>> welcome you back to the regularly scheduled san francisco police commission and my name malia cohen and i'm chair of this body. to my right is commissioner cindy elias, and i'd like to recognize john hamm and our talented commission staff. with that, i'll turn to the commission secretary and please call the next item on the agenda. >> clerk: we have roll call today.

[roll call] you have a quorum. it's 5:40, let's put your right hand over your heart and pledge. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. all right. let's start at the beginning. please, call the next item. >> clerk: so, also tonight, we have chief william scott from the san francisco police department and director paul henderson from the department of police accountability. so, today for the public, this meeting is being televised by

sfgovtv. if you are interested in making public comment, please dial (415)655-0001 and enter access code 146 718 3479 and press pound and join the meeting as a participant and you will hear a deep when you have entered the meeting. when public comment is announced for the item, or general comment, dial star 3 and this will advise the moderator you wish to speak and add to the queue. when they say good evening, callers, you have two minutes and this is your opportunity to provide public comment and you will have two minutes to provide your comments and when your two minutes have ended, you will be moved out of the queue and back into listening as a participant. members of the public may stay on the meeting line and listen

for another line item is read in order to make public comment again, by pressing star 3 to be added into the queue. line item 1 is general public comment. the public is now welcome to address the commission regarding items that do not appear on tonight's agenda but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not individual commissioners or department or d.p.a. personnel. under police commission rules of order, during the public comment, neither police or d.p.a. personnel or commissioners are required to respond to questions presented by the public. may provide a brief response. individual commissioners and police personnel refrain however, from entering into any debate or discussion with

speakers during public comment. police cohen, you have five people in the public comment. >> president cohen: good evening. >> hello, can you hear me. good afternoon commissioners and sfpd chief. my name is kip lamb and a victim of the recall sfpd case number 210-33-3471. the theft happened on may 30th, 2021. more than a month since the incident but there's no arrest and the reader of the confrontation between me and the suspect and has a tracted half a million views on twitter. the suspect has been identified by internet users and his

employer. i was told it would take a few weeks to reveal the case before they issued a arrest warrant. citizens in san francisco are watching the development of this case. many people wonder item suspect has not been arrested yet. the former law enforcement officer in hong kong and i know there's enough evidence to arrest ex charge the suspect. the suspect might have committed a felony for signing a fake name on a petition and committed a misdemeanor for stealing signs. he was trying to steal signatures of chinese americans and determining to silence asian-american voices. i believe in the sfpd and i believe sfpd will enforce the law and protect san francisco citizens and please make an arrest in my case.

thank you. >> president cohen: thank you, caller. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening. my name is barrie toronto. i am a taxi driver and i just wanted to bring a couple of issues. first, the hilton hotel hires a police officer on 10b. status, i called tenderloin station previously and got support from the supervisor on duty to tell the officer to move his vehicle and there is is an ab tive cab stand and the hotel is busy. unfortunately, the thing is that the officer decided he was going to park his big pickup truck in front of the cab stand and block our ability to serve any guests from the hotel.

they're getting a lot more money than i am so to make myself visible and available at the hotel, it's important to provide service to the public. however, the officer did move his vehicle but put it back about an hour later. there's plenty of a white zone in front of the hotel he didn't have to park in the cab stands and he gave me a huh and puff and thinks he gets to park where he wants, especially if he is getting paid a lot more money to be security there and block our wave doing a job. the second is, i urge you to hold a joint meeting with the sfmta board of directors to discuss traffic enforcement and i can't believe i'm saying this to you as a cab driver but there's been a lot of red light running, a lot of stop sign running and a lot of illegal use of transit lanes that only the police officer has at ability to issue tickets for. beef up your traffic enforcement

division and also to have joint meeting with the sfmta to discuss pedestrian deaths, bat traffic collisions, et cetera. thank you for your time. hope that you will take these issues to heart. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening, everyone. my name is denise hall and i am a board member and (inaudible). we are here tonight to thank phil scott and the san francisco police department or police officers association for both

supporting and donating to our mission and our cause. we are a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting black and minority-owned businesses and entrepreneurs in san francisco and the bay area. we have had two fundraisers in the past year both of which were successful thanks to the support of the san francisco police officers association and chief scott. we would also like to give a special thanks to the police commission for their oversight of both the chief and the police officers association. we are looking forward to your continuous support of our mission. again, we are the coalition united for black enterprise. for more information about our organization, our website is cube non-profit.org. thank you very much for the opportunity this evening to address you. >> thank you, caller.

>> good evening, caller, you have two minutes. >> caller: good evening, everyone. this is paulette brown. i just wanted to thank everyone, the chief for meeting with us yesterday. mike redman, tiffany sutton and mike fillpod and scott, my investigator and starting the homicide digital homicide permit that was developed. and i'm actually calling for my son who was murdered august 14th, 2006. next month will be the anniversary date on the 14th. it's really hard, but i just wanted to keep awareness of our children's unsolved homicides.

he was murdered at 3:00 in broad daylight 30 rounds of bullets left a semi automatic gun into my son for saving someone's life. i just wanted to give his case number which is 060-86-2038. i know young men, he usually says it for me so i'm just saying it now. just to bring awareness to unsolved homicides. i'm a mother still suffering and here it is 15 years. my son was still a young boy full of life and i still miss him. i just pray that everyone will come out on august 14th in the board of supervisors and a police commission come out and support mothers and fathers like myself in front of the thing on grove city on the 14th of

august. i'm looking for your support and other mothers and fathers also. with that i thank you for listening. >> thank you, caller. >> this is the president for the office of the justice and vice president of the naacp. i just want to make an announcement and make everyone aware that we have made history within the san francisco police department. the department started in 1849. black officers have been in the department since the 1940. out of all the promotional examinations that have been given, the results of the sergeant's police exam reveals that ranked number one is held by black female brittney louis,

ranked number two is held by a black female kristen back, and number throw a black male, ryan jones, all three who are members of the officers for justice. this time, we have numerous black officers who have made the first page of this promotional list so again, i want to say when a test is given, that is not compromised and a test that is based on ones' knowledge to think and communicate orally, we have done the job and i thank you for your support and changing the format of what previous police examinations had been. thank you. >> thank you, kale. >> clerk: president cohen. that concludes public comment.

>> president cohen: great. can we move onto the next item, place. >> clerk: reports to the commission. chief's report. weekly crime trends, provide an overview of offenses occurring in san francisco, major and significant incidents provided summary of planned activities and events, this will include a brief overview of any unplanned events or activities occurring in san francisco having an impact on public safety. commissioner discussion on unplanned events and activities that the chief describes will be limited to determine if whether to calender for a future meeting.

>> thank you. sorry about that. good evening, vice president elias, president cohen, commissioners, executive director, and the public. i think i'm going to make this in 10 minutes tonight at the request from our last meeting. i'll get through this quickly. starting off with this past weekend, we actually had a very peaceful weekend in san francisco in terms of the shootings and didn't have the violence that we had last year and 6-year-old was killed and we had two shootings but we were well deployed and good job by our officers and our com commanders.we had a peaceful hoy weekend. my hats off to the public and the officers for working together to keep san francisco safe over the weekend. and in terms of our violent crimes, we're 5% over all down from this time last year and

robberies are down by 12% and assaults are up by 5% and that is 30 or so assaults, more than this time last year. property crimes, burglaries go down and 4% year to date and above where we were this time last year and that's way down from about 52% of just a few months ago. motor vehicle theft is up 3% and that also is continuing to go down. arsons are up by 15% with 23 above where we were this time last year and larceny and theft is down 9%. over all a property crimes is at a negative 5% and our total crime is down 5%. auto bug larrys we are going up. this is the bad news. -- burglaries. we have plans and strategies we are putting in place. we'll enhance those strategy to get a handle on that and we're

up by 9% year to date. we're still down from this time 2019 and 2018 but we're up from 2020 which is concerning and something that we have to get a handle on. as i stated, our violent crime is down in terms of our gun related crimes, we are up pretty significantly, 105% in gun related crimes so that is far above where we were last year so that's still and we hope to give an update, a full update on that report in the coming month or so with the commission, probably early september since we're in recess in august.

as far as the staycations, southern is up, bayview is up, on both gun related homicides and shootings. tenderloin is even on homicides and up in shootings and eagle side is up in homicides -- actually down in insides and so we still have some work to do there. our gun violence strategies, and the gun investigations and intelligence center focusing on serial shooters, guns linked to multiple shootings and the people that have those guns and we believe a lot of our violence is group involved as we said in our presentations and we confiscated a number of guns

through search warrants. we also solved a couple of homicides and several shootings with this one group. that work will continue and that strategy will continue to focus on the group we that we know are active and the people we know are active and it has paid off dividends and it helped us really keep our shootings at bay. our deployment as i mentioned, our tourist areas is where a lot of our car break ins are happening and fisherman's wharf, seven day a week coverage in all of those areas. union square, foot beat and i'll talk about the nieman marcus accident. when we have good coverage we have far fewer of those types of incidents so we need officers out there and on foot posted and we know it makes a difference. sustaining it is a problem for us so we'll do everything we can to sustain this type of

deployment where we're having issues and spikes in crime. san bruno from dewhite seven days a week from 11:00 to 9:00 and on 20th street to indiana, third street from 20th to indiana, two days a week, and we scattered the hours but those foot bets will continue and eagle side, we are focused on geneva and mission, portland and we're not deployed everyday but we move that around and for the same reasons to make sure that we are not predictable and then our mission station is the castro from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. two officers the 16th and

mission that corner and we've had problems on its a daily foot beat deployment as well and those foot beats will continue and our tenderloin, vibrancy plan continues and we really make head way there and in con individuals with our foot beat deployment and the tenderloin, and our narcotics efforts, we've seized over 11 kilograms of fentanyl year to date, which is more than we did all of last year and all of 2019 and so we're on pace to really seize fentanyl which we believe will save lives and give an overdose issues in the city over the past year and we've also made 300 arrests and we've confiscated $122,000 of cash and the we believe it will make a

difference if we're able to sustain it and we're working with other city entities on clean up and service for the people that need help and it's going well so we will sustain that strategy as well. moving back to guns and coast gun related statistics, we have confiscated 91 coast guns near to date it's triple the amount we've seize the last year and the year before. we only seized 164 in all of 2020 so we'll be close to doubling that if we continue at the pace. total firearm seizures we're at 521 which is 4% more than last year and again, getting some of these illegal guns off the streets we think is the key to keeping the gun violence at least mitigating the gun violence we're seeing in our city and across the region and

throughout the country and ghost guns are a problem and we have to get a handle on that and so hate crimes at 22nd and tennessee and our victim was a black male walking in the area and attacked by five white males who yelled out racial epitaphs and he did not need to be transported but it's being investigated as a hate crimes so hopefully we can make progress on that and again this was at 22nd and tennessee on july 1st and about 10:00 p.m. and other significant incidents we have a lot of stunt driving or side show activity at ingleside and mission. we impounded eight cars. we cited six people involved in the stunt driving activities. all of the people cited were out of the city. sacramento, merced, tracy,

california, pittsburgh, california. we're seeing a lot of that activity are not people that necessarily live or work here and they are from outside the area and we will continue to respond to the incidents and force. we had over 200 cars at this particular incident and those incidents are very, very dangerous. very hard to get enough deployment quickly to take care of those situations and our stunt driving response unit is actually doing a really good job and we have assigned two lieu tenants to that unit and they're doing a good job coordinating the response and working with other cities that have the last

two incidents and the nieman marcus has gone viral where seven individuals ran in and broke the security glass and the cables and they ran out of the store with $43,000 of very high-end purses. this is not isolated. there's a similar accident in palo alto that we believe is probably the same people. we do have some leads that we're working on that we hope will yield arrests on this case. we are definitely committing the resources to investigate this thoroughly and hopefully we can get head way on identifying these people who did this crime. we believe they are connected to other crimes in our city and in the region so we'll keep the public and the commission posted on that. the fourth of july, we had a fairly safe weekend in terms of the shootings and we also dough

employed officers specifically to respond to fireworks related calls over the weekend and they responded to 250 calls in a very amount of time and the downside to that is we just didn't have enough to respond to the calls and quick response time but we did get to all of them and we confiscated 500 pounds of illegal fireworks over the fourth of july night which is very, very good and we will work on those strategies going into next year to make sure we're coordinated with the fire department and district attorney office so we can have some whatever we end up doing next year with this so we did cite individuals for possession of illegal fireworks and large amounts and this was a very good strategy so hats off to our operation folks and under the leadership of the chief and deputy of our commander wallace and ewing and my last

announcement that our commander teresa euens was chosen to lead the lincoln, nebraska police department as their chief of police so her last day was wednesday and she will be assuming her duties pending city council confirmation at the end of august so we definitely will miss her but we wish her well and it speaks well of the department when we have people that go to other cities and become chief of police and other cities. we have a lot of talent in this department and so i'm sure it won't be the last time we lose someone to the chief and very happy for teresa and her chapter of her policing career and again, we thank her for everything that anti-semitic she's done for the city and county of san francisco. that concludes my report. >> thank you, very much. chief for that thorough report. i was wondering if you can give some understanding as to the

changes in the crime trends versus this time last year and i've like to get your ideas on why that's the case? >> i believe a couple of things. last year, with the covid and shelter in place and we did see slights with bug lar he's with the civil unrest and all the looting that was occurring in the months of june and early july which we got a handle on pretty quick and there were many prosecutions with looting. a lot of those cases if not all of them are still pending unless the individual has pled tie charge but i believe last year it was some of anna nom blee in. if we look at 2019. as far as 2019, we're actually in some areas much below where we were in 2019 and in terms of the violence, we are a little

bit higher than we were in 2019 and definitely with our shootings we're lying so what we last last year, president cohen, we saw shootings during covid. some might say that an he can totally mental health and mental health was a part of that and this was a national trend. it was all over the country. we saw that coming into this year and things have cooled down from the first of the year and i'd like to think some are strategies but some of it getting the right people in custody because what we know about shooters is not everybody will go out and shoot people. and a lot of times shooters are prolific. they're involved in multiple incidents so we've made arrests from people we know that are involved in multiple incidents and that may have cooled things down and we're working regionally with our sister cities and oakland and richmond and those cities that have cases that have san francisco connections and we have cases

that have connections where their residents and i think that is paying off as well and we definitely want to ex pant as regional cop aberrations so more will be done there and those things are paying off and the focus, i think, on how we are strategizing and we're down the road on the services that we talked about with the life skills and life coaching and we have a group of individuals that have been involved in violent crimes that we have identified and we're at the beginning stages of that but at least our scip and folks that engage with these folks, these individuals, and hopefully that will make a difference over time. definitely it's along the way. >> let me throw out a question. we've seen all the stories about car burglaries being up 750%

this year. in your own report reflects that. we also understand just how hard it is to patrol for such events. so, what i'm interested in is how do we prevent these events in the future? i've got a couple questions. first, are these car burglar he's part of a pattern? do they occur at my particular hour or certain day, such as the weekend versus the weekdays? is there any evidence that you can disclose, that these burglaries are of an organized activity and they're involving individuals working together or are they just individual actions of people? and when vehicles are used as get away cars, are they owned bit perpetrators or stolen

vehicles? >> how did we prevent it? they happen everyday, all day. weekends have more activities in tourist areas because you have more people visiting those areas on the weekend so it's more of a target-rich environment if you will. one thing that works in terms of prevention is visible patrol and presence. we know this because it is work. our issue is sustaining that. to post an officer at a parking lot or on a block and that's all they do all day. you can't be on every block. our strategies are trying to identify where these things are occurring and put out deployment there and stay there to drive it down and it doesn't solve the problem. yes, it is organized and not all of it is organized and we know that the people that we have arrested that we have gotten

evidence on to prosecute and convict, often times are part of crews. we see these crews hit all over the city. they don't always use stolen cars but they take the license plates off their cars and they put on paper plates. if any plates at all which makes it harder to detect who they are. they will stop at nothing to get away. we've had people hit by cars and we've had them shoot at people when they're cornered so going back to the strategies and we have to have enough deployment in these areas where we're consistent from 2017 to 2018 and

