>> okay. sorry. all right. good morning everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i'm excited to be here at footprint with michael, the owner. with our captain and our assessor-recorder, the supervisor of the community gordon mar and office of economic and work force development. so many people who work hard to help support our small businesses because we know despite what has happened during the pandemic, so many of our small businesses have been suffering in san francisco. the cost of doing business, the ability to find a storefront and

go through the city's bureaucratic process to get open in the first place has changed our city as we know it. often times during the spring time, we're celebrating small businesses in san francisco but we need to do a better job of putting our money where our mouth is when we talk about supporting small businesses. i still go to the same dry cleaner i have been going to since i was a kid. i still go to the same dentist i have been going to since i've had teeth, i go to the same place to get my nails done when i can afford to get them done. it is an important part of the spirit of san francisco, we love our neighborhood shops and restaurants and businesses and we want to do everything we can to support them and this pandemic has made life very challenging. i remember walking around in the castro, there are a lot of businesses i frequent because they're close to where i live.

one day i was walking and i noticed something different. there were a lot of windows that were broken. i was devastated, but i was so angry. i thought now all of the money that they struggle to make during the pandemic is now going into fixing something that they did not do. in fact, in the castro, there was one person who vandalized all five of the windows broken. in chinatown, 20 businesses were vandalized and thanks the the san francisco police department, that one person that vandalized those 20 businesses has been arrested and is currently being detained in our jails. the fact is, we have to make sure that we are doing everything we can in this city to hold people accountable for the crimes they commit. but we never want those crimes

to happen in the first place. if they do, we have to stand by our small businesses. we have to provide the relief and support they need because it's not just about the business owner and their livelihood, it's also their employees who are supporting families themselves. it's a big deal. and so in san francisco, we've tried to be very creative about the programs we have instituted, especially since this pandemic. we have been able to give out a significant amount of resources for grants, for loans, for facade improvements. for people dealing with challenges. we know that that little bit of money goes a long way. with our sf shines programs and a number of things, we have been able to help support small businesses and in addition to that, just recently the board of

supervisors supported an effort to for the next year provide for those who want to open new businesses in san francisco, able to waive a number of city fees that often times are expensive and makes it difficult to open a business. we know we have too many empty store fronts. we have to get rid of the bureaucracy like we did when voters passed prop 8 and small business recovery efforts. we hope businesses notice a difference and just to be clear, for someone who may want to -- i'm sure you have probably heard about this, change a nail shop to an ice cream bar or shop, it shouldn't take two years to do something that simple. we must do better. but a bakery recently was vandalized, pharmacy ramshacked and they faced two cases of

vandalism. frank's flowers burned to the ground. all these incredible places that are institutions in our city. i want to thank supervisor mar for working with us to establish this new program, this vandalism relief fund that will provide anywhere from 1-2 thousand dollars to those who need to provide repairs the first their businesses. we allocated a million dollars in the budget to do that because we know there are so many businesses that have experienced this. this is one of so many of the programs that we try to offer to help support and protect our small businesses. there's not a one size fits all. san francisco is an expensive city, but i'm really proud of the fact that we continue time and time again to look at creative ways to invest in small businesses. they are the driving engine of san francisco. we can't just keep talking about

it and adding more layers of bureaucracy to make life difficult for them. we have to make changes to our policies, we have to make changes to our investment. we have to do that because we need to see a change in the city we all know and love, built on the backs of small businesses. i want to thank you all for being here and i'm really excited that footprints is a beneficiary because of the challenges they experienced and i'm looking forward to make sure at least 500 businesses i think will benefit from this program and hopefully we won't have to use all of it. i want to take this opportunity to introduce our partner in this effort, supervisor gordon mar. (applause) >> thank you mayor breed and everyone for being here for the announcement of the relief grant program. i'm pleased to be here along with mayor breed, office of

economic work force development, assessor-recorder and our merchant association to announce this important, very important new program that the city is start together provide economic relief and support to our mom and pop businesses that have been victims during the pandemic. unfortunately that's a lot of businesses throughout the city and particularly in residential neighborhoods. during the pandemic, we have seen a surge in vandalism and burglaries, in particular targeting neighborhood businesses in our neighborhoods. here in the sunset district, there's been dozens of businesses that are victims.

