>> supervisor peskin: thank you. as usual, we are still in the middle of a pandemic. my name is aaron peskin, so i will keep my mask on. sometimes i don't think that we celebrate our victories enough, and i just want to take a little time out and celebrate something that is all the more important in the middle of this pandemic. it's something that if you are my age, not the age of, you know, officer mah there, when i grew up, we didn't have the internet, and i can't figure out how we actually all survived without it. it was kind of amazing last week, when facebook went down for six hours, and people all over the world didn't know what to do, but that is the world that we live in, and during the

pandemic, the internet became all the more important for distance learning, not only in the san francisco unified school district but in every city around the world. it became remarkably important for wellness checks. it became remarkably important just for maintaining our social connections. it became important for the board of supervisors because that's how we had our meetings, was over the internet. we were all sitting in our individual houses, isolating. but the reality is, and we all know that, that the distribution of the internet is not equitable, and we, actually interesting enough, identified that problem, not because we're smart but because the community is smart, and the community

came to us, and i want to acknowledge him in particular, calvin yan in my office. thank you, calvin, and i think we, just in time, appropriated a little bit of money, $200,000, to try to get buildings in this community hooked up. now, the city had already figured out that we had a responsibility that has been discharged and is being discharged by our incredible d.t. department to hookup low-income housing to fiber so they can get high speed internet, but in chinatown, there are literally hundreds of buildings like the one behind me here at 1351 stockton street that are not run by public housing, that are not run by city dollars, and they have terrible wifi.

and so we piloted a project, and we got d.t., who immediately started hooking up these buildings. we have now done three of them. it serves hundreds of people with high speed internet. it has been remarkable, so i just wanted to start by thanking the community for bringing this to us, thanking d.t. for doing such an awesome job. two more buildings are being hooked up, and this is, by all accounts, truly a successful program. and once we pilot something, we now the way. there are 530 single resident occupancy buildings in china down, in the tenderloin, in the mission -- in chinatown, in the tenderloin, in the mission. they primarily serve low-income residents. in chinatown, they are filled

with families, with seniors who need internet connections, with children who need internet connections, so i am hopeful that from the lessons learned in this pilot, we can spread that to the other 525 s.r.o. buildings in the city and county of san francisco. and then, let me say, before i introduce the city team, that the provide sector has responsibility here. and indeed, it's not only in the case of wifi and internet and connectivity, it has been from the old day, from the days of comcast and revision, there has been systemic discrimination as to who gets

service and it is our duty to say to the internet industry that they have a responsibility and obligation to connect everybody in every community, particularly underserved communities. so with that, it is my pleasure -- i have worked with joseph johns for 20 years. there is no job that he and his crew can't do. they roll out fiber that they lay out under these streets. i'd like to thank and welcome joseph johns. [applause] >> good morning. thank you, supervisors. i just wanted to personally thank supervisor peskin and the department, director linda [indiscernible] for the

motivation to supplement this free internet project. so far, we have done two locations in district three itself, and throughout the city, we have done about 80 locations, 7,000 total units, and we continue to do that. several years ago, i remember supervisor peskin coming to my office and reviewing the fiber deployment and motivating us to do more and more of that. actually, this project, we are now able to implement in a very cost effective, very resourceful way to put in fiber. and supervisor peskin used to advise us to put in more and more fiber. and that has helped us a lot not only in district 3, that is helping other parts of the

city, also. and we have a highly dedicated motivated team, and we are looking for opportunity to do more and more locations. and with that, i will request, i think randy will tell some of the challenges that we faced. >> randy casanes. i've worked with d.t. for 2.5 years now. i started as a summer intern, and this is the only project that i've been on, and it's truly an honor to serve the community. even though i've done four years in the marine corps, i feel like i'm still serving people here. in this pilot project, it's specifically for chinatown s.r.o.s. the challenges that my team has faced has been language barriers, and the way we overcame that was we have two new summer interns on our team

that speak mandarin and cantonese. other challenges that we faced, the conduit and fiber here in chinatown has been pretty congested, but the fiber team found ways around that. they would have to do such things as overnight work in the manholes to get across through busy intersections, and i think the last challenge is a lot of these buildings that we worked on were built in the early 1900s, and they just are not fitted with the typical infrastructure that you would put in a new building, but we over came each together, and we will continue to connect more items like this one.

