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tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  September 21, 2018 6:00am-7:01am PDT

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sustainable. our school needs to be held accountable. any serious plan moving forward has to include hiring two bilingual certified teachers for that many kids. the district must support parents and children with an immediate plan to keep our classroom safe and sane. our kids learning and thriving and parents are appreciated and valued. thank you for your time. 's. >> [speaking spanish] >> good evening. my name is jessica ortega and i am the mother of a fifth-grader at monro. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: i'm here because i am very concerned and i realize that there are parents of other ethnicities that are just as concerned, not just latino parents in what is happening. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: as the other parents mentioned, we have gone through at least three principles and this has caused the school to become unbalanced and uncontrolled. the current principal lacks a proper work ethic and has not been able to handle the problems that we are facing. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: i also want to express that this has also caused an emotional imbalance in both the parents and the children. it has been two weeks that we have been without a teacher and the people who have been sent, lack professional ethics and human kindness. i think that the academic portion is one part of its, by the other part is the emotional aspects that we have not focused on. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: another thing that the principle has allowed is a fact that there are more than 40 children in the classroom. he comes from the musee from new york and the laws are different there. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: i appreciate all of you and i
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respectfully ask and hope that you will find a quick resolution to these problems because they are affecting all of the kids. a lot of my child friends are moving to other schools and i don't want to have to do that to him in his last grade at elementary school. >> good evening. my name is peter. my daughter is a fifth-grade student at munro elementary school. i am here to sound the alarm in regards to the situation that has quickly spiraled out of control under the guidance of the principal. the school year started on the 20th of august, absent of not one but 20 bilingual teachers we were promised. let me be clear. forty-one fifth-grade students started the year in an overcrowded room without a single qualified teacher.
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firstly, it is worth noting the school is holding a meeting tonight to discuss this exact topic. most parents are not able to attach both meetings and many are there tonight to and are desperate to hear of any news or progress. my daughter has been a student at munro since kindergarten. it is a small school with a grunt -- great sense of community. we are grateful for the wonderful teachers that have worked tirelessly educating and shaping our daughter's future. in fact, they are sorely missed. the past seven days of schooling has been a disaster by all accounts. the third substitute teacher started this week. the overcrowded class has been reduced by some parents are choosing to take their child elsewhere. i feel ashamed that there is an element of release -- relief and hearing this terrible news. the fifth-grade students at munro elementary are being monumentally failed. i will repeat that. the fifth-grade students at munro elementary have been monumentally failed to. the communication has been disgraceful. there was no e-mail, no letter or phone call to even prepare us for the possibility of what was
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to unfold. we were told by our children on the first day. no one knew where no one cared. the principal is negotiating alternatives from a position. for adjusting -- suggesting a english speaking teacher with a spanish-speaking aid is not enough. the majority of students are behind great level -- grade level and slipping quickly. trust has been broken and confidence is gone. sadly, our children are paying the price for the negligence. hopefully the union school district hears our cause of distress. the alarm bells are sounding. thank you. [applause] >> my name is danny kim. for 20 years, i was an educator. for the past six years, i have been a parent to just want to love my kids go to munro. and my son is in this fifth-grade class. for the past couple of years, he has experienced bullying. but the saving grace for my son
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has been wonderful educators that have worked with him and his classmates to create a safe environment. that has been why we have trusted our school and the people who care for our kids. when my son came back this year, there was no teacher. on the first day, the sub made fun of him and another girl. the girl threw a pencil at his eye and and at that point, we knew that in that particular environment to, my son would not be safe. we are not just talking about learning, we're talking about safety. for my son, that meant i needed to pull him out and do what i needed to do as a father. that is what i did. i have given a lot to this district. he really is sad that it has come to this. my daughter is still at the school. i am glad for that. in in this case, my son has expressed the cost of that. why am here today is because i
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support my fellow parents and the community at munro that something has to be done. thank you. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: good evening. my name is jasmine ortiz and i am also a mother of a student at munro. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: when the meeting started, i listened as they discussed renaming a school after our former mayor derek [speaking spanish].