mr. bread bakery, sugar and water dessert cafe were all burglarized and we have seen it play out in other areas. on irving many businesses have been hit. and then most recently and i think it has gotten some attention, frank's florist, 87-year-old historic business not only burglarized but burned out last week. i want to really thank michael, the owner of footprint shoe store here for first suggesting the creation of the program. i remember when i came to visit michael, after footprint was broken into it and his efforts

to recover. michael mentioned that it would be helpful to owners like him who have suffered these losses to have a little bit of financial support from the city in their recovery. and whether it is to repair the broken windows or damage to the storefront, to pay their insurance deductible or to beef up security system, to prevent -- to hopefully prevent crime impacting them in the future. from that conversation i had with michael back in february, i started working with my staff and colleagues on the board and in june, i proposed $1 million to provide a fund for small businesses and i want to thank mayor breed for working with my office over the past three months to create this program. i know, you know, we are hopefully going to be able to

provide support to at least 500 businesses through this program. but the need is even greater and we're going to look at how we can expand the pot. in the budget, i think there's an additional -- some additional funds in this year's budget that we can used to expand the pot if there is a great demand for the program, which i think there will be. beyond that, this is just providing relief to the businesses and supporting them in their recovery. but we really need to look at how we can prevent the steps the cities can take. i know mayor breed and chief scott in the police department and -- good folks here at this station are committed to as well. i'm going to hold a hearing mid october in the public safety neighborhood committee as to what we can do as a city to address crime in our commercial

corridors and ensure safety for businesses and residents. that will be an opportunity to really look at how we can prevent this type of crime from happening in the future. today we are here to announce the launch of the important new program and i want to introduce sunset native who took over this footprint shoe store from the previous owners just before the pandemic kicked in. i want to thank michael for keeping this important business going in the neighborhood and serving the community and for suggesting that we create the store front relief program. thank you. (applause) >> it's an honor to be here and i want to thank supervisor mar, mayor breed for taking time and

putting this program and their entire teams and everybody behind the scenes, putting this grant together so small businesses can come out of this. i want to thank the station after our store got vandalized, the captain reached out personally and was along my side to get through the insurance handling process. he and his team were there for us. thank you. the pandemic has been for me, never knew what a pandemic was. when i took over the business i was excited to start and two weeks later we were told we had to close. i think something that is positive that has come out of the pandemic is community. i think without the pandemic, this never would have happened. i definitely see this is a positive to come out of covid-19

and i look forward to continue to engage with the city to help small businesses. i grew up just a few blocks from this store. i shop and eat at all of the neighborhood stores and it is very sad to see them struggling. but i do believe if we come together, with the help of the grant for the stores that got vandalized, we'll be able to come out stronger and united as a whole together. i want to introduce people to come up. grace? (applause) >> hi, i am with carolyn lin -- carlin company hair studio. i just want to take a moment to thank supervisor mar for helping push through the relief bill and

mayor breed for signing the bill and pushing it through. it is very much needed. we have been in much -- had many challenges, the construction and pandemic and now crime. it is good to have relief and help from the city in these very hard times. just want to thank you supervisor mar and mayor breed. and i guess i'm the last speaker, we're all available for questions if you have questions for the speakers. >> i saw that the release was saying that grants aren't to cover stolen goods or shared spaces. >> for -- this is a vandalism relief fund. it is for, sadly, people who

have been victims. there are specific requirements we have. for example, if you have been vandalized, we would ask that you report it to the police. so we want to make sure there's a police report and receipts for the expenses. and if you are a victim of graffiti for example, all 311 to report it and as long as we have receipts, we can provide the relief. today we brought the checks for footprints, not just the vandalism relief fund for what he had to deal with but also sf shines and the less questions you ask, the more time we can spend shopping to spend more money in his good store. christian? >> i'm not sure if it's for the mayor or supervisor, are we talking broken grass, graffiti you talked about. what does it cover? and does it work in conjunction

