good morning, everyone. and welcome to this beautiful monday. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the november 9th, 2020 of the rules committee. i'm supervisor hillary ronen, chair of the committee.

with me on the video conference is catherine stefani and rules committee member supervisor gordon mar. our i'd like to thank sfgov tv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. due to the covid-19 health emergencier and to protect board members, city employees and the public, the board of the supervisor legislative chamber are closed. members will participate in the meeting remotely. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda on both channel 26 and sfgovtv.org. they're streaming the number across the screen. comments are opportunities to speak are available via phone by calling (415)655-0001. again that's (415)655-0001.

the meeting i.d. is 146 344 9722. press pound and up and down again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussions and in listening mode only. best practices are to call prosecute a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly. and turn down your television or radio. i'l-- you may send comments at victor.young @sfjgov.org. if you submit public comment via email, it will be included as part part of the official file. that completes my announcements. >> thank you very much. can you please read item number 1.

>> clerk: hearing to consider appointing one member to the aging advisory council. >> paricia spaniak are you hear? >> yes. >> do you have any remarks? >> i have supervised on the advisory council for a number of years. i worked for the community living campaign, whose role in life is to fight isolation and loneliness with seniors across san francisco. we offer now over 200 programs a month on the zoom classes. we do regularly scheduled check-in calls, food delivery, we're very active in fighting loneliness and isolation in san francisco. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much for your work. my colleagues have no questions

or comments, we can open this up for public comment. >> clerk: yes. yes. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call (415)655-0001. the meeting i.d. is 146 344 9722. then press pound and up and down again. if you haven't already done so, please dial star 3 to line up to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comment. operations, do we have any members of the public? for public comment? [distorted audio] >> clerk: gives us a moment while we figure out what's going

on. >> chair ronen: sure. >> maybe they could write it in the chat. >> clerk: actually we can't. we're not allowed to use the chat while we're in meeting. >> oh, sorry. >> clerk: they are working on it. yes. i received word that we have no one in the queue to speak at this time. >> chair ronen: okay. thank you so much. public comment is closed. and i'd like to make a motion to forward the appointment of

paricia spaniak to seacliff 9, to the full board with positive recommendation. [roll call] >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chair ronen: great. thank you so much for your service. >> it's been an honor to serve. thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you. congratulations. mr. clerk, can you please read item number 2. >> clerk: yes. item number 2 is a hearing to consider appointing one member, term ending february 1st, 2022, to the park, recreation and open space advisory committee. one seat, one applicant. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. similarly to item number 1, supervisors, this is a district 11 appointee and supervisor safai couldn't be here, but sends his strong recommendation and support. steve currier, are you here?

>> i am. how are you? >> chair ronen: i'm good. how are you? >> you know, i'm going to second what you said and supervisor safai said. it's a brand-new dawning. i couldn't be happier. yes. [laughter] >> chair ronen: well, thank you for your willingness to serve again. i know supervisor safai is very excited. did you have anything you wanted to share with us? >> well, no. thank you. thank you for supervisor safai's -- his re-election. so i'm very happy about that. it's been an honor for me to serve on, as we all say prozac, the park, rec, open space advisory committee. it's been a good two years. i've been on since march of 2018. a great group of people. i think the only underlying sorrow, regarding the 150th year of golden gate park, is that we couldn't support -- we couldn't

be there to celebrate. we're all there in spirit. i think we have a great team. and i look forward to being that member for the next two years. and i thank you for your support. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. thank you. and there's no comment from my colleagues, we'll open this up for public comment. is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on this reappointment. >> clerk: yes. members of the public who wish to file public comment, call (415)655-0001. the meeting i.d. is 146 344 9722. and press pound and up and down again. if you haven't already done so, please dial star 3 to line up to speak. please wait until the system has been unmuted and you may begin your comment. do we have any members of the public for public comment today? there does not appear to be any

callers in the queue at this time. >> chair ronen: okay. then public comment is closed. it sounds like r2d2 every time. supportive of your nomination. >> well, thank you. and i'd like to make a motion to forward the appointment of steve currier to seat 22 to the full board with positive recommendation. can we please have a roll call vote. >> clerk: on that motion, supervisor stefani. >> aye. >> clerk: supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: aye. >> clerk: chair. >> supervisor ronen:. >> chair ronen: aye. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> thank you so much. >> chair ronen: congratulations. have a wonderful rest of your day. mr. clerk, can you please read item number 3. >> clerk: a hearing to consider appointing one member, term ends december 31st, 2022, to the sugary drinks distributor tax

advisory committee. one seat, one applicant. >> chair ronen: wonderful. and miss kiana sezawar keshavarz was nominated by the youth commission. and my understanding is that austin is here to speak on the nomination. austin, are you here? >> yes. that is correct. hello, supervisors. >> chair ronen: good morning. please feel free to go ahead, austin. >> good morning, supervisors. hopefully a better day. better for our anxiety. i'm austin with the youth commission and also the staff support for the sugary drinks distributor tax advisory committee. my role has been uplifting the youth word, supporting the youth leader with the adult leaders

and the staff and the community, such as -- [indiscernible]. microsoft teams meeting and working with them on the outreach that you see. for the past two years, he's been -- youth staff has served for only one year at a time. and this year with kiana, we're hopeful she'll stay for a two-year term. and our process began in july starting this conversation at the youth clinic. and other folks within the eastern mission. and so because of the outreach, we doubled the number of applicants, which went from two to -- when we first started to five applicants. but kiana really stood out to our commissioners, growing up in the district 10 with how food deserts, food inequity and

racial disparities interact. and kiana has demonstrated time and commitment to our community, her district. and as the youth tends to go into the community outreach work group, we wish to have a young person that has that experience in the community outreach. and has strong relationships with the community. and we know that within the community, to empower them away from big empowerment. so rather than treating the system or treating the cause. and she definitely demonstrates -- we look forward to working with her and that is our comments. >> chair ronen: thank you. thank you so much. what a lovely recommendation. appreciate you.

and if there's no comments, let's open this up for public comment. >> kiana may be on the line. >> chair ronen: oh, sorry. yes, please. i believe i saw her name on the list. >> chair ronen: oh, yes, please. thank you so much. i'm so sorry. please. >> no problem. good morning. my name is kiana. i'm 16 years old and in 10th grade. i have gone to public schools for most of my life, i currently attend an independent school. i live in district 10. i'm really passionate about activism, nutrition and community organizing. and in terms of my ideas for this position, i'll start out with my experience. about student leadership and fundraising, i lead south asian students and activism program at my school. i was a part of the youth board for make-a-wish, helping to fundraise and distribute funds. and then about outreach,

organizing and fundraising, i was the core district 11 youth -- [indiscernible] and i've belong to the youth community garden. and i helped organize. and in terms of public health and nutrition, i volunteer at the food -- [indiscernible]. thank you so much for that recommendation, by the way, austin. and everything living in district 10, how marginalized and access to health programs. and then also having on both sides going to public and private schools. how youth are often -- don't have access to quality food and health resources. and as somebody whose mom works for the education program, which was defunded, i have experience with health programs, to help

marginalized communities. as you see, i hope to offer my perspective. and also passionate about this role for my experiences. [indiscernible] i really hope to help the program in marginalized communities, especially food deserts and communities of color, specifically black and asian. what i would like to do on the board and hopefully my role is to have more community outreach and although my job is to bring public perspective to this issue, having more community outreach and community input on the function. >> chair ronen: wonderful. thank you so much. for your willingness to serve. it's really exciting. and, you know, i just want to say the importance of your work is getting greater and greater

every day because of the pandemic and because children are stuck inside at home learning with less exercise than normal. and so, you know, what i've been hearing from general hospital and the obesity clinic there, is that so much of the amazing work that they've been able to do, to stabilize young people that are struggling with obesity, has gone backwards during this time. and so i really think that you're coming into this work at one of the most important times that you possibly could. i'm really grateful that you're taking on this leadership role and willing to do this. thank you. thank you so much. and do any of my colleagues have any comments? yes, supervisor stefani. >> supervisor stefani: i want to say thank you so much for your service and willingness to serve. i have a son who is a 10th

grader. and i know that this pandemic has been hard on teenagers and all kids, too. to see you taking an activist role in something that's so important, it's so impressive. i continue to be astounded by the next generation and the youth and i just thank you so much for your participation and trying to make a difference. thank you. >> thank you. >> chair ronen: supervisor mar, did you want to say anything? >> supervisor mar: also as a parent of a 10 st. grader, yeah, i just wanted to thank you so much, kiana, for all that you have already done. and for your -- yeah, your commitment to stepping up to this important role on this advisory committee. so we really, really appreciate it. and look forward to you doing great things. thank you so much. >> thank you so much. i look forward to this, too. >> chair ronen: wonderful.

wonderful. can we please open this item up for public comment? >> clerk: yes. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call (415)655-0001. the meeting i.d. is 146 344 9722. and press pound and pound again. if you haven't already done so, please dial star 3 to line up to speak. a system proprietor will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates that you are unmuted and you may begin your comment. i am just waiting to see if -- we have one caller in the queue. that's for public comment at this time. >> caller: good morning. my name is jackson morgan. i am the executive director of the youth center and clinic. and i am also on my third term as co-chair of the sugary

beverage -- well, sdddtax. we've been working with the youth commission. austin, thank you so much for all of your great work and all of the youth commissioners. and we are really, really excited and ready to welcome kiana into our -- on our tax. so this work is super important and we've been really needing more youth voice. again really excited to support this candidate. >> chair ronen: thank you. >> clerk: that completes the members of the public in queue to speak at this time. >> chair ronen: thank you. then public comment is closed. and i am honored to make a motion to forward the appointment of kiana -- i'm so sorry is i'm mispronouncing your name. to the full forward with a positive recommendation. can we have a roll call vote.