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>> voice of translator: i i heard a member of the board mention that when you walk into that school, you can feel the love and the joy in that school. unfortunately, that's not happening at my child's school. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] he was really excited -- >> voice of translator: he was really excited about seeing his friends from the previous year at exciting about meeting his teacher and excited about his last year and his promotion. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: as you have heard before for the reasons stated, a lot of parents have pulled their children from the school. one of those children was my child's best friend and my son is very sad he won't be able to celebrate his graduation with him. he doesn't want to go to school. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: thank you for listening to me. i want us to find a solution. i want us to find a teacher that would treat our children with the love because that is important to them. he has been learning everything. he has realized that munro was not welcoming to them. the school was dirty when they started. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: there was still posterboard and torn pieces of paper from the previous year, this year. thank you, very much. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: good evening. my name is benito ortiz. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: my son is also in the fifth-grade. he is the third one, third-generation at munro. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: i remember in previous years, it has always been a great school. there was even some renovations done. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: i want to be direct. this problem started to watch when years. [speaking spanish]
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>> voice of translator: my son was bullied and the teachers and the staff and administrators have not been doing a good job. [speaking spanish] >> voice of translator: and i ask you to look at all the people who were here tonight. obviously something is wrong at this time that u.s. representatives look and find what is wrong. >> good evening. i want to thank the families who came out tonight. my name is rosemary and i'm a long-term -- long time. a community member. i've been there since 2002 with
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two current students that while they are and i started a fourth and fifth grade class. my daughter is an alarming of lowell at a recent college -- college graduate. i lived what what blocks from this quality advocate for services for the families and residents of district 11. the students are representative and our working class immigrant community. a community that relies heavily on education to improve lives and education of children. these families are considerate, respectful and supportive of their children's education and the schools that they attempt. it is an understatement to say this administration, the current administration is committing a grave disservice to the community. families and our students and our staff. families in this situation are experiencing unnecessary tension , frustration and sadness with the time lost at work that they have had to take off. hurrying here overwork after cleaning houses.
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sleepless nights, a lack of structure. and the one place where many people look for structure in the classroom. last year the administration disregarded community input throughout the academic year and failed to call for a single community meeting prior to submitting the budget. which i addressed or informed the district about. the result of having failed to communicate and collaborate with the families and the stop has created a current situation of an unsafe and overcrowded and ineffective learning environments. the situation is not only completely chaotic but especially disruptive to the children and their families causing numerous inconveniences and moving children to other schools across town and losing friendships made over the last five years and disappointment and that public school. my husband and i really want to continue your currently, we are told to support staff pops and from time to time but they are finding the situation incredibly difficult to control or instruct they are, intern, snapping at and punishing and sometimes criticizing our children for
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something that is not their fault. this set up that she has set up is not working for us. our efforts as parents to support the administration initially allowed us to go into the classroom but then told us we weren't allowed. >> thank you. >> she continues to tell us we can assist and it tells us we can't. and puts up pneumatic -- numerous obstacles. >> good evening. i want to start by reiterating something that i think the board president said that you all have equity priorities. this is an equity priority right now, right here. if you want a project for the week or the month or the year, here we are. i am a long time munro parents. my daughters in the seventh grade and my son is in the fifth-grade. the difference in their experiences has been dramatic. not only is my son a former foster youth who has been repeatedly failed by adults and public institution, but he it has now been failed by his school.
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despite being on the southeast side of the city and full of immigrant families, families have done a great job at educating children. many of whom, like my son have high needs. today i cannot say that this is true. we do not educate our students the same anymore. we have lost all of our veteran spanish-speaking teachers. we can't seem to keep a principal and we are putting the lives of our children at risk. they have no teacher, and all order has been lost. i feel quite certain that if this was clarendon or another school or any westside school, any of the fancy schools, that everybody wants to go to, this would never be tolerated. we are not a rich school but we are equally, if not more committed to demanding the same quality of education as students from those westside schools and we will not be ignored. our principal talks a lot about the spanish-speaking kids in our school who are mostly in spanish immersion and how they have the lowest test scores in all areas.
