tv Government Access Programming SFGTV August 28, 2018 12:00pm-1:01pm PDT
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>> clerk: communing -- communications, commissioners? public comment? public comment is closed. we are on item 17. adjournment. >> president buell: seconded. >> clerk: wait, wait. >> vice president low: i would like to make a motion to adjourn in memory of sean. sean is physically the biggest cousin i have known. he had a big heart. sean lost lost his battle to
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cancer this past monday and while he lost to cancer, you want in life. he was rich in family, friends, and community. i know he is up there in heaven, probably giving aretha a big hug. in his normal hawaiian way, it is down to us and yelling "ohana" which is hawaiian for family. >> commissioner anderson: i wanted us to honor the great? of soul, aretha fink -- franklin as well. >> president buell: we adjourned in honor to the family. it has moved and seconded. all those in favor? so moved. thank you. >> clerk: thank you.
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>> really appreciate you being here. in april 2013, urge the leadership of the late mayor ed lee and then supervisor london breed, the city and county of san francisco resolved to undertake something that had never been done before. in the face of decades of federal underinvestment in public housing, they've put together a massive plan to utilize the new rental
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assistance demonstration program, to undertake massive repairs across 29 public housing properties in san francisco. the rental assistance demonstration program did not offer any new funding, but instead flexibility around rules show that cities could utilize creative ways to finance the work. what san francisco accomplished, renovating 3400 homes at a total development cost exceeding $2 billion a true model for the nation. if there is one lesson to be learned from all of this work from me, it is that monumenttal things can be accomplished when an entire community across a all levels of government and with the private sector come together with a shared vision. it is my tremendous honor to introduce leader nancy pelosi. [applause]
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>> thank you. thank you so much. thank you so much for your great leadership and today is a very special day for us personally and officially because of what it means to the residents here. and what it means to the redenlszes here is that they have been treated with great dignity and respect. and having a say in how this place, this wonderful burton manor has been developed, to recognize the leadership of our dearly departed mayor lee with the program working with the then-president of the board of supervise source and now our distinguished mayor of san francisco, london breed, to bring this to fruition. there are many factors at work and you'll hear from folks like the bank of america because there is a private sector role. beverley will talk to us about her experience here. i just want to talk a moment
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about john burton, a former member of congress and former president of the california state senate and california -- so many titles. so much commitment -- [laughter] so much commitment to our country. and to this great state of california. someone said to me earlier, i never had -- don, actually, said -i never got to meet her. she was a force in our community for a long time as a member of the team of phil burton, who served in congress for a long time along with his brother john. somuch about, again, the dignity and worth of every person. and always the saying that it really matters that people have the dignity of the home, the respect we give them and the
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decency and the -- just dignity of where they live is a sign of how much we connect with them and their aspirations and she was a force in our community. person of deep values who would be so happy -- wouldn't she, john, to see this beautiful place. now we just met the colonel and he showed us his apartment. it's lively and he told me he was his own personal decorator there and that it was an advantage to him that when these apartments were being rehabbed, that he move to a different floor and then came back. but one of the things that we all shared was that we have recognition of people in the neighborhood to have access to facilities and just keeping some people in the building helped to facilitate that.
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when a private second is to side, it is really important to note that much of the housing in san francisco, affordable housing that has been developed has been developed because we had a tax code that enabled us to take advantage of the low-housing tax credit. thank you, bank of america, for doing that and being so much a part of this. [applause] that -- [applause] you can ask any of our nonprofits and certainly the tenderloin folks would subscribe to the fact that that public-private partnership was -- has been essential. i have to say sadly that much of that has been diminished in the tax bill that passed last year. in the congress of the united states, signed by the president. and we really have to reverse that. because it is -- it had been an
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impetus for us to have more affordable housing now that it is being diminished. but thank you to bank of america for participating, up until now, to make today's if ribbon cutting possible. so you had something to do with it, for-profit wise, and nonprofit-wise in every way and they knew how important our seniors and our people with physical challenges are to our community and how proud she would be to have a facility dedicated to their health, well-being and just the dignity that sala burton would be very proud. thank you for the opportunity to participate today. [applause] >> it is a huge honor for me and i hope you will join me in giving a warm welcome to our mayor. mayor london breed.
