you're welcome here. and it's sort of the classic san francisco thing is that you work with folks. >> it is your duty to help everybody in san francisco. >> hello everybody. i'm san francisco mayor london breed. i'm here at the 911 center with a number of our public safety

leaders in the city including director of the department of emergency management, mary ellen carol, dr. grant colfax, our fire chief jeanine nicholson. and chief deputy lizar and we're here just to talk with a number of our dispatchers here at the 911 center and i just want to thank the dispatchers and the people who are part of this center because i think what people don't realize is every single day, 24 hours a day, the people who work in this building, they are fielding calls on a regular basis of people that sometimes sadly are experiencing one of the worst times in their lives and they're looking for help. and these folks in this building who show up time and time again for us despite the

pandemic, despite everything that's been going on in this city for the past year and a half. they've been here. they are wearing their mask and doing their jobs and they're showing up for san francisco. so i want to that our 911 dispatchers and their hard work and commitment to san francisco. we just heard back from a number of things they, of course, want to see change and they want the public to be aware that when they call and you call 911, they hear a lot of calls and they know what is available and what's important for everyone to know is i know folks are asking i want a paramedic or a want a police officer or i want the street crisis response team. well, ultimately, they need to understand what is going on in the scene to the best of their ability. and they are able to make decisions baseded on what they hear from you. ultimately, it's about public

safety and they can't just send anyone into any situation without making sure that they understand what's going on and often times our police department are the first line of defense around issues that involve public safety and when you're able to dig a little bit deeper sometimes, they recommend the street crisis response team or a paramedic. ultimately, the men and women who work here every single day, they've heard a huge range of things and they as far as i'm concerned are the experts and the best judge of what is most appropriate to send when you call 911. so trust them. many of them have been working here for 10, over 20 years and have heard a number of calls from a number of people and so we are here to express our pre-for their hard work and ask the people of san francisco when you call 911, please respect and trust our

dispatchers. today, we're also celebrating one year of our street crisis response team and so i know simon peng and others are here with us and the behavioral health teams from the department of public health, i mean this was what some considereded a crazy idea bringing all these city agencies together to respond to the crisis that sometimes people are having on our streets. and the fact is there's not a one-size-fits-all. there are people suffering from schizophrenia. there are people who suffer from behavioral health issues and substance use disorder and it's complicated and sometimes people are violent, sometimes they're not. i went on a ride with the street crisis response team and, you know, it took about an hour to even get to a point where we could actually get that person over to general hospital. we had to unfortunately do a

72-hour hold, 51-50 that individual because of their behavior and even if they didn't have a weapon and weren't going to harm themselves, going in and out of traffic where a car could potentially hit them or that person in the car who hits them could be harmed themselves with a real problem and so they have to use their own expertise, their own judgment to decide what is best for the individual they are trying to serve. and this program came about in trying to find a nonpolice response to things that don't require a police response. we have a lot of challenges in san francisco and we truly appreciate and value our police department and the work that they do to serve and protect the people of this city. but we also understand that there are some calls that they are not necessarily needed and so my preference is that when

the dispatchers get the call, they make the decision sometimes for there to be the street crisis response team or a police officer or a paramedic depending on the situation. and so this program has been in existence for years. they've answered thousands of calls. they helped divert people to some of our behavioral health beds which you all know. we have expanded significantly and there's a commitment from this past year's budget to increase the number of beds by an additional 400. we're already over 200 additional behavioral health beds and we plan to do more. the goal is to make sure that when we engage with members of the public who are struggling and having challenges, behavioral health related issues, we are able to have a place for them to go and sometimes that's not always the emergency room. so we know there are complex problems and complex solutions