>> clerk: on that motion, supervisor stefani. [roll call]. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chair ronen: okay. wonderful. congratulations, kiana. we'll see you soon. >> thank you so much. austin, thank you for all of the comments and recommendations. it's very sweet. thank you. bye. >> chair ronen: thank you. mr. clerk, can you please read item number 4. >> clerk: item number 4 is a hearing to consider appointing three members, terms ending junt rights commission. three seats, three applicants. >> chair ronen: wonderful. and if we could hear from mario paz, one of my favorite immigrant rights leaders, in district 9. good morning. >> good morning, chair. >> superviso-- ronen.we've beena

dark cloud for the last four years. we've witnessed -- insanity in the separation of children from their parents. and the one policy after another with anti-immigrant. the policy initiative that was promoted by this -- the outgoing administration. thank goodness. we now have an opportunity to reimagine the system and we are most excited at the commission to be at the forefront. san francisco has always been a beacon of light. during these four years, we standed for our sanctuary policy and we continued to stand to celebrate immigrants and continue to fight. and we are very, very proud of the work that we are highlighting all of the atrocities.

again we continue to uphold san francisco values. i look forward to continuing that work. again i'm very excited about finally being able to pass comprehensive immigration reform, with citizenship from undocumented communities, that we can get rid of the rules that were impacting our immigrants. that they went as far as to really dismantle, [indiscernible] so i'm very excited and very humble. and really thank you for your consideration. i would like to also endorse my colleagues celine kennelly and nima rahimi. they're wonderful leaders for our immigrant communities. and again thank you. thank you, supervisor ronen. >> chair ronen: thank you so much. and i just have to say that you have been such a leader in our

community, in the mission, serving so many latinx families. i just want to say how grateful i am for all of your work. thank you. >> no, thank you. thank you, supervisor. i'm grateful to you also for all of your support. and the other supervisors. thank you. >> chair ronen: thank you. and next we'll hear from celine kennelly. celine, are you here? >> i am. apologies. sorry. i had to figure out getting myself off of mute. >> chair ronen: no problem. good morning. how are you? it's good to hear from you. >> thank you. good morning. it's a pleasure to be with you all this morning. and, yes, i will echo new dawn, new day. and i think great relief, not only locally and nationally, but also globally. i can say with my hand on my heart that the entire eilis -- h

-- they've watched the elections over the last week, as most of my family stayed up through the night following everything that was happening. so it is very exciting time. so i would like to thank you for the opportunity to be before you this morning. i am delighted to be reappointed to the immigrant rights commission. i have served on the commission since 2012. and it has been my pleasure to be part of the amazing work that the commission has done. for 22 years, we have fought for the rights and dignity of immigrants and other underserved and underrepresented communities. from rights to the sanctuary ordinance, we have worked with our community partners and fellow commissions to ensure inclusive, fair policies and conditions that make san francisco a safe and welcoming a place for all people to thrive.

it has not been an easy road for immigrants in recent years especially. we've seen a steady stream of anti-immigrant policies, demeaning and hateful rhetoric and attempts to diminish the many,yes of hardworking, law-abiding immigrants and communities of color. we are thankful that we are moving towards a new dawn and a new day and we look forward to being able to be part of a move towards more humane, fair policies for our immigrant communities. there are many important issues facing us and the immigrant rights commission has been active as ever on major issues. we were very excited at the passage of prop c. and stand in support of the commission has partnered with the office of civic engagements and immigrant affairs to ensure that our commissioners have language access and assistance at every meeting and are able to participate in meaningful ways. we look forward to seeing the

extension of our commission and other commissions within the city. as chair of the commission, i have been delighted to be in a position to work with and to support and to lead my fellow commissioners with, as always, undying support from vice chair paz, other members of the executive committee and, of course, the office of civic engagement. we have partnered with the recovery task force to hold special hearings on covid-19 impacts on immigrant in june of this year. a hearing which fed into the overall outcome of the economic recovery task force and their findings. we have also in the last 12 months had a special hearing on daca, as we hope to see a more positive move for daca with a new administration. a joint hearing with the human rights commission on the border

crisis. and we had begun a series of neighborhood specialty hearings in district 10 at the end of last year, which unfortunately we ended up having to put on hold, our series, due to covid. we recently passed a resolution on the treatment of the immigrants, followed by a hearing early in the new year. we are excited at the board resolution declaring war on racism. as a result of this resolution, we have established a racial equity working group, which is dealing with the access of regional equity and the human rights commission to look at how we can support and make change around racial equity within our city. and we were, of course, very involved in census 2020. the vice chair and i were members of the complete count committee. and the commission as a whole, the office of civic engagement and immigrants in deliverance of

a complete count. i would like to thank director paz, robert simpson, all members of the complete count committee and the entire staff of the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs for all of the work that they have done -- in delivering as complete of a count as we could for the city and county, in what proved to be an extremely difficult year to find everybody. so i am -- as i say, i'm delighted to be given the opportunity to again serve on the commission. it is an honor. we have a wonderful commission. we have a very diverse commission. we have a few seats to fill. and we've got some great ideas as to how to continue and expand the diversity. i thank you for this opportunity. >> chair ronen: thank you so much, celine. you've done such incredible work over -- in the number of years on this commission. we're so grateful to you for it. and thanks for mentioning c yay!

how immigrants are going to be able to serve on the immigrant rights commission. imagine that. so exciting. we're finally going to be able to take advantage of the talents of so many more people in the city and county of san francisco on our local leadership bodies. so another piece of fantastic news for our city and our country. so thank you, celine. did anybody else want to say anything? we're good? okay. okay. so next we will hear from our last, but not least candidate, nima rahimi. >> thank you, supervisor ronen. thank you, supervisor mar and stefani. it's been an honor serving on this commission. the board of supervisors first appointed me during the first year of the trump presidency. and i have worked with my fellow

commissioners to resist the agenda from day one, leading special hearings on the muslim ban to a special hearing on the crimes against humanity he's committed at our southern border. to his attempt to break our promise to our daca brothers and sisters. when our yemeni community faced obstacles to send money to their families, caught in the middle of the civil war, i helped bring community members to our commission to help their stories on the record. we worked with our san francisco treasurer to provide advice and recommendations to our yemeni neighbors to navigate this issue. further, in collaboration with the economic recovery task force, we listened immigrant communities and leaders to advise the task force on how best to serve our immigrant families during this time of economic crisis. and most recently, and i'm very proud of this, especially because it just passed. i worked with community leaders say -- sarah souza.

i'serve on the iranian-american bar association, after served on the board of the northern california chapter for seven years. i also serve on the board of a community nonprofit called the equality center generation plus, supporting the social, civic and economics. we have a lot of work to do. i'm so excited about president biden and kamala harris' election. i want our commission to support this administration's efforts on immigrant rights and help inform as san francisco goes, as california goes, so goes the nation. we have important work to do. i'd be honored to continue serving our city and county as an immigrant rights commissioner. thank you so much for your consideration. >> chair ronen: thank you. thank you. now we can open this item up for public comment. >> clerk: yes. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on

this item, should call (415)655-000(415)655-0001, the . is 146 344 9722. then press pound and up and down again. if you haven't already done so, please dial star 3 to line up to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your happened. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. we are checking on if we have any members of the public in queue to speak at this time. we have zero callers in the queue to speak. that completes -- you're on mute, chair. >> chair ronen: thank you. before i close public comment, i wanted to give an opportunity for commissioner kennelly to speak on behalf of her -- in support of her colleagues. >> thank you, chair ronen. i will be brief.

i am delighted that they're back up for re-appointment to the immigrant rights commission. they are both dedicated, passionate, informed, and big picture thinkers in terms of policies that affects the lives of immigrants. they have been -- they have been so active on the commission. they have been leaders and they are an absolutely phenomenal addition to our commission. i am delighted to speak in their support. and i hope that we can move to a positive recommendation for both of them. so commissioner rahimi, and commissioner paz, thank you for your dedication to the environment rights commission. ronen thank you so much. and with that, public comment is closed. and i am happy to make a motion

to forward the appointment of mario paz to seat 6, with a residency waiver. celine kennelly to seat 7 and nima rahimi to seat 8. to the full board with positive recommendation. can we take a roll call. >> clerk: on that motion, supervisor stefani. >> supervisor stefani: aye. >> clerk: supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: aye. >> clerk: chair ronen. >> chair ronen: aye. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chair ronen: fantastic. thank you to all three of you. keep up the amazing work and thanks for being willing to continue to serve. >> thank you, supervisor. >> chair ronen: thank you. mr. clerk, do we have any other items on the agenda? >> clerk: that's our agenda for today. >> chair ronen: okay. great. the meeting is adjourned. have a great day, everyone. bye.

>> welcome to "stand together, uniting discrimination" town hall by the human rights commission. and i'm the host and i produce programs at the commonwealth click of california and kcew, san francisco bay area. this is the first of many town hall decisions that -- discussions that we will do to discuss the discrimination. what we need to to do to come together as communities so we'll try to get to all of the major issues today but if we don't,

don't worry, this is one of the many town hall discussions that we'll do. before we begin our program, here are a couple of special leaders in the city who have remarkeds. and i'd like to introduce you to the executive director of the san francisco human rights commission. director davis? >> thank you so much, michelle, and i look forward to the conversation with our panelists. we are very grateful for this opportunity to have a conversation together. we will continue to have discussions. we are saddened by the increase in case incidents of hate crimes, but we are heartened by the love and the compassion and the ability for communities to come together. i want to recognize mayor london breed who will be speaking to you next, who earlier this year had conversations with different

communities and really heard that we needed to do more and to be more responsive to our asian community and to be more responsive in not just talk, but indeed, in collaboration and partnership. and i want to also recognize claudine kent who really held us to that and came back and said what are we going to do and how can we do this together in partnership and collaboration. so tonight is the first of a series of conversations, but more than conversations, we really want to connect with community to move this forward, to be action oriented, to talk about how we come together, how we come together in space, how we come together in support, and how we really drown out the racist verbage and that we really work together to make san francisco a place where we all come and live and in unity and harmony. so thank you so much, mayor breed, for your guidance and for your leadership and for your urging and this opportunity to

convene with communities. >> [speaking foreign language] >> hi, everyone, good afternoon. and thank you to all of the people joining us here today and these amazing presenters. this is a really important issue that we clearly need to discuss, an issue around racial discrimination and i think that the whole goal is to send a unified message that we have will zero tolerance here in san francisco for hate of any kind. i heard from so many people in our asian community about the experiences that they've had, and recently, especially after the coronavirus pandemic. they have shared really sad stories about being targeted for racist and hateful, verbal and physical assault, solely based on their race.

and i understand what that feels like to have hateful racist language spewed at you, and to have physical violence directed at you or the ones that you love, being afraid to be in certain spaces because you're not sure if it's safe. this is an experience and a trauma that the african american community shares with the asian-american community. we are judged based on what we look like and people who are full of fear and full of hate. they see our differences as a way to target us. and i take these concerns very seriously. i have made it clear to chief scott, to the san francisco police department, to the district attorney, that we have to work together to not only hold people accountable, but to also to have the hard conversations that prevent these incidents from happening in the first place. people's level of prejudice is direct whree correlated with their perception of what society finds acceptable.

we know that social norms can be incredibly powerful when it comes to driving attitudes about people. it's not a surprise that, sadly under this federal administration and the hateful and the racist language that the president uses, like calling the coronavirus "the kung flu" that hate crimes have increased significantly. even reaching our children. perpetrators of these kinds of crimes towards our children is something that we will not continue to tolerate, but, sadly, we know that this kind of racism is not new. in fact, the asian community here in san francisco has been the target of racist-based actions that decimated their communities and their culture. urban renewal and redevelopment didn't just destroy the african american community, but it also decimated the japantown and

displaced thousands of people in all of these comments -- our communities. black and asian folks weren't even allowed to live in certain areas of this city in the past and they had to create their own mutual aid network to be able to buy property or own a business. at one point in time, san francisco refused to allow chinese or black children to attend any public schools in this city. that was a california state law, in fact. vin vincent chen died because of the hateful actions of the racists who answered them solely on what they looked like. massacres of entire towns like greenwood, oklahoma, where hundreds of african americans were killed and thousands displaced. many know of this now as the tulsa race massacre. that just didn't happen to the black community.