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[applause] >> it truly is an honor to be here today with people, i think, that are legends in the political world including john burton and leader pelosi and the work that they have done to pave the way for opportunities like this many of you knew i grew up in public housing called plaza east. >> yeah! >> also known as o.c., out of control projects -- [laughter] and it was definitely an out of control experience. we had a lot of challenges and the conditions that i grew up in sadly when i became a member of the board of supervisors were a lot of the same chance too many of our public housing residents were still living in. i know what it feels like to live with the mold, with broken
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elevators, with the roaches, with the neglect, with the messed up pipes, the need to use someone else's bathroom on a regular basis because yours didn't work. the bathtub that didn't work. the frustration, the hopelessness and the feeling that nobody cared. and that is why when i became a member of the board of supervisors my first year, i went to mayor ed lee and i said to him, when he asked me what my top three priorities were, i said public housing, public housing, public housing. when you have had to live in the kinds of conditions, sadly, that these buildings that existed in these buildings for over 20 years of your life, you wouldn't think about anything other than making sure that we change those conditions and immediately, immediately leader pelosi stepped up to the plate to provide the opportunity to work with us down this path.
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we began work in 2013 as don falk said, we had many fights in the community, talking to people about what this would do. and as i said, i grew up in plaza east. and when plaza east was torn down and rebuilt, my family and i were displaced. we weren't moved on the property. that's why it was so important that we assured the residents that we were going to make sure that they get back into the same unit that they have lived in. that we were going to rehabilitate the unit, move them within close proximity of where they felt so they felt they meant exact little what we said they were going to do. and we made it happen. here in sala burton, we made it happen for 100 residents in 89 units. beautiful units. a beautiful community room. a clean place and affordable place. a transformative place.
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for the people who deserve nothing less. and i am so proud to be mayor of such an amazing city where opportunity can exist, where change can happen. this is what happens when we make the right decisions. when we work together. when we do what's necessary to work with all of our city. departments, our federal partners and federal and state agencies. and had it not been for a fierce leader in congress, we would have never gotten as far as we've been able to get with rehabilitating over 1600 units so far and still counting. and the we finished pitt ma -- plaza, a place that ed lee, myself and we took a tour of pitt's plaza and it is beautiful with free wi-fi for the residents. a transformation. that's what this is about.
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no longer will residents in san francisco who live in public housing be neglected, live in substandard conditions. you are residents of san francisco just like anyone else and what we have been able to accomplish here by renovating this property demonstrates our commitment to you now and in the future. i want to thank tndc for their work and don falk and his team and kate hartley. barbara garcia is here from the san francisco housing authority. thank you all. jeff buckley and olson lee and so many people who played an important role in making this incredible project worthy of the name that it represents. sala burton manor. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, mayor breed. tndc has had a partnership with the bank of america that
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extends back 30 years. please join me in welcoming maria barry. [applause] >> hello, everyone. it's so great to be here with you today. on behalf of bank of america, i want to really start out with many thank yous. starting with leader pelosi for your support of affordable housing and the rad program. mayor breed for your support when you were a supervisor and now as mayor. mayor lee, the late mayor lee and the office of community development. tndc, as don said. we have a partnership that's gone back 30 years, which is justs so tremendous. h.u.d., the housing authority. thank you for trusting the new partners and really overseeing this and ensuring that they will be a steward of these properties going forward. and also i want to thank our
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bank of america team. ari belliak who was the head of organizing this for our firm, told me that we had over 40 people working on this. so i -- so it was quite an initiative and something that we were so incredibly pleased and proud to be a part of. this rehab is about so much. you know? it's about the mccal and life safety changes. it's about the public spaces now being so welcoming and really creating a great sense of community. but it's also about the residents, as everyone's been saying. it's really about transforming their lives and a major part of this was a social services component that was included in our participation and i got to hear more about that this morning. and just what it was able to do to make this transition so much easier for the residents so when they moved into their new home, everything went so much
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easier for them. and a lot of the little things were taken care of, which we're so happy to hear and be part of. this is my second time out to look at these developments and a couple were finished my last trip and now getting to see sala burton apartments so wonderful. these homes are incredible. it's fan it is a ticket see -- it's fantastic to see on resident's faces the story of how nobody knew each other before and now it's a real sense of community. that is how it is for us at bank of america. it's about providing the financing so that the residents can live in safe, comfortable homes. it was nice for a long period of time. they're built on a sustainable manor. so, long-term they will be wonderful homes to live in.
