tv Government Access Programming SFGTV February 14, 2019 5:00pm-6:01pm PST
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celebrate lunar new year, the year of the boar. we wish you and your family the best of fortune, prosperity and much happiness. we are a nonprofit organization dedicated to securing funds and coordinating resources to support the city's annual a.p.a. heritage organization festivities. our organization is made up of a very small board, and i'd like to introduce to you our directors. we have our treasurer, irene yee riley, our incoming treasurer, j.j. lara. board member matt mooey, and our founder and president, claudine ching. [applause] >> so although we're a very small organization, we're able
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to put on celebration events every year because of the dedicated members of the a.d.a. celebration committee, and that's a group of 30-some odd representatives of the community that makeup the a.p.a. community. so if you are a member of that group, can you please raise your hand? okay. everyone give them a hand. [applause] >> want to thank you so much for being part of the a.p.a. team. now please give a warm welcome to our president and founder, claudine ching. >> thank you, scott. [applause] >> thank you, everyone for helping to come celebrate lunar new year. today is the third day of the new year. some of us were in chinatown for the first day of the year with mayor breed, and when i friend, walter wong, celebrated the biggest celebration in
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chinatown with eight pigs, is that right? and firecrackers, so i want to acknowledge of the presence of the mayor who will be speaking shortly and the members of the council and community members of the so eve-- members. every year, we kick off events in the community with the lunar new year celebration. we can take the opportunity to tell you a little bit more about what we are doing for a.p.a. heritage month this year. some of you may not have been to our a.p.a. heritage month celebration, so i want to take the opportunity to talk about the a.p.a. heritage month. last year, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the law that established this particular celebration. so the month of may, why is it the month of may a.p.a. heritage month?
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congress decided because of two reasons. the first day of 1943 marked the rival on may 7 of the first japanese immigrant into the united states in the record so that was one reason. and the other reason was on may 10 -- 1843 -- 1869 was the completion of the trans-continental railroad. so that's why the month of may was selected, and this year was the 150th anniversary of the trans-continental railroad. so for this year's celebration on may 1, as you all are invited to our event, together with mayor breed, we'll be celebrating two significant historic events. one is the completion of the trans-continental railroad, and the other one actually is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the college of
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ethnic studies at san francisco state. this is unbelievable that to this date, although there are a lot of ethnics -- different sties classes in many universities and colleges, our san francisco state remains the only ethnic studies department in the whole country where asian american studies african american studies, all ethnic studies had a part of. this is a momentum decision. we are very happy to be celebrating these two significant occasions this year, and during our event, we will be presenting the second annual edwin mah lee public service award. last year, the winner was our assessor-recorder carmen chiu. we're very happy to have her -- in the month of may be able to
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bring to our city a whole month of activities. we have plenty of events because we have celebrations, partners such as the asian art museum, san francisco public library, and the country's largest asian american themed festival. with all of these organizations, i think we have a healthy calendar. but back to today, we are happy to be here, celebrating lunar new year. we are very lucky to be in a city that we have cultural offerings with the different cultural offerings. so some of you -- some of you may not have met mayor breed. mayor breed is a native of san francisco. she grew up in the western addition in the public housing,
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graduated from schools -- from schools in san francisco, from galileo, as i remember, and without taking the time to read the mayor's long bio, many people have asked me how is it working with mayor breed? and i just have to say, i am not jewish, but if i were jewish, our mayor has a lot of chutzpah. no matter what issue she is addressing, housing, transportation, public education, every time i hear the mayor talk about this, she's open-minded. she's willing to look at other solutions of the city that have been -- of problems of the city that have been around for years and decades. so we're very proud to have mayor breed with us today. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: thank you, claudine. you know, when i first started on the board of supervisors, i
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attended this event, and it was always in room 201, in the mayor's conference room. and i would always say, claudine, we're growing. we need more space. and finally, she took me up on my word, and she decided we were going to move this incredible celebration to here, the north light court. this is our great celebration of our a.p.i. heritage month kind of kickoff. even though it's not in the month of may, it is during the lunar new year which is of course fitting that we celebrate such a time honored tradition here in our city. i want to thank so many people who are joining here -- joining us here today, including so many folks from the leadership, many of our sister cities, folks from manila, from osaka -- yes, you can clap -- from seoul, taipei, ho chi mint
