award. representing the folks in bayview hunter's point. through the pandemic, it has been such a life lesson learning and just an experience because i experience and got covid myself. so that was just, you know, an eye opener for me just one of those things. i'm in the community. when it came down to me, i'm like, now, what do i do. that life experience and hesitancy, i know what folks and residents are experiencingment you lose someone in the community. thank you to everyone getting the vaccine. if you're not doing them if you're not thinking about getting the vaccine, find different approaches, wholistic

approaches and thank you all for this awesome experience and award. [ applause ] >> so our next honoree is father moses agud of the parishes. father organized the safe spaces and set up vaccine clinics and helped conduct online masses during shelter-in-place to help people stay connected. thank you. >> actually, i haven't prepared anything. when i used to prepare things i'd talk for two or three hours. so i just want to say thank you to the mayor and the people they are working with.

i think it's important for us for the city of san francisco as much as possible receive these and collaborate and be responsible. and i think if we can work together the benefit for the people. [ applause ] >> our next honoree is annie chung from self-help for the elderly. during a time where our seniors were struggling to get access. annie and her team stepped up to help and to get them vaccinated. annie, thank you so much for your work. [ applause ] >> thank you, mayor. and thank you dr. colfax. i accept this on behalf of our

community. l all american medical group to do all the vaccination for our home bound seniors and the seniors that couldn't come out and get vaccinated. so thank you, mayor, for all the resources that you give us as well as all the help that department of public health gave us. thank you very much. >> next up is earnest jones for the southwest community corporation. >> happy birthday! >> it's your birthday too? well, happy birthday. earnest led in areas where we needed to set up testing and vaccine clinics for people who could not make it all the way down to mosconi and other sites. thank you for being an unsung

hero. [ applause ] >> just to be really brief and quick, i want to give a shout-out and thank you to the covid command center and the leadership of our city. aaron geoffrey at the time did an amazing job at the time. beyond that, it was a supportive effort. this is for all of lakeview. the community came together and worked together to make sure everyone was safe and that was because of the love that everybody has for their community. thank you for your leadership and thank you for the work. [ applause ] >> next up is berta hernandez with dph, department of public health. berta was with a local nonprofit that helped our latino families get access to what they needed.

berta, thank you for being there and everywhere and thank you for being an unsung hero. [ applause ] >> thank you everybody. i am very proud of my community. the community i belong to was more hard hit in the beginning of the pandemic. we lost people, many were sick. many lose their jobs and even had the resources to be quarantined. so it's at the same time, i'm so proud of the community because everybody was able to come together and to look for each other and not let anyone behind, so we were able to survive. i'm so thankful to my newco

workers at d.p.s. and i'm so proud of them. thank you. [ applause ] >> all right. our next honoree is felicia thibedeau. she has helped get more than a 1,000 people vaccinated by referring them to vaccine clinics. thank you for being an unsung hero. [ applause ] >> thank you to mayor breed, dr. colfax, the dph staff and to the wellness hub. the we rock. that would be i.c.y., win, mary

harris omicpp our kids first and african american early childhood educators. together, we partner with our resources. they work hard, they bust, they rock. thank you everyone. [ applause ] . >> next up is isabella ventura with ryan martin health services. isabella's been on the front lines as a primary care provider and helps support our lgbtqi communities and especially our transgender residents to help get access to covid resources. thank you for your work. [ applause ] >> on behalf of my team, i'd like to thank dr. colfax and mayor breed for your amazing

work. thank you for your dedication and your dedication to provide health -- quality health services to our marginalized and underserved population here in san francisco. and thank you dph for this recognition. thank you. [ applause ] >> our next honoree is monica worked on street outreach medical teams to help people experiencing homelessness. monica, thank you for your work. >> so i'm so grateful to the city of san francisco and especially to you, mayor breed because you guys believed in science, you put that first and put everybody's well being in priority and i'm so grateful for that because we were able

to go to the streets and help the misunderstood populations and we were able to take this head-on. so thank you so much and thank you for this award. [ applause ] >> and our final honoree today is gwendelyn westbrook. i think as so many people know here to address food induring the pandemic. emblem attic of our wholistic approach. congratulations and thank you. >> everybody knows how much i love them especially people at