with broken glass? >> just to be clear, it is any vandalism related to anything you would need to make a police report for the vandalism on your store and it could include graffiti and often times people don't leslie make police reports for graffiti but if you have been vandalized and something needs to be fixed because of the vandalism, that is what it encompasses. the money from the broken windows fund can be used as a tool as well. so for example, say if you had a broken window and then you also as a result have desire to put in cameras and other systems the enhance and protect your store, there's possible support through these various programs to do that with a cap on the idea that

we provide. the vandalism relief fund is capped at $2,000 at this time. >> can we have an idea of what is going on? [indiscernible] is it one person or -- >> captain, do you want to talk about that today? >> so we made an arrest recently and it was a series of vandalisms occurring in the chinatown business corridors and it was occurring up and down ocean avenue. so, from the investigation in that arrest, what we were able to learn was it was basically one person that was responsible for upwards of 30 or 40 incidents. in that case, we do know based on interviewing that person,

too, that it was prejudice based. there was vandalism involved but it was driven by prejudice and again, 30-40 incidents is quite a lot of incidents. and across multiple police districts. hopefully that arrest in and of itself will reduce a lot of these incidents. >> feel free to shop if you want. thank you for being here. ♪♪♪ are going to speak --

>> hi everybody, i'm the general manager of your san francisco recreation and parks department. i'm thrilled to be here with all of you and our honored guests.

we have our mayor, our assembly men, supervisor mandelman, our new assessor, our commissioners. to all of the honored and elected guests, we have a ribbon cutting for all of you today that is right up your alley. this is actually the ninth ribbon cutting of let's play sf. this happened -- let's play sf, none of us remember where we were in 2012 but if you were a voter here, you passed a parks bond in 2012 that allowed a community of your peers including some of our representatives i'll introduce in a second, to identify the most needy playgrounds around the city for public and private investment. we're also joined today by drew becker, the ceo of san francisco

park alliance, the recreation parks department and our commissioners and elected family here have worked together to make sure each of the 13 most deserving playgrounds is funded and neighborhoods are revitalized through a combination of play, creativity, of connectivity and if you look at this space, you can see the potential of this project. this project is also the beneficiary of the open space acquisition fund that goes back to the 70s. the city was smart enough -- this used to be a rail line, many who live in the community know this. look what we have been able to do with it. it's really quite special. this particular 1.7 million renovation includes something that is near and dear to my heart and to the hearts of so many children in san francisco, a nature play area. part of our san francisco

children and nature initiative. to give every child in san francisco a nature-based experience every day. it is little projects like this that really make the difference. so i'm really thrilled with that. we also have a lot of ada accessibility features in this project so we can all get out and enjoy our parks and play. we even have green space on that end of the alley for dog walking and exercise equipment and all kinds of fun stuff. this project was a mix of funding services from the let's play initiative and we also have funding from the 2012 community opportunity fund and some will speak to that in a second. let me just say a few thanks and then turn it over to our mayor. first to all of you for being patient. these projects take time. it seems 2012 was a really, really long time ago but in

playground time, it was like a blink of the eye. special thanks to dave who leads the jury commoners. i believe dave is speaking in a bit who wrote the application and dr. michael lindsay, i don't think dr. lindsay could be here today, but the school was very involved in the cof application and design and certainly they're going to enjoy the space. quick shout outs to our partners. the san francisco parks alliance, we wouldn't be able to do these projects without the caring, generous support of the parks alliance. the san francisco children and nature network, our city family from public works. there are several here. thank you dpw, you guys are awesome.