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cities, places that we share more than our brotherly and sisterly loves, but relationships of community, of business, and a number of other things that are so important and vital to the success of not just san francisco but the entire world. i also want to take this time to recognize that we have a number of council generals who are with us here today. starting with the council general of the philippines, who is -- i hope i don't butcher your name council general. i apologize from the philippines, and his wife. thank you so much for being here. council general for the republic of korea is here, as well. and council general from japan. thank you so much for joining
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us. we have really an incredible relationship with so many of our sister cities as well as the council generals from all over the world, and san francisco, as you know, has been the gateway to the pacific, and we truly value our relationships which promote trade and cultural and educational exchanges. we -- we know sadly we're living in a time our immigrant population and our cultural diversity are sometimes not welcomed in other cities across the united states, but i want you to know that here in san francisco, it's not only welcomed, it's celebrated. it is celebrated in a way that really honors our rich history and our traditions. and we have many celebrations throughout the year, including during the month. we just kicked off black history month here in the rotunda in city hall, chinese
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lunar new year, which is amazing, along with an amazing parade and a number of festivities, and we will kick off asia-pacific heritage month, which we started celebrating in 2005. when i served on the board with supervisor -- well, actually, only supervisor president yee was on the board when we passed that resolution, making it official in san francisco. and here he is now, the president of the board of supervisors, along with his colleagues, and they'll be talking in just a minute. so i am just here to say thank you to so many of you, especially because as we know, it takes a lot of resources to put together so many amazing community activities that promote our diversity and our culture, and i just want to thank the a.p.i. heritage committee for their continued work and fund raising and bringing people together. and claudine, at this time, i'd like to honor you and the members of the committee with a
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certificate thanking you for your service and the work you continue to do every year, not only asking for support, but twisting our arm and making us all participate and help us to understand how important this is to so many of our asian communities around the city. thank you for being a real advocate for the a.p.i. community in san francisco.
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[applause] >> the hon. london breed: thank you, everyone. [speaking chinese language] >> so understand board president norman yee's here with all his colleagues, and from the dinner we have in chinatown recently, i was shocked to hear that every single one of the board members of supervisors speak beautiful chinese, japanese, all kinds of languages. so in the interest of time, because i understand that mayor breed might have to leave, so i'm going to ask you to maybe just say two lines of greetings in your own language, whatever you prefer. and try not to repeat what the -- what the preceding speaker have said, okay? but maybe we should start with president yee. >> president yee: thank you,
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claudine. [speaking native language] >> president yee: happy new year to every one of you. this is a great celebration that happens every year. i want to thank the a.p.a. heritage foundation to sponsor this every year because it really means a lot to our community. yes, mayor breed, it's true. in san francisco, we embrace our diversity. in san francisco, and probably the only city, the public school actually gets a day off for lunar new year. probably the only district -- we should give them a big hand. [applause] >> president yee: and that was made possible because of the leadership of supervisor fewer and myself and a few other a.p.i. school board members
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that were able to provide to say you know, it makes a difference to 50% of your students, and they made it happen. now another thing, every year, we get to look at the new stamp. by the way, claudine, i still have the original one, 1993, when you unveiled that, that was such a happening. this is something that took a little while to get the federal government, the post office to actually engage and make this happen for us because they didn't -- there was a little rip resistance there, but after a while, they said wow, this is pretty good. to all of you, to all of my colleagues here, we are here to celebrate, and we are here to honor the a.p.a. heritage foundation. so on behalf of the full board of supervisors, we'd like to give you this certificate.
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six. congratulations and thank you for all your work to the a.p.a. heritage foundation. i have to say i've been to a few celebrations around the year of the pig, but this is the first one that i've seen where there's a whole pig to eat. happy to celebration with you. >> supervisor brown: hi. i'm vallie brown, the proud supervisor of japantown. unfortunately, can you please tell me how to say happy new year in japanese? [inaudible] [applause] >> supervisor safai: good evening. my name is supervisor ahsha safai. happy new year. very happy to be here for the third or fourth year. congratulations to claudine and all the leadership for a.p.a. this is a wonderful celebration.