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if things continue as is, they will surely worsen. this is a high need population and for seven days, we have had three subs, 40 enrolled students in total chaos in the classroom, which i have witnessed. nothing about what i witnessed is acceptable and you are elected representatives who have the power to do something. at a minimum, we are asking for two certified teachers as promised by the principal and extra support staff or the fifth-grade spanish immersion class. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. thank you to all of the parents that came out for it munro. we appreciate your presence and your input. our next item is section g. i believe that is all of our public speakers. our next item is section g. the special order of business. we have not tonight. section h. is a discussion of educational issues. we have not tonight. section i is consent calendar
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items are moved. we have none. section jay is the introduction of proposals to committee. altogether, we have four policies. the public and board comment on proposal. if anyone has signed up, which i have no cards at this time,. ok. all right. susan solomon. come on up. >> thank you. this is in relation to the policy for prior authorization to use personal belongings at school and reimbursement if they get lost or stolen. i just wanted to make sure that the board knows that there is a contract provision and both the search to vacated unclassified contract that says the following
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this is article 14.4.5 active certificate and 15.2.6 at classifieds. the district shall reimburse a teacher or a pair just a educator for damages or theft resulting from attack, assault of physical threats, robbery or vandalism when said damage or theft occurs in the line of duty , including supervision without fault of the teacher. it is possible that i am misreading the policy, but it seems to me that this policy will only provide reimbursement if the personal belonging is being directly used for instruction. the contract doesn't specify that it is a belonging that is being used for instruction. thank you. >> thank you. item two is board policy 3350. and play travel expenses and work policy.
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item three is board policy 5148, childcare and development at preschool early childhood education. can i hear a motion and a second for first reading? >> moved. >> second. >> thank you. unless i hear otherwise from council, we will be sending these policies to the rules policy and legislative committee ok. thank you. section k.'s proposal for immediate action and suspension of the rule. there are none tonight. section l is our board member process reports. appointment of commissioners to committee. at this time, we would like to announce that all of the board committees will remain the same. we made a leadership decision to
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keep the committees in the same order because of the transition of board members which will occur in january and new appointments will be made in january. so just to reiterate the current committees and their chairs, buildings and grounds and services, i will continue to chair with matt haney. curriculum and program commissioner norton will chair with commissioner cook. rules policy and legislation, commissioner sanchez will chair with commissioner cook and commissioner ross say. the ad hoc committee on student assignments will be chaired with commissioner haney and commissioner norton. personal matters, labour relations and affordability, the vice president will chair with commissioner sanchez and commissioner norton. and the ad hoc school district city college joint committee will continue to be chaired by
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myself and trustee, alex randolph. we will be with commissioner haney and commissioner norton and trustee selby. and the city college oversight committee will actually josh i currently am on but i have resigned from it. and commissioner cook and the vice president -- vice president cook will be taking that position as soon as we transition over. that will be the committees going forward. please let us know if you have any questions. item two, standing committees. we have no meetings that have taken place as a last board meeting except for buildings and grounds and we announced all of the action items on the apps. forge, two membership organizations. does anyone have any updates on that?
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and the other reports by board members? vice president cook. >> i just wanted to wish everyone a happy first week of the year and on friday, i have been presuming my friday morning school sight visits. i would like to thank the tenderloin community school of san francisco and the chinese immersion school for welcoming me. i will be attending other schools this friday. also, on the first day of school , i attended wallenberg high school and another elementary school. i would like to thank them for welcoming me. the last thing is i'm a proud member of the san francisco mentor for success program. and my student is in the western indigestion. i got him a fortnight backpack to start the school year. apparently it grows in the dark which i did not know until he
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told me. if you are not into the program, i encourage you to participate. >> any others? i too want to thank hillcrest and francisco even though the superintendent sounded like he went by himself like he was generous to let me join him. i want to thank both of those school communities for allowing us to be there on the first day of school. i also just wanted to welcome our new deputy superintendent two has disappeared. see how special she is. i just want to welcome her to our group and -- there she is. [laughter] you have cheesecake in your teeth? yeah. [applause] >> welcome and congratulations on your new role. i'm looking forward to working with you. any other announcements by board
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members? ok. calendar of committee meetings. are there any upcoming meetings to announce. >> rules committee will be meeting on thursday, september 6 th at 6:00 pm. >> other meetings? anything scheduled at this time? no. section m. is other informational items. we have no reports tonight. it is a memorial adjournment. there is no memorial adjournment tonight. at this time, will take public comments for those who have submitted speaker cards for close session items. we have none this evening. section o.'s closed sessions of the board will go into closed session. we will be back.