i see rachel gordon in the background i think. and everybody has a mask on. i shouldn't be calling out people by faces because i can't see them. again to our commission. to the parks recreation advisory committee, the committee of citizens that works with us to help develop these projects. i know karen and steven are here. thank you for your presence. to my own staff for their hard work. lisa is here, she has been the captain of let's play sf. i see nick here, thank you nick. michelle who leads an amazing crew. james, robert, i know i'm going to forget somebody. these are the people who so lovelily and talently care for

the space. our commission president likes to say victory has many parents and this is another victory with many, many, many parents. thank you to the entire team of people who have worked on this. in the interest of time, i'm going to turn it over to our mayor. mayor breed. (applause) >> thank you. we want to just extend heartfelt thank you to the people of this community, especially. it was your work, your advocacy that made it possible. people ask me in the last year and a half, isn't it hard being a mayor. we just went through a global pandemic. it has been tough. yes, it has been tough but being here today makes it worth it every day. i'm here with community. i'm here with people who care about san francisco. and who want to create these amazing opportunities for our children, for our neighbors. that's what this city is about.

the same thing happened when the pandemic first hit our city. we all came together like never before and yes, we are one of the densest cities in the country, which is why creating spaces like this are so important, but we also saw despite a global pandemic, we saw one of the lowest death rates anywhere in the country and seeing the highest vaccination rates anywhere in the country. so -- (applause) we should be proud. but i'm not surprised. it's what we do best. when an opportunity presents itself, we don't see just a problem. we see a solution. jury commons is a solution for the community. it created an old rail yard, a place that this community knew about for many, many years and used for many, many years but had a vision to make it into something that can be extraordinary and that's what you created. all the greenery, all the

plants, all the play structures and yes, the advocacy it took to get it done. reaching out to apply for fund ing with the city. you know how difficult the city can be and how difficult it can be to get funding from the city as well. i want to thank the parks alliance stepping in with the last bit of cash to get it over the finish line. it takes a village to make incredible things happen in san francisco and the village of jury commons has been instrumental in making this happen for the community around us and the entire city. this is an amazing accomplishment, one we should be proud of and one to take us to the next level for economic recovery. we know during the pandemic, our parks were everything for us. our open space and parks, they brought us closer together.

i don't know about you, but i didn't know a lot of my neighbors. during this pandemic, going outside, meeting folks, walking around, going to parks, you get to know people you never knew lived in your neighborhood. that's what this jury commons will continue. as we begin to open and recover and go back to our lives the way we knew it once before, this will still serve as an important gathering place for this community to make sure that our kids, our neighbors, we continue to know one another, support one another and get through any challenge that comes our way. thank you for being here today. (applause) i'm like to introduce assembly member chui. (applause)

>> thank you madam mayor, particularly for your leadership during these times. i'm a former musician and i usually don't verbalize the songs in my head but i have to at this moment. the song going through my head is the one that starts with "it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood". i'm going to stop there. it truly is a beautiful day here in this very spot. the mayor has thanked so many folks from her perspective as our incredible leader of our city. i'm going to thank so many of you as a parent. as someone who has a ritual with my 5-year-old son every weekend of trying to find a new park to play in. and what you have created here is not only going to be the destination this coming weekend, you have given not just kids a slide to slide on, adults something to play on, but just another place for us to bring

community together. when i'm in sacramento, my colleagues ask me, hey, you represent san francisco, san francisco seems to have a lot. why are you such a park advocate. i explain to folks that in our amazing city, seven years ago when i was first elected to the legislature, i would tell folks in chinatown, you have immigrant kids kicking soccer balls on top of housing projects and in the mission, you have latino immigrant kids kicking soccer balls down alley ways and a few miles away, the bayview, african american kids from time to time kicking balls on top of formerly toxic contaminated sites. this is why we do the work we do. we need to make sure our next generation of kids have the opportunities that every child should. the opportunity to play, to thrive, to learn how to be in community with each other, to

grow strong and to grow to become the next mayor of this city. i just want to thank all of you who are part of this amazing community. this village, whether from the public sector and from rec and park and with the commission, whether you work with rec and park, from the private sector helping to construct the spot. whether you're from the nonprofit with your vision, it takes all of you coming together. in particular, i want to ask, how many are jury commoners? raise your hand. you guys are the ones who really made it happen. let's give it up for them. thank you so very much. with that, it is my honor to introduce someone who represents this section of the mission, my good friend supervisor mandelman. (applause) >> thank you. there are a lot of politicians to speak today. i will try to be brief.