>> supervisor peskin: and more importantly, we're going to hear from people whose lives have been changed by internet and wifi, someone who lives right behind here, in unit 51. [speaking native language]

[applause] >> supervisor peskin: and next, we'll hear from ms. tan from the first building that we did, which actually has a different back hall strategy than this one, which i'll leave that to the technical experts, but i just wanted randy to know that. and here's ms. tan from 833

kearney. [speaking native language]

[applause] >> supervisor peskin: johnny just texted me. he's got wifi off of this, too. so to those of you from ktsf, it's good to hear what we heard from mr. yu, that he's able to get ktsf on the internet, which he used to have to pay. none of this would have happened without the incredible work and advocacy of the chinatown community center, so i wanted to thank them for what they knew they could do, and with that, jim chan. [applause] >> thank you. good morning, everybody. my name is jen chan, and i work

for chinatown c.c.c. i want to thank the city and the department of technology for everything that they've done, from upgrading our towers to our single-room occupancies. this is an important move on the city's part as well as a very crucial step. especially throughout the pandemic, a lot of our families were stuck at home, not able to connect to the outside world, so this was a key piece in allowing our kids to continue to go to school. but for our seniors, a lot of them were home bound, and really before that, a lot of them relied on things like the internet to connect with their families on things that they

haven't been able to see. but the most important thing is now they can connect to their families, and that our families also have access to internet and this equity divide that we see that often affects communities of color, and so i just want to thank the city's partnership in that step, and i believe that this is only the beginning, and the effort that the city puts in is great. thank you. >> supervisor peskin: so d.t., take a bow. you always wonder if you allocate dollars, if you're going to see the project done in your lifetime.

but this project was done on time and in budget, and the central subway is going to be opened in a few months. those trains are going to open in a few months. we're happy to answer any questions that you may have, and if not, have a happy, healthy, prosperous rest of the week. streets. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> i wanted to wish you a best wishes and congratulations the community has shifted a lot of

when i was growing up in the 60s and 50's a good portion of chicano-american chinese-american lived in north beach a nob hill community. >> as part the immigrant family is some of the recreation centers are making people have the ability to get together and meet 0 other people if communities in the 60s a 70s and 80s and 90s saw a move to the richmond the sunset district and more recently out to the excelsior the avenue community as well as the ensuring u bayview so chinese family living all over the city and when he grape it was in this area. >> we're united. >> and growing up in the area that was a big part of the my leave you know playing

basketball and mycy took band lessons and grew up. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> allergies welcome to the community fair it kicks off three weeks of celebrations for the year and let's keep everybody safe and celebrate the biggest parade outside of china on february 11th go best wishes and congratulations and 3, 2, 1

happy enough is enough. >> i grew up volley ball education and in media professional contrary as an educator he work with all skids whether or not caucasian hispanic and i african-american cumber a lot of arrest binge kids my philosophy to work with all kids but being here and griping in the chinese community being a chinese-american is important going to american school during the day but went to chinese school that is community is important working with all the kids and having them exposed to all culture it is important to me. >> it is a mask evening. >> i'd like to thank you a you all to celebrate an installation of the days here in the asian

art museum. >> one time has become so many things in the past two centuries because of the different did i licks the immigration officer didn't understand it became no standard chinese marine or cantonese sproupgs it became so many different sounds this is convenient for the immigration officer this okay your family name so this tells the generations of immigrants where they come from and also many stories behind it too. >> and what a better way to celebrate the enough is enough nuru with the light nothing is more important at an the hope

the energy we. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> relative to the current administration it is, it is touching very worrisome for our immigrant frames you know and some of the stability in the country and i know how this new president is doing you know immigration as well as immigrants (fireworks) later than you think new year the largest holiday no asia and china those of us when my grandparents came over in the

19 hundreds and celebrated in the united states chinese nuru is traditional with a lot of meaning. >> good afternoon my name is carmen chu assessor-recorder i want to wish everything a happy new year thank you for joining us i want to say. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> (speaking foreign language.) >> i'm proud to be a native san franciscan i grew up in the

chinatown, north beach community port commission important to come back and work with those that live in the community that i grew up in and that that very, very important to give back to continue to work with the community and hope e help those who may not be as capable in under serving come back and give

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