2019 and 2019 to 2020 they went down significantly because we lost our deployment. we have fewer officers so we have to be creative how we do that. we have to use over time and do special details and we have to be consistent about our deployment. that works. also on the apprehension side and i'll end it here, there's still a lot of work to be done on apprehending these crews and arresting these crews. we have a list of folks that we know do this for a living and when they're in custody and they're out of custody and we track the activities levels, when they're out of custody and when they're in custody, we see a difference. we've seen a difference. so, the people that do this for a living are very prolific and that's what is hurting our city and our region and that's what we need to focus on. that's our strategy. they do it just to survive and we know that's the case. that's not what -- the big problem is the crews and the people that do this for a

living. >> president cohen: i don't want to dominate the question time so i'm going to take a look at the chat and see if there's any colleagues. cindy. >> thank you, president cohen. thank you, chief, for the updates. you know, i'm listening to you give your answers in terms of the how we would solve this will situation or attack the problem, and you keep saying deployment and being tactical and things like that but when i look at the clearens rate for theft and burglary, they're dismal. how are these -- i mean, it seems these strategies may not be working and what else can we do to improve these clearance rates because i'm looking here at our website on clearance rates and i'm not sure where car burglaries fall, if it's the bug

larry was it could be residential but in any event, the larceny and theft clearance rate are 2.8% versus 4% from last year in the national average is 19% and for burglaries the clearance rate is 9.4% versus 13% from last year and these are really low and it tells me that we're not apprehending these individuals. we're not arresting, we're not solving these crimes so i'm not sure how or what other strategies we can or you can explore in order to significantly affect the crime rate and these clearance rates. >> so, i'm not sure what data you are looking at. in my time in doing this job i've never seen a car break in clearance rate close to 10% of

the the national average for car break ins is 2% and 4% which is about where we are and talking about general larceny that includes shoplifting and things like that it's a different story because we are at about 30% to 40% year in and year out in that particular category. what drives our numbers though are car break ins because we have 20,000 plus year in and year out and those rates are low because some of those crimes are just not solvable. you wake up and you see a window broken and there's no evidence and there's no anything and people make reports but those crimes and there's nothing to follow-up on. it's an unfortunate reality of the situation. those we can solve is when we get fingerprints in the inside of the car or d.n.a. evidence, we have people identified and those we do much, much better on because we have something to

investigate and so couple of things we encourage to have people fingerprinted. if there's evidence, d.n.a., you think someone left something in the car that wasn't there, we encourage people to do that. people get frustrated and some people don't make reports at all, we know this. but we have 206 that type of evidence to solve those crimes because quite frankly, some of them, there's no follow-up possibility to them so, that is not a san francisco thing, that's, you go to any city and you will find similar statistics. so i don't know which data you are looking at as far as car break-ins. i've never seen a clearance rate in any city, particularly major

cities. >> i said the natural average for theft was 18% and i said clearens rates were from our website and except for the 18th% that was a national average and the other one, from san francisco police department website there's a clearance rate tab and it breaks it down into categories and i don't know if the car burglaries were in the burglary category or the larceny and theft. i wasn't sure. >> they're larseny theft. >> the national average on larceny is 18%. it doesn't break it down into car break ins and theft from stores or things like that. in any event, in our larceny clearance rates are 2.8% and last year they were 4%. i mean, those are low and we're half at what we were last year

i'm trying to figure out why? why? they're difficult to solve and they eastbound and flow and we're up and they have and that category in san francisco drives our numbers because that is our biggest category car break ins and we've left as one of the number one city and property crimes so we have a higher clearance rate so we want -- >> we need to arrest them, right? in order for the clearance rates to go up, they have to be apprehended and directed. >> yes, that's true, right. here is one of the things commissioner that we want to make sure that we're focused on.

we want to do something with the people we arrest. our reality is, we arrest the same people over and over again and these people are committing multiple car brakens and multiple burglaries and they're not being held accountability for that so if we can focus on the people that we know are prolific, we're going to have accountability, we're going to be in a better position. i can show you those statistics too. we track that. we're catching the same people over and over again. sometimes within a matter of a few months, people have been arrested five times. so, we got to do something with that in order to do something with the arrests we do make. i'm convinced we're getting some of the right people because of their criminal history and we

see they're being arrested over and over again. i know those we know about and there's got to be something on the other end. >> if you say it's true, it's repeat offender and they are responsible for a majority of these car burglar he's and the clearance rates would be way higher because if it's five individuals who are doing this and you are arresting these five individuals everyday, then you would have a clearance rate much higher than 2.8% or even 4%. you know what i mean.

and i think we need to get our clearance rates up to at least the national average before we start trying to focus on the certain few that are committing these crimes. they aren't committing all the crimes. >> i'm not arguing about increasing the clearance rate, that's a good thing. it ebbs and flows and it will go up at some point and go down at some point because that's the nature of this business. i'm not arguing about that. here is the fact of the mat every is, what we know and we saw this when we -- in 2017 when we started focusing on the people that were most prolific and we get traction on the other end of that equation, and it's not a finger-pointing thing, the fact of the matter is, for the people aren't being held in and those people -- these are only

the ones we know about but they've been arrested multiple times so look, wore in an era where we in this city we want to reenvision the reenvisioning of our jail population and the jail population by policy, is designed to be reduced and so, and the prevention. that's where we're going to get the most traction on this issue. i'm not arguing about the clearens rate but it's not our issue. our issue is the people we're arresting, nothing is happening to them. and the other issue is we haven't been able to sustain when we put officers on foot we posted officers through and they

stopped. car break-ins stopped. we had to take those officers off, redeploy them and as soon as we did that we saw car break-ins go back up. we need the tools to do what works and if we're talking about prevention, which is really our priority, which prevents these things from happening, at least in our city. we need the deployment to do that. that's our best measure. it's what worked for us. it what drove them down in 2018 and 2019 and focusing on the prolific. i'm not saying we didn't do better with clearance rates but that's not our issue. >> we'll agree to disagree because i think it's a bigger problem than you may think. i constantly get inquiries or the public commenting that these crimes are happening and they call the police and the police aren't coming out. so i think the investigation portion and arrest portion are very important and those numbers are reflected in the clearance

rate to some degree. i guess, maybe we need to start to look how long is it taking officers to a arrive at the scene when the public calls them for help because of certain situations? maybe we need to analyze other areas of the investigation process other than just sort of working or worrying about a certain few who are repeat offenders. >> yeah, you are exactly right. this was our presentation to the board of supervisors. we had our staffing presentation. both calls you are talking about are priority c calls. we are very, very poor in our performance on responding to priority c calls because of our deployment and our 400 officers shortage. that is why we've been pushing so hard to increase the staffing and to get funded to get enough officers to respond in a more timely manner. this is an issue that we had over the weekend with fireworks calls. you got 300 calls, with not

enough officers to handle the calls, you are not going to get a good response time. the data is there to support that we need more officers to respond to those types of calls so we have a better response time. that's what we've been pushing for this entire budget season for that very reason. >> can we divert the traffic stops, the patrol that you've dedicated to traffic can maybe respond to these 9-1-1 calls? i'm assuming that the traffic stops obviously their clearance rates are wonderful, right, because they stop, cite and or arrest at the same time. can maybe the diverting of resources from traffic stops to having those officers do patrol and or respond to 9-1-1 calls? >> well, redeployment is something that is a part of the reality of what we have to do because we're not staffed the way we should be staffed. in terms of just like to make

this strategies happen that i talked about earlier we'll have to redeploy officers. that works until we start getting people run over in traffic and then we have to redeploy back then so it's a game of redeploying to address whatever the hot topic is today and we just want to be that you feelful when we do that and the bottom line, commissioner elias, we're 400 officers short. that's what we explained to the board of supervisors. we didn't get everything we asked for, you know -- >> you got some stuff, though. >> yeah, we got some stuff. >> you got a few classes. >> we didn't get what we needed. i'm grateful for what we did get and i don't want to sound ungrateful. when we explain and show everybody the data, what we need to do the job, it falls on deaf

ears. >> president cohen: we're going to have to move on. we can talk about it all night but i want to get other folks in the queue that have an opportunity to speak. i will go to john hamasaki. >> vice president elias covered a number of my concerns because you know, i mean, we've talked about this for years now and the answer to whatever the prior problem or crime increase or decrease or moves from one block to the other and you know the answer is always more officers. i just don't know it's born out by -- we talked about the matrix staffing study and class c calls and there's -- you know, i still see social media posts of

officers six deep clearing homeless people, right. and so, you know, when we talk about responding to obviously violent crime is the highest priority, retail theft, car break-ins are a different priority. you know, i guess i struggle with the solutions you mentioned even before commissioner elias jumped in, that the corporations keep from saying we have more retail theft and there was a highly publicized shoplifting incident that was amplified by our friends in the fox news world and far-right and so everybody is talking about

shoplifting all of a sudden. [please stand by]

>> commissioner hamasaki: saying if we do this, the results will be this. i think that's what vice president elias is trying to drill down is that if we do these things, i just don't know that there's, you know, the guarantees of results and there's a really high. i still have been watching the budget cycle when there's, you know, i think the police were you know, it's hard. i can't judge whether or not the budget was right or wrong or too much or too little but i

think being so reactive to the news and how they amplify san francisco stories, nonthat that's the best way to drive policy. i will differ slightly from my esteemed commissioners vice president elias. we talked about the break-ins before were like i don't know how you investigate a pile of broken glass and i wasn't, i mean, i mean fingerprints is that something the department's doing now on just a smash and grab car break-in? >> it's just one example and this has happened more than

once where a person broke glass and they cut themselves and they were able to make a case from that dna. the person's blood was inside the car. that happens from time to time, we do get that type of evidence, but otherwise, you're absolutely right, you've got polygraphs in the middle of the street. that's why these cases are happening. >> i don't believe they'll end in the city. but it happens to all of us and i guess, you know, i think commissioner, i think vice president elias covered a lot of it i think it's difficult and we're also kind of um, i don't know that the finger pointing is necessarily the

right solution here because, you know, we've talked about this repeatedly that it creates this distrust in government that, you know, the police and the judges like people are saying nobody should get bailed for doing loitering and i think these are kind of bigger and tougher policy questions. i think obviously when you get to things where people get hurt and you get to multiple offenders, but i think we should just focus on what we can individually do to increase public safety and not direct the blame to the judges or the prosecution or the homelessness

or mentally ill. so i don't know. i'm done. thank you. >> president: thank you for sharing your thoughts. i'm going to pivot to paul henderson. i'm sure he has a question and not a statement. >> i do. did i miss something? are we fingerprinting? and this is my own ignorance

because it just happened to me recently and i asked to have the car fingerprinted because to me if we're building some sort of date base especially for repeat offenders that does seem effective so that it's done and i know because of volume, there's a lot of stuff happening and i just wanted to affirm my understanding of it in terms of these requests made by the department where the department can build out that database to help include arrests for clearance rates. >> yes. >> well, dam. okay. that was helpful. that's helpful. thank you. people are paying attention. that's good to know. that is helpful. thank you, chief. >> thank you, director.

>> president cohen: commissioner yee. >> commissioner yee: yeah. thank you, madam president. and i just want to that the chief and the staff for the preplanning of the 4th of july where we had tons of people in the city. i was in one of the planning sessions and i know how previous 4th of julys can go especially across the bay and their share of stuff. so i think the chief and the staff for that because it's been a lot tougher for us here today i guess you've got to be careful about who you want in your car. so my question is, since there's -- we're now in i guess

in the era of programming and hi tech, i was wondering if the police department had what they call predictability matrix program where a certain time of the year and certain time of the day where these things are happening and see if there's data for that the other question i would have is the chief and the department has made up on the number of repeat offenders or how many times they've been i guess arrested and the duration of the time that they're in hope. i know in this post-covid era, once everything opens up, this is what we're getting so there's a big spike they would

say. so that's my question. >> yes, sir, commissioner. yes, we do try repeat offenders and every time we make an arrest, we track that and we are. >> commissioner chung: ing are communicating with the district attorney's office and you and sometimes it doesn't. but we are tracking it and they have that information and we have it and we make sure that we communicate who are our repeat offenders. in terms of our major predictors, there are programs out there predicting programs and software programs, it's run into some civil liberties issues as of late. we've never used it here. you know, my previous department when i was in l.a. they used it they had to shut it down and they had civil

liberties and some of the people that are concerned with civil liberties made some strong arguments and they shut it down. that needs more work. there was some issues with bias that was associated with predicted policing models. so i think it's kind of back to the drawing board for the bigger software programs that developed that. my understanding it's kind of back to the drawing board. we've never used it here, but it is out there. >> thank you very muches, chief. >> commissioner hamasaki: i think president cohen is losing connection. >> vice president elias: commissioner byrne is there anything you wanted to ask.