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>> they get the authority at the district to be omitted.
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section q. is adjournment. this meeting is adjourned. thank yo adjourned. >> shop & dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shop & dine in the 49 with within the 49 square miles of san francisco by supporting local services within the neighborhood we help
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week products and want to get on the ground floor a no-brainer for us when you you, you buying local goods made locally our supporting small business those are not created an, an sprinkle scale with all the machines and one person procreating them people are making them by hand as a result more interesting and can't get that of minor or anywhere else and san francisco a hot bed for local manufacturing in support that is what keeps your city vibrant we'll make a compelling place to live and visit i think that local business is the lifeblood of san francisco and a vibrant community
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>> hi, everybody. welcome to healthright 360 where we provide substance abuse disorder treatment, primary medical care, dental care, services to help people access housing, employment services, education services; basically everything that our clients need to help get well and help get better, do better, and be better in their life. and hopefully, at some point, they're able to offer an overdose prevention service here, otherwise known as supervised injection facility. we think it makes sense. it makes sense for a couple of reasons. one, people who overdose and die never have a chance of recovering, never have a chance of reuniting with their families, and having a better life. and two because there's a lot of research that supports it, that it helps people to link to
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care and improve their health out comes. so because i work in this field, i talk a lot about this, and i get a lot of questions about these services. and the questions that are directed to me are often about aren't we enabling people who are using these services? aren't we enabling addiction? to this i say, absolutely not. people who live on the streets and are publicly injecting drugs, those people live in a great deal of pain and misery, and pain and misery and shame do not lead people to health or recovery. they keep people unwell, keep people where they're at. it's really hope that brings people to health and recovery, hope and a belief in a positive different future, and if a person can't have it for themselves, somebody else has it for them. and i know this not because of
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the work i do and i've done it for the past 30 years, i know it from experience. i am a former heroin user, and i got clean through haight-ashbury health right programs over 30 years. i came to haight-ashbury neighborhood did etox like nin times, and welcomed every time with love and compassion and support. so on the tenth time, i thought, i can't do this anymore. there was someone there who i trusted, who i built a relationship with, said maybe it's time to try something else, and because i trusted them, i did. i went onto one of health right 360's programs. it was because i trusted them that i believed in what they
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had to say, and i went on, and i've been drug free for the past 33 years. so it's really hope that brings people to health. it's hope, not shame, and it's what these supervised injection facilities will offer, hope and health to those who live on the margins. i'm really excited to have incredible courageous elected osms and policy advocates behind me who have really stepped up in the face of a national epidemic, an opioid overdose epidemic is a public health crisis, and these folks have had the courage to bring legislation to the forefront that would help address this issue in ab 186. so i'd first like to welcome the author of the bill, assembly member susan egmon. when i went into recovery, one
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of the things, i went back to school, and i went to graduate school, and i got a master's in social work. i might be a little biased when i say that social workers make the best policy makers. so i'd like to bring her up to talk a little bit about it. >> good morning, everybody. thank you for that warm welcome and thank you for having us in this great facility. so i'm susan egmon. i am a social worker by training, a politician by accident, like most of us are, i think. but there comes a time when you work with people for years on the streets in recovery in different parts of their lives. unless we have policy in place that actually allow people to rise to their full potential then we're not doing our full job. i'd like to specifically thank one of my staff members, logan hess, who was a champion of
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this bill all the way through x it probably wouldn't have been possible -- through, and it probably wouldn't have been possible without him. shortly after i got out of the military, i worked in substance abuse. i saw the epidemic go from heroin to crack cocaine to methamphetamine back to opioids. during that time what i learneds and as becoming a professor of social work is this issue around relationship. i could teach my students all i wanted about different theories about what works, what doesn't, but the most basic thing what we can do is to connect with someone on a human level and treat them with dignity and respect. and that is the whole idea behind the safe injection sites. i think when we look around, and we tell stories about who we are as a society, when we talk about who we are as a people, as a country, as a state, i think we think about the fabric of who makes up
