city is very similar to all the other sister city association's. we were attempting to build bridges of friendship and commerce between the two great powers of the pacific rim. san francisco, and osaka. i know that we will continue on despite anything that anybody has said. san francisco and the osaka relationship will continue far into the future. i know everybody is anxious to

get to lunch, so i just wanted to mention the other sister cities and their chairs. they are all here. everyone likes to hear their own name. if you would allow me to mention their names, and please, i apologize for the pronunciation. some of these are pretty difficult. anyway, we have frankie gillett. amann jordan. richard r. menino. james hurley. is that correct? >> mayor farrell: german. >> i apologize. kim when.

arthur will tell. hannah fleck. christopher carew ski. carmen colette. thomas horan. candace bender. james brigham and gmo tail costanza. i think all of you for attending and thank the city of san francisco for this wonderful sign. thank you. [applause] >> mayor farrell: thank you allen. and for all of your hard work. i want to say special thanks to day to all of our police officers who are here and chief scott as well in our police

department. thank you for being here. thank you to all of our officers. i would like to bring up the person who keeps our city clean. he has been responsible. this is his land here that we are able to put the statue on. please welcome up mohammed knew rue. [applause] >> thank you. it takes a village to really put together a project and to this project, when we got the call a few months ago from the mayor's office of protocol, we went to work and our partners donated the pole to us. and our friends at m.t.a., the sign shop, they had the responsibility of, you know, making all the science. and then it came to our shop where we had to figure out the order of what the signs go. our division of architectures and engineering, they helped put all these signs into the correct places. they went through several different iterations.

and then, of course, our operations department. our building shop came and builds the foundation, and we still have to come back and finish it. a big hand to all the city family for coming together to make this happen. [applause] also, as part of our public works, we are leading the charge were several agencies to make market street really the street of the future. market street is a project we have been working on for several years. we are close to completing a design. that design will include the redo of the holiday plaza itself. some of the ideas out there is actually two make over this plaza. it will not be a sunken hole and create a lively space. but also make it much easier for people to get on the cable cars and the buses i get to where they are going. holiday plaza is ground zero for public works. we spent a lot of time trying to make sure all of the designs

were in the works and they come to fruition. with the leadership of our mayor's office and the sister cities, this would not have happened. i am proud to be part of this project. a few names of people i should think. kevin from bvr, he lives -- he literally made sure we got this done on time. a big hand for him. [applause] and greta jones who oversaw the details to make sure this happened. i'm excited. this adds another beauty to our city and lets people know how far you are too many of our sister cities. charlotte, i know we are working on getting a few more sister cities. i'm looking forward to that. lets havlet's have a great day. thank you very much. [applause] >> mayor farrell: thank you. again, thank you to all the consulate general's who are here. charlotte, do you want to say a few words? will this one work? can you get up?

[laughter] >> let me come over there. [applause] want to fight? >> mayor farrell: absolutely not. [laughter] >> you should see what the other guy looks likely it happened in new york. be careful where you go. it won't happen in any of these cities. i really wanted to thank the mayor. he's been a mayor for a very short time, but he has done some wonderful things. this, for us, in protocol and the sister cities, tops the list. it really says that, you know, san francisco is a city of many, many nations. that is what makes us so great, and this brings people together. as you know, the sister cities are for exchanges and culture, business, art, science, it goes on and on. what it is really about is about friendship. and you think about all the things that are going on in the world today, and we need more

friendship. these committees that work so hard, and they represent the constituency of their particular countries, in this city, and in exchange with the cities across the way, so many miles away. but these may be lots of miles, but really, our hearts, and our arms are very close to the cities that our sister cities. may friendship rained with all the other things that are going on. and san francisco is a city that is a friendly city. we can do it better than anybody else. right, mayor? >> mayor farrell: yes. >> all right. [applause] anybody want to fight? [laughter] >> mayor farrell: one more round of applause for our chief of protocol. [applause] again, thank you everyone for being here. to our consular general for your service. on behalf of your countries in

the city of san francisco, to all the volunteers. the sister city committee heads and all the volunteers behind its. so many department heads are here as well. and a city family. this is a monument for years to come. let us take with us today the idea, the mission, the spirits, and the city of san francisco. let us build bridges. let us not build walls. let us carry with us the values of san francisco. thank you everyone. [applause]