united council. i want to thank everybody who helped me, even the ones i had to chase down to make you get your shots. it's all good. the mayor, she knows how much i love her. we've got a girls group and we're all so proud of you. this has been a very difficult task, but without the team that we built that united council which includes maestro curtis and the c-notes. helping us get the word out. making sure people in the community knew we were out there to give food. he did all that. him and his wife and dhirn supported united council and i have so much love for all of them. my staff, you guys are the most remarkable people in san francisco. you never took a day off. you worked your tails off, we

stepped up and we worked as a team. we know the team work makes the dream work and that's what we did in bayview hunter's point. that not having any cases of covid at united council with as many people we serve is because of you. it's because you guys were diligent to the cause. we knew what we had to do and i'll be darned if we didn't get it done. i am so proud of all of you. this award is for us, for all of us, not just me because like i have always told you, i couldn't do it alone. so i'm up here accept. thank you, mayor.

>> well, gwenyth and maestro and the c-notes. i'm sure you caught them on america's got talent. the world i had to tell shamman, not the bayview. we even served the whole city, but they were born and raised in the fillmore. they're doing great things we have all these incredible people. just saying thank you. we are here to appreciate them and recognize them. we're grateful for their service and i'll tell you, whether there was a pandemic or

not, whether there was an award or not, these are the people still on the ground doing the hard work every day and so we appreciate them so much and grateful that they came out and we're here to celebrate and uplift you and thank you all so much. it's a true blessing to the people of san francisco. [ applause ]

>> in 201,755.7 million passengers traveled through san francisco international airport. we have on average 150,000 people traveling through the airport every day. flying can be stressful so we have introduced therapy dogs to

make flying more enjoyable. the wag brigade is a partnership between the airport and the san francisco therapy animal assistant program to bring therapy animals into the airport, into the terminals to make passenger travel more enjoyable. i amgen fer casarian and i work here at san francisco international airport. the idea for therapy dogs got started the day after 9/11. an employee brought his therapy dog to work after 9/11 and he was able to see how his dog was able to relieve passenger's jitter. when we first launched the program back in 2013, our main goal was to destress our passengers however what we quickly found is that our animals were helping us find a

way to connect with our pang. passengers. we find there are a lot of people traveling through the airport who are missing their pets and who are on their road a lot and can't have pets and we have come in contact with a lot of people recently who have lost pet. >> i love the wag brigade. >> one of my favorite parts is walking into the terminals and seeing everybody look up from their device, today everybody is interacting on their cell phone or laptop and we can walk into the terminal with a dog or a pig and people start to interact with each other again and it's on a different level. more of an emotional level. >> i just got off an 11.5 hour

flight and nice to have this distraction in the middle of it. >> we look for wag brigade handlers who are comfortable in stressful situations. >> i like coming to airport it's a lot of fun and the people you talk to are generally people who are missing their dogs. >> they are required to compete a certification process. and they are also required to complete a k9 good citizen test and we look for animals who have experienced working with other organizations such as hospitals and pediatric units and we want to be sure that the animals we are bringing into the airport are good with children and also good with some of our senior travelers. i think toby really likes meeting kids. that is his favorite thing.

he likes to have them pet him and come up to him and he really loves the kids. >> our wag brigade animals can be spotted wearing custom vets and they have custom patches. >> there is never a day that repeats itself and there is never and encounter that repeats itself. we get to do maximum good in a small stretch of time and i have met amazing people who have been thrilled to have the interaction. >> the dogs are here seven days a week, we have 20 dogs and they each come for a two hour shift. >> there is a lot of stress when people have traveling so to from these animals around to ease the stress and help people relax a little bit. i think it's great. >> one of our dogs has special

need and that is tristine. he wears a wheel around. >> he has special shoes and a harness and we get it together in the parking lot and then we get on the air train. he loves it. little kids love him because he is a little lower to the ground so easy to reach and he has this big furry head they get to pet and he loves that. >> he doesn't seem to mind at all. probably one of the happiest dogs in the world. >> many people are nervous when they travel but seeing the dogs is just a wonderful relief. >> what i absolutely love most about it is the look on people's faces, so whenever they are stressed and flying is stressful these days you get these wonderful smile.