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i actually am also an asian supervisor from western asia, from the -- from the country of iran, so i'm going to say happy new year in farsi. [speaking native language] >> supervisor safai: thank you. [applause] >> thank you. ve we want to acknowledge d.b.i., the head, tom, and mohamed nuru from the department of public works. we have captain link from central station, and commander lozar. so the highlight of today's program is unveiling of the lunar new year stamp. as board of supervisors
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president yee mepgsed, inntion u.u u.s. post office issued the first series of stamps in 1993. this is the last year of the series of stamps. we are not sure if we're going to get the new ones. so there is a pgs for all of you to sign after the program because we want to make sure the united states postal service unders we in san francisco, just like many people around the country, we love our stamp that celebrate our cultural heritage. i would like to invite post master abraham cooper. >> good afternoon. or i should say good evening. you know, it's an honor to
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unveil the 12th and very last stamps and celebrating the lunar new year. as the post master of san francisco, i'm proud to present such a beautiful and meaningful stamp. it represents a lot of significance not only to the community but also to the people that we serve in san francisco, but our employees, as well as we celebrate, and they also celebrate lunar new year. the lunar new year stamp is currently available for sale at the local postal service and also independently also as booklets. the board believes to represent luck and good fortune but also symbolized hard work and generosity as trust and also sincerity. i'd also like to think that the postal service fits that description well as the relationships between the san francisco district community and the leaders that's in the room today. and without further adieu, i'd
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>> 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
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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
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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
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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,
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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.
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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
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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.
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>> 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.
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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, . >> my name is dave, and i play
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defense. >> my name is mustafa, and i am a midfielder, but right now, i am trying to play as a goalkeeper, because they need a goalkeeper. >> soccer u.s.a. is a nonprofessional organization. we use sports, soccer in particular to engage communities that can benefit from quality programs in order to lift people up, helping to regain a sense of control in one's life. >> the san francisco recreation and park department and street soccer u.s.a. have been partners now for nearly a decade. street soccer shares our mission in using sport as a vehicle for youth development and for reaching people of all ages. rec and park has a team. >> i'm been playing soccer all my life.
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soccer is my life. >> i played in the streets when i was a kid. and i loved soccer back home. i joined street soccer here. it was the best club to join. it helps me out. >> the tenderloin soccer club started in the summer of 2016. we put one of our mini soccer pitches in one of our facilities there. the kids who kpriez the club team came out to utilize that space, and it was beautiful because they used it as an opportunity to express themselves in a place where they were free to do so, and it was a safe space, in a neighborhood that really isn't the most hospitalable to youth -- hospitable to youth playing in the streets. >> one day, i saw the coach and my friends because they went there to join the team before
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me. so i went up to the coach and asked, and they said oh, i've got a soccer team, and i joined, and they said yeah, it was he for everybody, and i joined, and it was the best experience ever. >> a lot of our programs, the kids are in the process of achieving citizenship. it's a pretty lengthy process. >> here, i am the only one with my dad. we were in the housing program, and we are trying to find housing. my sister, she's in my country, so i realize that i have a lot of opportunities here for getting good education to help her, you know? yeah. that's the -- one of the most important things that challenge me. >> my dad was over here, making some money because there was not a lot of jobs back home.
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i came here, finish elementary in san francisco. after that, i used to go back to my country, go to yemen, my country, and then back here. last time i went back was a couple years ago. >> i came here six months, i know nobody. now i have the team has a family, the coaches. amazing. >> i'm hoping for lifelong friendships, and i'm super inspired by what they've been able to achieve and want to continue to grow alongside them. >> i love my family, i love my team. they're just like a family. it's really nice. >> street soccer just received a five year grant from the department of children, youth and family, and this is an important inreflection point for street soccer u.s.a. because their work in our most important communities is now known beyond just san francisco recreation and park department,
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and together, we're going to continue to work with our city's most vulnerable kids and teach them to love the beautiful game. >> i want to tell everybody back home, i hope you all make it over here and join teams like this like street soccer u.s.a., and live your life. get a better life. >> right away, just be patient, and then, everything will be okay. >> hi today we have a special edition of building san francisco, stay safe, what we are going to be talking about san francisco's earth quakes, what you can do before an