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that. is it journalists? is it politicians? is it rich and famous? it's all that more, but it's the people who walk by us on the streets. have we tried enough? do we judge, do we offer hope, what do we do? so i think this bill comes on the back of that, of really understanding that we have a crisis, and seeing the evolution of people's willingness, i think, to think outside the box and try different things. we have long been a law and order kind of society, and i think we realize now that we need to work a little bit more towards humanity. we introduced this bill three years ago and i couldn't even get a vote in the first committee. again, when we started the bill, it was much broader to say let's go statewide. last year, we came back and said let's just try nine counties. when we came back, it was one city, one brave city, san francisco who was willing to
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try this. recognizing again that people who live on the street, addicts, are part of the fabric of our culture. they are going to be part of what we tell ourselves in 20 and 30 and 40 years, so it's really incumbent to use all of the resources we have to treat people with compassion, to keep them alive one more die. everybody out there, they all have a family. they all have family members who have been waiting for this call, and hopefully that call will be they got into treatment. i couldn't have done this without a great team behind me, and i'd like to introduce a tenacious -- i'd like to introduce my friend and one of the coauthors of this bill, senator scott wiener. [applause] >> thank you, susan. and i try to be tenacious, but
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susan egmon is the definition of tenacious. i still don't know how susan was able to get this out of the assembly not once but twice, two different votes. i wasn't 100% confident but she was able to do it. then we almost hit a wall in the senate. we did hit a wall and had to park the bill for a year, but we were able to make the case. we had a great team effort. the two of us also, senator ricardo lara, we made the case and got it out of the senate, and it's on the governor's desk, and this is really exciting. i want to thank healthright 360 and sfgov for hosting us here today. this is one of our amazing, amazing organizations. i'm proud to represent san francisco for many years but one of the reasons near the top is this is truly a public health town. this is a city, a community that believes deeply in the
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power of health care and the power of progressive, forward looking public health approaches, and we're not scared to push the envelope on public health policy, even if we are ahead -- even if we're ahead of other cities, even if the federal government threatens us with criminal prosecution, such as that ridiculous new york times op ed that rod rosenstein crawled out of his cave to publish. we did it with needle exchange decades ago because we were experiencing the height of the aids h.i.v. epidemic years ago, and if the federal government was going to stick its head in the sand, we were going to do it here. we did it with medical cannabis. these are all situations where we were being threatened by the
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federal government, but we persevered. guess what? medical cannabis is being embraced even in republican states, so yet again despite threats from our federal government, we are going to move forward here in san francisco and show the rest of the state and show the rest of the country that this can be done. we know from every other city and country, australia, canada, europe, every other place that does this has succeeded. safe injection sites lower crime rates, get people into recovery. this is where we should be going, and i'm just so proud of the legislature for doing this. we are urging our great friend, governor brown, to sign ab 86. the governor has spoken to me
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repeatedly about the syringe and the public injection crisis that we have here in san francisco. he's seen it with his own eyes. this is a governor who believes in progressive alternatives to incarceration. he understands that the war on drugs failed, that drug addiction is not a criminal issue, it's a health issue, and we have to take a public health approach to addressing it. and of course, what we did in the legislature was simply giving permission to say, understand state law, it's legal. but nothing happens without local leadership, and we are so lucky here in san francisco to have a mayor and to have a board of supervisors who are solidly behind this idea. and it's now my honor to introduce and bring up our great mayor, someone who i have known about 15 years now, back to when we were both little political babies. and i think we are now both