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at bank of america, we have a very strong commitment and we were founded over 100 years ago and we invested $2.2 billion into sfrad. and that is such a big investment for us. to give you some perspective. in 2017, we lent and invested $4.5 billion across the country. so we put a significant amount of our resources here and are so happy to see the progress that's been made and the transformation. we also provide foundation money so last year we provided $5.1 million to local nonprofits and we have about 4200 associates in the market. and we also put in $40,000 community service volunteer hours.
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one of the things that we value is shared success and we're not successful unless communities and customers we serves are successful as well. so this project was all about that. at sala burton, our purpose was to help the residents succeed in their quality of life and live in safe, comfortable homes. thank you so much for including bank of america in this exciting work. we are so proud to be your partners. thank you. [applause] >> and now it is my great pleasure to introduce beverley saba. [applause] >> we are here to honor and celebrate for women who are our founding mothers for rad in san francisco.
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barbara smith and alicia cisca of the housing authority, london breed, president of the board of supervisors, now mayor, and nancy pelosi. without these women, rad would not have been able to come to san francisco and be launched as the class act that it is. barbara and alicia had the sad task of informing us that the traditional funding was not in any way adequate to take care of the habitability of our housing and ultimately our housing itself. they applied to get rad to come to san francisco and it meant that the housing authority had to completely restructure itself, which was revolutionary and dauntsing. but their commitment was
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absolutely to the tenants inhabiting the housing that they were providing. they made sure, these two women, i know there were other people, but primarily these two women made sure that rad could come to san francisco. housing authority had to go through a lot of goalposts passing through in order to get it here. they did it. now it's here or it can be here. public financing and private financing, it had to be launched. they had to be brought together. so london breed, when mayor ed lee announced the reimagining of public housing, got right on board. and she put her effort in and it was a positive effort to get this to happen here.
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and nancy pelosi, using her political influence -- which is formidable -- her political power and her savvy, made sure that it was launched and launched as a class act. when the building was scheduled to be renovated, tndc sent their promising manager, tom lauderbach and the architect chris duncan, to talk to the tenants. their question to us, what do you want? not once, not twice, four times. at least four times. we spoke. they'd come back and say well, we can do this. but we can't do that because of code. let's figure out something else. first time anybody asked us what the hell we wanted. [applause] and good for them. [applause]
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one of the things we advocated for was a community room. we didn't have one. lara, they built us this room. it did not exist. tndc got in and they built it for us so i want to make sure everybody understands, tndc and our four mothers really put on or made sure that red became a class act. and to our founding mothers, can we get the flowers, please? ok. [applause] from our heart to yours, nancy may i give that to you? ok. we have barbara and alicia. there's one over there. >> thank you.
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>> we'll put them in the back. >> i'm sorry, sweetheart. this goes to alicia and barbara. right there. [laughter] so founding mothers, from our hearts to yours thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> love you, sweetheart. >> thank you, beverley. >> you're welcome. >> we'll do that afterwards, is that all right?
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>> this neighborhood was lived for approximately 22 years. >> yeah, like 21 years. >> 21 years in this neighborhood. >> in the same house. >> we moved into this neighborhood six months after we got married, actually. just about our whole entire married life has been here in excel. >> the owner came to the house and we wanted to sell the house and we were like, what? we were scared at first. what are we going to do? where are we going to move into? the kids' school? our jobs?
