>> in november of 2016, california voters passed proposition 64. the adult use of marijuana act. san franciscans overwhelmingly approved it by nearly 75%. and the law went into effect in january of 2018. [♪]

>> under california's new law, adults age 21 and over can legally possess up to 1 ounce of cannabis and grow up to six plants at home. adults in california can legally give up to 1 ounce to other adults. >> in the state of california, we passed a law that said adult consumption is legal. if you are an adult and in possession of certain amounts, you will no longer be tried. you will not be arrested or prosecuted for that. that is changing the landscape dramatically. [♪] >> to legalization of cannabis could bring tremendous economic and social benefits to cities like san francisco. >> this industry is projected to reach $22 billion by the year 2020. and that is just a few years away. >> it can be a huge legal industry in california. i think very shortly, the actual growing of marijuana may become

the biggest cash crop in the state and so you want that to be a legal tax paying cash crop, all the way down the line to a sales tax on the retail level. >> the california medical industry is a 3 billion-dollar industry last year. anticipating that multiplier as 20, 30, 50 times in the consumer marketplace once adult use is really in place, you could go ahead and apply that multiplier to revenue. it will be huge. >> when that underground economy becomes part of the regular tax paying employment economy of the bay area, it not only has a direct impact, that money has a ripple impact through the economy as well. >> it is not just about retail. it is not just about the sensor. is about manufacturing pick a lot of innovative manufacturing is happening here in san

francisco in addition to other parts of the state as well as the cultivation. we should be encouraging that. >> there is a vast array of jobs that are going to be available in the newly regulated cannabis industry. you can start at the top tier which a scientist working in testing labs. scientists working at extraction companies. and you work towards agricultural jobs. you have ones that will require less education and you look towards cannabis retail and see traditional retail jobs and you see general management jobs. those things that are similar to working at a bar restaurant or working at a retail store. >> we are offering, essentially, high paid manufacturing jobs. typical starting wage of 18-$20 an hour, almost no barrier to entry, you do not need an education. >> that means that people who do not have college educations, working-class people, will have an opportunity to have a job at cultivating cannabis plants.

there's a whole wide array of job opportunities from the seedling to the sale of the cannabis. [♪] >> last year, they said 26 million people came to san francisco. >> the tourism industry continues to be very robust here and the city and county of san francisco is about a billion-dollar industry. >> if we use a conservative cannabis user adoption rate to 15% that means 4 million tourists want that means 4 million tourists want to purchase cannabis. and we need to be ready for th them. >> in 2015, as adult use legalization efforts gained momentum in california, the supervisors created the san francisco cannabis state legalization task force. this task force offered to research and advice to the supervisors, the mayor and other city departments. >> we knew that adult use legalization was coming to the ballot and stat that would bring with it a number of decisions that the city would have to make

about zoning and regulation and so forth. and i decided at that time, at a know it was a great, that rather than have a fire drill after the ballot measure passes, as suspected it would, we should plan an event. so i authored a task force to spend a year studying it and we made it a broad-based task force. >> we prepared ourselves by developing a health impact assessment and partnered that with key stakeholder discussions with washington, oregon, colorado, to really learn lessons from their experience rolling out both adult and medicinal cannabis. >> within days of the passing of the proposition, ed lee called on agencies to act decisively. >> he issued an executive order asking the department of public health, along with planning and other city departments to think through an internal working group around what we needed to

do to consider writing this law. >> we collectively, i would say that was representatives from g.s.a., as well as the mayor's office, met with a lot of departments to talk through what prop 64 and the implementation of prop 64 it meant to them. >> the mayor proposed an office of cannabis, a one-stop shop for permits allowing operators to grow and sell cannabis. >> he wanted a smart structure. he wanted a regulatory structure that ensured that kids didn't have access and community's were safe and that consumers were safe. and he wanted to ensure, more importantly, it was a regulatory structure that encouraged diversity and inclusivity. >> this is an office that will be solely charged with a duty of wanting not only the policies that we create, implementing and enforcing them, but also