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thankfully in a position where we can work on these issues. and she just -- not that many mayors would take office, and the first thing she would push is a safe injection site. but other things haven't worked. we have to address this if we're going to tackle the drug issue on our streets, so i want to thank her for her position on this, and introduce mayor london breed. >> the hon. london breed: thank you for opening up the doors of health rite 360 and allowing us to hold this event here and all that you do for san francisco. i remember when healthright 360 was actually walden house, and i spent a lot of time helping people in my community and family members get into treatment at walden house. and i do really appreciate the approach to focusing on health
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and trying to get people healthy. and that's why the name is so fitting, healthright 360. i remember when you changed the name, and i kept calling it walden house, but now, i'm calling it what it needs to be called, and that is healthright 360, getting the health of citizens here in san francisco who sadly struggle with drug addiction health -- healthy. and i want to thank our leaders in sacramento, including evsus egmon and scott wiener or their consistenty -- for their consistency in pushing something that's going to help us make a better place in san francisco. i would get complaints about the number of needles on the street, about the number of people shooting up on the streets. and in certain instances, some programs and other folks would be out there, talking to individuals, trying to get them
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help, trying to get them support, and sadly, it hasn't worked. what we've been doing in san francisco and i think in many places hasn't worked. i was basically not complete sold on safe injection sites initially until laura thomas over here from drug policy alliance kept bugging me and bugging me and bugging me to get to vancouver to see exactly what it entails and look at the data and how it's actually been effective. and i was very surprised at how impressed i was with not only the numbers but the facility. zero overdoses in those facilities. over 3500 people refer today detox who have not come back through their system, the compassion of the people who worked there. and it just made all the difference to the people that i spoke to that wanted to get
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clean and sober. they knew they had a place to go, and had people that supported them and respected them, and would help them when they needed the help. such a major difference in terms of the before and after photos, the look, the conversations. this is something that i know will make a difference. what we're doing right now isn't working, and i know it makes people uncomfortable. it makes me uncomfortable, but i feel like here in san francisco, we have to be willing to try new things. just because we don't want to see people shooting up, and we don't want to see the needles on the street doesn't mean it's going to disappear without us taking action to get to a better place here in our city. so it's going to take a lot of work, and this is one tool that is going to be so significant in helping us here in san francisco with state laws that get in the way of real progress. and so i want to thank our leaders in sacramento and i also would like to thank david
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chiu for his work and his support because this narrowly made it through the assembly and the senate, and we are so grateful for their work. and we are here today to encourage our governor, jerry brown, to sign this legislation. this is really going to make such a huge difference, and it gets us one step closer to the reality of a real site here in san francisco, something that we are long overdue to try, something that we had the will and people want to see happen, but we just don't have all the tools necessary to get to a better place. so here we are today, and i am so looking forward to making sure that as soon as we are able, we will open a site here in our city, and we know we have some amazing partners, that we will continue to work with. but more importantly, we want to make sure we protect our great organizations, as well. with that, i'd like to
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introduce assembly member david chiu who has been just an incredible leader in sacramento on this issue as well as others that have impacted our city. assembly man david chiu. >> thank you, madam mayor, and let me thank all the health advocates here for your vision and your courage and your tenacity. and i want to thank you for hosting us, and i want to welcome susan egmon to san francisco and thank her as has been mentioned before for her courage. i was the first san francisco le legislature to cast a vote. as a former prosecutor, i had some initial questions about this policy. it is initially counter
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intuitive until you stop to think about it. and before that vote, i actually pulled down many of the studies that i have heard about of vancouver, of sydney, from canada, australia, and europe, that showed demonstrably that show the health data, the health facts show that we have to do this. as a senate housing committee, we all know that our housing crisis are exacerbated because of individuals that are addicted to drugs. we need to try new things. as i said on the assembly floor this past week, people are dieing on the streets of our state, on the streets of our city. we have to be willing to innovate, but innovate with facts, and ini receipt with science. i also want to thank the courage of my colleague, senator wiener, who has been tenacious in leading her colleagues along.
