>> 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? >> 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 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. >> 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 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. [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. 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 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] 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 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 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. 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]

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 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. 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 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. 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 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. 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. [applause] >> it's great to see everyone

kind of get together and prove, that you know, building our culture is something that can be reckoned with. >> i am desi, chair of economic development for soma filipinos. so that -- [ inaudible ] know that soma filipino exists, and it's also our economic platform, so we can start to build filipino businesses so we can start to build the cultural district. >> i studied the bok chase choy

her achbl heritage, and i discovered this awesome bok choy. working at i-market is amazing. you've got all these amazing people coming out here to share one culture. >> when i heard that there was a market with, like, a lot of filipino food, it was like oh, wow, that's the closest thing i've got to home, so, like, i'm going to try everything. >> fried rice, and wings, and three different cliefz sliders. i haven't tried the adobe yet, but just smelling it yet brings back home and a ton of memories. >> the binca is made out of

different ingredients, including cheese. but here, we put a twist on it. why not have nutella, rocky road, we have blue berry. we're not just limiting it to just the classic with salted egg and cheese. >> we try to cook food that you don't normally find from filipino food vendors, like the lichon, for example. it's something that it took years to come up with, to perfect, to get the skin just right, the flavor, and it's one of our most popular dishes, and people love it. this, it's kind of me trying to chase a dream that i had for a long time. when i got tired of the corporate world, i decided that

i wanted to give it a try and see if people would actually like our food. i think it's a wonderful opportunity for the filipino culture to shine. everybody keeps saying filipino food is the next big thing. i think it's already big, and to have all of us here together, it's just -- it just blows my mind sometimes that there's so many of us bringing -- bringing filipino food to the city finally. >> i'm alex, the owner of the lumpia company. the food that i create is basically the filipino-american experience. i wasn't a chef to start with, but i literally love lumpia, but my food is my favorite foods i like to eat, put into my favorite filipino foods, put

together. it's not based off of recipes i learned from my mom. maybe i learned the rolling technique from my mom, but the different things that i put in are just the different things that i like, and i like to think that i have good taste. well, the very first lumpia that i came out with that really build the lumpia -- it wasn't the poerk and shrimp shanghai, but my favorite thing after partying is that bakon cheese burger lumpia. there was a time in our generation where we didn't have our own place, our own feed to eat.

before, i used to promote filipino gatherings to share the love. now, i'm taking the most exciting filipino appetizer and sharing it with other filipinos. >> it can happen in the san francisco mint, it can happen in a park, it can happen in a street park, it can happen in a tech campus. it's basically where we bring the hardware, the culture, the operating system. >> so right now, i'm eating something that brings me back to every filipino party from my childhood. it's really cool to be part of the community and reconnect with the neighborhood. >> one of our largest challenges in creating this cultural district when we compare ourselves to chinatown,

japantown or little saigon, there's little communities there that act as place makers. when you enter into little philippines, you're like where are the businesses, and that's one of the challenges we're trying to solve. >> undercover love wouldn't be

possible without the help of the mayor and all of our community partnerships out there. it costs approximately $60,000 for every event. undiscovered is a great tool for the cultural district to bring awareness by bringing the best parts of our culture which is food, music, the arts and being ativism all under one roof, and by seeing it all in this way, what it allows san franciscans to see is the dynamics of the filipino-american culture. i think in san francisco, we've kind of lost track of one of our values that makes san francisco unique with just

empathy, love, of being acceptable of different people, the out liers, the crazy ones. we've become so focused onic maing money that we forgot about those that make our city and community unique. when people come to discover, i want them to rediscover the magic of what diversity and empathy can create. when you're positive and committed to using that energy, >> the teams really, really went above and beyond and is continuing to do that today. this past year, the san francisco public utilities commission water quality division started receiving many more requests to test for lead in the public school system

here in san francisco as a result of legislation that had passed from the state requiring all of the public schools to do lead testing. and so as a result, the public utilities commission and the water quality team in particular was asked to meet with the san francisco unified school district to begin to prioritize which schools to test to meet that state mandate. >> the team that tests, we're a full service environmental laboratory, and we take care of both the needs of the water quality division and the waste water enter price. and on the water quality enterprise, we have to also have drinking water that meets all federal and state quality regulations. and lead in schools, we're playing a problem in remediating this problem of lead in schools. >> our role here in communications is being able to take the data that we have that we know is protective of public

health and safety and transmit it, give it to the public in a way they understand we are really doing our jobs well and making sure that they are safe always. >> the public learned very quickly all the accurate facts and all the critical information that they needed to know, and it's up to these individuals and their agencies and their commitment to the city. >> i enjoy the work because i can help people, and i can help the utilities to provide a better water quality, make sure that people feel that drinking hetch hetchy water is actually a pride. >> hats off to the water quality team because between them working on late nights, working on the weekends when the schools are closed, and working as a partner in the school district for the times they found a higher lead sample, they worked through to address that, so the team went above and beyond and is continuing to do that today.

sustainability mission, even though the bikes are very minimal energy use. it still matters where the energy comes from and also part of the mission in sustainability is how we run everything, run our business. so having the lights come on with clean energy is important to us as well. we heard about cleanpowersf and learned they had commercial rates and signed up for that. it was super easy to sign up. our bookkeeper signed up online, it was like 15 minutes. nothing has changed, except now we have cleaner energy.

it's an easy way to align your environmental proclivities and goals around climate change and it's so easy that it's hard to not want to do it, and it doesn't really add anything to the bill.ood evening everyone.

thank you for joining the regular board meeting of the board of education. today is tuesday, august 28th. i am now calling this meeting to order. can i get rollcall, please? thank you. [roll call] >> thank you.