>> i am the mom of lilo the pig and she is san francisco's first therapy pig. >> lilo joined the wag brigade as our first pig. >> wag brigade invited us to join the program here and we have done it about a year-and-a-half ago. our visits last 1.5 to 2 hours and it does take a little bit longer to get out of the terminal because we still get a lot of attention and a lot of people that want to interact with lilo. >> i feel honored to be part of the wag brigade. it's very special to meet so many people and make so many feel happy and people that work

here. it's been a great experience for me and a great experience for to toby. >> it's been an extremely successful program, so the next time you are here, stop by and say hi. >> he is a real leader that listens and knows how to bring people together. brought this department together like never before. i am so excited to be swearing in the next chief of the san francisco fire department, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome, jeanine nicholson.

(applause). >> i grew up total tomboy, athlete. i loved a good crisis, a good challenge. i grew up across the street from the fire station. my dad used to take me there to vote. i never saw any female firefighters because there weren't any in the 1970s. i didn't know i could be a fire fighter. when i moved to san francisco in 1990, some things opened up. i saw women doing things they hadn't been doing when i was growing up. one thing was firefighting. a woman recruited me at the gay-pride parade in 1991. it was a perfect fit.

i liked using my brain, body, working as a team, figuring things out, troubleshooting and coming up with different ways to solve a problem. in terms of coming in after another female chief, i don't think anybody says that about men. you are coming in after another man, chief, what is that like. i understand why it is asked. it is unusual to have a woman in this position. i think san francisco is a trailblazer in that way in terms of showing the world what can happen and what other people who may not look like what you think the fire chief should look like how they can be successful. be asked me about being the first lbgq i have an understands because there are little queer kids that see me.

i worked my way up. i came in january of 1994. i built relationships over the years, and i spent 24 years in the field, as we call it. working out of firehouses. the fire department is a family. we live together, eat together, sleep in the same dorm together, go to crazy calls together, dangerous calls and we have to look out for one another. when i was burned in a fire years ago and i felt responsible, i felt awful. i didn't want to talk to any of my civilian friends. they couldn't understand what i was going through. the firefighters knew, they understood. they had been there. it is a different relationship. we have to rely on one another. in terms of me being the chief of the department, i am really trying to maintain an open relationship with all of our members in the field so myself

and my deputy chiefs, one of the priorities i had was for each of us to go around to different fire stations to make sure we hit all within the first three or four months to start a conversation. that hasn't been there for a while. part of the reason that i am getting along well with the field now is because i was there. i worked there. people know me and because i know what we need. i know what they need to be successful. >> i have known jeanine nicholson since we worked together at station 15. i have always held her in the highest regard. since she is the chief she has infused the department with optimism. she is easy to approach and is concerned with the firefighters and paramedics. i appreciate that she is concerned with the issues

relevant to the fire department today. >> there is a retired captain who started the cancer prevention foundation 10 years ago because he had cancer and he noticed fellow firefighters were getting cancer. he started looking into it. in 2012 i was diagnosed with breast canner, and some of my fellow firefighters noticed there are a lot of women in the san francisco fire department, premenopausal in their 40s getting breast cancer. it was a higher rate than the general population. we were working with workers comp to make it flow more easily for our members so they didn't have to worry about the paper work when they go through chemo.

the turnout gear was covered with suit. it was a badge to have that all over your coat and face and helmet. the dirtier you were the harder you worked. that is a cancer causeser. it -- casser. it is not -- cancer causer. there islassic everywhere. we had to reduce our exposure. we washed our gear more often, we didn't take gear where we were eating or sleeping. we started decontaminating ourselves at the fire scene after the fire was out. going back to the fire station and then taking a shower. i have taught, worked on the decontamination policy to be sure that gets through. it is not if or when. it is who is the next person. it is like a cancer sniper out

there. who is going to get it next. one of the things i love about the fire department. it is always a team effort. you are my family. i love the city and department and i love being of service. i vow to work hard -- to work hard to carry out the vision of the san francisco fire department and to move us forward in a positive way. if i were to give a little advice to women and queer kids, find people to support you. keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying. you never know what door is going to open next. you really don't. [cheers and

go morning, welcome to the rules committee for san francisco. i am chair aaron peskin joined by mandelman and chan. mr. young, do you have any announcements? >> the minutes will reflect the committee members are participating through video conference to the same extent as if present. public access to city services is essential. public comment will be available on each item on the agenda