chinatowns across this country were erased by racist violence and many were shot or lynched again on the basis of nothing more than the color of our skin. that's why here in san francisco, we have to come together. we have to denounce violence and hateful speech, not just because it's happening to our community, but because of how it impacts other communities as well. we need to send a strong signal that san francisco will not tolerate racial discrimination and that we will stand together to oppose hate against any one of us, because when you come for one of us, you come for all of us. we have stood together before and we do so again. we will be there for one another. just like frederick douglass hundreds of years ago who opposed and spoke out against the racist chinese exclusionary act. or how freedom fighters voiced their opposition to the emergency detention act that resulted in the internment of

thousands of japanese-americans during world war ii. we know that these really horrible tragic incidents of the past should not continue and be repeated now and into the future. we don't want our children to continue to grow up thinking that how we treat people based on their race when we are violent or aggressive towards them, that that's okay. it's not okay. and it's time for all of us as leaders and the african american and the asian community to stand up. to stand up to have the hard conversations about the prejudices that we all have, and how we deal with them. and how we support and uplift one another. this is where we are in that time. let me just close by saying that i appreciate the commitment of every one at this town hall to

have this much -- this much-needed conversation about race. thank you so much, not only to the panelists but to the people who are joining us. it's so important that we talk about what we can do to support each other. and it's important that we not only have this conversation with one another, but that we also have the hard conversations of what are our racist relatives about how they treat people of other races, about how they talk about people of other races. this is a time to spread a word that will impose positive impacts and energy into this conversation. this will take more than a campaign and more than a monthly series of conversations to make it a reality. it will take concentrated work to bring and to keep us together. and i am so really honored to be a mayor of such an incredible

city, a city where i went to school with people of so many different races. where we celebrated our diversity. where we have friends of different races. where we participated in so many programs that helped us to learn and to understand -- not just our differences, but how we are so much also alike. that's what san francisco is about. that's the san francisco that i know that we all want to create. and i know that because of the people that are part of this town hall today, we are going to get there. i'm hopeful, i'm optimistic about the future, and i really want to thank you all so much for participating. so let's get started with the conversation. >> thank you so much, mayor breed. thank you for your leadership. thank you again to director davis and the san francisco human rights commission for bringing all of us together here for this important town hall.

i'm going to serve as your moderator today and so let's get to it. and remember that this is one of the many series or a few series that we'll do on this topic and discussion, so we'll try to get to all of your concerns. a little later we will have a moment for questions. and so get them ready and we'll get to them to our esteemed panel. so here we are. and i'd like to introduce you to our panel, eddie zang, the president and founder of a foundation that works to mobilize resources to support asian-american and pacific islanders, appis, harmed by violence and criminal justice system. and reverend fong with chinatown c.d.c., and one of pastors in chinatown. and he was ordained in 1981. a former youth pastor of immigrant youth ministries at cameron house and a combined total of 42 years as full-time staff at two non-profits in

chinatown. and reverend arnold townson, a pillar here in san francisco, a long-time resident of san francisco. and the philmore neighborhood. he was a member of the black student union at san francisco state university during the famous student-led strike in the 1960s and was jailed three times during the protests. also served as the president of the african american art and culture complex which was also ran by mayor london breed. also vice president of the san francisco naacp and the associate minister at a church with a baptist congregation. john osaki, the executive director of jcyc since 1996. during john's tenure, jycc has been one of san francisco's most successful youth organizations, serving over 5,000 children and youth annually.

we also have monettea white, a community adviewicate and a devoted champion of preserving african american culture. she's currently the executive director of the museum of african diaspora and is with the smithsonian affiliate with uplifting black art and culture. so let's welcome our panelists. and to give a silent round of applause. we'll begin with our first question. the asian pacific planning and the chinese affirmative action have been tracking hate incidents of the asian-american community reporting over 2,500 incidents and over 800 of those reports came from california. these numbers are alarming and they do not include underrepresented incidents is and while the tracker may give us the impression pregz that anti-asian discrimination is on the rise, historical data, facts, policies and anecdotal

information will give us context and proof that this is history repeating itself. so let's begin with some historical information. so this is a question for any panelist, and we'll start with your knowledge of asian communities here in san francisco and examples of anti-asian discrimination leading up to today. we'll begin with eddie. >> hello, everyone. i'm very honored, it's really an honor to share this space with all of you. for me, as someone who is formally incarcerated individual who spent 21 years incarcerated as a result of some of those mistakes and those adverse childhood traumas that i have experienced and not really appreciating all of the sacrifices that my parents and

my grandparents had made for me to have a better education, better career opportunities, i resorted in harming people. you know, but i'm very grateful this the community and my family never gave up on me. because prison me helped me to get free. so understanding that, when we're talking about some of the challenges dealing with the anti-asian american sentiment that is very reemerging right now as a result of the foreign policy pushed forth by our current federal administration, it is unacceptable that this is happening again. i know that some of my esteemed panelists will talk a little bit about historical context, you know, of some of the challenges that we have experienced. but i do want to talk a little bit about my personal experience

in working in the community, in how i have witnessed many of the chinese and asian-american populations being really targeted in many ways. one, because of their language barriers. second because of the generation gap and the cultural differences, right? so in a lot of ways that they're targeted just because of the way they look and the language they speak. and so that's regarding the policy or regarding how people looking at people. and i know that the way that we always look at many of the asian-americans and thinking that we all are fairly sophisticated and smart and that we are well off in many ways. but i would say that that is only a small percentage of the people who really work hard and getting their success to the space that they are at. so that's many of the other

populations that is contrary to what many of the other people have experienced or understood. and so in that way i think that not only just a physical attacks, but on the policy level we have witnessed all of these different rhetorics that have disempowered our community. one of the big challenges that we have witnessed is because of other coronavirus pandemic rhetorics spewed by the current administration that inspires a lot of hate. and, michelle, you talk a little bit about some of the numbers earlier. but as of today, you know, nationally there are 2,738 incidents that have been reported only, right? and in san francisco alone there

are 282 incidents of violent crimes and hate crimes against chinese-americans and asian-americans. and so in the bay area-wide, that's 650 plus incidents happening. and this is not something that has just happened because of covid. but it is something that has been happening. and i just want to rest there. >> thank you, eddie. john? >> thanks, michelle, and i'm just really grateful to be here, to be part of this conversation. and just what i wanted to contribute to this question is that i think that here in san francisco we really have a unique role in this conversation about anti-asian sentiment because san francisco, as many on this call know, was one of the first ports of entry for asians in this country and was really ground zero for some of

the anti-asian sentiment that spread across this country. it was home to the arch asiatic exclusion league that had racist law against asians here in california. and, you know, we even have history of one of our mayors leading the charge towards the immigration act of 1924 which banned all asians into the united states. so i think that as diverse and as inclusive as we think about san francisco today, we really have this really dark past, and that we really are a symbol of what took place in this country and, frankly, i think that has always been there. it hasn't always been politically correct to show it until the last few years. but, unfortunately, it's been allowed and people have been

emboldened to demonstrate just how -- how much animosity that they have towards asian-americans. and so i think that what i'm hopeful from today's discussion and moving forward that we can once again be a model for the rest of the country, but a positive model. a model that sets an example for solidarity and for how we lift up each other as communities going forward. >> thank you, john. reverend townsend? >> thank you. this is an important conversation for us to have. and i think that it's a really important thing that we in the beginning note some things and some issues. understand that if -- in terms of trying to come together, one of the first things we have to do is to really be prepared to

change our thinking and the thinking of people that we deal with. if you have been raised in this country and educated in this country, it doesn't matter what color you are, you received a racist education. and because of that, we come out of that believing things about one another that are just not true, yet they drive how we treat one another. and so it's absolutely essential that we begin to change mindsets. the history of asian racism in this country and -- and especially in california and san francisco, is just absolutely amazing and overwhelming. and let me say one thing quickly, michelle, just i heard you say that history repeats itself. and i try to stay away from that

phrase because it suggests that because history does it and history is not a person, that we can't do much about it. but it is really not true. history doesn't do anything. history is benign. it just sits and waits to be made. what the problem is, is that people -- people on repeating history because there is either a real or perceived advantage for them to repeat the racism of the past and now the racism in the present over and over. so i just wanted to kind of throw that out there. but it is absolutely essential that we begin to treat each other, or at least to educate each other, in ways that are important. understand that most of us live with stereotypes of people that we have been taught. america, this country we call america, which is really i

consider racist in itself since mexico and can dan and all of the central and south american countries are in america too, but we have taken a name for ourselves. but in this country all of us -- we seem to think that we should dictate how people are treated in a way that benefits whatever direction this nation wants to go in. and that's just not the case. i'll just point out to you that so many awful things have happened in modern times, one of the worst -- director davis mentioned urban renewal and the redevelopment of philmore, and the redevelopment in philmore destroyed the traditional philmore black community but it also destroyed the traditional japanese community, the local community, in the -- in the philmore. and it made us more separate and

more segregated from one another than the reality was before urban renewal. because while -- while -- you know, afterwards we had this place up here where you have japan town and the other place down here which we try to not talk about, philmore. the fact of the matter is that philmore and japan town were interwoven physically before this happened. and so -- and then the philmore community -- the japanese community locally was virtually left out because they built japan trade center which was a concoction from japan and had by and large left the local japanese out and we later on on had neo-nazis and other things that we may get into. but it's really important for us to understand that the first thing that we have to do is to

-- if we're going to get along -- if we're going to move in a direction that we absolutely must move in for survival, we have to begin to dismiss stereotypes and non--- and things that we believe about one another that are absolutely not true and that are not beneficial to the narrative. and i hope that we'll get into more of that later. >> we absolutely will, thank you so much, reverend townsend. reverend fong. >> well, reverend townsend, thank you for bring other up the j town and philmore area conflicts that we have been through together. a lot of folks who are new to san francisco really don't know the history of the japanese-americans and the philmore and even the bayview who were removed and a lot of african americans from the south came up.