i do want to say three big thank you's. first to jury commoners and the neighbors. this was a project that came out of the community. i think i remember back several years folks in the neighborhood, dave and others were taking care of this park even in its prior iteration. the vision for what this park could become came out of the community, grant applications were done by community. even until the very end in figuring out that this park needed garbage cans god damn it. the neighbors stepped forward and e-mailed us and we forwarded e-mails to rec park and they figured out we need garbage cans. tremendous thanks. and to rec and park for both providing joy during the pandemic for finding ways to keep us safe, i remember phil put in the dots around in

delores park in early days thinking about social distancing and delivering a service i think people love, constantly our controller studies show people love our parks and grateful for the management they are getting and they really love it when we have beautiful new or renewed parks like this. and to the parks alliance, drew and the alliance, thank you for your partnership with rec park and the work you do in district 8. we were doing a movie night which was fantastic and lovely and delightful. but the mayor and i were out for a ribbon cutting for christopher park opening, there's a lot of great work happening through the partnership. as a neighbor, i live like a block away. and very grateful to have this as a supervisor, i'm grateful for it. speaking of people who helped get us through the pandemic, the

former head of the office of economic and work force development and now our assessor controller. >> thank you supervisor. it is a pleasure to be with everyone today, especially when you step away from the evaluations you have to do being your assessor-recorder here in san francisco but most importantly, i wanted to say thank you to dave, to mary for your leadership in making this happen. ensuring we could get the work done and investments in place. i know how important it is to wake up in the morning and know you have greenfield equipment to do exercise on and i'm happy to see you here in jury commons and to the department of recreation and parks and all of the work you do to make sure the spaces are open, healthy and safe for our communities across the city. whether here, at jury commons, in delores park or all

throughout special places, nooks and allies to enjoy each other, breathe fresh air, be safe and be in community, i'm so grateful to all of you and the parks alliance doing this in so many places around our city. it is needed for all of us of every age. and i'm grateful for drew becker and continued work he does to make this happen. with that, drew becker. (applause) >> thanks. i want to bottle that. thank you so much. really appreciate it. so happy to be here today in this amazing new space created by the neighbors for the neighbors and for this great community. this is part of our partnership with rec and park the let's play sf initiative. basically it's crowd sourcing for playgrounds that will impact about 20,000 children when

they're all open in a few short years. we have raised over $12 million for 13 playgrounds throughout the city. i want to thank the board and donors for making that happen. we are lucky to live in san francisco that prioritizes parks. in the past year and a half, we have realized how important they are to our life, specifically playgrounds. if you remember back in the day, a year and a half ago when playgrounds were closed. there was the outpouring of support to open our playgrounds and i think it reached the state house actually. it was amazing to see. it's really the community like you is what changes that. you change this space with that as well. the san francisco parks alliance is a proud to support the rec and park department and happy to support all of the amazing things it does. it is by no big issue that the rec and park department is one

of the best in the city and county of san francisco. people love rec and park department and under the leadership of phil, thank you so much to him and what he has done for the department. phil, thank you. (applause) investments like this are the reason why -- this is amazing, timeout magazine called san francisco the number one city to live in in the world because of great spaces like this all over the city. you're within a 10 minute walk of all public spaces. new playgrounds and parks and allies that have come alive. that's the san francisco we know and we're proud of. i'm proud to be a part of it and the parks alliance is a part of it and the rec and park department is part of it and proud to be working for a great

mayor like london breed making sure her dream is reality. i want to give a shout out to the capital team. (applause) it's under new leadership. stacy, congratulations on that. and then tara and alex, great job on all the work you do. sarah and suzanna and team, thank you so much. we appreciate being a part of it. (applause) >> thank you. >> i live around the corner on san jose avenue. (applause) i've led the jury commoners as we call ourselves since 2009 which literally means i buy the coffee. i'll stay on the thanks train or describe more parts of the thanks elephant. number one, laura who couldn't be here, who started the jury commoners in about 2004.