>> commissioner byrne: yes, i was curious about the two homicides up in the public housing and i read the newspaper that the livermore police department was able to arrest the suspect. and i'm curious, chief, you didn't comment on that. two people being gunned down like that. >> thank you, commissioner byrne for reminding me of that. we did get the arrest by liver more police and in custody. we had two murder warrants for those two cases. so great to have that at this point. it's great to go through the criminal process and the support process, but he's off the streets.

thanks for reminding me of that. that's very important to the community. letting everybody know. particularly people that we have given relationships on that messaging but thank you for reminding me. >> clerk: next item report and director's report. d.p.a. activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for future commission meetings. the may 2021 police

statistical. >> president cohen: director, you're muted. >> director: sorry. the monthly statistical board we have all of the information. so we have and this is part of the new presentation. so to date, we have 28 cases that have been sustained this time last year, we were at 20 in cases that have cases where the investigation has exceeded 270 days. we have 21 cases this time last year we were at 33. as a reminder, we will provide the weekly summary of cases provided since the previous commission ruling and so far we

received 68 complaints in may which is an increase of 16% from the same period last year and so far an increase of 4% today. in terms of total number of complaints for 2021, we have 334 complaints this time last year. in may, there were a couple of trends, so in the 68 cases that were received that month, there were a total of 171 allegations that were made from those complaints officers who we spoke to or behaved appropriately failing to take required action. 13% involved complaints outside of the d.p.a. jurisdiction.

7% involved a failure to write. 7% involved an allegation. 6% involved. miss representations of truth. 3% involved the department rule or law and 1%. i have nothing to compare the allegations for the departments for internal affairs to this space stills, but we also are going to start seeing an expanded presentation for me as well specifically dealing with an audit. i think right now given the attention for the national award that it did specifically based on the transparency from the audit. i want to lean into that and

provide both for the public reviewing and watching the information coming out of the audience, out of the audit, but also for the commission as well. i think that transparency is really important. so i'm asking for quarterly updates for the audit to be presented so it's not just a surprise when the audits are finished so we can get an update on the status of the audits, the findings of the audit as they are occurring to the goals related to the audit and this is for both use of force and as it relates because it just came up. i think the chief was just talking about the civil liberty stuff, another audit that we're doing right now. and so i know we have a busy agenda for the next police commission, but i'm asking for this to be placed on the agenda for information to have my

audit division just submit a brief report outlining what we're doing with audit as we are doing the analytical work and selecting the information from the department. i think that will be helpful for the audiences. i'm going to talk a little bit about the outreach that was done recently. a stake holder with the office of transgender efficientives and with d.h.r. with online training about working with our office. as a reminder, the transgender community is one of the most disenfranchised community in terms of reporting abuse and one of the largest groups disconnected from public safety through law enforcement and we really want to reach out to them to make sure we have a voice and what we're trying to

do is focus our outreach to make sure that they're heard and understand how to use dpa as a tool to elevate public safety. that was on the 23rd. also, in june, we started our speaker series with our interns throughout speakers that come to the interns and do a presentation about their work through city related opportunities and internship opportunities to hear from a vast array of diverse leadership. so far, we've heard from public policy director. we also from dante king who spoke and just as an fyi, we invite the interns from the public offender's office to

join those presentations and those trainings as well for those summer experiences. tonight, in closed session, we have one case and be also on this call who is available in case issues. as a reminder for the public, dpa can be contacted or google and that concludes my presentation. >> president cohen: and now vice president cindy elias.

>> vice president elias: sorry. i was writing down numbers, but what were the two highest categories of complaints? i didn't catch the two highest. >> sorry. yes i did. 40% which involved officers who spoke to or behaved inappropriately for the monthly breakdown of what happened in may -- june. >> vice president elias: great thank you. >> president cohen: anyone else have any questions? well, thank you, director.

>> director: thank you. >> president cohen: no other questions. thank you for your presentation. >> clerk: commission report. commission reports will be limited to a brief description of activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for future commission meetings. commission president's report, commissions report, commissioner's report. commission announcement and scheduling of items identified for future commission meetings. >> president cohen: thank you. do we have any commission reports? >> yes. opportunity a couple saturdays ago and then the following

monday to go down to the tenderloin taskforce the police department is involved in. i was surprised in a number of ways for mostly young officers. one of the articles well-known in the neighborhood, i was surprised, pleasantly surprised at the inception from the local people. the other part that i could not believe was the children were playing on golden gate avenue between levenworth and jones. i never thought i'd see that. children and laughing and playing on the street in that neighborhood. it was an absolutely uplifting part of the war.

the city has set up public toilets, the person for public works indicated that he needed more narcan. police did not have any extra narcan. golden gate avenue at least in my mind and the police department's mind between market and levenworth is easy to walk on but appears to be the drug activity. it's moved up a block. particularly, we noticed at church and heeud as we walk the street, a number of people moved away. it's important to try to get a

full boat between the residents that live there and the loamless population. an individual that worked at a restaurant by a central building on the corner of church and larkin complained about the drug dealing going on in front. again, police presence i think was very important. it seemed to me they could have used more officers, but i have been going down to that area for a number of years and i was surprised at how clean the streets were and the reception of the police car, they were very welcomed in the area. i intend to go back again in a

few more weeks to see if they're making progress particularly along church street. thank you. thank you, president cohen. >> president cohen: all right. anyone else? thank you. next item please, sergeant. >> vice president elias: one thing. i think is this a time to ask to agendize future items? >> president cohen: yes, it is. >> vice president elias: okay. my apologies. i am going to ask to agendize and maybe broaden our discussions and possible solutions to improving the clearance rate and decreasing some of the categories in which crimes have risen. >> president cohen: is there anyone else we need to bring as

apart of that conversation? >> vice president elias: maybe, i'm not sure. we can reach out to the chief and see if there are other people that need to be part of the conversation. >> president cohen: okay. >> vice president elias: i'll get back to you. >> president cohen: next item. please call the next item. >> clerk: public comment for line item 2. for members of the public who would like to make public comment, please dial star three. one public comment. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> yes. this is yolanda. we're consistently discussing

the death and it's been less than 400 offers. 400 officers down, yet repeatedly, we've seen documentation again, we need to look at the reasons why these officers are being released from the academic and also why there's academy four to seven black officers and women and whatnot and we've seen record numbers of minorities and women. we need to find out what the reasons are for the releases and perhaps focus more closely on those areas maybe we need more time allotted for training, but we should have a policy to try and keep more of the personnel that we recruit and put into the academy than releasing them because we're wasting our money and our resources and we're going to

have to get more officers if we're to be successful in what we're sporn to be able to do. thank you very much and i hope we do look into this a little bit more. >> clerk: that concludes public comment, president cohen. >> president cohen: say that one more time. >> clerk: that concludes public comment. >> president cohen: all right. great. let's call the next item. >> clerk: line item three, discussion and possible action to approve the request of the chief of police to accept furniture donation from madrone to be used to enhance waiting areas and spaces throughout the department. discussion and possible action. >> president cohen: chief. >> thank you. we have director patrick leon that's going to present on this item. thank you. >> president cohen: no problem.

>> good evening, president cohen, vice president elias, commissioners, chief scott, director henderson, members of the public, my name is patrick leon. i'm the chief financial officer for the san francisco police department. tonight, we are requesting the commission's approval to receive a generous donation from a drone. this helps support the city's zero waste initiative and the donated furniture will be used throughout our various facilities and if the commission has any questions, i'll do my best to try to answer them. >> president cohen: i think this is pretty simple. i'd accept. >> president cohen: all right. a motion has been made to accept the item has been seconded. let's take public comment on this item. is there any public comment, sergeant? item 3. >> clerk: for public comment, dial star three to be

recognized. there is no public comment. >> president cohen: i'm sorry. what? >> clerk: there is no public comment. >> president cohen: all right. let's take a vote. please call the roll. >> clerk: on the motion to accept the furniture donation, [roll call] you have unanimous vote. >> president cohen: excellent. thank you. motion passes. next item, please. >> clerk: line item four, discussion and possible action to approve issuance of department bulletin 20-166, secondary firearms. meet and confer draft was

approved by the commission on march 3rd, 2021. discussion and possible action. >> president cohen: all right. thank you so much. go ahead, sergeant. >> good evening, commissioners. president director of relations for the san francisco police department. the policy of secondary firearms which was approved by the commission as previously stated to go out to a meeting with the p.o.a.. that process has been concluded and there have been no changes to your policy, the language remains the same as it was when the commission adopted it. so the process is concluded and you're now free to formally adopt the policy. >> president cohen: all right. great. and you said our language remains the same. so this replaces section if4, a

through c? >> yes, all of the language is the same. there are no amendments. >> president cohen: great. let's go ahead and take public comment on this and we'll take a motion and then action. >> clerk: if you would like to make public comment, please dial star three to be recognized. president cohen, there is no public comment. >> president cohen: thank you. is there a motion on this item? >> vice president elias: motion. >> president cohen: motion made by commissioner elias. motion to accept. is there a second? >>. >> commissioner hamasaki: second. >> president cohen: seconded by commissioner hamasaki. >> clerk: on the motion to accept the firearm, [roll call]

president cohen, you have a unanimous vote. >> president cohen: thank you, this item passes unanimously. please call the next item. >> clerk: line item five, presentation of the firearm discharge review board and in-custody death review board 2nd quarter 2021 report. discussion. >> president cohen: thank you. you're muted, sir. >> clerk: you're muted. >> president cohen: i think he's looking for it.

we'll just hold on until he joins us. all right. team work over there. >> i'm sorry. >> all right. here we go. good evening. let's see. here we go. good evening president cohen, vice president elias, commissioners, chief scott, director henderson, and members of the public. i'm greg lee, the deputy chief of administration here to present the second quarter firearms discharge review and in-custody death presentation. in the second quarter of 2021, the review board did view o.i.s.19-001. the date was august 25th, 2019,

and about 9 -- i'll let the slide catch up. the august 25th, 2019, at about 9:50 p.m. on the 6400 block in south cirrito, california. a san francisco police officer was at home at ingleside station. he also looked out his window. the male was inside the gated common area of the complex on the kearny street side. he did not recognize the male and knew he did not live in the complex. the officer got dressed putting on his shorts. san francisco police i.d. and star and grabbed his flashlight. the officer contacted the male through the closed gate and asked him to clean up his belongings and leave at which time he complied.

as the male was packing up his belongings and leaving, the male asked the officer, are you a cop? the officer explained he was an off-duty officer. the officer began to open the gate and the male immediately charged the officer forcing opened the gate and hit the officer on the head with a rock. the officer attempted to block the strikes using his left hand which was holding a flashlight. the officer was unable to create time and distance because the male was holding on to his shirt, pulling him closer preventing him from leaving. in order to prevent great bodily injury or death from the rock, the officer discharged his weapon twice at the male. the male ran out of the complex and fell to the ground. medical aid was rendered to the male by the medics and he was transported to the hospital for his injuries.

the incident was criminally along with the contra costa county district attorney's office and an administration investigation was determined by the internal affairs commission. a recommendation to the police regarding this officer-involved shooting was in policy. in-custody deaths review board did not have a case presented in the second quarter of 2021. going to the last slide, the commander o'sullivan updated you on many of these at his last presentation, but i will add that for 18-002 that should be presented to the 3rd quarter fbr2 along with 20-002 and 20-003.

so we're anticipating three more of these to be presented at our next meeting. on the following sheet, on the last page, the three in-custody deaths 15-002, 003, and 19-one anticipate that all three of these cases will be reviewed in the 3rd quarter. so we should have six cases. three o.i.s.s and three in-custody deaths at our next meeting and that concludes my report and i'd entertain any questions. >> president cohen: sorry about that. i was having trouble unmuting. thank you for your report. i see no names on the roster.

are there no questions for the report? how is the officer? >> the officer's fine. >> president cohen: everyone, all the parties involved were good. >> yes. >> president cohen: that's good to hear. thank you for the presentation. okay. we'll keep moving forward on the agenda. >> thank you. >> clerk: those who would like to make public comment regarding line item five, please dial star three. >> president cohen: great. >> clerk: there's no public comment. line eight six, public comment on all matters pertaining to item eight below. vote whether to hold item eight in closed session.

there is no public comment. line eight seven, vote on whether to hold item eight in closed session including vote on whether to assert the attorney-client privilege with regard to item 8a, san francisco administrative code section 67.10. action. >> president cohen: all right. i'll make a motion. is there a second? >> vice president elias: second. >> president cohen: thank you, seconded by vice president elias. can we take a roll for this vote. >> clerk: on the motion to go into closed session, [roll call]

president cohen, you have have >> : second by commissioner barns. can we take that roll call vote. >> : on a vote not to close closed session items. >> : (roll call) you have a unanimous vote. >> : thank you.

that motion carries. line item is adjournment. >> : do we need public comment. >> : yes, we do. >> : if you would like to make public comment please press star three. there there's no public comment. >> : thank you. move for adjournment. >> : ladies and gentlemen we are adjourned. thank you for your service. por

i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i'm so excited to be here at the port today. we were just here celebrating juneteenth. every weekend there are some incredible markets and it was so crowded. the waterfront was alive and well. and, in fact, last weekend i think it was, these days go by so fast, i was at the giants game celebrating with roscoe.