and other challenges that our city as a major, as a major city, that's a very dense city, we know there are problems and challenges we have to face, but i've got to say, i'm so very proud and grateful to all of our public safety officials who are doing the work on the ground to try and keep people safe. i'm grateful to them for showing up and despite dealing with some of the most challenging of circumstances every single day, they still show up. so when you see our firefighters, our police officers, our paramedics, anyone wearing a city uniform in any way, just give them a smile and thank them for their service because they are doing the hard work day in and day out to deal with the challenges that exist in this city. so thank you again everyone for being here. we celebrate and we're grateful to our street crisis response team. we're grateful to our police officers and our firefighters and our department of public

health officials, our doctors, our nurses, our clinicians. all of the people who were extraordinary and helped us through this pandemic. we are so fortunate to have so many extraordinary public servants in this city. and now, with that i'd like to introduce the director of the department of emergency management mary ellen carol. >> thank you mayor breed. i really appreciate the fact that you took time to come in today. we got some feedback on the implementation of the skirt teams and some of the other teams and we're super grateful for that. i just want to thank my colleagues, dr. colfax, chief

nicholson, of course, deputy chief lizar for your support and commitment to developing alternatives for people in crisis. the role of emergency management is to provide coordination and there is no significant crisis than what we see of the the tragedy happening on our streets. this includes overseeing multi-department operations. we need to unify all of these different groups to figure out are we doing this most efficiently. are we getting the results that we need and ultimately our goal is to improve the conditions on the streets and the sidewalks and our conditions. just to reiterate, we have

increasingly more resources at our disposal to aid people working on the streets. again, to echo the mayor, we need to trust their expertise. please do not hesitate to call 911 or a nonemergency if there's an emergency and provide the information that these trained professionals are asking for. they care deeply about this city and they want to get the information out and the help out and their frustrations they indicated is they're going to have to get into these arguments to call in to get the information. we want to get the help to the persona needs it as quickly as possible. and so that starts with calling 911 and responding to the prompt so we can get that help out quickly. the emergency management side of d.m., we are drawing on our

experiences. the development of all the relationships that we've had and the expertise that we developed to help our department partners here really effectively utilize the resources and work towards those common goals and outcomes. san francisco is a leader in developing and implementing ultimate response teams for people in crisis. and we at the department of emergency management are honoreded to be able to help coordinate these efforts and bring our best outcomes for the people of san francisco. right now, are i'd like to introduce my colleague, dr. colfax, the leader of the department of public health. >> good morning everybody. thank you director carol. hi, everyone. it's great to be with you here today and i want to thank mayor breed for her tremendous

leadership. san francisco is fundamentally changing how we serve people in crisis and leading the nation on how we respond to health care needs with health care response. and thank you, mayor breed and partners for helping us do this. i want to thank director carol and the 911 dispatchers to ensure they apply the most appropriate and compassionate response is provided to people in need and this includes people experiencing nonviolent mental health or substance use disorders to the best response the street crisis response team. our community paramedics, mental health with lived experience together have a range of specialty skills to engage in crisis and address a person's immediate needs for care, treatment, and shelter. skirt is truly a collaboration. as you know, staffing comes

from the department of public health and, of course, fire as well as our wonderful community partners health right 360 and rams. and the first year, skirt responded to over 5,000 calls. those 5,000 calls in emergency visits a decrease in ambulance rides and a decrease in law enforcement responding to nonviolent calls and most importantly, an opportunity to connect san franciscans with those most appropriate services. skirt is supported by a dedicated followup team within 24 hours of the initial encounter. nearly a third of all people are successfully reengaged with followup care such as being connected to a provider or treatment facility. this is really about meeting people where they are and tailoring our response. if you have a person on the street in a skriesz, even the

skirt team to wrap around that person, that's an important step. you don't want to crowd that person. so the pier counselor will go out and engage that person one on one saying i've been here before. i have that lived experience. how do i share my experience and engage the broader team. they can transport that person to places like humming bird, our low barrier care. that low barrier care. getting that person off the street, linking them to care. skirt is part of our larger effort to bring our response to the community. our community based teams like skirt and overdose response team are removing access to care, treatment, and services. and i want to make one more plug, if you see someone in crisis, please call 911 to describe what you are seeing and somebody will be there. now, it's my pleasure to introduce a great leader, partner, and collaborator in this response, chief nicholson.