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>> my name is maria. i'm a preschool teacher for the san francisco unified school district. >> my name is ronnie and i work in san francisco and i'm a driver from a local electrical company. >> we went through meta first and meta helped us to apply and be ready to get the down payment assistant loan program. that's the program that we used to secure the purchase of our home. it took us a year to get our credit ready to get ready to apply for the loan. >> the whole year we had to wait and wait through the process and then when we got the notice, it's like, we were like thinking that. >> when we found out that we were settling down and we were going to get approved and we were going to go forward, it was just a really -- we felt like we
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could breathe. we have four kids and so to find a place even just to rent for a family of six. and two dogs. >> we were going to actually pay more for rent and to own a house. >> it feels good now to have to move. it feels for our children to stay in the neighborhood that they have grown in. they grew up here and they were born here. they know this neighborhood. they don't know anything outside san francisco. >> we really have it. >> we'd love to say thank you to the mayor's office. they opened a door that we thought was not possible to be opened for us. they allowed us to continue to live here. we're raising our family in san francisco and just to be able to continue to be here is the great lesson.
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>> i personally love the mega jobs. i think they're a lot of fun. i like being part of a build that is bigger than myself and outlast me and make a mark on a landscape or industry. ♪ we do a lot of the big sexy jobs, the stacked towers, transit center, a lot of the note worthy projects. i'm second generation construction. my dad was in it and for me it just felt right. i was about 16 when i first started drafting home plans for people and working my way through college. in college i became a project engineer on the job, replacing others who were there previously and took over for them. the transit center project is
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about a million square feet. the entire floor is for commuter buses to come in and drop off, there will be five and a half acre city park accessible to everyone. it has an amputheater and water marsh that will filter it through to use it for landscaping. bay area council is big here in the area, and they have a gender equity group. i love going to the workshops. it's where i met jessica. >> we hit it off, we were both in the same field and the only two women in the same. >> through that friendship did we discover that our projects are interrelated. >> the projects provide the
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power from san jose to san francisco and end in the trans bay terminal where amanda was in charge of construction. >> without her project basically i have a fancy bus stop. she has headed up the women's network and i do, too. we have exchanged a lot of ideas on how to get groups to work together. it's been a good partnership for us. >> women can play leadership role in this field. >> i tell him that the schedule is behind, his work is crappy. he starts dropping f-bombs and i say if you're going to talk to me like that, the meeting is over. so these are the challenges that we face over and over again. the reality, okay, but it is
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getting better i think. >> it has been great to bond with other women in the field. we lack diversity and so we have to support each other and change the culture a bit so more women see it as a great field that they can succeed in. >> what drew me in, i could use more of my mind than my body to get the work done. >> it's important for women to network with each other, especially in construction. the percentage of women and men in construction is so different. it's hard to feel a part of something and you feel alone. >> it's fun to play a leadership role in an important project, this is important for the transportation of the entire peninsula. >> to have that person -- of women coming into construction, returning to construction from family leave and creating the network of women that can rely on each other.
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>> women are the main source of income in your household. show of hands. >> people are very charmed with the idea of the reverse role, that there's a dad at home instead of a mom. you won't have gender equity in the office until it's at home. >> whatever you do, be the best you can be. don't say i can't do it, you can excel and do whatever you want. just put your mind into it. >> hello! is it afternoon yet? yes. [laughter] you know, the hours just go by so fast now. my name's london breed, i'm the mayor of the city and county of san francisco, and i am excited to be joined by so many amazing people to talk about something that so important. -- that is so important. in july, san francisco became the first country in the -- became the first city in the
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nation to stop charging administrative fees to people who are exiting jail and the criminal justice system. >> whew! [applause] and i was really proud to sponsor this legislation when i was president of the board of supervisors. the public defender was working so hard with the committee of folks to come up with a way to address this issue and i want to thank him for his tireless leaderships on pushing to reform the criminal justice system. [applause] but we didn't stop there. today we are proud to announce that we have taken this even a step further. people have been charged these fees for years and a lot of the debt has built up. this burden has been bearing down on thousands of families across our city.