a full -- almost a full house, but it was amazing. amazing to see the waterfront active, to see it alive, to see the excitement and now we have a couple other things to add to our re-opening efforts. in fact, ferry service started today. additional ferry service around the bay area. and, we also have opening this weekend the exploretorium and for tours the s.s. brian. and we even have more common includes fireworks on the northern waterfront for the 4th of july. and, finally, to top it all off as we get ready to re-open our city, it just wouldn't be the

same unless we had fleet week returning in october. so a number of incredible milestones. a lot of great activities. san francisco has been through so much this past 15 months and i want to take this opportunity as i always do to really thank the people of the city for complying with the very challenging orders to shelter-in-place to wear a mask, to get vaccinated. over 82% of san franciscans have been vaccinated and we just saw the announcement from the cdc that people were vaccinated don't necessarily need to wear a mask, however, we know there are still a lot of people that are not vaccinated and just because san francisco is doing a great job, doesn't mean there are others out there that aren't. we want to ask you because the

cdc talked about today the variants and how the vaccine protects you from the variants and those who are vaccinated and we don't want to go backwards. we don't want to go back to that place where we're shutting our city down. i hope we don't have to go back to that place. in the meantime, it's so important that we enjoy our city. we enjoy all these great attractions. we support one another, we have a great time. and what i've also consistently said, it is so important that when you are out in the streets now that our city is re-open that you keep a smile on your face because, right now, this is a privilege. and we have to remember, we were on lockdown for over 15 months in san francisco in the bay area and other parts of the country and so how much do we really appreciate being out here, being able to see faces without masks, being able to

enjoy this cloudy, beautiful san francisco day. i will tell you that i am showing up to everything i'm invited to if i'm available. i've been to baby showers already, and birthday parties and other activities. openings. block parties. i even crashed a block party before when i was just driving by. i said you know what, i'm going to say hi to a couple of neighbors because it feels good to see people again. because it feels good to be out again. keep that same positive spirit as we re-open and as activities begin and as folks are out doing and eating and drinking and being merry and having a good time because san francisco's coming back and we've got a lot of making up to do with the activities that we want to do that we missed out on the past year. thank you all so much for being here. enjoy the waterfront this weekend and some great activities and at this point, i

want to introduce the director of the port of san francisco, elaine forbes. [applause] >> welcome everyone. i have a smile on my face. it's great to see everyone here at the waterfront not wearing a mask. we're welcoming back 4th of july fireworks and fleet week. two cornerstone events for the waterfront. today we're celebrating the re-opening of the exploretorium and the s.s. jeremiah. increased ferry service starts today with 30% more ferries running. the ferries are here to enjoy the beautiful bay while commuting or just having some fun. next month, we have the return of cable cars and meanwhile we have the f-line running up and down the embarcadero. summer on the waterfront is

here. there are so many adventures to be had. the port is proud to be home to really an amazing seven and a half miles of bayside waterfront in the city. our water front includes peer 39, fisherman's wharf, and amazing parks and opens and heron's head park in the southern waterfront and more than 10 installations of public art. i want to thank our mayor, mayor breed for her incredible support of this waterfront and bringing back events like the 4th of july and fleet week. and of course, for her stellar leadership in navigating the pandemic and getting us safely to today as she re-opens and oversees the comeback of our city. the port welcomes more than 24 million visitors a year. economic activity here supports $4 billion in economic annual output for the city and more than 16,000 jobs. that is why we're excited to

welcome back cruises this fall which brings about 300,000 visitors to the waterfront each year. our cruises will follow the cdc guidelines and we'll have vaccinated passengers and crews and we're expecting our first cruise ship in september. this fall, we're partnering with small businesses and local artists. we want to show case our local talent and create tailor made experiences for fun and enjoyment. from crane cove park to pier 29, activities draw people to the waterfront supporting economic recorpse. these will happen as we welcome cruises, cable cars, fleet week, and hopefully a giants playoff season. thank you all for coming out today supporting our waterfront, a prosperous

waterfront is a prosperous city. we welcome you to come down and enjoy some of the world's best views, best food, and best experiences. and now, please join me in welcoming phoebe white. this museum brings hundreds and hundreds of children and adults to our water front for learning fun. following phoebe white, we'll hear from louis lovan and rear admiral wayne bays. thank you so much for being here today. [applause] >> thank you, elaine, and thank you, madam mayor, for your remarks today and more importantly for your leadership. we're so proud to be part of the san francisco community. i'm absolutely thrilled to see

the progress we have made against the pandemic. it's an absolute honor to be here today and with our colleagues and neighbors on the waterfront of this wonderful city. i am delighted to share and you already know that after 15 months of closure, the exploretorium opened today. it is wonderful to see our community re-opening fully and to be part of the collective energy that is reemerging and gaining momentum in the bay area. i would also like to personally take the opportunity to thank elaine forbes and the port for their support and partnership since we first moved to the waterfront in 2013 the

exploratorium is a learning organization. we as a community have also learning and experienced more directly than ever the critical role that science plays in all of our lives. whether it's the science behind the pandemic or vaccines or climate change or the role of technology in our lives today. some of the defining issues of our time have all highlighted how important it is for everyone to engage in topics of science. our vision is a world where people think for themselves and can confidently ask questions, questions answered and understand the world around them. at the exploretor yum and explore topics of science and ways that work for them. we don't tell people what to think, where to go, what to do.

there are no right or wrong answers when you're exploring and learning. so come on down. go online, purchase tickets yes, we're managing capacity and we honor all e.b.t. and museums for all card holders at the door but most of all, have

fun. thank you madam mayor for the privilege of speaking today and i'd like to introduce louis lovan executive director of san francisco fleet week. thank you. >> let me take off my super cool san francisco fleet week mask. thank you very much, phoebe. by the way the exploratorium rocks. do you guys still have the tactile dome? okay. that's the thing to do. it's true, we have all these events that are going to take place out on the waterfront. i have commander of strike group 3. admiral bays' assets are what will be coming up to san francisco and he'll talk to you about that. i'm very excited to bring back the live fleet week events including the fleet week air

show presented by united. if you don't know it, you'll know when it arrives. it comes big and loud and it's a wonderful thing to do down on the marina green throughout the city and the bay. most of our events are outdoors. we'll have neighborhood concerts. the parade of ships, of course. and a number of other things that you can find out about by looking at our website fleetweeksf.org or follow us@fleetweeksf. get the up to date information. right now, it's a full complement of fleet week events and, with that, i'm going to introduce admiral bays. >> wow. what a pleasure it is to be out here live in person without a mask on. thank you, mayor, for including me in today. yes, admiral wayne bays. i'm honored and excited to be

with you today on behalf of your navy corps and coast guard team. as you all know, we could not do a fleet week in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. but i'm really happy to say we're going to bring service members from the navy, marine corps and coast guard to be here with you in person for fleet week 2021 to celebrate the strong, long-lasting bonds that exist between the military and this community which is a wonderful place. we're bringing ships, we're bringing aircraft, we're bringing equipment. we're going to bring the navy blue angels. i'm going to bring bands from the navy and marine corps. but the best thing we're going to bring -- yeah, that's okay. bring the hands. but the best thing we're going to bring is young sailors and marines and coast guard men and women to be part of this city and to meet you. [applause] yeah. so the last 15 months, we

couldn't get out and about. but because of the change conditions, i want these sailors and coast guard men and women to come outlet amongst the community and meet you in person. i was here last time in 2014 when u.s.s commissioned. you're going to be as proud of them as i am. now, fleet week is fun, but it's not just all about a port call. we also do training while we're here. we take advantage of all these ships and equipment and people getting together and we work to do training on things like disaster recovery efforts with local experts here. so i'm talking about emergency management, police, fire and medical professionals and other recovery people. this is about practicing our skill sets so that during times of emergencies or crisis, the military can support military

authority its effectively and efficiently. it's really important training i think when you look back at the pandemic, it kind of puts an accent on the importance of that continued effort. so we cannot be with you in person in 2020, but i do believe that absence makes the heart grow fonder. so we're super energized to bring everything we've got to make this the best fleet week possible in 2021. i thank you so much for the hospitality of this city. i look forward to meeting you all and my wife and i sincerely thank you if from the bottom of our hearts for celebrating our men and women that serve the military on behalf of this great nation. thank you so much and i hope to meet everybody in october. >> thank you, admiral bays and we really appreciate having you here and just touching a little bit about fleet week and our plans around emergency

preparedness and our director of the department of emergency management is here. mary ellen carol. thank you so much for being here. she did an incredible job leading the efforts around covid here in san francisco. and so we will definitely take full advantage of the opportunity during fleet week to make sure that our emergency personnel are working with federal officials to take advantage of the opportunities to train, to learn, to grow, and to be prepared for any situation for each and every one of you. when i look out into the waterfront and this area, again, i tell you all to keep a smile on your face. when this waterfront had the freeway before the '89 earthquake. and i remember when i was at galleleo high school. they would fly over at practice

when we were out at lunch. it was incredible to have these planes fly directly over our schools and i think about those times and i think about where we are now as a city today. we've experienced challenging times before, but like this beautiful waterfront that's now open with no freeway in sight and if you didn't know about the history, and you probably would never imagine how our freeway could block such a beautiful place. san francisco is a beautiful place and we celebrate our history and our diversity, but more importantly, as we come out of this pandemic, we celebrate our resilience to survive another situation that could have knocked us down. it set us back just a tad bit and as a result of that, we're coming back stronger. the phoenix will rise again. san francisco is rising again as we begin to re-open and having these incredible spaces,

all these wonderful activities along our waterfront is going to make re-opening so much better. so i hope you will take advantage of these great opportunities to enjoy san francisco, to welcome your friends and family members from around the world, an the united states, around the bay area. there will continue to be activities and always great food and wonderful views that will just continue to put a smile on your face. so thank you all so much for being here and thank you all for helping us get through this pandemic. san francisco is back. thank you. [applause]

>> when i first started painting it was difficult to get my foot in the door and contractors and mostly men would have a bad attitude towards me or not want to answer my questions or not include me and after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. ♪♪♪ my name is nita riccardi, i'm a painter for the city of san francisco and i have my own business as a painting contractor since 1994 called winning colors. my mother was kind of resistant. none of my brothers were painter. i went to college to be a

chiropractor and i couldn't imagine being in an office all day. i dropped out of college to become a painter. >> we have been friends for about 15-20 years. we both decided that maybe i could work for her and so she hired me as a painter. she was always very kind. i wasn't actually a painter when she hired me and that was pretty cool but gave me an opportunity to learn the trade with her company. i went on to different job opportunities but we stayed friends. the division that i work for with san francisco was looking for a painter and so i suggested to my supervisor maybe we can give nita a shot. >> the painting i do for the city is primarily maintenance painting and i take care of anything from pipes on the roof to maintaining the walls and beautifying the bathrooms and graffiti removal.

the work i do for myself is different because i'm not actually a painter. i'm a painting contractor which is a little different. during the construction boom in the late 80s i started doing new construction and then when i moved to san francisco, i went to san francisco state and became fascinated with the architecture and got my contractor's licence and started painting victorians and kind of gravitated towards them. my first project that i did was a 92 room here in the mission. it was the first sro. i'm proud of that and it was challenging because it was occupied and i got interior and exterior and i thought it would take about six weeks to do it and it took me a whole year. >> nita makes the city more beautiful and one of the things that makes her such a great contractor, she has a magical

touch around looking at a project and bringing it to its fullest fruition. sometimes her ideas to me might seem a little whacky. i might be like that is a little crazy. but if you just let her do her thing, she is going to do something incredible, something amazing and that will have a lot of pop in it. and she's really talented at that. >> ultimately it depends on what the customer wants. sometimes they just want to be understated or blend in and other times they let me decide and then all the doors are open and they want me to create. they hire me to do something beautiful and i do. and that's when work is really fun. i get to be creative and express what i want. paint a really happy house or something elegant or dignified. >> it's really cool to watch

what she does. not only that, coming up as a woman, you know what i mean, and we're going back to the 80s with it. where the world wasn't so liberal. it was tough, especially being lgbtq, right, she had a lot of friction amongst trades and a lot of people weren't nice to her, a lot of people didn't give her her due respect. and one of the things amazing about nita, she would never quit. >> after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. i'd like to be a mentor to other women also. i have always wanted to do that. they may not want to go to school but there's other options. there's trades. i encourage women to apply for my company, i'd be willing to train and happy to do that. there's a shortage of other women painters.

for any women who want to get into a trade or painting career, just start with an apprenticeship or if you want to do your own business, you have to get involved and find a mentor and surround yourself with other people that are going to encourage you to move forward and inspire you and support you and you can't give up. >> we've had a lot of history, nita and i. we've been friends and we have been enemies and we've had conflicts and we always gravitate towards each other with a sense of loyalty that maybe family would have. we just care about each other. >> many of the street corners in all the districts in san francisco, there will be a painting job i have completed and it will be a beautiful paint job. it will be smooth and gold leaf and just wow. and you can't put it down. when i first started, it was hard to get employees to listen

to me and go along -- but now, i have a lot of respect. >> all right, mayor, we've got a program. so be patient with us. all right. it's been a long time coming. hi, everybody, my name is phil ginsburg and i'm the manager of your recreation and park department and it's about time. it's really happening. it's really happening. you look over my right shoulder and you can see all of the work that's already started on our pathway to environmental justice. and -- and joy and community and resiliency. but before we jump into our program, we want to do a couple of things. and the first is that we want to acknowledge that the land that we are currently standing on is the unceded ancestral home of the first nations people. as stewards of parkland, our

department recognizes the duty to honor through thoughtful and informed preservation and interpretation of ancestral lands. as uninvited guests let us all affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and pay our respects to the ancestors of the people. thank you. [applause] just a few hours ago our recreation and park department, and i see numerous commissioners here, commissioner anderson and probably a few others that i'm not seeing behind the crowds, passed the land acknowledgement and i want to thank greg castro and jonathan cordero who worked with our department in the crafting of this acknowledgement. and i want to -- you should please join me in thanking our amazing entertainers for their performances prior to the program. first the tai chi group, give it

up. [applause] the sasamoan community dancers. lion dance me. [applause] and following the program, there will be a performance by seilin finesse. [applause] we have a lot of partners, and i want to acknowledge -- before i turn it over to our m.c., first of all, mayor breed, thank you, thank you for believing in this project and thank you for pushing for it. and thank you for supporting it the institute, and i'll turn it over to jackie in a few minutes i want to thank our e.d.p. leadership committee, what is an e.d.p. leadership committee? this project is like no other, we're not just renovating a park, we're trying to work hard to understand what the community needs to thrive in this space. so it is yours. and there are several e.d.p.