that's important, just to understand it, and you know it all. because the mayor and you and otherrings covered -- others covered the stuff that i wrote down i'll take it in a different direction. so for you young folks out there, young asian-americans especially listening, picture this -- okay, i grew up in the 1950s. yeah, i'm old. i went to school in chinatown and all of the teachers were white. no asian cops or politicians or anything. so the world was pretty white back then. but it was okay because we had each other in chinatown. we didn't know that we were segregated. we didn't know what segregation was, we just grew up that way. i crossed over to north beach, the italian neighborhood, to go to junior high. i got tied to a fence and these kids that didn't know me at all, i didn't know them, they water

balloon tortured me. and later they beat me up and knifed me and all of that stuff. i faced racism, okay, this is the early 1960s maybe. so, all right, a lot of us don't experience that today or don't understand it. so we don't understand the history of racism, even in our own great city of san francisco. i was motivated -- i will cut it short now -- when i heard about vincent chen, and everyone should know that story. 1982 -- he got baseball batted to death because people are mad at japan for taking away our jobs, auto jobs, and he was chinese. his mom came to chinatown and to san francisco and we organized like crazy but we didn't have social media then or anything like that. so i was feeling hopeless. i wanted to fight for it. dang it, stop this hate and beating on asians, right?

you can feel me now, right? i hope you do. we needed help. the chinese community across the country wasn't that big. so somebody big and powerful stepped in, and i will love him forever, i don't care what anyone says about reverend jesse jackson, he came to chinatown to stand with vincent's mom and we organized. it was a big movement -- asian-american movement across the country. and it was dealing with racism. so i'm saying that because of our theme today -- "stand together." i know that a lot of us in chinatown, i have been working there my whole life and my mom worked there her whole life. my family has been part of chinatown in san francisco for a hundred something years. so i know the history, i have been there, and those of you on facebook who think that we're just representing it, this is the real stuff, all right? racism has been a part of

america. it's institutionalized. and with the asian communities sometimes and other times they say we're the model minority. they're using us, okay? the fact is that we are being hated on a national level. i thank god for speaker pelosi who came last thursday to san francisco to talk to us and to tell us that we've got a problem nationally. the hate rhetoric against us now, the same rhetoric against blacks, the same rhetoric against latinos. we need to pull it together and to understand, so from a personal level i'm just sharing with you that it's been a part of our history. now not repeating itself. it's the same monster that shows up every now and then and right now we have to organize in san francisco. i expect us to do a good job of making that solidarity real.

there are asian seniors, i have buried a few, seniors beat up by brakes or other groups, attacking each other. and there's a tendency to get ugly again and to blame each racial group. we just are being youth, to understand the big picture -- you've got to understand the big picture. and in san francisco i hope that we can get it done right. and no thanks to trump who makes it national and big and seems to legitimize these white racists. i mean, this is terrible. but i can talk too much but i will stop for now. >> we'll take up with there in the second question in terms of being used and the cause of the racial tension. but monetta, we'd love your thoughts on the historical context, anti-asian discrimination and what happened leading up to what is happening now.

>> yeah, thank you, michelle. and i want to thank the mayor for, you know, putting us on today. i am passionate about this topic because, you know, we both have stories. i agree with everybody what they're saying today. it's about understanding and sharing and learning about ourselves and each other's cultures. for me this was -- this is what makes san francisco special. as a native san franciscan, i have grown up with mixed cultures and i have brought my knowledge about all of the things that i have learned about food and music and dance and religion. and this city of san francisco wouldn't be the renowned city that it is today without the black and asian communities that make up the tapestry of this city. and so -- and for me, you know, when i think of historical and, you know, the theme of today, which is "stand together," you know, and the 1960s the slogan

supporting black power was a call from the asian community to support the black community at the center of the civil rights movement. while those issues and historic treatments is not the same for both communities, that's where the solidarity is important. and so today, you know, i'm proud when i see that we are coming together as a community and saying that this is zero tolerance. we will not have this. and so i'm just happy to be amongst, you know, everyone here today, to be having this discussion and to continue the work that we have to do because i agree that we have hard conversations. but, you know, this is our city and we cannot allow it. >> thank you so much, monetta. so before we even disises, you know, -- discuss, you know, the ideas or the solutions or what we do or how to build equity for our communities, i think that it is important to address the reasons why. so i'd like to pick up from, you

know reverend fong what you said in giving some examples of how we are being used, how the racial tension causes the divide that can lead to, you know, incidents of harassment or and/or violence or anti-asian discrimination and let's head to john and we'll go back to norman fong if you wanted to add more to what you had said earlier. john? >> sure, thank you, michelle. and i certainly will allow or would love reverend townsend to expand on this as he lived through it. but, you know, i have been personally reflecting a lot on the -- what created my organization, jcyc and those young people who were part of the student strikes in 1968. who had experienced solidarity between the black students and

the latin x students. it was that energy and that power of solidarity that eventually created my organization. and i think that, you know, if we're thinking about historical examples i think that, you know, in my own research lately when i'm reflecting on this era, i think that we have to think about the white power structures that were around during that time that witnessed the power of the communities of color working together. some of you may recall that at that time that the governor of california was ronald reagan. and he did not appreciate the strikes at san francisco state and u.c. berkeley. he did not like to bow down to the power of people calling for ethnic studies and recognition of their ethnic heritages in schools. and he remembered how powerful

that was when these comments came together. -- when these communities came together. so when he became president, as president of the united states, he very intentionally tried to drive a wedge between the blacks and asians by lifting up asians and using the minority to divide us. part of the challenge moving ahead is that -- and, you know, reverend townsend spoke of it beautifully -- is that in many ways it worked. that many in our communities were conditioned to believe those stereotypes, to believe that all asians were well off, were doing fine. and it's been incredibly damaging. i think that's part of what we have to -- we have to talk about

to each other is that there have been -- you know, and reverend fong can talk about this as well -- there have been so many families who have been left behind because of that narrative, who have been ignored, that have critical issues that even today are affecting a.p.i. families that don't make the news, seldom get talked about. we have been conditioned to believe this narrative that has been perpetuated, not by us, and, to be honest, not by the black community, but by the white power structure. and that we have to recognize that this was done to us very intentionally. and as reverend fong said, we have been used. and i think that we have to start to confront this issue because, you know, unfortunately, there are members of our community who have bought into this. and it has been damaging in efforts to maintain solidarity between our communities.

so i think that we have to have honest conversations, because too often that we fall into the trap of, you know, this perception that one community's gain is the other community's loss and that is a losing perception for both of our communities and we have to get back to talking about how we protect each other and how we -- not how do we get our piece of the pie, but how do we grow it for everybody. how do we make sure that the needs of even community is taken care of, and we have to get back to those kinds of conversations. i just want to, you know, to conclude my thoughts by saying that when i was growing up in japantown, that there was a gentleman who i met when i turned 1 years old name -- 18 years old named tamatra scott. i happened to be with him when i turned 18, and the first thing that he did when he found out

that i turned 18, he stuck a voter application in my hand. and he came over here and he said, fill it out right now. you know, i -- i have been thinking a lot about him lately because of something that i really admired about him is that he absolutely was an advocate for the black community. but he also understood the power of our communities working together. i think that is a lesson that i never forgot. it's something that we believe in very passionately at jcyc, and something that i think that we have to be more intentional about in the city moving forward. so, thank you. >> thank you. reverend fong, anything to add to the previous comments and to john's comments? >> okay, i agree -- we need to pay homage to reverend townsend for being older. i was there at the third world strike at s.f.u. state too.

and so, anyway, there was solidarity there. because there's people that want to deal with the current situation of anti-asian hate, i'm going to let reverend townsend cover that side of that history. right now i've got a problem. when grandmas get beat up and there's hate on the youth level and we don't know what to say or do because we support civil rights and the solidarity, so i'm cutting to the chase here. and i get messages too -- how do we deal with the current situation, not just the trump, but ethnic trust. like john and i and townsend, we all have been through it together, so we trust each

other, right? we have been through it. and i have been arrested for civil -- yeah, so there's a long history there. but newcomers right here, you know, a senior gets beat up and she's 89 -- miss jee was killed in this valley for no apparent reason. there's a hate that's going on that we have to address too, not just covid. so i really hope -- i know that we can't do it now, but i have been through in the 1980s with the vietnamese that got beat up. i had to go to the hospital because my kids from the valley were stabbed going to philip burton. 2010, when there was the one punch thing, you know, a lot of gangs wanted to just beat up on the asianings just for fun to -- asians just for fun to prove

whatever -- i mean, there's real stuff going on. today, you know, a lot of the seniors in san francisco, asians especially, are picked off for economic reasons, right? but i'm getting sick and tired of some of this. and i hope that the human rights commission and our meeting today will lead to a few concrete things. in 2010, what we ended up with is two things -- one was the community ambassadors. so they won't knock over the asians on the third street light rail again. and i appreciate reverend townsend and amos brown and others who joined me to help to stop the violence. however, it's not enough. we've got to go deeper and we've got to learn from the past. when we did -- with we did the 1992 rodney king rally in chinatown, talk about

solidarity. we have been doing it all along, all of our history. but i remember -- i remember that i wanted to go down to l.a. and learn directly from the black leadership and the korean leadership there. it was bad, the koreans -- you know, the korean store owner killing a black young woman and it was bad. they said and they taught me then never to stand alone. do it together. it's not just black lives matter. it's black lives matter and asian lives matter. you say it together and you look unified. so recently we had our black lives matter rally in chinatown and we linked it to vincent chen. we linked it together so there's solidarity. so whenever there's moments of solidarity, we've got to do more in san francisco. like, this weekend will be -- in l.a. they celebrate the massacre of the chinese in chinatown

there in 1871. we need to find those moments and issues of solidarity. i really want -- and oh, the second thing -- i can't forget the youth. john, you have taught me this -- listen to the youth. in 2010 when they saw all of the violence, it was bad, man. i mean, oakland here -- and what happened was that the youth said -- i showed up for once and i let the youth speak. they said what we need is ethnic studies in high school. and so our youth, and the organizer created ethnic studies in five high schools. we need to make it more universal. we have to understand each other's history more. and i am talking too long, i know -- one more thing. my friend invited me to take on a chinatown tour niece -- these gang members, all tough-looking youth. they could have kicked my butt.

but, anyway, i took them into a chinatown s.r.o. and they saw the poverty. so i said don't believe in that asian model myth, you know, they saw -- and the one thing they said -- they were from the sunnydale projects, at least in sunnydale we have our own toilets. because they saw the poverty. we don't have individual toilets and we don't have individual kitchens. you know, chinatown is so jam-packed they have to share everything. and it's really about that. but i bet you that those kids will never beat on an asian. i know it, because they saw it, and they know what we're going through. it's true solidarity. i will stop there. >> thank you, reverend fong. and, eddie, wanted to get your thoughts on that question and what we're looking for is some examples. we started with the racial tension that leads to the divide and also the violence.

you have specific experiences, especially around the criminal justice system and so we would love to hear your thoughts. >> thank you. thank you so much to ron. and we could talk about this all day and all week, right? i mean, looking at the historical impact of the challenges with the asian-american communities, you know, the obvious thing that when we are looking at for people is how do we understand our history and our culture to inform our values, right? so that's why i'm always trying to promote the (indiscernible) but really culture and history and identity. for me, you know, to understand that, i have to be able to understand historically the discrimination that happened in the chinese community and in many other communities.