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earthquake in your home, to be ready and after an earthquake to make sure that you are comfortable staying at home, while the city recovers. ♪ >> the next episode of stay safe, we have alicia johnson from san francisco's department of emergency management. hi, alicia thanks to coming >> it is a pleasure to be here with you. >> i wonder if you could tell us what you think people can do to get ready for what we know is a coming earthquake in san francisco. >> well, one of the most things that people can do is to make sure that you have a plan to communicate with people who live both in and out of state. having an out of state contact, to call, text or post on your social network is really important and being able to know how you are going to communicate with your friends, and family who live near you, where you might meet them if
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your home is uninhab hitable. >> how long do you think that it will be before things are restored to normal in san francisco. >> it depends on the severity of the earthquake, we say to provide for 72 hours tha, is three days, and it helps to know that you might be without services for up to a week or more, depending on how heavy the shaking is and how many after shocks we have. >> what kind of neighborhood and community involvement might you want to have before an earthquake to make sure that you are going to able to have the support that you need. >> it is important to have a good relationship with your neighbors and your community. go to those community events, shop at local businesses, have a reciprocal relationship with them so that you know how to take care of yourself and who you can rely on and who can take care of you. it is important to have a battery-operated radio in your home so that you can keep track of what is happening in the community around and how you
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can communicate with other people. >> one of the things that seems important is to have access to your important documents. >> yes, it is important to have copies of those and also stored them remotely. so a title to a home, a passport, a driver's license, any type of medical records that you need need, back those up or put them on a remote drive or store them on the cloud, the same is true with any vital information on your computer. back that up and have that on a cloud in case your hard drive does not work any more. >> in your home you should be prepared as well. >> absolutely. >> let's take a look at the kinds of things that you might want to have in your home. >> we have no water, what are we going to do about water? >> it is important for have extra water in your house, you want to have bottled water or a five gallon container of water able to use on a regular basis, both for bathing and cooking as well as for drinking.
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>> we have this big container and also in people's homes they have a hot water heater. >> absolutely, if you clean your hot water heater out regularly you can use that for showering, drinking and bathing as well >> what other things do people need to have aren't their home. >> it is important to have extra every day items buy a couple extra cans of can food that you can eat without any preparation. >> here is a giant can of green giant canned corn. and this, a manual can opener, your electric can opener will not be working not only to have one but to know where to find it in your kitchen. >> yes. >> so in addition to canned goods, we are going to have fresh food and you have to preserve that and i know that we have an ice chest. >> having an ice chest on hand is really important because your refrigerator will not be working right away. it is important to have somebody else that can store cold foods so something that you might be able to take with
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you if you have to leave your home. >> and here, this is my very own personal emergency supply box for my house. >> i hope that you have an alternative one at home. >> oh, i forgot. >> and in this is really important, you should have flashlights that have batteries, fresh batteries or hand crank flashlight. >> i have them right here. >> good. excellent. that is great. additionally, you are going to want to have candles a whistle, possibly a compass as well. markers if you want to label things if you need to, to people that you are safe in your home or that you have left your home. >> i am okay and i will meet you at... >> exactly. exactly. water proof matches are a great thing to have as well. >> we have matches here. and my spare glasses. >> and your spare glasses. >> if you have medication, you should keep it with you or have access to it.
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if it needs to be refrigerated make sure that it is in your ice box. >> inside, just to point out for you, we have spare batteries. >> very important. >> we have a little first aid kit. >> and lots of different kinds of batteries. and another spare flashlight. >> so, alicia what else can we do to prepare our homes for an earthquake so we don't have damage? >> one of the most important things that you can do is to secure your valuable and breakable items. make sure that your tv is strapped down to your entertainment cabinet or wall so it does not move. also important is to make sure that your book case is secure to the wall so that it does not fall over and your valuable and breakables do not break on the ground. becoming prepared is not that difficult. taking care of your home, making sure that you have a few extra every-day items on hand helps to make the difference. >> that contributes dramatically to the way that the city as a whole can recover. >> absolutely. >> if you are able to control
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your own environment and house and recovery and your neighbors are doing the same the city as a whole will be a more resilient city. >> we are all proud of living in san francisco and being prepared helps us stay here. >> so, thank you so much for joining us today, alicia, i appreciate it. >> absolutely, it is my pleasure. >> and thank you for joining us on another edition of building >> my name tom hewitt. first of all, i would like to welcome everyone to come to this fair. this safety fair, we trying to educate the public regarding how to prepare themselves during and after the earthquake and then to protect themselves for next 72
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hours. >> hi. my name's ed sweeney. i'm the director of services at department of building inspection, and we put together a great fair for the city of san francisco to come down and meet all the experts. we've got engineers, architects. we have builders, we have government agencies. >> well, we have four specific workshops. we have the accessible business entrance. >> my name is leah, and i am the assistant manager with the department of small business. i am leading the new accessibility ordinance that helps existing owners better comply with existing access laws. so all buildings that have