members and i see oscar james and michael wong, and jill fox here. so i want to thank you a few of the e.d.p. members and for all of your effort in guiding us, in not just how to build this park, but to make sure that it is really for this community. i want to thank the trust for public land, and the san francisco parks alliance, drew becker is here and numerous members of his team. we have several representatives from our city family. i saw ken nimm and i say caller eisen, there may not be a city department that is not working on this in some way, shape or form. and i want to acknowledge our partners across the basin from bill dink, and i see lou vasquez here, lou, thank you for being here. and i want to give a special recognition to a guy standing right in front of me, john, thank you. john fritzker whose philanthropy turned this from a dream and a

vision actually into a project. so, thank you, john. let's give him a round of applause. and thank you, moe, and john and moe were recently married just a few days ago and they came back early from -- moe doesn't really call it a honeymoon, called it a camping trip, but they came back early to be here with us today. so thank you both very, very much. [applause] this project has many, many, many people rooting for it. it's gotten private philanthropy and it's gotten local bond money through the leadership of our mayor and several -- and san francisco voters. and it's also gotten a lot of money from the state of california, senator wiener, and commissioner chu, thank you for your leadership in making it happen. this project has even gotten federal money. we've gotten money from the e.p. e.p.a., and we have gotten -- anywhere that there's money

we're trying to raise it for this project and it's actually starting to work out. today's groundbreaking is the culmination of seven years of planning, outreach and fundraising on a project that will finally address decades of pollution and environmental degradation in a neighborhood that once helped to drive the economy of san francisco during world war ii. after the decline of butcher town, the decommissioned -- the decommissioned shipyards and the forced removal of the chinese shrimping villages, indian basin, was shut down to decay. the work that we're kicking off right now will restore public access to the shoreline, and create a robust wildlife habitat, laying the foundation for a new $140 million park in the heart of the bayview. this clean-up phase of the project is led by the bayview's own rubicon builders whose officers are just down the road on third street. the team highlights a key goal

of the india basin project, to serve for equitable and inclusive growth, which includes providing workforce and business opportunities for all bayview hunters point residents, regardless of income, race or demog raggy. and giving disadvantaged individuals the first opportunity to apply for entry level jobs in san francisco. the program is administered by oewd, and you'll probably hear more about that, but thank you, ken, and thank you oewd, for your incredible partnership. lastly, remember that this project is only made possible as much money from government as we've been able to obtain for this project, it's only made possible through substantial private/public partnerships. some of our partners, like t.p.l. and the parks alliance, have been working on this for years. and others like arpi, arguably

even longer and have now stepped into new and indispenseable roles to move this project. i want to thank everyone for their support. i'll now turn the program over to one of the leaders of this project, jackie flynn. jackie has been working on this thing for i don't know how long and has been a community advocate for even longer. she is my colleague, my partner along with drew and ali and their organizations on this project. and she is making sure that this community is involved in every single aspect of what happens next. thank you, jackie. [applause] >> thank you, phil. and welcome. first of all, i want to say welcome back, san francisco. it's so nice to see everyone and see your faces. and thank you so much, mayor, with your leadership on getting our city back and up and running. my name is jacqueline flynn, and i'm the executive director of the philip randolph institute and i'm your m.c. today, so i

wear many hats in this community. and my -- my small organization, apri, i want to thank my team because i could not do this work without amazing supportive casts. so thank you, my team at arpi. and i have the pleasure of also serving as the equitable development plan manager on this project. and ultimately what that means is that for every step of the way on this project we want to make sure that we're looking through a lens of equity. and thinking about building back within our community, and making sure that we're supportive of the existing community. and, you know, as we continue to invest in this park, i want to make sure that those investments actually make it and impact the families that i work with every day. as we kick off this year's juneteenth, i have been inspired by my ancestors and thank you so much, brother clint, for acknowledging the adversities that folks have gone through to

be here and the fights they have won and lost. i'm very proud to stand behind so many folks before me. this park is very near and dear to my heart. my office is literally a block away. and as you all know as a community leader, i've been here over 20 years. and i used to knock on doors to get folks to vote and i still do it now. but really what i'm interested in is making sure that this next generation is inspired to do the same and to be leaders in their community. you know, i see how much this project can impact this community right behind me. so i also want to acknowledge all of the folks that live on this hill that have been here for generations. and it's so important that this park is being built for our residents. so i'm excited to say that this is just the beginning. and we have a wonderful brief program, so i'd like to introduce our first speaker, mayor london breed. mayor london breed -- [applause] -- is a san francisco native. definitely raised by her

grandmother in plaza east in philmore western edition, but, definitely roots here in san francisco. and she was elected as the first african-american woman, and second woman in san francisco's history to serve as mayor. she's been re-elected to her first full four-year term in november of 2019. i know that we lost a year in this last year, but we are going to keep pushing. mayor breed is a tireless advocate for all san franciscans and helps to lead our city through a very tumultuous time as we helped to rebuild this great city and come out of that terrible pandemic. so without further adieu, welcome, mayor london breed. [applause] >> welcome, mayor. >> hello, everyone. first of all, phil, i don't know why we have to subject these kids to this when there's a park right over there. are you guys going to be able to play in the park?

>> no. >> no? what's going on. they're supposed to be having a good time this summer. okay, well -- if any time during this event you want to take them over to the park, feel free to do so because we want them to have a good time. it's been a long year for our kids in this city. and it's time for them to have fun again. [applause] i'll start by saying yes, i'm from philmore. but i do have roots in the bayview hunter's point community. in fact, my grandmother's father worked at the shipyard. he was in the navy at a time when there was segregation. and he worked with what was considered a colored group of men and i find it quite interesting that in our not so distant past, the level of

discrimination that existed in this city, you know, what's interesting is that my grandfather served in the shipyard in a segregated unit and now today his granddaughter, the first black mayor woman of san francisco, signed an official declaration after the president declared it a national holiday. i declared it a holiday in the city and county of san francisco. [applause] juneteenth is an official holiday for all of our city employees. i'm not saying don't go to work tomorrow. i'm saying for those essential services that we still need to you go to work but you do get a holiday in lieu. you're welcome -- no, not you're welcome, mayor, you're welcome black people. [applause] so let me just start by saying

thank you. phil ginsburg, i want to just say to you, because let me tell you when phil came to me with this project, i'm like, phil, well, what about, you know, some of the other parks in the bayview hunters point? and we talked around our plans of retrofitting a number of parks and what was important to the community. and i thought about it for, like, really long and hard because at the time i was supervisor for district 5 and ma leah cohen was the supervisor here in the bayview hunters point community, and this community pushed hard for a change because of the environmental contamination that took place here, because of what was happening all along this area. and i think about the many people who had asthma in the bayview hunter's point community and cancer and other ailments because of the environmental injustices that have existed in this community. it is so fitting and about time

that we clean up india basin. we clean it up. [applause] and just a couple weeks ago i was just at the power plant where we broke ground on what will be 2,600 units here at a polluting dirty power plant that former supervisor sophie maxwell led the charge on shutting down, and here we are connecting this bayview community, india basin, and the power plant and all of this beauty together in a way like never before. you know, it is amazing also that this community decided what was best for them. and that was really important, making sure that india basin task force of residents, of people who lived here, provided input. and cleaning up a place like this is expensive. and making it beautiful is even more expensive. so i am incredibly thankful to the voters who time and time

again passed propositions to allow us to invest in parks? i am grateful to people who just, you know, are amazing san franciscans like john prixter and his family for committing this money -- as many things that he could have committed, this $25 million to the largest parks contribution in the history of this city. he said that he wanted that to support the bayview hunters point community, so we are so grateful to you, john. [applause] we are grateful to the parks alliance and the land trust and so many organizations for helping to work, to see this project through. it does take a village. it does take $140 million to do exactly what the community wants to see here in india basin. and i also want to take this opportunity to thank governor newsome and thank senator scott wiener and david chu and phil

ping for their support on the state level. it was a $25 million commitment, and we still have a few ways to go, but we are committed to cleaning up this area so that those kids that you saw right here can play freely and safely and not be concerned about their health. that is what is most critical for us is transforming this beautiful waterfront and making it what it -- what this community deserves. and so i'm really excited about this. and i cannot wait until we are able to see it through. it's going to be absolutely beautiful. we've seen the pictures, but it's nothing like seeing it in person, connecting the bayview hunters point all the way around the waterfront of san francisco to the golden gate bridge. now you know what the marina looks like? that's what the bayview hunter's point is about to look like. [applause] with green and structures and all of the amenities that this

community so deserves. so, you know, congratulations to this community for your hard work and your effort and sticking to it, and staying together. we know that the challenges that exist, specifically for the african-american community in this city and this country still persist. but in me you have a leader who is committed to transforming that and i want to make sure that everyone in this city, no matter what your race is, understand that when we see injustices anywhere, it is clearly as dr. king would say a threat to justice everywhere. everywhere it is a threat, and it is up to all of us to take it upon ourselves to push aggressively for change. so thank you in joining me for change in india basin. congratulations to the bayview hunters point community. and let's get this project going. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. before i give it back to jackie

yet again, just a couple more thank you and acknowledgement. alex walker, thank you for being here on behalf of assemblyman phil king. assemblyman king calls almost every year and says what i can do for india basin, and we appreciate it. and david lazar, thank you for being here. i already acknowledged carol eisen and i want to acknowledge the co-chairs of the bayview alliance. and talking about coalition building and trying to pull people together to do good, thank you, sissy and chuck for all of your work and counsel on this project. i know that jamie bruni-myles, the current c.e.o. of the ymca is here. and the ymca will partner with us to teach all kids to swim and to make sure that everybody feels safe around the water in this beautiful park from this neighborhood. and then i also want to acknowledge dr. nina roberts who is here from san francisco state. she's been our academic advisor on our equitable development

planning efforts, and thank you for your support. and i turn it back to jackie. >> thanks, phil. and just before i get into our next speaker i want to acknowledge the leadership committee that has served on behalf of this community, committing their time and their vision to the project and making sure that the community voice is heard. so i see a few of them, jill fox, and oscar james, tanansha ocori, and i see a ton of you guys, and thank you for your time again on the project. so next i'd like to introduce one of our assembly members, a neighbor in our -- in our community -- and someone that -- you know, i have known for the last decade and he's worked extremely hard for the city of san francisco. and i would like to introduce our assembly member of district 17, david chu. [applause] >> thank you, jackie. good afternoon, san francisco. are we ready to play? all right! let me first ask the mayor -- the mayor refer the as herself

to the resident of philmore. do we have residents of the hunter's point, bayview here? all right, this is our day. let me first start by thanking -- it takes a village to do this, and it takes the leadership of a mayor working with amazing departments and an amazing rec and park department and working with the private sector and working with philanthropy and working with civic partners and working at the state level and i want to thank you for that. as the mayor was talking, i thought 13 years ago when i was on the board of supervisors, i had a conversation with then supervisor sophie maxwell and she said, you know, david, the southeast neighborhoods are forgotten. and we don't invest in these neighborhoods. and a couple years later i remember having a conversation with supervisor cohen and she said, you know, david, the city forgets about the southeast neighborhood and doesn't invest in us. well, today the city hasn't

forgotten these neighborhoods and the city is investing in india basin. phil ginsburg invisitted me and then supervisor walton to come to india basin. phil, you will probably remember this and we didn't know what we were coming to see and we got here and he looked at me and said, hey, chu, i need a couple million bucks. so i said, all right. and scott wiener, and phil and i, we got together and one year of the budget we said, okay, phil, we have $4 million for you. and then ginsburg said that we need another $8 million. so i said, okay, all right, you know, money -- we'll get another $8 million. and then he said, we need another $25 million. and then we asked, well, how much does this darned thing cost? and we all know the answer to that. but let me also say a week after that conversation right here, i was sitting in room 200 with

mayor breed and she said -- and i think that this is one of those one-two things. she said, david chu, you heard about this project called india baseip? and i said -- basin. and i said, i have. well, we're making this a priority. and i just have to say, mayor breed, thank you for your leadership. i think that but for you -- and i know that supervisor walton and phil ginsburg and so many folks here, you are the village that is making this happen. so thank you. [applause] let me just end with one thing. so i am a resident. i live about 10 minutes from here and i moved to the southeast neighborhood the day that my son was born five years ago. and i moved -- we moved here in part because i believe that the future of san francisco is reflected in the southeast neighborhoods. if we can lift these neighborhoods up, there is no end to what our city will be about. and so the last thing that i'll just say is that there are a lot of folks who refer to this

project as the chrissy field of the southeast. and i'm going to say that by the time that my kid is a teenager, i think that chrissy field is going to be referred to as the india basin of the north, all right? [applause] and with that, have a wonderful afternoon. and thank you so much for being here. >> thank you so much, assembly member chu. we have a few changes to our program, but it's okay, we always make adjustments and i want to make a couple more acknowledgements before we continue to move forward. we have additional park commissioners here and our president, mark beull, and i would like to acknowledge the president and the commissioners here and also eric mcdonald, i'd like to acknowledge you guys. thank you for all of your work in serving for our parks

commission. before we move too much forward, one acknowledgement that we would not be here without the work that supervisor cohen did prior to moving into our state. so i just want to make sure that everyone acknowledges the work that our previous supervisor malia cohen did. and so let me go ahead and get to our next speakers. please let me introduce drew becker of the san francisco parks alliance and guillermo. and drew is from the san francisco parks alliance and guillermo for the trust for public land. drew has served as the chief executive officer for the san francisco parks alliance since 2017. and in 2018 alone, drew led the organization as it completed 20 plus park projects engaging over 100,000 plus residents in park programming and helped to raise over $20 million for capital

projects across the city. also helped to celebrate the 150th year at golden gate park. and then also guillermo was appointed to our california state director for trust for public land in 2017. he brings over 20 years of successful non-profit private sector and local government experience to the organization. many people don't even know that guillermo mentored me way back in the day. and he's responsible for leading the trust for public land ak sigdz, park development and policy activities throughout the state. really both organizations have immersed in the community and they'll briefly share their role on the renovation project and the other work that they're doing in the community. so come on up, guys. >> i'm here. >> okay. okay. and just after them i will follow up with another speaker, but come on in.