but because the theme of standing together, but also about uniting against asian hate, right, is that i want to really uplift the victims, right, who are suffering, who are the victims of violence in our chinese community and the asian-american communities in san francisco, right? it's in our face. so when it's in our face and the elderly and the family members and the people are seeing that in our face, the outrage of the hurt, the pain, and the hopelessness of nothing being done to protect their personal safety, right, that is real. and i highlight that because i don't want us to forget why we're here, right? and that's one thing. the second thing, you know, i had a little talk about reverend townsend maybe like a couple years ago, right, whether we were in philmore and we were in this little café. one of the things that always stuck in my mind is that

reverend townsend shared with me -- he asked me this question -- eddie, do you know what is the best export from the united states or from them? what is that? and he says, racism. racism was the best export for the europeans to disempower us and to be biased against us. when we looked at what is happening right now in the chinese community and the asian-american community, it is outrageous. and we cannot just stand by and just be idle in saying that, well, you know, that is too bad. it doesn't happen to our communities. well, it happens to every community, right? and anti-blackness is real from the export of the institutional racism. so i wanted to highlight that first, right? and then you talked about some of the solidarity that we have experienced in our communities, right. for 10 years, the community

youth center and the bayview ymca, we started the celebration of black history month and lunar year celebrations, 10 years in a row. it's a way of bringing people together to build a relationship and how do we build relationship with each other. we started a bayview solidarity tour, with tracy, right, that happened in the bayview. where we bring the elderly money on lingual chinese immigrants to talk about bayview and how they have been living, and about their gardens and about the shipyard. about the shrimp father-in-lawers, the chinese shrimp farmers that have been in the indian basin since 1939. they know they belong in this community, they are part of this community, right, and we are talking about how world war 2002 has impacted the -- the world

war ii impacted, and about the racist policies, right, that impacted them. so that's another aspect of how we can look at that to look at how we come together, right? the other piece that i wanted to talk a little bit about from the solidarity that is working is that i work with people in the african american community to do violence prevention, with the latin community to do violence prevention for years, right? but then still because of this minority, they think that asian americans or chinese americans we don't need these types of services because they think that we're better than the other minority groups. which is another thing to separate us. so we looked at 1969, when there was chinatown and inspired by the black party and to fight for our people. we talk about the start in new

york doing the same thing. and we talk about those who cradled malcolm x as he had his last breath. and we talk about detroit, who married james bachs, and we're talking about collaboration with african american and the chinese community. you know, we talk about the black panthers marshal from 1969. and again and again with so many people coming together to talk about this and addressing this. but for me as someone who has been to many of the african american families, and learned a lot from the families, and i have been to a lot of the chinese american communities, right? and time and time again i'm sharing with people that we need

to address systemic issues and not continue to talk about, well, these people are attacking the chinese community, what are we going to do about it. instead of looking at why are these people attacking the chinese elders in the chinese community, what causes that. when we start to understand and then we know that the white supremacy and the institutional racism is the root cause of this disempowering and hurting of our communities. lastly, i just want to say when you're talking about being discriminated and attacked, you can never separate the indigenous people of this land who have had the land taken from them. you can never separate the enslavement of the african american community who are part of this country and were slaves for generation. we cannot separate the attack on chinese-american, and asian-americans from those two things. and if we do, we will continue

to lose. >> thank you so much, thank you so much, eddie. and to thank you to all of the participants sending us questions. we're getting a few questions so i think that we'll 1kwru678 jump to audience questions early so we have time. a lot of the questions, you know, we're sharing the same concerns anyway. so here's a comment -- i appreciate that we're all in this together. please discuss the plan for racial equity and the model of scarcity that continues to fuel the anti-asian and anti-black sentiment in our community. so, you know, we want to talk about allyship, and let's begin with reverend townsend. >> i am glad, this is a good chat. let me say that much of what is going on i charge us -- much of what is going on -- and it's up to us to fix it.

we all feel that those who benefit from it are not going to fix it. they have no interest and no reason to. let me share this in the beginning -- keep in mind that you are the only model minorities when we're not around, when we're not around you become the n-word and that's how keep it going. so keep that in mind. let me tell you one of the things. i alluded to this earlier -- it's about education. and it's about us understanding that to break the hold that the race eye of the -- this racist nation and its educational system has on us, we've got to start educating our children because they're not learning what they -- all they need to know in school. they can be a straight a student, plaque black -- black

or asian, but they're not learning what they need to know to be black or asian in a racist society. who's teaching that? why would we expect the people who are teaching them to teach that? until we take the responsibility of our children, especially the race education in our hands, we'll never save them. we won't even save this nation. so we've got to change our perspective on what our role and what or job is. our job is not just to face the problem, which we have done eloquently in this zoom call and there are probably a hundred zoom calls all over the nation just today. but we're stating the problem rveght but we're not dealing with what kind of actions we need to take. we need to look at working with the human rights commission and other private foundations and organizations. how do we start educating our

children. what eddie was talking about is that the first propaganda of this nation was racism. they had to convince the rest of the nation and the world that black people were worthy of slavery, and that's all. they had to convince the world that the chinese were worthy of being able to work their hearts out and not being fairly compensated because that's all they deserved. and we may not buy -- if you're asian, you may not buy into that for yourself, but because of the education, you can buy into it for black people. even an asian man saying that the black people deserve to be slaves because they didn't fight back, which shows a total lack of history of slavery. but that's probably because he

made that up in his own mind or heard his daddy or the drunk uncle at thanksgiving say it, but there's no education to counter it. so beginning to change the mindset of people is the only thing that is going to ultimately to make us successful. we are -- we are in bad shape when it comes to our young people. and even when we were having issues before -- we talked about young people -- as norman talked about going to chinatown and sitting in classes and learning. but they've got to come to philmore and hunter's point too, and chinese kids have to come over there too and find out that even that our history -- because of china -- chinese kids can reflect on -- or japan -- or vietnam -- they can reflect on a glorious history that is put before them.

we and our children in the black community, we have a -- they have a history too that nobody teaches them or teaches y'all that we never talk about. so if those kids are going to go there, if our kids are going to go to chinatown, japan town, those children have to come to our community and get an education on who we are and what we're about. and most importantly seeing above all that we live in so many of the same conditions. working hard for freedoms that white people are born with. see, when you have to pass a law to give me the rights that you're born with -- that you are born with -- then we know that there's a major struggle on our hands to ever be in anybody's eyes equal, including our own. so i am -- there's a whole lot of other things that i want to

say, but i want to leave this here that we start to talk about how do we correct -- first of all within our own youth the mindset of who -- who we are to each other, but also who we are to ourselves. i will close with this -- a young man, friend of mine introduced me to him, he's chinese but he was a recent immigrant. she had been here for 50 years or more. and we were helping him because he was having problems with his neighbors and trying to do some work on the house he just bought. and i was explaining to him that one of the problems is that you come over here from china, man, and you move into the middle of all of these white folk and you buy the biggest house on the block that they all wanted and couldn't afford. yeah, they don't like you because you're chinese. reverend, i don't think that is it at all. well, we dealt with him for

about a year. and finally he met with them when i wasn't around. when he came out of the meeting he told me about the meeting and he said, you know what, reverend, i think they don't like me because i'm chinese. i said, welcome to america. you have finally immigrated. it took you 11 years after you got here to really being an immigrant and now you're on the way to being an american, because you understand -- you are beginning to understand where you live. and that people will murder you and lynch you based upon a belief that is not true. one, he wasn't even japanese. two, think of the mindset that you have to have as a white american to say that the japanese in their own country don't have a right to build

cars, and because your ancestors came from that country, we have a right to kill you. and y'all think that our most important job is not teaching our kids about propaganda and race hate and how it affects us and makes us all -- who are the victims of it -- turn around and take it out on each other. we've got to move and we've got to start taking some concrete actions. we've got to move our discussion on race from complaint to cure. and if we can do that, complaint to change -- if we can do that, we will have done more than a whole lot of other people ever thought about doing in their life who are here. >> thank you so much, reverend townsend. monetta, this would also be a great question for you. a lot of questions coming in from our audience and saying the same this that we need education

and we need to reach the youth, the different generations, and to do much more outreach. for someone like you who preserves culture and ann activist and advocate and brings art and culture together, your thoughts on how we get the education out there? >> yes. thank you. i just want to agree with everything that has been said. you know, i feel that i'm at church, reverend town diagnose send, you're preaching, i mean, this is just fantastic. it's really even hard to add. but you're right, that it is about education. and changing the narrative starts with exposure to each other's cultures. hate comes from ignorance and it takes both sides to make an effort to learn more and to experience each other's cultures could take us out of the ignorance on both sides. museums and other cultural institutions are a great place to start with that. i think that as we said that

multiple pell communities in -- communities they can't see each other. we need to hear each other. to hear each other we must practice active listening. we need to do our best to listen more than we talk. when we talk we need to talk with each other and not at each other. we have to begin to start to take action. you know, you talked about how do we be good allies in this. we have to acknowledge our blind spots and to read and listen and study our racial histories and the inequitable treatment of our community. the bottom line is that we have to take care of each other. so i just feel that, you know, again -- i love -- reverend townsend, what did you say, from this to change, that's what we have to start doing. so, thank you. >> here's a question maybe for reverend fong. due to the huge digital divide

and the large immigration -- sorry, large immigrant districts and especially for the seniors and the money on lingual residents, how can they be outreached and informed so they have mutual input at all times? >> i love that question. one of the joys i have of being in chinatown all of my life is seeing these seniors on a computer. we create, you know, computer lounges and young people come to help to educate them, to get on board. but i'm going to cheat a little bit and switch it a little. the census is going on and getting our families and our seniors to learn -- just to be counted, you know, that's beautiful. oh, one more thing -- one more

thing -- bridging from where reverend townsend was coming to the cure and practicality, did you know that there are african american families in chinatown -- yeah -- everybody -- so we took over the public housing and we are trying to build the beloved community there. we don't get no funding for that. i mean, everyone wants to talk about the education at a higher level. but where we could influence the black leaders in the public housing, for example, we have a black leadership group. they can help educate other african americans and the chinese community on the history. so, i mean, that's a real beloved community possibly right

there. we need in san francisco to find those opportunities. you know, i don't know how we spend our money. i don't know how funding is allocated in the city across the board and everywhere, but we've got to be smarter, strategic and to put our money where the best beloved communities can be born. >> michelle, excuse me real quick. norman, i appreciate that, because one of the things that we've got to be careful to do -- not to create or allow others to create a false narrative for us. there are problems without question. terrible problems. but i have been living in san francisco for 53 years. and from damn near the first month that i was here i knew people people who lived -- and black folk who lived in chinatown -- i knew -- and, see, while at the same time we've got these problems -- we've got other things that make those problems alive. you have every day thousands of

interactions in this town that go on between chinese and african americans that are cordial in nature. those relationships that we have -- let's face it -- they are business relationships. i do business with chinese folk. there are not only business relationships, they are collegial and friendly relationships. they are spiritual relationships. and, yes, there are -- there are romantic relationships because if you stand at a bus stop and you see the baby they come out of chinatown on their way to school, they may all be chinese but they don't all look chinese. some of them look just like me. so we have these positive relationships. we've got to constantly fall

back on, and to point to as the way that our communities really interact. and that when there are problems there are aberrations brought on by the lack of understanding and education. so i just wanted us to point out, let's not build something -- i don't want to take our truth and make it a lie. go ahead. i'm sorry about that. >> no, don't be sorry, don't apologize. please, jump in if you have more to add. what are the city's realistic, substantial and ongoing commitments to stop anti-asian discrimination and crimes? anyone can take this up but maybe john or eddie. john? >> well, i think that, you know, part of what we have to create are places that we can have the hard conversations. what we're doing here today is

really important. it's really important to have these types of dialogues. but there are also much more difficult conversations that have to occur between groups. and, you know, we don't -- you know, it's uncomfortable. we don't always have -- make time or have a place to do that. but i think that part of addressing the violence that is occurring against asians is that, you know, as a community that we have to find ways to stand up for other communities, to call out anti-blackness, and the issues that occur in our concern with other communities. and the hope in that type of exchange is that then other communities will stand up for us. and that there will be a way for us to call out things that occur within our own comments. and i -- our own communities. i think that is part of the work that is ahead of us.