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places of public accommodation in san francisco, they must comply with this ordinance. >> the a.d.e. was setup by the board of supervisors, and the ordinance was passed about a year ago. >> one of the biggest updates that we have is that the deadlines were extended, so all of the deadlines were extended by six months. >> and it's really to help the public, the business community to be specific, to cut down on the amount of drive by lawsuits. >> so on this workshop, we're going to be covering what the compliance looks like, what business examiand property owne need to know how to comply with the ordinance. we'll also talk about the departments that are involved, including the office of small business, department of building inspection, planning department, as well as the mayor's office on disability. >> hi. i'm marselle, and i manage a
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team at the building department. today, we'll cover the meaning of a.d.u.s, more commonly known as accessory dwelling units. we'll talk about the code and permitting processes, and we'll also talk about legalizing existing dwelling units that are currently unwarranted. >> this is the department of building inspection's residential remodelling workshop. my name is senior electrical inspector cheryl rose, and at this workshop, we're going to be answering questions such as do i need an electrical permit when i'm upgrading my dwelling, when do i need to have planning involved in a residential remodel, and what's involved with the coerce process? we're going to also be reviewing inspection process, and the
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permitting process for residential remodel in san francisco. there's always questions that need answers. it's a mystery to the general public what goes on in construction, and the more we can clarify the process, the more involved the consumer can be and feel comfortable with the contractors they're working with and the product they're getting in the results. if you have questions that aren't addressed in this workshop, you're always welcome to come up to the third floor of 1660 mission street, and we're happy to discuss it with you and find out what you need to do. >> the program is very successful. the last piece is already 60% in compliance. >> well, we have a very important day coming up. it's sept 15. last four has to be compliance, which means that the level four people that have to register
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with us and give us a basic indication of how they're going to deal with their seismic issues on their building. >> i'm francis zamora, and i'm with the san francisco department of emergency management, and today we talked about how to prepare for emergencies in san francisco. and so that's really importantiimportant. in san francisco, it's no secret. we live in earthquake country. there's a big chance we will be involved in a major earthquake in the next 30 years, but we don't have to be afraid. these are going to be your first responders outside of the police officers, paramedics, first responders, these are going to be the people that come to your aid first. by getting to know your neighbors, you're going to know who needs help and who can help in case of an emergency. one of the great ways to do that is for signing7for nert, san
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francisco neighborhood emergency response team. it teaches you how to take care of yourself, your loved ones, and your neighborhood in the case of an emergency. information is just as important as water and food in an emergency. san francisco has an emergency text message alert system, called text sf. if there's some kind of an emergency happening in san francisco or your neighborhood, it could be a police action, a big fire, a tsunami or an earthquake. all you have to do is text your citizenship code to 888777, and your mobile phone is automatically registered for alert sf. >> my name is fernando juarez, and i'm a fire captain with the san francisco fire department. we have a hire extinguisher
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training system. you want to pull the pin, stand at least 8 feet away, aim it at the base. if you're too close, the conical laser that comes out, it's too small, and the fire won't go out on the screen. if you step back, the conical shape on the screen is bigger, and it will take the fire go out faster. so it can tell when you're too close. >> my name is alicia wu, and i'm the director of a san francisco based nonprofit. since 2015, we go out to the public, to the community and provide training in different topics. today we're doing c.p.r., controlling external feeding and
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how to do perfect communications in each topic, and also, i hope that they can bring it home and start gathering all the supplies for themselves to. >> on any given day in san francisco, we're very well resourced in terms of public safety professionals, but we all know in the event of a large scale disaster, it will be hours and days before the public safety professionals can get to you, so we encourage people to have that plan in place, be proactive. there's websites. we have a wonderful website called 72hours.org. it tells you how to prepare yourself, your family, your pets, your home, your workplace. we can't emphasize enough how important it is to be
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testing data to determine cause and manner of death. i have been here at this facility since i moved here in november, and previous to that at the old facility. i was worried when we moved here that because this building is so much larger that i wouldn't see people every day. i would miss my personal interactions with the other employees, but that hasn't been the case. this building is very nice. we have lovely autopsy tables and i do get to go upstairs and down stairs several times a day to see everyone else i work with. we have a bond like any other group of employees that work for a specific agency in san francisco. we work closely on each case to determine the best cause of death, and we also interact with family members of the diseased. that brings us closer together also. >> i am an investigator two at
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the office of the chief until examiner in san francisco. as an investigator here i investigate all manners of death that come through our jurisdiction. i go to the field interview police officers, detectives, family members, physicians, anyone who might be involved with the death. additionally i take any property with the deceased individual and take care and custody of that. i maintain the chain and custody for court purposes if that becomes an issue later and notify next of kin and make any additional follow up phone callsness with that particular death. i am dealing with people at the worst possible time in their lives delivering the worst news they could get. i work with the family to help them through the grieving process. >> i am ricky moore, a clerk at the san francisco medical examiner's office.