>> this is not guillermo, this is alex with the trust for public land so that everyone knows. we're going to tag team here. i'm with the park alliance. so exciting to be here today. we're all here because we love san francisco and we know that it could be better. we have been doing that for 50 years at the parks alliance and we're honored to be part of this important project. indian basin is part of a larger project called the blue green way. and india basin is the largest public investment as part of that blue green way project. and it is a large step forward on creating a more equitable city. and it is a part of a better, safer, more accessible southeast side. public/private partnerships are vital to the success of public spaces and have been for decades. we are proud to partner with trust for public land and also the rec and park department to raise private funds through philanthropy for this project. we think that is truly important. all public space does better

with a mix of funding. it shows commitment by the community and it shows commitment by the leader and it shows commitment from the city and commitment from the state. so we're proud to be part of that. the community engagement is the heart of what we do, grateful to the bayview hunters point community for their continued involvement and advocacy for this world-class park for which in a few months you're going to see the transformation of a basketball court up in india basin shoreline park that we transformed by artists with murals similar to what happened at hayward playground. i know that the mayor knows that one pretty well. it will be pretty cool when that happens here. i would like to thank the parks alliance team on making this a reality. mya rogers, thank you so much. and phillip wynne and mark hannon and steve frederick, and sonya gonzalez-banks and our board of directors for their commitment to project. i want to also thank the mayor and her leadership and the bayview for steadfast support of

the parks alliance and for her vision for san francisco. we are proud to work with you, and i'm really excited to work with your team on making and reopening san francisco. the investment in san francisco's parks and public spaces have been extraordinary throughout this pandemic. and i think that you saw that in all of the residents saw that. and what you are doing with investing in this park and others and supporting other departments on our public projects and our public spaces is second to none. we support your vision 100% and anything that you need we're behind you. thank you, mayor, so much. and i also would like to thank -- i would also would like to thank president walton and his team in the mission to build a more equitable san francisco. i also want to wish everyone a happy juneteenth. thank you so much. and i'm going to turn it over to ali, my partner in crime on the non-profit sector. >> hello, everyone, as you can see i'm not guillermo, he got

stuck in traffic so you have me i'm the bay-area director of the trust of public land. and as jackie, i wear many hats and i have been deeply involved in this project and working in the neighborhood for years. actually, mya and i worked on another park to see it happen before we started on this project. so i am so honored to be here celebrating this milestone with all of you today. at the trust for public land, we believe that the parks are essential for healthy communities. and parks should not have a nice-to-have amenity for a few, but a must have for all. we see that what is happening here in india basin, we see it as a national model for how we should do parks throughout the nation. this project is not just about building an amazing park, which it will be amazing, but it is much more than that.

as you have heard, it is about equity, it is about investing in this community that has been suffering this investment for decades. and it is about renewal and environmental justice. we're cleaning up, and giving it back to the community so they can have access to this beautiful shoreline. every time that i come here and i look at this view and it takes my breath away. so we need to make the shoreline better so that everyone can enjoy this. this project is about opportunity, it's a -- it's about giving opportunity to local businesses, workforce and youth. it is about celebrating and honoring the bayview hunter's point community and the rich history and the culture. and it's about resilience and hope. this community fought really hard for change. they faced many injustices.

and we are here starting to build the park they fought so hard to have. so this wouldn't have happened without all of you, without the many partners that have been mentioned. i want to acknowledge a few. phil ginsburg and his staff, and the rec park commission, amazing partners throughout this. drew becker, mya rogers with the san francisco parks alliance. also amazing partners. jackie flynn and the apri staff, having worked tirelessly, you know, you have seen them operating the tech hub and really fighting hard for this community. and then the many other groups -- there are too many to mentiog support for this. of course, our elected leaders. without you, mayor breed, supervisor walton, without assembly member chu and phil king and senator wiener we

wouldn't be here. as you heard, there's a lot of investment in this project. also our funders -- john fritzer and his funds for taking the risk and the same with the public funders. you know, they took a risk. they invested. they believed in this community and last, but not least, i want to acknowledge again the bayview hunter's point community for their resilience and advocacy. without you we wouldn't be here thank you very much. [applause] >> thanks, ali. i made a quick mistake in the program, we always have different updates last minute, but i forgot to mention someone that has worked fearlessly in this community, and i don't know how i can miss him because he's probably one of the tallest folks out here. but i would just like to welcome up our state senator scott

wiener for a few brief remarks on behalf of the project. thank you so much for bearing with me as i adjust and thank you for -- >> thank you, jackie. they didn't like to bring me up because i mess up the microphone for everyone else. sorry. so i'm just -- i have been a huge fan of this project for a long time. and i remember early in my time on the board of supervisors, some community folks asked me to come down and i came down and they're like, okay, we know that it doesn't look awesome right now and there's a lot of sort of neglected areas, but we have a vision. and i am just so proud of this community for coming together and moving that vision forward. and then also i had an opportunity to have involvement when i represented the park area on the board of supervisors and we wanted to buy what is now the noe valley to turn it into a

park. and working with noe valley and rec and park we decided, you know what, we don't want noe valley to just move forward but we want to make this about various parts of the city and we want bayview to be involved and our southeastern neighborhoods to be involved because this is a part of the city that has been neglected for so damned long and we need to be there for all parts of this city and lift everyone up. so we were able to acquire not just the noe town square but at the same time that parcel right there as well as a parcel delta market. and it's just amazing. and noe valley town square is a much smaller, simpler project, but it is done. and it has added so much to that community, but that pales in comparison to what india basin is going to add to our southeastern neighborhoods and we talk about it being like the marina. let's think about embarcadaro, and taking a neglected part of

the city, in piece of a piece of land, and turning it into an inspirational place for people to be, and i know that is what this is going to be. and we have a lot of other work to do around housing and making sure that we can connect with transportation so that people can get in and out of our southeastern neighborhoods more easily. but, boy, having a world-class waterfront beautiful park is just going to be a game-changer so, congratulations, you will have my -- i know that assembly members chu you will have our support to get this project going. so thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so much, senator wiener. a few more acknowledgements to my community. my friend, and her organization "from the heart" has been doing a significant amount of work here on the shoreline and connecting families to health resources and housing access.

i just wanted to say thank you guys for your commitment on this project. and i've gotten her on our leadership committee as well so that the voice of the community is truly heard on the project. so i do have one last speaker, did you want to make a few remarks? i will ask her to come up for remarks before i bring up our last speaker. come on. [applause] >> hello, everyone. i'm mieka pinkston, i'm the founder of "from the heart" and it's been a pleasure to work with arpi. i'll tell you that i don't trust many people, so it was -- [applause] it has been beautiful. it has been -- phil, david, everyone has been really, really, really helpful to me and to our community and i truly appreciate it. i know that this is in regards to a park, however, we have so

many other things to address here. and i thank everybody -- i thank the mayor, david -- everybody. we are all going to be a part of this, because it's not just about this park. we can't have a park and people homeless. so, you know, we -- i just want to say that. and i am here to help our community to better ourselves, so to educate our community on living a healthy and natural lifestyle. you know, i come with healing so that we can boing some of that good energy in. and i just try to keep us all on a positive page. if we can stay on a positive note we're going to be all good, y'all, that's all i want to say let's all just stay positive, let's heal together. and let's remember that it's going to take all of us -- no matter what color we are -- no matter what we do with ourselves, it's going to take each and every last individual

here in this park and outside of this park to make everything that we want to happen look like the marina. it ain't going to just take a park, okay? so that's what we need to remember is that it's going to take everything that we have to rebuild hunter's point. i'm born and raised here. so we got this. let's do it. thank you, guys. >> and that's just one of the examples of making sure that we make a commitment to this existing community and involve our residents every step of the way as we go. there's one last speaker that i'd like to invite up and i have known this young man over the last, i want to say six or seven years that we have been doing this work. darryl watkins came up in one of our youth programs, and he continued to come back and serve with our organization, volunteering for events, going door-to-door to pass out fliers for voting. and when the opportunity came around with our resource

development firm, c.c.s., they were happy to bring on a fellow and they said they wanted to make sure that we made a commitment to this local community. and i was very proud when darryl applied and he actually scored one of the highest scores through the application process and at the end of the day, i wanted to make sure that that opportunity went to someone that understood the legacy of what it was to grow up in this neighborhood. the generations that have served many years before we got here, and i really am proud that i think that he is going to be a great model for all of the young people that you guys saw a little earlier, but he will be serving with our resource development team, really helping to figure out how to come up with a strategy to fundraise, not just for the park, but equitable development, really investing back in this community. so without further adieu, i know that his parents are here and his sister is here, really excited. darryl watkins, please come on up.

[applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you, thank you. my name is darryl watkins. sorry. my name is darryl watkins and i'll i'm an incoming junior at the university. i'm excited and honored to accept this position, to be a part of this community and to be a part of this u.c.s. project. i want to first thank the apri for the leadership development to prepare me for this opportunity. next, i want to thank my family for always being here and supporting me. [applause] this park is a symbol of hope. it starts with us. i really want to help this community in different ways and it starts with this park.

thank you, thank you. i want to encourage all youth of all ages and all races to help this community. so together we can change how the bay view looks. it starts with the youth, so when we get older we can be in the same position that everyone else is. but thank you for your time. [applause] >> all right, thank you so much, darryl. and, again, that's just one very small example of making sure that we invite our young people to participate on this project and build equity from within. so we're going to just acknowledge a couple more folks from our mohcd, eric shaw, and thank you so much for coming. from oewd and city build, ken nim, our trades workers over here. and i want to say thank you for

jessica fontanelle from our success center. thank you so much. and so we are going to go ahead and do the shovel ceremony. just remember that like our shovel ceremony, it's really a way to honor, you know, not only the gift, but this is an opportunity for future prosperity and success on this project. so i've got a few folks that are going to be coming up to get a shovel in the ground. >> are we ready? okay, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... [cheers and applause].

>> we have private and public gardens throughout the garden

tour. all of the gardens are volunteers. the only requirement is you're willing to show your garden for a day. so we have gardens that vary from all stages of development and all gardens, family gardens, private gardens, some of them as small as postage stamps and others pretty expansive. it's a variety -- all of the world is represented in our gardens here in the portola. >> i have been coming to the portola garden tour for the past seven or eight years ever since i learned about it because it is the most important event of the neighborhood, and the reason it is so important is because it links this neighborhood back to its history. in the early 1800s the portola was farmland. the region's flowers were grown

in this neighborhood. if you wanted flowers anywhere future bay area, you would come to this area to get them. in the past decade, the area has tried to reclaim its roots as the garden district. one of the ways it has done that is through the portola garden tour, where neighbors open their gardens open their gardens to people of san francisco so they can share that history. >> when i started meeting with the neighbors and seeing their gardens, i came up with this idea that it would be a great idea to fundraise. we started doing this as a fund-raiser. since we established it, we awarded 23 scholarships and six work projects for the students. >> the scholarship programs that

we have developed in association with the portola is just a win-win-win situation all around. >> the scholarship program is important because it helps people to be able to tin in their situation and afford to take classes. >> i was not sure how i would stay in san francisco. it is so expensive here. i prayed so i would receive enough so i could stay in san francisco and finish my school, which is fantastic, because i don't know where else i would have gone to finish. >> the scholarships make the difference between students being able to stay here in the city and take classes and having to go somewhere else. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] >> you come into someone's home and it's they're private and personal space. it's all about them and really their garden and in the city and

urban environment, the garden is the extension of their indoor environment, their outdoor living room. >> why are you here at this garden core? it's amazing and i volunteer here every year. this is fantastic. it's a beautiful day. you walk around and look at gardens. you meet people that love gardens. it's fantastic. >> the portola garden tour is the last saturday in september every year. mark your calendars every year. you can see us on the website

>> thank you all for joining us today, and happy pride. [applause] >> my name is joseph sweiss, and i'm the chair of the human rights commission. first, we're going to do a land

acknowledge from commissioner pellegrini, then, i'll do rapid fire acknowledgements, and we'll get the show on the road. >> we acknowledge that we're on the unceded ancestral homelands of the ramaytush ohlone. in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, or forget -- forgotten about the responsibilities of this place. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and the relatives of the ramaytush community and by acknowledging their sovereign rights as first peoples. >> thank you, commissioner. so before we get started, i'd like to do some acknowledgements of everyone

who's up on the stage, and i'll be quick. michael lack better, karen roy, jeff jaw, jeff tumlin, grant colfax. manu raju, supervisors ahsha safai and rafael mandelman, commissioner mark keller, disability and aging services martha knudson, we have chief nicholson, h.r.c. director sheryl davis, director of the office of transgender initiatives, clair farley, and jason pellegrini, who just gave

our land acknowledgement. thank you. [applause] >> we are all extremely excited to join mayor breed to officiate this new relaunch of the lgbtq + launch. i see amazing leadership in front of me, i see amazing leadership beside me, and without further adieu, i'd like to introduce karen clopton to introduce the mayor. >> i'm going to ask our vice chair, joseph sweiss, to stand

by me, in response to all of his amazing work, maturity, consulting the elders in how to do things and how to go about things because he's one of those that knows he doesn't know everything. we love you, we appreciate you and we want to give you this present. >> oh, thank you. thank you so much. frz frz [applause] . >> i also want to acknowledge commissioner amhon for all of her work on this revitalization. >> me, too? >> not yet. >> and commissioner kelleher. [applause] >> for providing institutional and historic knowledge.

i am so honored to introduce someone who, frankly, in this crowd needs no introduction, but yet, i feel compelled in the words of lin manuel miranda, love is love is love is love. this city is amazing because we have amazing leadership. our mayor, london breed, epitomizes so much that we aspire. she is not only beautiful, she is beautiful on the inside, and that radiates out. she is educated, she is radiant, she is eloquent. most importantly, she

empathetic. she is also a loving granddaughter, daughter, sister, friend, and she has provided love in her leadership, the leadership of valuing everyone. all residents of the city and county of san francisco are her constituents. i am so proud that, ten years ago, on the centennial of the women's right to vote in the state of california, as president of the league of women voters here, we acknowledged her as a rising star. well, her star is fully implanted in the universe, and we are fully blessed and fortunate to have her as our beloved leader. with no more adieu, mayor madam, london breed. [applause]