executing the licenses that are needed. we're talking about 20 different licenses that will put us into compliance with what is happening on the state level. >> this is a highly, highly regulated industry now, at this point. we have anywhere from 7-10 departments that will be working with these industry participants as they go through the permitting process. that is a lot of work at a loss of coordination. we are creating a permitting process that is smart and is digital. it is much easier for the user and for community input, and is less mired in bureaucracy. >> for the first time ever in san francisco history, standalone licenses are available for all aspects of the nonretail side of the cannabis industry. now, a cultivator can go in to the department of building inspection and to the department of health and say, with this first registered and temporary license, and then what will

eventually be a permanent license, this is the project, this is what i am going to do. >> very rarely in city government do we interact with industries that are asking to be regulated. these guys want to be regulated. they want to be compliant. they want to work with the city. that is rare. >> san francisco has created a temporary licensing process so that the pre-existing operators here in san francisco can apply for a temporary state licensed. >> we have taken teams of up to 12 inspectors to inspect the facility twice a day. we have been doing that with the department of building inspection and the department of public health. and the fire department. >> it is really important for the industry to know that we are treating them like industry. like manufacturing. like coworkers pick so that is the way we are approaching this from a health and safety and a consumer protection network. this is just the way practice

happens with restaurants or manufacturing facilities. >> because there are so many pieces of industry that people haven't even thought about. there are different permits for each piece. you have to set up a permitting system for growing, for manufacturing, for testing. for delivery. for retail. you have to make sure that there is an appropriate health code. certainly the regulation of alcohol in terms of restaurants and retail it's probably a model for how this industry will be regulated as well, both on sale and consumption. >> it is completely uncharted territory. there is a blessing and a curse with that. it is exciting because we are on a new frontier, but it is very nerve-racking because there's a lot at stake. and quite frankly, being san francisco, being the state of california, people are looking to us. >> we hope that cannabis does become more of an accepted part

of society in the same way that alcohol is, the same way coffee is. >> it is a very innovative fear, particularly around manufacturing. san francisco could be an epicenter. >> san francisco can be a leader here. a global leader in the cannabis movement and set a bar just to other communities and cities and states and this nation how it is done. [♪] [♪>> neighborhoods in san

francisco are as diverse and fascinating as the people who inhabit them. today we're in the sunset, where we'll join supervisor tang for the inspiration of this show, where we explore san francisco, one neighborhood at a time. hi i'm katy tang the district 4 supervisor in san francisco, which is comprise of sunset and parkside neighborhoods. i think what makes district 4 unique is that we have so many different cultures here. we have so many different generations of people. different experiences and that makes it a vibrant neighborhood. for example, which you go down urban street you can do to a japanese restaurant, chinese restaurant, american restaurant, and the cultural diversity is just what makes it so amazing my name is ching le, and i'm the owner of the kingdom of bounty.

17th san francisco, 94116. we make the most authentic and different kinds of dumplings and dim sum. recently more and more popular because they are vegetables and meats that we use fresh vegetables and meats in the business. it's really inspired to start discover your district series, because i wanted to find a way for neighbors to come and get to know our small businesses and our neighborhoods. get to know each other, get know our office, and do so in a setting that was unintimidating and fun. so i launched this idea call the "discover your district," where we go every month to one or two small businesss in district 4 and we have done things such as learning how to make dumplings that we're learning today and there are so many

different activities that we have exposed our residents to. >> today is the very special day, because the city of san francisco hosting this for san francisco city. learning how to make dumplings and knowledge of dumplings. they love to do it and all enjoy it. >> this is definitely not my first time making it, so i have definitely improved a lot. the first couple of time s i tried to make dumplelings they looks inedible. they have definitely improved. there is a special dumpling eating contest, which is amazing. everyone those eat the dumplings that they made and see how many they can do. i'm curious as to how many they going to be able to down today? >> don't forget to write down what you are eating today. >> we make all different

kinds of dumplings and enjoy what they made. so after that, we'll have contact how many pieces of dumplings they can eat and announce the winner today.