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and i also want to thank london breed. she risked on the campaign trail this moving forward. and the courage of san francisco in moving forward this important and dare i say this historic idea. this is a historic moment. if governor brown signs this bill, we will be able to move forward with an innovation that is rooted in science and accoufacts. it was not along ago when an abortion, medical marijuana, and needle exchange were considered illegal in the state of california, and we are here making history to say that public health schwinhould win, science and facts should win. it is my hope that the rest of the country will follow in bringing true dignity and true health care to those who
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desperately need it. with that, it's my pleasure to bring up one of the earliest advocates for this policy, laura thomas is the executive director for the drug policy alliance. miss thomas. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here in healthright 360. you know, its predecessor walden house, people are important to me. and now i owe them a huge debt. it's been amazing to have the treatment providers across california working with us on this legislation to be able to push back on the myths and misperceptions that leads
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people out of drug use. i'm laura thomas of the drug health alliance. we're one of the project sponsors of this bill, along with several others. together, we did the groundwork for this campaign, but we relied so heavily on the leaders, the leadership and the tenacity that you've already heard about. and the reason that we're working on this, the reason that we've been pushing for supervised consumption service is at the most basic level, they save lives. they are people that may not be saved, they are people that may not be reached otherwise. we deserve better. san francisco deserves better. we deserve clean, healthy environments. everyone does, whether it's
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people that use drugs or those of us who have homes to go to where we may consume our substances, our glass of whiskey in peace. and so this is a new idea for us here in san francisco, but it is not a new idea. you've heard the research referenced. there are now well over 120 of these sites around the world. they've been in place for 30 years, and the first one started in 1986 in bern, switzerland. so we have a wealth of information and experience to rely on as we move forward here in san francisco. but in order for this to happen, we need the governor to sign this bill, and we need to standup to a trump administration that is doing a lot of saber rattling and threatening us. this is par for the course with this administration, and i am
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grateful to live here in san francisco where we -- whether it's about the environment, it's about same sex marriage, it's about immigration, it's about access to medical marijuana or it's about supervised consumption services. our leadership, our population, the people who live here will push forward to do the right thing. so i'm grateful to live here in san francisco. i'm looking forward to many of these sites opening around the city. i'm excited to figure out what kinds of models and locations will work best for us, and i look forward to being able to provide people who use drugs in san francisco with better options. you know, these sites work for everyone. if you live in a neighborhood that has -- where you're seeing needles discarded on the streets and people injecting, then your neighborhood is probably a good location for one of these sites. if you're not seeing that, then
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your neighborhood is not a good location for one of these sites, but i think everyone understands that people who are injecting on the street, that they're doing that because that is their last resort. they don't want to be injecting on the street, they don't want to be injecting in public where children may see very
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brief. when senator ween iener told m about this event, i wanted to be here. we know that the situation in san francisco on our streets are intolerable, it's intolerable for people who are dieing, it's intolerable for people who are finding needles on our streets in the city. we know the war on drugs has failed, and although people in washington might want to try to pursue that war, they are not giving us what we need to cleanup our streets and get
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help for the folks who need it. i'm so proud as a san franciscan that we have such tremendous leadership from our mayor and our state leadership and state assembly. i'm so proud of the california that assembly woman egmon has provided such leadership around this. i'm hoping that san francisco will move forward with implementation and can demonstrate that it works as a pilot and then it will be something that other cities in california can benefit from. so thank you very much. [applause] >> okay. that concludes the press conference. if there are any questions, we're happy to take them or separately. yes. >> if the governor does actually sign this, how long will it take to actually get them up and running? >> madam mayor? >> the hon. london breed: so we are having some challenges as you know with federal law and making sure that if the
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governor signs this, we have all the tools that we need on the state and local level, we need to make sure that the people who are going to be working at these sites are going to be protected, so we're just trying to address this particular layer of challenges, but we're ready to go. we're ready to go, we're ready to move forward. we have a lot of support, and we're hopeful that we can get one opened sooner rather than later, but i can't give you a specific time just yet. >> a lot of people are concerned about taxpayer money going towards this. >> the hon. london breed: so we have identified some resources to help assist in the funding for this site, and it is -- at this time, it will probably not necessarily come from our city's budget. >> okay. thank you very much. >> yeah, sir, i have a question for assembly woman egmon. could you talk about --
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[inaudible] >> actually, didn't pass as a statewide thing. we had it statewide three years ago when we first started. [inaudible] >> in -- in u.s. or in california? >> outside of san francisco. there were some other counties. >> not within california. that was not what we were able to get across the final. it was just san francisco, right? it went from statewide to nine counties to one county, so that's -- it's called a compromise in passing legislation. >> okay. of course we hope that after we do this pilot, we can show the rest of the state how it's done. thank you very much, everyone. >> thank you. [applause]
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>> president cohen: all right. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. good morning. i want to welcome you to the budget and finance committee. it's thursday, september 20. we've got a fairly light agenda ahead of us. i want to recognize matthew baltazar and michael ignatio with sfgov tv. i also want to thank linda wong, who will be today's clerk.