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[motorcycle engine] today we are announcing that we are eliminating this debt. $32.7 million of debt! [applause] again, thanks to the advocacy of our public defender jeff hadachi and the d.a.'s office. this debt is owed by over 21,000 people. in our community, an average amount of $1500 per person. i want to make sure everyone knows how important this is. a lot of people don't know what happens when people are released from jail or exit the criminal justice system. they are charged thousands of dollars in fees. fees only meant to recupe costs for our city and our county and our courts. but we know the reality.
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the fees pile up, thousands of dollars in debt and drive people into the underground economies and make it harder for them to re-enter and be successful in their communities. i saw this time and time again when i was the executive director of the african american art and culture complex. we believed in the second chance. we opened the doors to opportunity. and i saw how hard many of these employees work after paying their debt to society and receiving a second chance. they wanted to make a fresh start and they grew discouraged when they started to see their paycheck garnished and their bank accounts levied. we also know these fees are not an efficient way to raise revenues for our city. charging people fees who simply cannot afford to pay them is not the way to balance our books. the collection rate for some of these fees is only 9%. there is something wrong with a fee when the collection rate is
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only 9%. it's important to remember that people paying these fees have faced other consequences. they've spent time in jail. they are paying fines. the job of these fees to recover the costs are additional layer of punishment. and they failed to do the job. so, we need to be more fair, we need to be more just. we need to reevaluate how we do business. i want to thank the people who are a part of making that important legislation a reality. and i couldn't have imagined that we were able to build such an amazing coalition of people from all parts of the city family as well as many nonprofit organizations and community members. thank you to our treasure, jose ciceros. thank you. [applause]
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thank you to the public defender -- [applause] our district attorney, our sheriff who immediately, when i introduced the legislation, stopped assessing the fines and fees. the san francisco public adult probation department karen fletcher -- [applause] and i also like to thank the amazing organizations that are here today that came together to make this happen. so many people, so much time. these fees are not what san francisco is about and i am proud that we are first in the nation to end this practice. these reforms started in san francisco but i know they won't end here. other counties are contacting us about what they can do to move this forward. and now i'd like to turn this over to our treasurer, jose
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cicneros who helped make this possible. [applause] >> thank you, mayor breed. it's a great day for financial justice in san francisco! [applause] >> yeah! let's hear it! almost two years ago, i launched the financial justice project and began speaking with local community members who were raising the alarm about the impact fines, fees and tickets were having on low-income people and on communities of color. i was moved by the stories of how a single fine, a single fee or a ticket could keep a family trapped in sieblgs of poverty if they could not afford to pay it. our financial justice project convened a task force of community advocates and government leaders to see how we could right-size these fines and fees. through this process, we learned that our city was charging thousands of dollars of fees to people exiting the criminal justice system at the
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exact moment they were trying to get back on their feet. these fees piled on thousands of dollars of debt on our city's most vulnerable residents and prevented people from successfully doing things like getting a job, getting a place to live and doing all the things they needed to do to get back on their feet. they often trapped people in debt they could not escape. so i'm the city's debt collector and i believe the collection rates on these fees that were simply as low as 9% on some probation fees were too low because simply people could not afford to pay it. our city leaders came together and because they saw these fees were high paying to the people and low gain for government. mayor breed, when you passed this legislation last month and our partners at the district attorney and public defenders office took a step further, we went a step further and asked the court to eliminate all the debt hanging over familis from the fees that were charged in the past.