and started the organization that led to the work that led to us all being here. number two, in i think 2014, eric anderson, the park services manager of this area at the time got me to write a grant for the community opportunity fund, which was unsuccessful. a couple years later, mary who is right there in the purple mask wrote the grant that succeeded and that's why we're here today. (applause) super thank you to mary. and then number three, i want to thank smart folks at rec and parks, i don't think i fully know how it works but assembled with a community opportunity fund grant money from the let's

play initiative and it turned into a more substantial project and that's why the whole park is in great shape now. so what that got us, i want to point out a couple of things i'm personally super happy about. anyone who lived in the area used the old park remembers what it was like. the paths were the crater of the moon, you couldn't get through here even with wheels. it is all great now for everybody to get through here and use the whole park. and number two, a new irrigation system, the things we plant will stay alive for a little while. (applause) as a volunteer, i'm super happy about that. one more thing. if -- for everyone who is here and interested, this is not an end, this is the beginning of the next step. for everyone here interested helping keep this park in lovely

shape it is in today, find me before i go or google meet up jury commoners and you'll find us. join the group and we'll start coming and cleaning up and keeping it in good shape. thank you. (applause) i don't know who's next. >> now to the business of this thing and cut a ribbon. >> okay. are we ready? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. (applause) ♪♪♪

>> this lodge is home to some of the best fly casting pools in the world. these shallow concrete pools don't have fish. this is just a place where people come to practice their fly casting technique. ith was built in the 1930's and ever since, people have been coming here to get back to nature. every year, the world championship of fly casting is held in san francisco and visitors from all over the globe travel to be here. >> we are here with phil,

general manage of san francisco rec and parks department at the anglers lodge. what do you think about this? >> it is spectacular, travis from oregon, taught me a snake roll and a space cast. >> there are people from all over the world come to san francisco and say this is the place to be. >> yeah. it's amazing, we have teams from all over the world here today and they are thrilled. >> i flew from ireland to be here. and been practicing since for the competition. all the best casters in the world come here. my fellow countryman came in first place and james is on the current team and he is the head man. >> it's unique. will not see anything like it where you go to compete in the world. competitions in ireland,

scotland, norway, japan, russia each year, the facilities here in the park are second to none. there is no complex in the world that can touch it. >> i'm here with bob, and he has kindly agreed to tell me everything i need to know about casting. i'm going to suit up and next, we're in the water. >> what any gentleman should do. golden gate angling has free lessons the second saturday of every month. we have equipment show up on the 9:30 on the second saturday of every month and we'll teach them to fly cast. >> ok. we are in the water. >> let me acquaint you with the fly rod. >> nice to meet you. >> this is the lower grip and the upper grip. this is a reel and a fly line. we are going to use the flex of

this rod to fling away. exactly as you moved your hands. >> that's it? >> that's it. >> i'm a natural. >> push both arms forward and snap the lower hand into your tummy. push forward. >> i did gave it a try and had great time but i might need some more practice. i met someone else with real fly casting skills. her name is donna and she is an international fly casting champion. >> i have competed in the casting ponds in golden gate park in san francisco. i have been to japan and norway for fly casting competition. i spend my weekends here at the club and at the casting pond. it's a great place to learn and have fun. on a season day like this, it was the perfect spot to be.

i find fly casting very relaxing and also at the same time very challenging sport. takes me out into the nature. almost like drawing art in the air. and then i can make these beautiful loops out there. >> even though people from across the globe come here to compete, it's still a place where locals in the know relax and enjoy some rely unique scenery. until next time, get out and play! .

welcome to the september 14th meeting of the transportation authority board. i chair this board. our vice chair is aaron peskin. our clerk is brittany milton. madam clerk, will you please call the roll. >> clerk: of course. [roll call taken]