>> the hon. london breed: thank you, karen. i so appreciate your kind words, and it is so great to be here with members of the human rights commission to reconstitute a committee that is so vital to the protection of lgbtqi rights here in san francisco. in fact, this commission, constituted in the 1970s, has really shaped policies in this city around domestic partnerships, around same sex marriages, around all of the policies that have really put san francisco on the map as a leader for lgbtq rights in this country. and the fact is people look to us for what we're doing pushing forth similar policies. i'm so honored to be a mayor of

a city that prides itself on being inclusive, on putting forward ideas that people don't always feel comfortable with. like when i talk about guaranteed income because people need money in their pockets in order to take care of themselves and their families, and in san francisco, not only did we push this policy for guaranteed income for expectant mothers of african american and pacific islander descent, we are pushing for universal basic incomes. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: and it has a lot to do with the office led by clare farley and the office of transgender initiatives, the first office of transgender initiatives in

the country specifically. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: a lot of this work has so much to do with so many of you, continuing to come up with ideas that make the most sense based on our history. when i think about the compton cafeteria riots, and when i think about harvey milk and his breakthrough, becoming the first gay supervisor in this city and all of the milestones that people continue to talk about and point to when describing the history of this community, one of the things that was important to me and important to supervisor mandelman is how do we talk about this history, how do we remind the next generation of this history, how do we protect this history? and together, we worked together to make sure there was $12 million in the upcoming budget to have the first ever

lgbtq museum in the city and county of san francisco. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: martha, we've come a long way, haven't we? [applause] >> the hon. london breed: we've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. there is still a need for change, and that's why this committee, which has such an incredible history in san francisco, that's why it's so important to reconstitute this committee. i want to thank sheryl davis and all the commissioners who thought about the need to do this, rather than working with the supervisors and making all of the decisions and the directors and making all of these decisions. they said this advisory committee will be representative of the arts, it will be representative of the challenges around mental health. it will provide input to us so that all of the investments

that the city is making are going to the right places, and more importantly, all of the local policies that we need to create are coming from the people who understand the impact the most. so today is a day to celebrate. yes, it's a swearing in, but you know what? it's the first time we've had anything on the mayor's balcony since -- since covid! [applause] >> the hon. london breed: so that's why everybody showed up. they're like i don't know what it is, but we're here. so before we swear in our advisory committee, i want to introduce supervisor rafael mandelman. so i'm so grateful for his work, his advocacy. sometimes he's the loan supervisor, fighting for the things necessary to support this community, and i'm

appreciative of his colleagues who just support him and go along with the things that we know are important. so supervisor mandelman, we have work to do, but i know that you'll handle it, so come on up and say a few words. [applause] >> supervisor mandelman: i'll handle it. you know, one of the things that i love about pride and being able to have pride here on the mayor's balcony is the opportunity to have amazing, phenomenal, and diverse leadership, and i see the folks who are leading in city government, and i see the folks that are leading in nonprofits, queer and otherwise, and the folks holding up the nonprofits, demanding change. i love our community so much, and it's so wonderful to be here in person, and so happy pride, everyone.

happy pride 2021. [applause] >> supervisor mandelman: one of the problems with being mayor london breed in the summer of 2021 is everyone is falling all over themselves to say nice things about her, but they are deserved because she did get us through this pandemic. [applause] >> supervisor mandelman: with an assistance from our gay public health director, grant colfax. thank you, director colfax, but she has also been from the beginning and before she was mayor, but definitely, i have seen her since before she was mayor, being a friend to the gay community, and the people she has lifted up in her administration that you see here, some of whom are doing great work, to the investments

in lgbtq housing, in the museum, in universal basic income for trans folks, it's truly extraordinary, and each year around budget time, she comes up with amazing things to do for the gay community. so thank you, madam mayor. that's an applause line. [applause] >> supervisor mandelman: and just yesterday, we approved at the board of supervisors to collect soji data. in the 80s, you would not have asked. if you asked, there was something wrong. why did you ask if the person was queer? that is not information that the community wanted gathered in the 80s. today, we know it's information that we want gathered and that is the work around same sex

marriage and seniors and youth and looking around at the factors of discrimination in our community, and we have now gotten to the place where we have federal, state, and local protections, and where we need to know to better serve the most vulnerable folks in the queer community to get the folks in city government to have this data. that's just the tremendous mark of the a.c., and i want to thank everyone for all their work over the year. i want to thank vice chair sweiss and campon and kelleher, and all the folks that are stepping up on the a.c. to go forward. we know the world is not where we want it to be. we know that there is tremendous unfairness, that it is hitting black, latinx, and trans folks, and we're seeing

it in violence and poverty, and i know that folks signing on for the a.c. are going to do that, and happy pride again. >> the hon. london breed: happy pride. >> thank you, mayor breed, and thank you, supervisor mandelman. one of the exciting things about, one of the great things is we're giving seats, united nations style, to people who come. i want to acknowledge nancy pelosi's office and senator scott wiener's office, and i do want to acknowledge with us, luis zamora and we wouldn't be more without the hard, hard work of the human rights

commission director and staff. yes. stephen and cass, and everyone, thank you for all of your hard work, but none of it would have been able to be done without you. >> i'm sheryl davis, director of the human rights commission. [applause] >> first, i was going to ask commissioner clopton if she was looking at me when she said the elders. i just want to first and foremost thank daquan harrison from the human rights commission. daquan will be working with the department and i just want to thank him for his hard work

with commissioner kelleher and commissioner sweiss. there was a lot of reading of the bylaws and a lot of rewriting of the bylaws. when i first came onto the human rights commission in 2011, then commissioner chung and commissioner pappas were there, and one of the things that i said i wanted to focus on was intersectionality, that when we talk about the layers of who we are and the complexity of that. so when we start talking about lgbtq + and anything else, it becomes that much more challenging to navigate through things, so i'm grateful for this advisory committee to be able to call it out, whether that is age, whether that is race, whether that is gender, but understanding to be poor and lgbtq + is not the same as

just being poor, and when we do the work to create these policies, we're very intentional. i'm grateful for all of you who have signed up to work with us, but more than that, i'm grateful for the partnership of mayor breed, supervisor mandelman, and supervisor safai because they're willing to standup and actually make the policies and make things better. so it may not be easy, it may be challenging, and it's going to take some work. we appreciate your work, and we appreciate the effort made to make things better not just for one folk but for all folks, so thank you so much for your work. [applause] >> thank you, director davis, and before we get started to the swearing in, i'd like to also invite martha knutson, who

was also on the committee of aging and disability services. >> the committee was the first of governmental bodies in the nation to advocate for will go. [ -- for lgbtq rights when it was created in the 1970s. mayor feinstein believed that the lgbtq commission laid the groundwork for change by documenting our history through hearings, writing policy recommendations that ultimately became legislation and focused

nonprofits to better serve our needs, all of which is on the lgbtq today. during the 1980s, they had conducted hearings on the first ever domestic partner laws, same sex marriage, and rights and problems faced by the community. during my time, we held hearings on issues facing our young people, surfaced the economic issues facing most members of our community, wrote regulations facing transgender people, and held hearings on issues facing intersex people, we broke ground on issues facing lgbtq seniors. i urge you to raise new issues, take risks, and be bold. thanks for playing your part in expanding our rights and

protecting our future. [applause] >> thank you, martha, and of course a special thank you to michael pappas, as well, who was on the commission and is now on the interfaith council. between the two of you, at every meeting and stakeholder engagement. before we get there to the swearing in, i want to welcome joejoe thai. >> i'm a former youth commissioner for district eight, and i'm a current member of o.t.i.s transadvisory community, and now i'm a new member of the lgbtq advisory committee. thank you, mayor london breed and the san francisco human rights committee.

i'd also like to thank commissioner knutson for acknowledging the work of the lgbtq committee. inequities of housing, access to health care and violence, just to make a few of the problems. our communities are experiencing multiple forms of trauma, including covid-19 and racial battle fatigue. while systems and agencies are responding, scores of decisions are made without the input of those most affected. we have the opportunity to advance leadership and visibility of bipoc, trans, and gender nonforming leaders. once again, san francisco continues to lead in lgbtq plus equity. the new committee consists of mostly bipoc, transgender, and

gender nonconforming leaders, making this one of san francisco's most diverse committees. this is an exciting new model for san francisco that will bring us all together, and i can't wait to see what we accomplish for the rest of the nation to see. again, i'd like to thank mayor london breed, the humans rights commission to always serve the community. for the leadership and advocacy serving all lgbtq people in san francisco and beyond. thank you. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: before we get into the swearing in, i just want to take a moment once more, when we kicked off pride a few weeks ago on the steps of city hall, i acknowledged grant colfax of

being this incredible leader and what he did to help us get to this point in the pandemic, and he wasn't even there. he was on vacation, but you know things are looking up when dr. colfax takes a vacation, a well deserved vacation. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: so i want to take this opportunity to recognize him during pride and just to say thank you, dr. colfax, for your leadership. i yelled a lot, and he'd never back down, and i wanted to open, and he's, like, here's the information, and i'm, like, get that out of my face. i don't want to see it. let me tell you, we are so fortunate to have dr. colfax as the leader of the department of public health. when you tell people what we did here in san francisco, i want you to tell them it was a

gay man who lead this effort, so thank you, dr. colfax. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: and one last thing. where's my little bag? this didn't happen with other mayors. i just want you guys to understand, when someone chooses to serve, whether it's a commission or an advisory committee, i take the mission myself as an honor. i hardly missed a meeting, i always participated in a conversation, and when i first got a city fill pen, it wasn't until, like, way later in my term. well, i as mayor decided that as soon as i swear anything into anything, they're going to know that i swore them in. so this is a city and county of

san francisco, this is the city seal pen. my signature is on the inside, so you can remember, and it just talks about the history of this city, and as you take this oath and serve our city proudly, please wear your pin proudly so people know you serve the city and county of san francisco. with that, please stand, all members. you'll get your pin officially after you take the oath. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: all right. no turning back now. okay. please raise your right hand and state after me. i, state your name, do solemnly swear, to support and defend

the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies, foreign and domestic. that i bear true faith and allegiance to the same. that i take this obligation freely. without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and i will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which i am about to enter. and during such time as i serve as a member of the lgbtqi + committee for the city

and county of san francisco. congratulations. [applause]

. >> my name is dave, and i play defense. >> my name is mustafa, and i am a midfielder, but right now, i am trying to play as a goalkeeper, because they need a goalkeeper. >> soccer u.s.a. is a nonprofessional organization. we use sports, soccer in

particular to engage communities that can benefit from quality programs in order to lift people up, helping to regain a sense of control in one's life. >> the san francisco recreation and park department and street soccer u.s.a. have been partners now for nearly a decade. street soccer shares our mission in using sport as a vehicle for youth development and for reaching people of all ages. rec and park has a team. >> i'm been playing soccer all my life. soccer is my life. >> i played in the streets when i was a kid. and i loved soccer back home. i joined street soccer here. it was the best club to join. it helps me out. >> the tenderloin soccer club started in the summer of 2016. we put one of our mini soccer pitches in one of our facilities there. the kids who kpriez the club

team came out to utilize that space, and it was beautiful because they used it as an opportunity to express themselves in a place where they were free to do so, and it was a safe space, in a neighborhood that really isn't the most hospitalable to youth -- hospitable to youth playing in the streets. >> one day, i saw the coach and my friends because they went there to join the team before me. so i went up to the coach and asked, and they said oh, i've got a soccer team, and i joined, and they said yeah, it was he for everybody, and i joined, and it was the best experience ever. >> a lot of our programs, the kids are in the process of achieving citizenship.

it's a pretty lengthy process. >> here, i am the only one with my dad. we were in the housing program, and we are trying to find housing. my sister, she's in my country, so i realize that i have a lot of opportunities here for getting good education to help her, you know? yeah. that's the -- one of the most important things that challenge me. >> my dad was over here, making some money because there was not a lot of jobs back home. i came here, finish elementary in san francisco. after that, i used to go back to my country, go to yemen, my country, and then back here. last time i went back was a couple years ago. >> i came here six months, i know nobody. now i have the team has a family, the coaches. amazing. >> i'm hoping for lifelong friendships, and i'm super

inspired by what they've been able to achieve and want to continue to grow alongside them. >> i love my family, i love my team. they're just like a family. it's really nice. >> street soccer just received a five year grant from the department of children, youth and family, and this is an important inreflection point for street soccer u.s.a. because their work in our most important communities is now known beyond just san francisco recreation and park department, and together, we're going to continue to work with our city's most vulnerable kids and teach them to love the beautiful game. >> i want to tell everybody back home, i hope you all make it over here and join teams like this like street soccer u.s.a., and live your life.