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as the mayor said today, we are proud to announce that the court has eliminated $32 million in debt from 21,000 people in this community. [applause] this is debt that we never would have collected but has been keeping families trapped in poverty. today represents what our city can do when we work together. this would not have happened without the leadership of our mayor, mayor breed, the district attorney, our adult probation chief fletcher and sheriff hennessy and countless others who made today happen. but honestly these reforms would not have happened without many community groups and organizations that opened our eyes to why it is so important for our city to move these reforms forward. so i'd like to thank the community housing partnership -- [applause]
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leo services for prisoners with children -- [applause] the lawyers committee for civil rights. the san francisco human rights commission. the coalition on homelessness. [applause] the young women's freedom center. [applause] our friends at the san francisco foundation and the walter and elyse haas fund and tipping point communities. our friends at policy link and the california reinvestment coalition. [applause] the east bay community law center. [applause] the ella baker center. the insight center for community development. [applause] united playas. university of california-berkeley public advocacy center. and the university of california hastings. [applause] i want to personally also acknowledge the amazing
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leadership of my colleague anne dryer who commands the financial justice project. [applause] i think everyone, as you see here, knows anne and can appreciate how instrumental her leadership has been to securing this win today. thank you for your compassion, for your tenacity and your inability to take "no" for an answer. [laughter] now i'd like to turn it over to jeff hadachi who has been another key leader in this effort. jeff? [applause] >> thank you. on the day before thanksgiving, i was working at the front desk. my staff leaves early and so i was working the front desk. [laughter] a young man named joseph came in. and he was holding a paycheck stub in his hand. and i asked him what help he needed and he said look at my paycheck.
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he says every paycheck, $200 is taken out to pay these fines and fees. he was only making $800 every two weeks. he told me i have two children. i'm a single father. i have the sole responsibility of taking care of them and i can't feed my kids because of this. broke my heart. at about that time, we had already started an initiative to change the way that san francisco collects fines and fees. we weren't sure at that point what was going to result. it was a very ambitious idea and i wish i could take credit for it, but james tracy from the community housing partnership came to me -- [cheering] [applause] and he said we're going to wipe out fines and fees. i'm like are you crazy? who are we going to get to agree to that? so we started meeting and fortunately at that time, jose and his staff had already begun
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looking at this issue and issued a report and we decided to try to focus on fines and fees and we thought how are we going to get the board of supervise source and the mayor to agree to this. and so we brought it to then president of the board and supervisor london breed. and she didn't ask for a report. she didn't ask for a hearing. she just said we're going to make this happen. she got it right away. she understood how these fines and fees crushed families. crushed individuals who are trying to turn their life around like joseph and destabilize communities. you know, even though when you get a call from our treasurer, it's usually not good news, he got it right away, too. so we were able to go to sheriff hennessy, d.a. gacon and probation chief fletcher and they all agreed. so, that was very important.
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and it sends an important message. you have to remember that san francisco is a place where ban the box first started. [applause] that initiative within two years went statewide. and this week, there is a bill in the federal government that's going to be introduced in congress. so we can do the same thing here. there's now an initiative to bring this statewide. and to bring this nationwide. there are people suffering all over this country. because they are charged with these fines and fees and mind you these have nothing to do in most cases with the conviction itself. we're not talking about restitution or paying back money for property damage or injury. that's still required under the law. most of the things are for like court fees, for courtroom construction, things that are not related at all to the
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criminal conviction. the time for reform is now. we're seeing the pieces of reform happen. this is huge. but you really need to hear it from somebody who has experienced it, who knows the impact and i'm very pleased to introduce marie vandergrif. mary? [applause] >> good afternoon. my name is mary vandergrif. i am assistant lobby supervisor for community housing partnership. this law fruili affected my life. i, too, have a past. i'm a single mother who is just trying to make it financially and worrying about these court fines and fees made it hard to sleep at night. i was always wondering when my cheque was going to be garnished when i was trying to be successful in my life. today i no longer have to worry. this law was passed. we have a brilliant amount of people working on it and we all came together and did this.