>> i view san francisco almost as a sibling or a parent or something. i just love the city. i love everything about it. when i'm away from it, i miss it like a person. i grew up in san francisco kind of all over the city. we had pretty much the run of the city 'cause we lived pretty close to polk street, and so we would -- in the summer, we'd all all the way down to aquatic park, and we'd walk down to the library, to the kids' center. in those days, the city was safe and nobody worried about us running around. i went to high school in spring

valley. it was over the hill from chinatown. it was kind of fun to experience being in a minority, which most white people don't get to experience that often. everything was just really within walking distance, so it make it really fun. when i was a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. we could go to sam wong's and get super -- soup for $1. my parents came here and were drawn to the beatnik culture. they wanted to meet all of the writers who were so famous at the time, but my mother had some serious mental illness issues, and i don't think my father were really aware of that, and those didn't really become evident until i was about five, i guess, and my marriage blew up, and my mother

took me all over the world. most of those ad ventures ended up bad because they would end up hospitalized. when i was about six i guess, my mother took me to japan, and that was a very interesting trip where we went over with a boyfriend of hers, and he was working there. i remember the open sewers and gigantic frogs that lived in the sewers and things like that. mostly i remember the smells very intensely, but i loved japan. it was wonderful. toward the end. my mother had a breakdown, and that was the cycle. we would go somewhere, stay for a certain amount of months, a year, period of time, and she would inevitably have a breakdown. we always came back to san francisco which i guess came me some sense of continuity and that was what kept me sort of stable. my mother hated to fly, so she would always make us take ships places, so on this particular occasion when i was, i think,

12, we were on this ship getting ready to go through the panama canal, and she had a breakdown on the ship. so she was put in the brig, and i was left to wander the ship until we got to fluorfluora few days later, where we had a distant -- florida a few days later, where we had a distant cousin who came and got us. i think i always knew i was a writer on some level, but i kind of stopped when i became a cop. i used to write short stories, and i thought someday i'm going to write a book about all these ad ventures that my mother took me on. when i became a cop, i found i turned off parts of my brain. i found i had to learn to conform, which was not anything i'd really been taught but felt

very safe to me. i think i was drawn to police work because after coming from such chaos, it seemed like a very organized, but stable environment. and even though things happening, it felt like putting order on chaos and that felt very safe to me. my girlfriend and i were sitting in ve 150d uvio's bar, and i looked out the window and i saw a police car, and there was a woman who looked like me driving the car. for a moment, i thought i was me. and i turned to my friend and i said, i think i'm supposed to do this. i saw myself driving in this car. as a child, we never thought of police work as a possibility for women because there weren't any until the mid70's, so i had only even begun to notice there were women doing this job. when i saw here, it seemed like this is what i was meant to do. one of my bosses as ben johnson's had been a cop, and

he -- i said, i have this weird idea that i should do this. he said, i think you'd be good. the department was forced to hire us, and because of all of the posters, and the big recruitment drive, we were under the impression that they were glad to have us, but in reality, most of the men did not want the women there. so the big challenge was constantly feeling like you had to prove yourself and feeling like if you did not do a good job, you were letting down your entire gender. finally took an inspector's test and passed that and then went down to the hall of justice and worked different investigations for the rest of my career, which was fun. i just felt sort of buried alive in all of these cases, these unsolved mysteries that there were just so many of them, and some of them, i didn't know if we'd ever be

able to solve, so my boss was able to get me out of the unit. he transferred me out, and a couple of weeks later, i found out i had breast cancer. my intuition that the job was killing me. i ended up leaving, and by then, i had 28 years or the years in, i think. the writing thing really became intense when i was going through treatment for cancer because i felt like there were so many parts that my kids didn't know. they didn't know my story, they didn't know why i had a relationship with my mother, why we had no family to speak of. it just poured out of me. i gave it to a friend who is an editor, and she said i think this would be publishable and i think people would be interested in this. i am so lucky to live here. i am so grateful to my parents who decided to move to the city. i am so grateful they did. that it never