i know that one of the things that used to take place in the western additions that when there were crimes committed against some of the japanese seniors in our area, there was a group -- a black-led group -- that would provide escorts, who would be allies to those people to ensure that they are safe. we need to get back to some of those strategies, some very visible strategies, where we can demonstrate the support for each other. i think that, you know, as a community that we are struggling a little bit to find out, you know, where do we fit in the conversation around equity in this city. i think that part of what we hope going forward and what has been a challenge is that, you know, we have tried to raise issues of concern in the past and it's not always been that with, you know, with a lot of the concern. you know, a few years ago we brought up, you know, real

concerns around the growing number of poor asians here in san francisco, poor asian families that reverend fong was talking about. and no alarms went off. there was no irjensy a-- urgency around some of the data that came out that showed that almost half of the poor families in san francisco were now asian. so i think we need a place to be able to bring those types of concerns and to talk through how we can get support from each other. on our side, we need to find out how we can support other communities. you know, as a japanese-american, i would love to be involved in the conversations about how i can support reparations for the black community. we don't have a place to have that conversation right now. i would love to be an ally in that process. and i think that, of course, we're, you know, in the midst of the black lives matter movement and i think we would like to

know more about how we could be allies and supportive of that process. and so i think that finding a way where we can share and talk through the real critical needs that each of our communities are facing i think will help a lot. and it will promote allyship. i think that part of what we have to be able to do is here in san francisco is to be a model for the rest of the nation. that we have to show a very visible way that we're supporting each other, that we're not dismissing each other's needs, and that we're calling out the issues within our own communities that break down and work against the type of solidarity that we need to really build our power base and our structure as communities of color. >> yeah, eddie, and i want to get to you. we have about 15 minutes or so left before our program ends. i wish that it was actually

longer. but, you know, eddie, add to the question also, a couple comments from or audience here, you know, as part of the solution of what do we do -- is it community organizing? we have heard outreach and bridging the youth and our elders and kilt really education -- cultural education. but what about examples of organizations like the san francisco peace collective, you know, should we mobilize in this way? or is it all of it, or is it add more foot patrol of the police officers into our communities and the neighborhoods? i think that it was a big question that people want to ask. so you get -- the lucky opportunity to address all of it. [laughter]. >> thank you. i can talk about it all day. however, because the time has a conflict, i want to address some of the questions that you have asked. i do want to say, given what john was sharing earlier, you

know, that the report that john was talking about was from the a.p.i. council in san francisco, right? which really shows that san francisco accounts for 32% of the population, but make up 42% of the low-income population. but people don't know that. if you look at the model minority myth and look to that to project in the a.p.i. community, it's false. and the second thing, the question is what the city can do. well, i'm very disappointed in the city, right, because the city has not really invested in these resources in addressing this type of inequity in the african american community and the latin x community and especially not in the asian community. and we haven't talked about the other refugees that came into this city, right? so even though we are

(indiscernible) and looking at all of this violence happening in the chinese community i'm just saying that because that's the topic. i already know about the african american community and other communities and i'm just focusing on that. because the majority of the people who may not be educated or who may not have those type of analyses, political analysis, they would say what are you doing about the black attacking the chinese and attacking the asians? always talking about systemic race system and all of this stuff, well, you know, unfortunately, we need people to step up -- just like i'm stepping up, just like many other people in the asian-american community are stepping up to say that black lives matter. if black lives don't matter, then none of our lives matter. i want to say that this is unacceptable, and these people need to be held accountable. we need to support by investing

in our education instead of the military industrial complex. so we have to have the solutions. but the community ambassador program in 2010 that we pushed the city to start, right, it's been 10 years. i have shared a picture with all of you from 10 years ago, mayor breed before she was a mayor, right. and jane kim, and the people who were at the time with the low-income community and now the president of a foundation. and we all came together to address this issue, right? we had a thousand people rallying to city hall. has anything changed? nothing. it's still happening. so now what are we going to do on the city level? i need the city leaders to figure that one out. but on the community level we have to deepen our relationship. we have to educator young people and invest in the young people.

we have to address anti-blackness. and we have to come up with solutions that is not racial profiling against blacks. many of the groups that come together, they have great intentions, right. yes, we want to protect chinatown. we want to protect japan town and protect this town and that town. well, it's all about this town. i don't care about all of the rest of the towns. let me protect this town. protect against who? so visibly because the condition of racism and anti-brakeness, we're saying that black people are attacking us, so we have to protect us against the blacks, right? so what do we do? we see any blacks, whether you're a tourist, whether a resident in chinatown, racial profile them. oh, five young people are walking in chinatown, let's get ready to call the cops. this person stole, and that person has mental health issues so let's call the police. i call that racial profiling.

so great intentions, yes, we need to protect our merchants and we need to protect our elders and protect the people from being attacked, but then we also need resources. we need the people who say all of that stuff to really come about to do the same and to have the same passions about the racism that is happening in the african american community and other communities of color. and until that happens it's always going to be -- when we have this town hall right here -- what has happened -- what about anti-blackness? how come no one is talking about anti-blackness? and when you talk about anti-blackness, the chinese and asians say why not talk about us? and no one wins. it's the people who pay the corporate role, those people are winning, not us. so we have to deepen our relationship. lastly, i want to say this,

why? because i really want to put a context into some of the solutions, right, from our community. what can our education and history and culture can do for all of us. so i always say this -- we must be willing to engage in a personal revolution before we are able to embark on a collective revolution. >> thank you. thank you so much, eddie. we have about three minutes left and i want to give a chance to add final thoughts. the last question, okay, well, we talked about the people in power and we talked about the racist structures that have been kept in place. it's not history repeating itself, but they have been behaviors happening again and we have to change that. and one of the questions points to funding. one of the questions points to getting rid of this power. i'm going to head to reverend fong and then reverend townsend and anyone who wants to add for

the rest of the time if you want to add final thoughts to touch on that. monetta, go ahead -- >> no, no, because i know that reverend fong and reverend townsend will leave us on a high spirit with their energy. so you should end on them for sure. but in closing for me, i just wanted to say that i -- and i keep saying this over and over again because i do know that understanding is the key to resolving most conflicts. you know, understanding ourselves is the first step to understanding others. i know that at m on -- moad, we focus on telling our stories and celebrating what makes us human through art and our culture. it's so important. and injustice to one is an injustice to all. even as people of color, we can

hurt each other. sometimes we get caught up in our own struggles and get into a tunnel vision, but in reality we need to do the work together to overcome the issues that may be unique to our own experiences. that's what i wanted to end on. and i'm just so grateful to be a part of this discussion. >> thank you, monetta. quickly, john, before we get to the reverends. >> i just want to thank everybody for joining us here today. thank you for having me. i just really want to emphasize that we have so much more power together than we do apart. and i look forward to working withing over this panel, people who are part of this call today, to really figure out how we take our power back collectively as communities. >> reverend fong? >> so i remember there was a

wedge between the latino community and the chinese community. i have a town hall every month. almost a thousand of the chinatown residents show up. i brought in an undocumented latino from the mission just to tell the story. and let me tell you the hearts and minds were changed. i still believe in that. i'm not sure if a lot of people in chinatown feel that other communities are listening to them right now. why pick on us. why -- you know, anti-immigrant xenophobia so i hope -- we can't change the whole world, but everyone listening and everyone here can do a lot more. i don't know what the human rights commission can do. that's my number one question is, okay, we agreed to be on this panel and i want to see

some action, concrete action. i'll stop there. preach on, reverend townsend. >> yes, leave us on a high note. we have run out of time but i think that everyone will be okay with your last parting words. >> reverend townsend? >> it looks like you're on mute, reverend. >> i don't know how that happens. we're in a situation where our focus today has been on each other. and the problem is that there's a story of a young fella is standing at the riverbank and he keeps trying to get some water but the water that he keeps reaching for is dirty. and he can't drink it but he keeps trying to get it. and an old man comes along and says, son, if you go up a couple

steps and do that, the water might be dirty. we have sat and talked about each other looking for clean water. but we haven't really talked about how we're going to deal with the dirt in our stream. that's the powers that control us in this country. whatever you want to call them -- white folk -- whatever you want to call them. there is an issue that we have to correct. one of the first things that we've got to do is that we've got to start correcting the illnesses in our own community. the illnesses in the black community of how they perceive asian people. but also the illnesses in the asian community on how they perceive us. that i know that when i'm damned near 80 years old and, look it, and i get on the elevator in a suit and a tie with an asian woman and the first thing that she does is look at me and get a death grip on her purse --

that's the mindset that we've got to work to correct. and to realize that these issues have been created for us because as long as we have these issues between us, that we cannot change the issues that confront us. and, norman, i disagree. we can change the world. and the world ain't going to get changed unless we do it. and we can't do it unless we get started in that small corner that we occupy and decide today that whenever the lord calls me home that corner i occupy is going to be better for me having been there than if i hadn't been there. and that goes for my relationship with asian folk, latino folk, white folk and black folk. we've got to get a new mindset

that only us -- we're the only ones that are going to change the conditions that our people face collectively. thank you all so much. it's a great panel. let's don't stop talking, but as we continue to talk let's start planning, and above all, designing the solutions that is going to get us out of where we are. >> that's right, reverend. the whole point is the kickoff of these series, remember that there's a few more, a ton more, we'll keep going. we'll get to the solutions. and so thank you so much for having all of us and thank you to the panelists and thank you all for joining us. i will hand it over to brittany to close for us, the chief of staff for san francisco human rights commission. >> thank you so much, michelle. and i just want to say and echo you in thanking all of the panelists so, thank you, michelle, for monitoring and