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so i think everybody who worked on this project -- thank everybody who worked on this project and i'm thankful to everybody behind me who has affected and eliminated these fees for them. thank you. have a nice day. [applause] >> thank you very much for coming out. again, we still need to continue to suffer. this only gets rid of about half of the fines and fees. the others are imposed by the state. >> [inaudible]. >> yep. that's what we'll do. thank you for being here and you can ask any questions of the speakers after the press conference. >> thank you. >> for the first time in nearly two decades fishers have been granted the legal right to sell fish directly to the package right off their boat -- to the public right off their boats in
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san francisco. it's not only helping local fishers to stay afloat but it's evoking the spirit of the wharf by resurfacing the traditional methods of selling fish. but how is it regulated? and what does it take for a boat to be transported into a floating fish market? find out as we hop on board on this episode of "what's next sf." (♪) we're here with the owner and the captain of the vessel pioneer. it's no coincidence that your boat is called the pioneer because it's doing just that. it's the first boat in san francisco to sell fish directly from the boat. how did you establish your boat into such a floating fish market? >> well, you know, i always thought that it would be nice to be able to provide fresh fish to the locals because most of the fish markets, you would have to do a large amount of volume in order to bring in enough fish to cover the overhead. when you start selling to the
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public that volume is much less so it makes it hard to make enough money. so being able to do this is really -- it's a big positive thing i think for the entire community. >> a very positive thing. as a third-generation fisherman joe as his friends call him has been trawling the california waters for sustainably caught seafood since an early age. since obtaining a permit to sell fish directly to the public he is able to serve fish at an affordable price. >> right now we're just selling what a lot of the markets like, flat fish and rock fish and what the public likes. so we have been working for many, many years and putting cameras in them. there's the ability to short fish and we have panels that we open and close so we target the different species of fish by adjusting the net. and then not only that but then the net sort out the sizes which is really important. >> joe brings in a lot of fish, around 20,000 pounds per fishing trip to be exact.
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>> we had one day one time that we sold almost 18,000 pounds. >> it's incredible. >> i know, it's hard to imagine. >> but this wasn't always the case for joe. >> the markets that we have left in california, they're few and far between, and they really are restrictive. they'll let you fish for a couple months and shut you down. a lot of times it's rough weather and if you can't make your delivery you will lose your rotation. that's why there's hardly any boats left in california because of the market challenges. my boat was often sitting over here at the dock for years and i couldn't do anything with it because we had no market. the ability to go catch fish is fine, i had the permits, but you couldn't take them off your boat. >> that was until the port commission of san francisco rallied behind them and voted unanimously to approve a pilot program to allow the fish to be sold directly to consumers right off their boats. >> the purpose of the program is to allow commercial fishers to sell their fish directly from their boats to the end consumer
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in a safe and orderly manner for the benefit of the overall fishing community at the port of san francisco. we have limited the program to certain types of fish such as salmon, halibut, tuna and rock fish. crab is restricted from this program because we did not want to interfere with the existing crab sales on taylor street and jefferson street. so this is not meant to favor one aspect of the fishing industry more than another. it's to basically to lift up the whole industry together. >> and if joe the program has been doing just that. >> it was almost breathtaking whenever i woke up one morning and i got my federal receiver, my first receivers license in the mail. and that gave me permission to actually take fish off my boat. once we started to be able to sell, it opened things up a bit. because now that we have that federal permit and i was able to ppetition the city council and
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getting permission from san francisco to actually use the dock and to sell fish here, it was a big turning point. because we really didn't think or know that we'd get such a positive response from the public. and so we're getting thousands of people coming down here buying fish every week and so that's pretty cool. they like the fish so much that they take pictures of it when they cook it and they send us all of these pictures and then they ask us, you know, constantly for certain types of fish now. and when they come down here the one thing that they say is that they're so amazed that the fish is so fresh they could eat a little bit during the week and it's still fresh all week in the refrigerator. so that's really cool. >> the fish is very fresh and the price is super. i don't think that you can get it anywhere in the bay area. i can see it, and i can stir fry it, wow, you can do anything you want. i just can say this is a good
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place to shop and you have a good experience. >> this program supports the strategic plan in terms of engagement, people being connected to the waterfront, and also economic vitality. because it's helping the fishermen to make ends meet. they have no guarantees in their businesses, not like some people, and we want to do everything that we can to help them to have a good and thriving business. >> how does it feel to be able to sell your fish locally kind of in the traditional way, like your grandfather probably did? >> when i was a kid and i used to work in my dad's fish market, a lot of the markets that we sell to now are second and third and fourth generation markets. so i remember as a kid putting their tags on the boxes of fish that we shipped out of monterey and ship down to l.a. so it's kind of cool that we're still dealing with the same families. and this is probably about the only way that anyone can really
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survive in california is to sell your own fish. >> one of the advantages of this program is the department people that pull in the fish, they can find out where they caught it and find out more about the fisherman and that adds to their experience. the feedback from the fishers has been very good and the feedback from the customers have very good. and there's a lot of people coming to the wharf now that might not have done so. in fact, there's people that go through the neighboring restaurants that are going to eat fish inside but before they go in they see the action on the dock and they want to kind of look at what's happening on the boat before they go in and they have a meal. so it's generated some conversation down at the wharf and that's a good thing. >> as you can see by the line forming behind me getting ready to buy fish, the pilot program has been a huge success. for more information visit sfsport.com.