thank you. >> thanks, dr. colfax. yes, i just want to say thank you, mayor breed for trusting us in the fire department to take on this critical role with the department of public health and others. as you may have heard, street crisis response team, we also call it "skirt." i want to give a shout out to some of the people here on the street crisis response team. we have a community paramedic that has more training than a regular paramedic. they're trained in de-escalation. they can redirect people to other services and a mental health professional from public health and as dr. colfax said, a peer support person. in terms of the 5,000 calls we

have gone on and of the folks we have gone out to help, 40% of them have accepted help and transport to a psychiatric facility. that does not include people that we have had to 51-50. but this is an extremely successful program. we're working out all the creaks. but we look forward to it. chief simon peng, if you have any specific questions, he is here as well. thank you all for being here today and, again, a big shout out to our street crisis response team and i would like to introduce our partner of safety, deft chief lazar.

>> thank you, chief nicholson. what else can be said? first on behalf of chief scott and the entire san francisco police department, i want to thank our mayor london breed who back in 2020 was looking at policing and looking at the role of police. and really, it was her vision that said, you know, we need to take this important issue of helping and assisting the mentally ill more away from the police and more towards professionals who are trained and go to school and are prepared to deal with the challenges on our streets and that's involved to what we see today. we have a lot to celebrate in one year and as you can hear, that's 5,300 calls to police who are sometimes there, but we're not there to do the intervention and to help people. and so that is a lot to be

unlike other cities in america, the police and fire like each other and we're friends with each other and and maintains the building. and the last thing i want to say is i want to thank our san francisco police officers. just like mayor breed has shown tremendous support. i want to thank them as well on behalf of the chief and the department for what they do every day working to help and serve the public and provide public safety in the city. thank you very much. >> i want to thank paul miamoto, but the people who

secure i want to thank them for their services as well. with that, i want to open it up to any questions. >> i believe this was a week before thanksgiving. i'm curious if there are plans to services and how they. >> well, i think what we've been doing around deescalation for the most part has been working and our police officers have a job to do when they're called to protect public safety. the chief last week showed the video and provided input. it's an ongoing investigation. there will be an independent investigation, but it appears that, you know, the training and what the officers learn to do around deescalation were

implemented in this particular case. and so there's an ongoing investigation in this case but at the end of the day, i'm grateful for the work that we have done in san francisco around deescalation and around the ability to identify and work towards a solution in most of these situations and this was an unfortunate situation that occurred, but i think that our officers handling themselves appropriately. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> i think it's hard to say because people have struggled with mental illness since the

beginning of time. and the fact is we as a society, as a city, as a state, as a country, we have not handled it very well. we are doing the best that we can within the laws that we have. but one very important law that is missing in order to really see and feel the difference has everything to do with force and that means forcing someone into treatment, forcing someone into some cases, you know, a locked or unlocked facility based on what their issues are. and so there's a huge push around we don't want to take away someone's rights and i totally understand it. i'm going to tell you right now. i see elderly people on the streets who have dementia. who have no family members. who have no one making decisions for them and then when we take them into our care and we try to get them help and support and make sure they're not outside doing things that they would not normally do if they didn't have dmen can. as soon as they say, i want to

go. i don't want to be here we have to honor that and so the system is broken as a whole and needs to be changed. and so we don't necessarily unfortunately have the local jurisdiction to make those changes. we need a change in state law and we need a change in this country about how we address mental illness whether it's those suffering from substance use disorder or dementia, schizophrenia and all these other ailments that may impact the mind in a way. my hope is that what we are trying to do is we're trying to manage the situation as best that we can within the laws that we have. we can't force someone to stay in our care. we can't force someone to stay in a treatment bed. we cannot force someone to behave in a certain way. there's a number of layers that go into that and so we are

still missing the most important layer to see in a real difference a lot faster in our city. you mean sheriff. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> work off duty in the private sector. i think at the end of the day, it's a sad state of what we're living in terms of what we are