facilitating that conversation. maybe to be a witness and to participate. but thank you to eddie and reverend fong and reverend towncent and monetta for sharing your narrative and your heartfelt thoughts about what you have experienced and what we're moving forward. i think that ending on an uplifting and hopeful note is all that we could ask for. so i'm filled with gratitude for everything that you have shared and inspired in us today. i wanted to reflect on a couple things really quickly. one is something that reverend fong said that resonated with me is this history of promoting racist laws in san francisco. as he was saying, a lot of us and here, our ancestors came to san francisco as refugees. so regardless of the country or where we were traveling from, speaking from personal experience, my family came from the south because they were

committing white terrorism, right? and many people are fleeing terror from their homeland, whatever that may be -- domestic or abroad. i think that is something that definitely binds us, but it's important to remember that, again, that the racist laws in san francisco has been universal for anyone who is not white -- asian, black, latin x, native american, there has been a history that we're still correcting for, of targeted and legalized race eu678ism -- racism. so i wanted to echo what our panelists said is that there's so much more that connects us than tears us apart. and i am reading this amazing book that i wanted to share with everyone called "caste." you can see my bookmarks are in it. but isabelle wilkerson. and it's really touching on something that eddie spoke

about, which is the ways in which the united states exported racism. the ways in which our differences have been, you know, been dividing us. i think that, you know, covid has only served as a reminder of all of the brokenness and cracks in or sight and in our communities. it's really busted those issues wide open. it exploited those differences, right? it's exploited those divisions that have been supported by white supremacy and by xenophobia and by misunderstanding one another and by anti-immigrant sentiment. so it's important again that we come back home and remember that there's more that we can build together with a united front than sitting here in our corners with our crumbs. we could eat a full meal if we bring it all to the table. so in closing i just wanted to share a couple things because there are some comments in the chat -- i'm so sorry that we

have so many amazing community leaders on the call. i saw reverend brown out there and i saw queen vanessa banks and commissioner hijazi, and commissioner riley, and commissioner ampon. thank you for being on the call and i wish we had an opportunity to hear from all of you. i know that there are so many out there that we didn't hear from today. but, you know, a sentiment that i saw in a few of the chats comments was how do we move forward, you know want. -- you know, we have had these conversations before and we know that these issues exist and persist. but what is difference about this? so we're really calling you all to action to work with us to make sure that this is not a one-off. the human rights commission is happy to be a convenor, but we want this to be a community-led response to ensure that we are

responding to, you know, anyone in the city who feels invisible or targeted or unsafe. it's unacceptable. we want to be that uniting place where we can have these conversations but also move forward in actions on a lot of the exciting and innovative ideas that were shared in the chat, whether it's creating better resources for our young folks or just creating more spaces like this where we're gathering in conversation to elevate the different community needs. so i wanted to share this website that we have created and big gratitude to dr. davis for spearheading this and to creating our stand together s.f. website. we'll put the information in the chat. but it has, you know, a lot of the resources and the materials that you can puruse through, and

please share, and we also ask that if you would like to stay in touch with the human rights commission for future conversations that you reach out to hrc-roundtable@goff --@sfgov-tv.org. and we have opportunities for you to learn more about and to be in the future conversations on similar topics. and today we were talking about the ongoing tensions between our black and asian communities in san francisco. but stand together s.f. is really a rallying cry across the communities because, again, we know that this is not something that has been targeted to one group or another. and we would never want to participate in anything that seems to be, you know, qualifying who has trauma that outweighs the other. we all experience trauma in

different ways and they're not always analogous, but we don't want to be in what is called the oppression olympics. we know that there are issues across communities and identities and those who resonate differently depending on identity. so today was about asian and black interactions in san francisco, but the future will focus on different communities, both intercommunity tensions and, again, owning how the city can do better in reaching and improving these outcomes for folks. so thank you again for joining us today. and for all of your amazing questions and thanks to our powerful panelists for your contributions. >> good morning. the meeting will come to order. welcome to the october 29,

special meeting of government audit and oversight. i am the chair of the committee joined by vice chair and committee member haney. thank you to the clerk and i would like to thank sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements. >> to protect the public, board members and city employees the board of supervisors legislative chamber and committee room are closed. this is taken pursuant to all various local, state orders and directive. committee members are participating in video conference. public comment is available for each item on the agenda. sfgovtv has the calling number on the screen. provide comments by phone calling 415-655-0001.

once connected into the meeting id is (146)699-4959. when prompted press pound twice to be connected to the meeting. when connected you will hear the meeting discussions but your line will be in his senning need only. when your item comes up dial star three to be added to the speaker line. the speaker prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. when you are unmuted you may begin. best practices call from quiet location and speak clearly and turndown television or radio or streaming device. behind full of potential time delays that we may even counter between live coverage and streaming. you may submit public comments through e-mail john carroll, the clerk of the government audit

and oversight. john.carroll at sfgovtv.org. if you submit by e-mail it will be included in the legislative file you are commenting on. written comments may be sent by the u.s. postal service to city hall. 1 doctor carlton b. goodlett place room 244 san francisco california 94102. eye tomorrows today will appear on november 10, agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you, mr. clerk. please call item 1. agenda item one. re-enactment of emergency ordinance 10420 and 15920 to create a right to reemployment for certain employees laid off due to the covid-19 pandemic if

their employer seeks to fill the same position previously held by laid off worker or substantially similar position as defined. call the public comment number. 415-655-0001 enter the meeting id. press pound twice to connect to the meeting and press star followed by 3 to speak. finally i am in receipt of memo requesting this be agenda as committee report at next week's board meeting november 3, 2020. >> thank you. colleagues this will extend for further 60 days the back to work emergency ordinance. groundbreaking policy we enacted earlier this year provides right to ferry employment for laid off workers impacted by the pandemic. this ensures large businesses forced to cut employees because

of pandemic rehire rather than replace laid off workers when they re-open. over 500 laid off workers have been rehired through this policy. the city continues to reopen more of the economy, i feel strongly we must keep these labor protections in place. i urge support for this item today. before we go to public comment, do you have any questions or comments? >> mr. clerk any callers on the line? >> operations is checking for callers. please let us know. if you have connected press star 3 if you wish to speak for this item. those on hold in the queue please continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. you will hear prompts that your line is unmuted. if you are watching on cable

channel 26, or through sfgovtv please call in by following instructions on the screen by dialing 415-655-0001. enter meeting id1466994959. press found and star three to speak. could you let us know if we have any callers. >> there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you, operations and mr. hearing no further callers public comment is now closed. i would like to move we recommend item 1 as a committee report for the november 3rd meeting of the board of supervisors. mr. clerk please call the roll. >> on the motion offered by chair mar this be recommended as committee report vice chair peskin. >> aye.

>> haney. >> aye. >> chair mar. >> aye. >> mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> thanthank you, mr. clerk. please call item 2. re-enact meant of emergency ordinance 7420 to require grocery store and drugstore and restaurant and on demand delivery service employers to provide health and scheduling procedures t to employees during the public health emergency related to covid-19. please call the number now to comment. 415-655-0001. enter the meeting id and press pound twice and connect to the meeting and press star to speak. prompts will indicate you raised your hand. please wait until you are unmuted. this item has been agendized as

committee report at your request. >> thank you, supervisor haney for your leader ship and sponsor ship of this additional job emergency legislation supporting workers in the city. supervisor haney, the floor is yours. >> thank you, chair mar. very brief. this proposed emergency ordinance re-enacts the previous ordinance to expire on november 8. for an additional 60 days. it has worker protections covered by health officer orders and gives workers an additional level of protection and mechanism to file complaint with the office of labor standards and enforcement. it has been an essential protection for many of our most vulnerable workers during this crisis. >> thank you, supervisor haney.

are there any callers on the line? if you have connected by phone press star three at this time if you wish to speak for this item. if you are on hold please continue to wait until prompted to begin. you will be informed your line is unmuted. any callers for 2? >> there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is closed. supervisor haney would you like a motion on this? >> yes, i move to have this sent to the full board as a committee report. at the november 3rd meeting. >> please call roll.

>> on the motion this emergency ordinance be sent as committee report with recommendations. vice chair peskin. >> aye. >> member haney. >> aye. >> chair mar. >> aye. >> mr. chair, there are three ayes. >> thank you, mr. clerk. >> please call item 3. amending chapter 28 to add probative provision of gifts or money to public official to revising de barment procedures. amend definition of contractor by including grant applications and grantees and to add provisions authorizing suspension from procurement process, entering into city contracts or applying for grants if subject of charge alleging that the contractor committed

byvation of law or regulation against any government entity relevant to the ability or capacity to perform under or comply with the terms or conditions of the city contract including de barment set forth in 28. members of the public who wish to comment should call the comment number. 415-655-0001. the prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. wait until you are unmuted. that will be your opportunity to comment on agenda item 3. >> thank you, mr. clerk. i want to start by expressing my gratitude to city attorney and his office for bringing this forward. it may beings several corrections to contractor oversight and closes a loophole in our ability to suspend city

contractors indicted not yet charged. my office is in receipt of amendment to this item which i intend to introduce which has been shared in advance with members of the committee. first to speak on this item i would like to welcome mr. ronald flynn from the city attorney's office. >> thank you, very much, i am ron flynn, chief city attorney. proposal to amend chapter 28 of the administrative code related to debarment and suspension of city contractors. de barment is administrative determine that a contractor is not a responsible party entitle to enter city contracts and disqualified from participating in procurement for a period of time up to five years. it is a serious determination,

one that requires the contractor be given notice and opportunity to be heard before the de barment is final. as this committee is aware in january of this year united states department of justice filed criminal charges against d.p.w. director and a san francisco restaurant. in the criminal complaint there were unnamed contractors alleged to have participated in the criminal enterprise to provide money for favored treatment in the contracting process. this does three things. it clarifies the grounds for de bar net be to include failure to include the campaign and government conduct not simply ay administrative code. it includes grants and provides

order of suspension to prevent contractor from seeking new contracts or grants during the suspension. it has cleanups which i am happy to discuss. the suspension is critical. federal government has the power of suspension which allows it to immediately place amas on new contractors when a contractor is indicted for committed fraud against government. under our current system when a contractor is indicted for committing fraud against the government even against san francisco the city must do one of two things. initiate its own investigation and bring and proof independent charges or wait until the contractor charges are resolved. this under mines public confidence. i will explain how. recently hernandez a former city employee was dated for bribery of a local public official. he was the chief financial

officer and vice president of a local contracting company he started. he was also a responsible managing officer and held one of the contracting licenses. mr. hernandez met with the fbi on january 27. he was confronted with gifts and personal services he provided over the years. indeed as recently as the weekend before that interview with the fbi he paid for hotel and dinner. mr. hernandez was not criminally charged until june 4 of this year. while the city attorney's office was building the case against mr. hernandez, a contractor number two or three in the complaint. it did not have the facts by that day. incredibly, in may 28, 2020, works submitted a bid to be a subcontractor for a new project