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we have four neighborhoods that i represent. st. mary's park has a completely unique architecture. very distinct feel, and it is a very close to holly park which is another beautiful park in san francisco. the bernal heights district is unique in that we have the hell which has one of the best views in all of san francisco. there is a swinging hanging from a tree at the top. it is as if you are swinging over the entire city. there are two unique aspects. it is considered the fourth chinatown in san francisco. sixty% of the residents are of chinese ancestry. the second unique, and fun aspect about this area is it is the garden district. there is a lot of urban agriculture and it was where the city grew the majority of the flowers. not only for san francisco but for the region. and of course, it is the location in mclaren park which is the city's second biggest park after golden gate.
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many people don't know the neighborhood in the first place if they haven't been there. we call it the best neighborhood nobody has ever heard our. every neighborhood in district nine has a very special aspect. where we are right now is the mission district. the mission district is a very special part of our city. you smell the tacos at the [speaking spanish] and they have the best latin pastries. they have these shortbread cookies with caramel in the middle. and then you walk further down and you have sunrise café. it is a place that you come for the incredible food, but also to learn about what is happening in the neighborhood and how you can help and support your community. >> twenty-fourth street is the birthplace of the movement. we have over 620 murals. it is the largest outdoor public gallery in the country and possibly the world. >> you can find so much
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political engagement park next to so much incredible art. it's another reason why we think this is a cultural district that we must preserve. [♪] >> it was formed in 2014. we had been an organization that had been around for over 20 years. we worked a lot in the neighborhood around life issues. most recently, in 2012, there were issues around gentrification in the neighborhood. so the idea of forming the cultural district was to help preserve the history and the culture that is in this neighborhood for the future of families and generations. >> in the past decade, 8,000 latino residents in the mission district have been displaced from their community. we all know that the rising cost of living in san francisco has led to many people being displaced. lower and middle income all over
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the city. because it there is richness in this neighborhood that i also mentioned the fact it is flat and so accessible by trip public transportation, has, has made it very popular. >> it's a struggle for us right now, you know, when you get a lot of development coming to an area, a lot of new people coming to the area with different sets of values and different culture. there is a lot of struggle between the existing community and the newness coming in. there are some things that we do to try to slow it down so it doesn't completely erase the communities. we try to have developments that is more in tune with the community and more equitable development in the area. >> you need to meet with and gain the support and find out the needs of the neighborhoods. the people on the businesses that came before you. you need to dialogue and show respect. and then figure out how to bring in the new, without displacing the old. [♪]
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>> i hope we can reset a lot of the mission that we have lost in the last 20 years. so we will be bringing in a lot of folks into the neighborhoods pick when we do that, there is a demand or, you know, certain types of services that pertain more to the local community and working-class. >> back in the day, we looked at mission street, and now it does not look and feel anything like mission street. this is the last stand of the latino concentrated arts, culture and cuisine and people. we created a cultural district to do our best to conserve that feeling. that is what makes our city so cosmopolitan and diverse and makes us the envy of the world. we have these unique neighborhoods with so much cultural presence and learnings, that we want to preserve. [♪]
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[ gavel ]. >> good afternoon. my name is miguel bustos. this is the regular pleting of the commission on community investment and infrastructure, the successor commission to the san francisco development agency. august 21, 2018. welcome to members of the public. mr. secretary, please call the first item. >> clerk: thank you, invites chair. the first item is item one, roll call. commissioners, please respond when i call your name. [roll
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