get a better life. >> right away, just be patient, and then, everything will be okay. >> again, thank you all for coming. this is a celebration. >> excuse me -- >> (indiscernible). >> so, again, we are here to celebrate juneteenth, but for those of you who know me, we do want to celebrate juneteenth, but also part of juneteenth and the last place in galveston,

texas, who were freed, it is also black people and our allies -- hi, andrew, i love you. is that we also have to talk about our issues. we can't continue to hold up red cups with alcohol and party and nobody is a party animal worse than me, but when you look at black san franciscans, let's talk about black san franciscans and where we stand here in san francisco. we are experiencing trauma, pain, suffering, and all parts of our lives, all parts of our lives. education, mass incarceration, homelessness, housing, just -- mental health. and we have -- mayor -- a mayor

who holds no guard to say that she fights for us, for all san franciscans, but because she is what -- she said i'm black first and i'm a woman, and then our issues are important to her. and so we are here, not only to support mayor breed, but also to spend her a message that we need to talk with her -- black folk. we want to have a roundtable discussion with our mayor. because, one, the city departments, they're not doing justice by black people. we need to raise our justice. we need to raise up equity. and we need to raise up equality for black san franciscans. and you guys look fabulous. i'm glad you're here, because it is important. the more numbers is the more

power that we have. and so without further adieu, without further adieu, she always coming in looking good, right -- always beautiful -- and i have her back no matter what, i don't care who has it, i don't care who doesn't have it -- i have my mayor's back. so here you are, a genuine black queen, mayor london nicole breed. [cheers and applause]. >> thank you, phylicia. first of all, let me thank wealth and disparities and felicia jones for their unwavering commitment to address some of the challenges that continue to plague african-americans in san francisco. yes, we have the first

african-american woman to serve as mayor. but we know the challenges that have persisted in this city far too long, not just with african-americans in general. i am acutely aware of the challenges that exist with african-american employees. and i am committed to continuing to work with you all to address many of those issues. don't you remember juneteenth back in the day? raise your hand if you remember [applause] the pony rides. the carnival. the black cowboys. we put on our best clothes and we go show off and we go have fun. and there was barbecue. but, you know what? there was a history. there was a history in san francisco as to when juneteenth started. here in san francisco, it was around 1965 when walter johnson jr., who -- what that was club

called, diane, linda? -- you know, the club that i'm talking about? the one they started at. anyway, i'll remember it in a minute. no, it was way before the plaza so he started juneteenth and started one of the first parades and they were walking up and down the streets and it was black people at their very best and it was absolutely beautiful if you look at many of the photos, you see the happiness and the excitement, and it felt good. it felt good, despite the challenges that our community continues to face. it felt good to be black in san francisco. but, you know what, it should feel good every single day. it should feel good every single day that we walk down the street. and last year we saw a real reckoning in this country like never before. an uprising, where people said, not no more. people talk about the death of

george floyd as a catalyst for the rest of the country. but, sadly, in the african-american community, this is too familiar with us. on a regular basis we experience the discrimination and the death and the destruction that has plagued our community for far too long. but there is hope. we have an incredible opportunity. we have an incredible opportunity to rise up, despite those challenges. when you think about it, look at where we are today. we have a less than 6% population of african-americans in san francisco and you all still help to elect the first african-american woman mayor in this city. [applause] and the president of the board of supervisors is a black man. and the leadership of this city

in so many ways presents us with an opportunity. an opportunity to see growth and to develop and to see prosperity in our community. but you know what, i can't do it alone. it takes work and it takes us coming together and it takes us putting aside our differences in order to support the collective and as a result of so many of you who have been at the forefront of these challenges, today president biden is signing to make juneteenth an federal holiday in this country. [applause] now for black folks it's been a holiday, but we'll share the holiday with everybody else. no problem. and as mayor -- as mayor i plan today to sign a declaration

giving all city employees juneteenth off as a holiday. [cheers and applause]. now if you are already going to work, go ahead and go to work, because you've got the whole weekend. but you get a holiday in lieu, don't worry, you can take it off later. the fact is that we honor our heritage, we honor our history, we honor our culture when we remember the past, and we use the past to not repeat the same mistakes, we use it to grow and to become better. san franciscans, this weekend as we celebrate juneteenth with so many amazing events. at the african-american art culture complex, as we celebrate at gilman park in the bayview and as we celebrate at the ferry building, so many amazing juneteenth events this weekend, let's remember, let's have a good time, and let's re-dedicate

ourselves to the cause that we all know that continues despite the gains that we have made. thank you so much for being here today. have a wonderful juneteenth. [applause] >> excuse me, everyone, if you're not speaking can i ask that you step off the steps and go into the audience, please down below? if you're not speaking at this time, please go down the steps, please. thank you. okay -- okay -- all right, all

right, cheryl davis -- is cheryl davis -- i saw her earlier. where is cheryl davis? come on up. director, dr. davis, she's going to say a few words. director, dr. davis, come on up come on up. another strong doing marvelous things in the city and county of san francisco. and i just want her to say a few words to the people. and just come in your own way. just come in your own way. she's going to kill me later, but that's okay. >> i am like the mayor, i can't be up here, i'm distracted when

other people are talking when i'm talking. [laughter] just happy juneteenth, as someone who was actually born in texas and it is really a national holiday down there from our folks, and i'm grateful for the mayor's declaration and i'm grateful to the president, but ultimately this is not the end of it all, right? because i think that if we're going to be really honest, juneteenth was a signing of a piece of paper that was already two years in action. so we're not really as free as we think we are. so let juneteenth be a day to remember that we are still in the fight and the struggle, and similar to the folks in texas, some of us have not yet opened our eyes to the reality of freedom. so i just want to say to let's celebrate juneteenth, but let's not relax and sit down and let's not forget is that we need to keep moving.

-- >> sing a song! (indiscernible). >> no, i'm not doing no song up here. >> (indiscernible). >> i'm going to give you -- let me see if have a poem. no, i can't do that. so this is my -- one of my favorite poems, poets is mya angelou and there's a line in there -- there's a couple lines that i love and one she says, pretty women wonder where my secret lies and i'm not cute and built to the fashion model size but when i try to tell them they think that i'm telling lies. so our beauty and being special is not wrapped how we look, it's where we come from and that's who we are. she says, when you see me walking by it ought to make you proud, i'm a woman, phenomenal

woman, phenomenally, that's me. [cheers and applause]. for those of you who don't know that mayor breed and president walton through police reform have given the black community $120 million. [cheers and applause]. $120 million. $60 million for this year, $60 million for next year, and also in her budget she also put $60 million to the black community at the baseline. and we want to make sure as black people that we are going to honor her wishes, that we're going to push back on the board of supervisors, and we're going

to push back on the board of supervisors -- what? being black in san francisco. and so our group is called "mega-black, budget watchdog group." so may i have them come and stand beside me on both sides. mega-black budget watchdog group. we're fighting. we're fighting. no doubt, we're fighting. we're fighting. we're fighting. and we're not afraid to go up in the board of supervisor's chambers and let them know, black folks, three reports, 55 years, and black folks are worse off now than we were 55 years ago, and we want our due. we want our due! come on, y'all tell me, power to the people. we want our due! we want our due! we have it coming.

and then the other thing that i want to say, mayor breed -- oh, yes, she's still here is this -- y'all ain't -- don't be putting your hands on that $60 million, all of you 54 departments. you 54 departments, take some of that money from your budget and give it to the black community, because you have neglected us for 55 years. so you're not going to use us with the moneys that mayor breed and president walton have given us to say, oh, that's enough, go over there and get it from director davis. she has all of the money. no. so we're pushing back. and so i want to introduce our watchdog group, tanya williams. nate ford. john henry. tina heinz. and there's monique francine. and so tanya is going to come up

and speak to you about what our demands are for mega-black budget watchdog group. thank you. >> there's not enough noise in this audience. i need to hear y'all. i got some questions for y'all. you ready? so on the first of january in 1863, that was 158 years ago, the 16th president of the united states named abraham lincoln signed into effect an emancipation proclamation which changed the legal status under the federal law of more than 3.5 million enslaved african-americans, and let's be serious, we were called negroes then, from enslaved to free. so i've got one question for y'all -- anybody who is black in san francisco, answer my question. are we free? >> no. >> okay, there you go.

so now you know why we had to establish what we've established. the mega-black budget watchdog group demands that the city and the county close the gaps of black san franciscans. and three reports and 55 years of studying black san franciscans found we are worse off today than we were back then. so here go our demands. number one -- we demand that $60 million to be a baseline for the human rights commission to continue the dreamkeepers initiative for black san franciscans. number two, we demand $40 million to address black disparities in closing educational gaps, mass incarceration gaps, gaps in job training programs, and to reestablish the black workforce and to pay the fines and the fees that are associated with those disparities. number three, we demand

culpability, meaning that we want them to be held accountable, all right, for all 54 city and county departments to be held accountable again, so that everybody can hear me, for the disparities that i have deliberately caused to black san franciscans due to a lack of dollars, care, which they have, right, we think -- well, we know they've got the dollars and we don't know about the care, we're still working on that, okay, to this day has failed to address in our community. number four. we demand that the controller's office conduct a 15-year audit of previous moneys given to the black community and compare these dollars to all other ethnicities who received funding in the same 15-year period. and, lastly, right, is that we do not accomplish financial equity, we will never be free. so let me be clear with y'all,

you're not asking anymore -- we're not demanding -- we are demanding -- we're not begging. it's not about begging. i told you that it started 158 years ago, so it's time for us to get what we came here for, right, we, the mega-black budget watch -- sorry -- we, the mega-black budget watchdog group unapologetically are demanding that the city and county of san francisco finally address the disparities of black san franciscans. thank you. [applause] >> all right, power to the people. >> power to the people. >> oh, y'all sound so weak. come on, say it like you mean it. power to the people! >> power to the people! >> i love it. power to the people! >> power to the people! >> yes, yes, that's what we came out here, to regain our power.

(♪♪) valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. the first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the mission neighborhood extending from market to mission street. >> it is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. >> from 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. the mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m.t.a. to put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four

months time. [♪♪♪] >> valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in san francisco. it has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. we promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. valencia is our mission -- fits our mission perfectly. our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. >> i have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. during that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. >> we have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber

taking folks to concerts at night. one of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. >> the most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. >> we kept all the passengers -- the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. >> most people aren't actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. >> half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6:00 p.m., so could be used for five-minute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. >> the five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be.

>> one of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. >> we worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. >> on this lot, there are a few schools. all these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. to address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings -- railings that channel -- channeled a designated crossing plane. >> we had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons? >> i do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. >> we have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the right-of-way so they can cross the roadway. this is probably one of the most unique features.

>> during the planning phase, the m.t.a. came out with three alternatives for the long term project. one is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. a two-way bikeway. the third option is a center running two-way bikeway, c. would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. >> earlier, there weren't any enter lane designs in san francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for san francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesn't exist already. >> with all three concepts for valencia's long-term improvement , there's a number of trade-offs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal

infrastructure. when he think about extending this pilot or this still -- this design, there's a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. >> the pilot is great. it is a no-brainer. it is also a teaser for us. once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. >> what we're trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. the pilot project is one of our first major improvements. we will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. this fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. by spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about long-term improvements. >> i appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the community workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. >> we want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and

abilities. there's a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. we will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [♪♪♪] >> i try to start every day not looking at my phone by doing something that is grounding.

that is usually meditation. i have a gym set up in my garage, and that is usually breathing and movement and putting my mind towards something else. surfing is my absolute favorite thing to do. it is the most cleansing thing that i'm able to do. i live near the beach, so whenever i can get out, i do. unfortunately, surfing isn't a daily practice for me, but i've been able to get out weekly, and it's something that i've been incredibly grateful for. [♪♪♪] >> i started working for the city in 2005. at the time, my kids were pretty young but i think had

started school. i was offered a temporarily position as an analyst to work on some of the programs that were funded through homeland security. i ultimately spent almost five years at the health department coordinating emergency programs. it was something that i really enjoyed and turned out i was pretty good at. thinking about glass ceiling, some of that is really related to being a mother and self-supposed in some ways that i did not feel that i could allow myself to pursue responsibility; that i accepted treading water in my career when my kids were young. and as they got older, i felt more comfortable, i suppose, moving forward. in my career, i have been asked to step forward. i wish that i had earlier stepped forward myself, and i feel really strongly, like i am

100% the right person for this job. i cannot imagine a harder time to be in this role. i'm humbled and privileged but also very confident. so here at moscone center, this is the covid command center, or the c.c.c. here is what we calledun -- call unified command. this is where we have physically been since march, and then, in july, we developed this unified structure. so it's the department of emergency management, the department of public health, and our human services hughesing partners, so primarily the department of homelessness and supportive housing and human services agency. so it's sort of a three-headed command in which we are coordinating and operating everything related to covid response. and now, of course, in this final phase, it's mass

vaccination. the first year was before the pandemic was extremely busy. the fires, obviously, that both we were able to provide mutual support but also the impact of air quality. we had, in 2018, the worst air quality ten or 11 days here in the city. i'm sure you all remember it, and then, finally, the day the sun didn't come out in san francisco, which was in october. the orange skies, it felt apocalyptic, super scary for people. you know, all of those things, people depend on government to say what's happening. are we safe? what do i do? and that's a lot of what department of emergency management's role is. public service is truly that. it is such an incredible and

effective way that we can make change for the most vulnerable. i spend a lot of my day in problem solving mode, so there's a lot of conversations with people making connections, identifying gaps in resources or whatever it might be, and trying to adjust that. the pace of the pandemic has been nonstop for 11 months. it is unrelenting, long days, more than what we're used to, most of us. honestly, i'm not sure how we're getting through it. this is beyond what any of us ever expected to experience in our lifetime. what we discover is how strong we are, and really, the depth of our resilience, and i say that for every single city employee that has been working around the clock for the last 11 months, and i also speak

about myself. every day, i have to sort of have that moment of, like, okay, i'm really tired, i'm weary, but we've got to keep going. it is, i would say, the biggest challenge that i have had personally and professionally to be the best mom that i can be but also the best public certify chant in whatever role i'm in. i just wish that i, as my younger self, could have had someone tell me you can give it and to give a little more nudge. so indirectly, people have helped me because they have seen something in me that i did not see in myself. there's clear data that women have lost their jobs and their income because they had to take care of their safety nets. all of those things that we depend on, schools and daycare

and sharing, you know, being together with other kids isn't available. i've often thought oh, if my kids were younger, i couldn't do this job, but that's unacceptable. a person that's younger than me that has three children, we want them in leadership positions, so it shouldn't be limiting. women need to assume that they're more capable than they think they are. men will go for a job whether they're qualified or not. we tend to want to be 110% qualified before we tend to step forward. i think we need to be a little more brave, a little more exploratory in stepping up for positions. the other thing is, when given an opportunity, really think twice before you put in front of you the reasons why you should not take that leadership position. we all need to step up so that

we can show the person behind us that it's doable and so that we have the power to make the changes for other women that is going to make the possibility for their paths easier than ours. other women see me in it, and i hope that they see me, and they understand, like, if i can do it, they can do it because the higher you get, the more leadership you have, and power. the more power and leadership we have that we can put out

>> chairman: good ni