for the city a new multi-million dollar contract. they did this knowing the fbi had evidence mr. hernandez bribed city officials. the public, city officials and reporters rightfully asked. how can an indated contractor seek new work with the city? >> in that case the charging documents had admissions the fbi called as lies. such as that mr. hernandez said he only gave $20,000 worth of goods and services. he die understood several hundred thousand worth of services for a vacation home. we were able to use the admission of 20,000 and not sufficient to have him charged with a crime to seek de barment. if that were not in there, in the charging documents we would not have been able to prevent the works from continuing to

seek work while the criminal charges were pending. mind you, most charging documents don't contain such admissions. they are alleges which cannot be the basis. as it is. her flandez and work -- hernandez and works asked to protect the fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. we were able to stipulate to suspension and works was not able to seek new work until the verdict is entered. the contractor cannot get work while the chief financial officer is under indictment for fraud. we can de bar them assuming a guilty plea. not guilty three could seek to have the suspension lifted. because this is serious and fifth amendments right against self-incrimination are raised. we ask for an amendment the ordinance be amended to add that

the point of hearing officer shall be an attorney licensed to practice law with not less than five years of experience. the constitutional issues are the ones that come up. one other thing to light is the clarification giving a gift to a public official where it would be unlawful for that public official to accept the gift is an express ground for de barment. we treated it as such but learned in this case one contractor gave a rolex watch, another a tractor, another at least $20,000 worth of construction work. each of these contractors say i did not give it to him to get any favors. i did it because he was my friend. under the government code and the campaign government conduct

code it is unlawful for nuru to accept those gifts. it is only unlawful for the contractors to gift the gifts if they intended to get a favor. the excuse given is that this isn't for a favor, this is my friend. this may beings clear if you are giving a $37,000 rolex to a city official who is giving you a contract, you no longer are entitled to get contracts. you don't have excuse this is my friend and i am giving it to him or her. that is one of the loopholes that it closes. another is that it may beings cleanup work. for instance. ordinance now talks about the direct or of administrative services one that would appointer the hearing officer. there is no longer the thing in the city it is city administrator. there is cleanup work in

addition to what i talked about. we think this will discourage contractors from continues to try to give gifts to city officials and if they continue to do so it will be easier to take them off the books while the criminal process plays out. i am happy to answer any questions that the committee has. >> thank you for the presentation and all of your work. this is a necessary and crucial step to root out corruption and restore the faith of the public. as you mentioned, you have introduced an amendment and i am happy to make the motion on this amendment. they appear on page 9. again they would require

officers who preside over department and suspension hearings be an attorney licensed to practice in california with at least five years of experience. before we go to public comment, colleagues, do you have any questions or remarks you would like to make? >> chair mar, i would like to be added as a proud co-sponsor. >> i will make you primary sponsor of the item. >> i don't want to cause any consternation with my friend the city attorney, why don't we let this be the city attorney's work and i will vote for it at committee and at full board. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. supervisor haney. >> i want to thank you, mr. flynn, and thank the city attorney's office for their

proactive and necessary work on this and the broader investigation. this is a very awful time for our city when we are continuing to have these kind of allegations of corruption. it seems to me that we clearly need to be able to take action against individuals and companies who are charged with corrupt behaviors and ensure that they are not getting further contracts with the city during that time. one question i had was about another maybe it is a slightly different category. the situation that involves rod regoes santos. he has been charged. he is not exactly a contractor

in the same way but there were reports of mr. santos continuing to pull permits and engage with d.b.i. in various ways. would a situation like that be covered under this ordinance? what is the scope of engagement that is included that could be suspended while somebody is under investigation or has been indicted? >> that is a great issue. de barment is a process by which someone who gets money from the government is determined that they are no longer entitled to do that. a grant or contract they are no longer allowed to do that. sorry about my dog. people who apply for permits are

not getting contracts, they are getting permits. it is different to come up with parallel regime. if you are not an honest broker with a department while seeking a permit for others, is there something that can be done? the de barment process comes from a long line of -- from the federal to local to state government. we want to clean it up. it has never come over to the permitting. there are different issues to look at in terms of that. wyou are correct. that is the example in how we can do that. if we know someone is not truthful, what we currently do is we put -- we advise departments to put additional bells and whistles on that permit process.

if someone is not being truthful to look at every application, follow up, to do checks, to make sure this is truthful. there is not in our code a process to say you cannot walk to the counter and get a permit. this would not cover it, unfortunately. >> i appreciate that. i do hope that this is something that we can look at if somebody is under indictment, accused of a crime of fraud or corruption. i do not believe they should be getting contracts with the city and i also do not belief they should pull permits from the city. it obviously damages the public trust but brings up the possibility that they are continuing to do the exact same thing they have been charged or indicted for. i think in the case of

mr. santos. we are going to have concerns and we don't want to give somebody a contract engaging in corrupt behavior or facilitating corrupt behavior by allowing them to directly pull permits from d.b.i. you know, i hope that is something we can look at closely and address. i don't think it is right for our city government to be giving money out or permits out to people who are engaged in corrupt behavior and are under indictment or investigation for it. my staff is delling me i may be -- telling me i have a hearing on this upcoming. maybe supervisor peskin was involved with. i hope we can find a similar solution to prevent that behavior as well.

thank you. >> thank you, supervisor haney for that. when we go to public comment, mr. clerk, any callers on the line? >> please let us know if there are any callers. if you have connected press star followed by 3 to speak. on hold please continue to wait until you are prompted to begin. you will hear prompts to inform you your line is unmuted. on cable channel 26 or through sfgovtv if you wish to speak please call in now by following the instructions on your screen. dial 415-655-0001. entered d1466994959. press pound twice and star 3 to speak. do we have callers for item 3?

>> mr. chair there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you. public comment is now closed. i would like to move we amend the item as presented and send the item as amended to the full board with positive recommendations. mr. clerk, please call roll. >> on the motion the ordinance be amended and recommended as amended to the board of supervisors. vice chair peskin. >> aye. >> member haney. >> aye. >> chair mar. >> aye. >> mr. chair there are three ayes. >> thank you, mr. clerk and thank you for all of your work on this. >> please call item 4. agenda four administrative code to establish the work force education and recovery fund. members of the public who wish

to comment shall call now. public comment is 415-655-0001 enter meeting id. press pound twice to connect and star followed by 3 to enter the queue to speak. please wait until the system indicates you are unmuted and you may then begin your comments. >> thank you. like item 1 the back to work emergency ordinance this is in response to those unemployed due to health pandemic. most of the more than 200 san franciscan who filed over the past 8 months will not return to previous jobs. supporting them to upgrade skills to get back to work with will extremely important part of the economic recovery. one of the key recommendations

of the sf economic recovery task force is for the city to provide culturally accessible job training with career connections for marginalized aplaid off workers. this will recrate the work force education and recovery fund to provide financial support to city college of california. student wraparound services and social justice, lifelong learning and enrichment classes. we recognize the role of city college as largest provider of workforce training in adult education in the city with all programs tuition free to san francisco residents. it is a strategic investment to expand the vocational classes leading to career pathways at this time of meed. the city budget includes

$200,000 to work to create a pilot program in the spring semester to create at least 10 career technical education classes for unemployed workers in key sectors such as health education, nursing, emergency responders, information technology and building trades. i thank my co-sponsors haney, ronen and preston and leaders who we worked with on this measure sft2121, student leaders, trustees, and interim chancellor. i want to thank city attorney clark and the department of children, youth and families. last but not least my staff for all of their work on this. before we go to public comment,

do you have any questions or remarks, colleagues? >> okay. mr. clerk. any callers on the line? >> thank you. please let us know if there are callers ready for those who connected by phone press star 3 if you wish to speak for this item. those already on hold in the queue please wait until you are prompted to begin and you will be informed your line is unmuted. on cable channel 26 or sfgovtv please call in now by following the instructions on the screen. dial 415-655-0001. when prompted enter the i id1466994959. press pound twice and star followed by 3 to enter cue to speak. do we have callers for agenda 4?

>> there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you, operations and mr. public comment is closed. colleagues. i would move we send this to the full board with positive recommendation. mr. clerk please call roll. >> on the motion offered by chair mar to recommend to the board of supervisors. vice chair peskin. >> aye. >> member haney. >> aye. >> chair mar. >> aye. >> mr. chair, three ayes. >> thank you, mr. clerk. is there any further business? >> there is no further business. >> we are adjourned. take care everyone.

[♪] >> it's always a slap in the face to our people and we see

that happening all over this country, but always reminded us that as indigenous people we didn't actually have a place. what we were thought of continuously was as savages and less than, that the white man came to save us. >> when i first saw the early day statue, i think it brought me back to the time of my ancestors. i think that's where genocide started. >> that was a time when people were being hunted down and slaughtered and bounties were placed on their heads. not only were people murdered, our culture was stripped from us. >> prior to my lifetime, our families were still in hiding. i think some of the folks do not understand some of the very first laws that were created and what is now called the state of california was extermination laws that legalized the killing

of native people. >> i remember specifically someone had painted in red beneath again side and they put a wine bottle in the hand of the missionaries who was leaning down to hand this bottle to the indian man who was seated on the ground. it was a powerful statement about genocide and the distortion of history and what the true history is. >> i think that we have to remove all of these stereotypes and strip the world of this racism in order to build it back up with factually correct history and teach people not only native american people behave like this. we're all people, the same as you. we have a 9:00 to 5:00 job. we go to school. we're also different because our history and our ancestors and

culture and arts make us different. >> public art is very powerful, as we can see for 126 years, the common imagery was upholding white supremacy. it's important that public arts also evolved and what was accepted and appropriate and apparent 120 years ago is not so any longer. >> i think that it's important that the statue went down the way that it did, with indigenous people coming out from all different walks and different places. that it's important for our younger generation to see that we can change what history has put up that depicts us. [♪] >> that's powerful to know that

selectivity we're able to remove that symbol. we are now able to occupy that space in our own voice. >> the native american movements that were conducted in the 1970s are extremely important to me because my grandpa was at the forefront of them and he was making the world a better place so that i would grow up in a world where i had one less issue to face and my generation could start from where he worked and continue working from that point. >> the struggle has been going on for many years to remove this statue, but it's only one key in all of san francisco's history and all of this country's history about the misrepresentation of how this land was developed and colonized. >> we have to fight to regain our languages, have access to our lands, to keep our religions from being illegal. that is the legacy, that we are

in a continuous struggle. >> i think those are ways of acknowledging our path so we can move forward together. no one is going home. this has always been our home. how do we learn to live in reciprocity with one another? that's by acknowledging our histories and moving forward and telling the truth to history. [♪] [♪]