>> 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 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] >> 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 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 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. 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 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. [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 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. 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. 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. 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 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 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 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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] 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. >> 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? >> 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] >> hi, i'm corn field and welcome to doing building san francisco, we are doing a special series, called stay safe, how you can stay in your home safely and comfortable, and we know that an earthquake is coming and there are things that you can do to reduce the effects of the earthquake on your home. let's take a look at that. >> here at the spur urban center on mission street in san

francisco talking about staying in your home after an earthquake. i have guests today, pat buscavich and his dog, harvey and david, and both structural engineers and we want to talk about things that you might do before an earthquake to your home to make it more likely that your home will be ha bitable after an earthquake, what should we do? both structural and maybe even important non-structural things. >> you hear about how to prepare an earthquake kit and brace your book shelves and water tank and that is important. what you have to be careful is make sure that you are not going the easy things to make yourself feel better. if you have a bad structure, a bad building, then you need to be looking at that and everything that you do to keep your collectables in place is small and compared. if you have taken care of your structure, then there is a lot of stuff that you can do in your house that is non-structural and your chimney

and water tank. >> let's talk about what the structural things might be. >> and he is exactly right. you don't want to make the deck chairs safe on the titanic, it is going down, you are going down, you have to make sure that your house is safe. there are basic things that you need to do including bracing the water heater, not just because of fire hazard but because of the water source and the damage, but basic things are installing anchor bolts, and adding plywood and strapping your beams to column and posts to footings and foundations are really easy things to do and most contractors can do the building department is set up to approve this work, and these are things that every home owner should do, and it is a little harder because you have to get a building permit and hire a contractor. but you want to be able to after a big earthquake to climb in bed that night and pull the covers up and say i don't have to worry about going to a government shelter. >> that is the main focus that it is great to have an earthquake kit to be able to

bug out for 72 hours. here is a better idea, stay in your own home and in order to do that you have to be make sure that your structure is okay. if you have a house, the easy things to do with the wood construction is feasible. if you have a renter or you live in a concrete building, you need to talk to the building own , and make sure they have done their due diligence and find out what the deficiencies are. >> when i have looked at damaged buildings,vy seen that a little bit of investment in time and money and structural work provides great dividends. >> especially if it is the wood frame, typical house that you can do the things that i was talking about, the anchor and the plywood in the first garage area, you know if you refinanced in the last three years, get some of that savings and it is a really good investment. and the other thing that i try to tell people, earthquake insurance is not the solution to the shelter in place, if

there is a big earthquake and your building is damaged, you are not in your house, you may be somewhere else, if you work in the city, it is going to be really hard to commute from sonoma, you want to do what is necessary so that your house is retrofitted and a couple of years of earthquake premium could get you to a level that you could be in the house after a significant earthquake and it may have damage and there is still a shelter in place where you are at home and you are not worried for the government taking care of you and you are living in a place where you can go to work and you want to have your wood frame house is really easy to get to that level. on top of the wood frame house, i mean every wood frame house in the west half of the city have a water tank and the water tank fall over because they are gas fired and start fires. and that is something that you could do for yourself, and for your neighbors and for the whole city is make sure that your water tank is braced. >> if you look at the studies that are predicting on fires, we are going to have a lot of fires and for every water tank that is braced there is a

potential of one less fire that the fire department is going to have to fight and we don't want to have any more fires than we need to. so bracing the water heater is the first thing that you want to do. >> and so easy, and you go on-line and you google, earthquake, water and heater and you google the sites where you can find the details and you can put them out there on the hardware store and you can hire a small contract tore do that for you. that is a couple of hundred bucks, the best investment. if you are in other types of building it is complicated. if you are in a high-rise building you just can't anchor your building down because there are no anchor bolts, but at that point, the tenant should be asking questions of the owner's and the managers about earthquake preparedness >> and don't take the easy answer, oh, our building is safe it was designed to code. that is not the right answer, ask the tough questions and see if you can get a report that has been given to you. >> what is the right question? will i be able to stay in my home after the expected earthquake? is