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i assist the pathology and toxicology and investigative team around work close with the families, loved ones and funeral establishment. >> i started at the old facility. the building was old, vintage. we had issues with plumbing and things like that. i had a tiny desk. i feet very happy to be here in the new digs where i actually have room to do my work. >> i am sue pairing, the toxicologist supervisor. we test for alcohol, drugs and poisons and biological substances. i oversee all of the lab operations. the forensic operation here we perform the toxicology testing for the human performance and the case in the city of san
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francisco. we collect evidence at the scene. a woman was killed after a robbery homicide, and the dna collected from the zip ties she was bound with ended up being a cold hit to the suspect. that was the only investigative link collecting the scene to the suspect. it is nice to get the feedback. we do a lot of work and you don't hear the result. once in a while you heard it had an impact on somebody. you can bring justice to what happened. we are able to take what we due to the next level. many of our counterparts in other states, cities or countries don't have the resources and don't have the beautiful building and the equipmentness to really advance what we are doing. >> sometimes we go to court. whoever is on call may be called out of the office to go to various portions of the city to
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investigate suspicious deaths. we do whatever we can to get our job done. >> when we think that a case has a natural cause of death and it turns out to be another natural cause of death. unexpected findings are fun. >> i have a prior background in law enforcement. i was a police officer for 8 years. i handled homicides and suicides. i had been around death investigation type scenes. as a police officer we only handled minimal components then it was turned over to the coroner or the detective division. i am intrigued with those types of calls. i wondered why someone died. i have an extremely supportive family. older children say, mom, how was your day.
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i can give minor details and i have an amazing spouse always willing to listen to any and all details of my day. without that it would be really hard to deal with the negative components of this job. >> being i am a native of san francisco and grew up in the community. i come across that a lot where i may know a loved one coming from the back way or a loved one seeking answers for their deceased. there are a lot of cases where i may feel affected by it. if from is a child involved or things like that. i try to not bring it home and not let it affect me. when i tell people i work at the medical examiners office. whawhat do you do? the autopsy? i deal with the a with the enou-
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with the administrative and the families. >> most of the time work here is very enjoyable. >> after i started working with dead people, i had just gotten married and one night i woke up in a cold sweat. i thought there was somebody dead? my bed. i rolled over and poked the body. sure enough, it was my husband who grumbled and went back to sleep. this job does have lingering effects. in terms of why did you want to go into this? i loved science growing up but i didn't want to be a doctor and didn't want to be a pharmacist. the more i learned about forensics how interested i was of the perfect combination between applied science and criminal justice. if you are interested in finding out the facts and truth seeking to find out what happened,
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anybody interested in that has a place in this field. >> being a woman we just need to go for it and don't let anyone fail you, you can't be. >> with regard to this position in comparison to crime dramas out there, i would say there might be some minor correlations. let's face it, we aren't hollywood, we are real world. yes we collect evidence. we want to preserve that. we are not scanning fingerprints in the field like a hollywood television show. >> families say thank you for what you do, for me that is extremely fulfilling. somebody has to do my job. if i can make a situation that is really negative for someone more positive, then i feel like i am doing the right thing for the city of san francisco.
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>> good morning, everyone. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the february 14, 2018 roll meeting of the public safety and neighborhood services committee. i'm chair of the committee and the constitution of which has changed over of the last couple of months. so my right is vice chair supervisor stephanie and to my left is supervisor walton. welcome to both of you. our clerk is john carroll and i would also like to thank tom and jeff for taffing this meeting. mr. clerk, to you have any announcements some.
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