seeing with these mob style robberies and a number of other the burglaries, the car briek-ins, all of the things that and the people in this city want to change they're not coming back. so it's going to impact our bottom line and the ability to pay for all of these problems to help homeless and mentally ill. it's going to impact our city as a whole. so that line of defense with our police department, our sheriff's deputies is going to be critical. a critical piece to helping to maintain safety. that's just what it is. yes, we have our ambassadors. yes, we have different responses to calls that people make to 911. yes, we are trying to make the reforms and to ensure that the

appropriate interactions take place with law enforcement in san francisco. but at the end of the day, people want police officers, they want to make sure that our streets are safe and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that they are. and that's part of it. and by expanding the ability for sheriff's deputies to work off duty at these various locations, that's only going to enhance public safety and i am fully in support of that. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> i'll let dr. colfax talk about that. we probably won't be able to relax right away. . it means that we don't know just like with covid when it first happened, we didn't know specifically the impacts. we don't know yet, we don't

know when it will be in san francisco. but the likelihood it will be here is likely but we are paying for close attention to this. we are working with a number of health experts all over the country and ultimately what has been said time and time again, get your vaccine and do everything you can to make sure you are protected. even if we see this is worse than the delta variant, you do have a layer of protection with the existing vaccine, but there may be more needed as well. so we just don't know what we don't know, but as soon as we know, our plan is to make sure the public knows everything that we know. dr. colfax, did you want to add to that?

last question. good. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> yes. first of all, let me just say i'm a big supporter of night life and going out in san francisco. and there are rules and number of regulations put in place in a number of establishments. number one, you have to have a mask. number three, when you go to the restroom, you have to have a mask and i was in a private area with my drinks, with the people i was with enjoying myself at a venue and i had a great time and i followed the appropriate protocols, and, yes, i was dancing, and, yes, i was drinking and having fun and at the end of the day, i am doing everything i can to follow the existing protocols and i think sadly sometimes

these videos are taken out of perspective. i took pictures who wanted to take pictures with me. i am out there in the public not just supporting night life, but out there at our restaurants, shopping at various locations doing what i feel as mayor i should be doing but also as a human being who's been through a global pandemic who did everything i could to make sure that the people of this city were safe which is why it's no coincidence we not only have one of the lowest death rates in any major city in the country. so i'm doing my job and i am following these protocolonel colonels. what i've said to people time and time again that we need to do our very best. in a room full of vaccinated people. so that's what i have to say about it. i'm going to continue to support our night life and go out and enjoy myself as someone who is a single woman living in

a major city who is having fun, but i want to be clear, i'm not out there making the rules and then not following them. so it is just not fair to try and take a snip of a video which i knew was done by somebody who was at my table and use that as a way to indicate it's something other than what it is doing exactly what i would expect anyone else to do when they're out at a night life venue drinking and dancing and partying and having a good time. thank you.

>> 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 >> when i look at an old neon sign that's working or not working, i feel the family business that was in there. >> since 2009, citywide, sf shines, has supported businesses and sites like the ones that receive new neon signs. >> you know, sf shines is doing an amazing job to bring back the lighting and the neon glow of san francisco. >> sf shines is such an amazing program, and i can't think of another program in another city

that gives matching gunned funds to store owners, mom and pop owners, and if they've got a neon sign, they've really got a great way to advertise their business. >> this is a continuation of the sf shines program. >> focusing other neon signs is relatively new to us. of the seven neon signs, we've invested about $145,000. >> a good quality sign costs more, but it lasts infinitily longer. as opposed to lasting five years, a good neon sign will last 15 to 20 years. >> in san francisco, the majority of neon signs are for mom-and-pop businesses. in order to be able to restore these signs, i think it gives

back to your community. >> part of the project has to do with prioritizing certain signs in the neighborhood based on their aesthetics, based on their current signs, and base on the history. in the time that we've been here, we've seen a number of signs restored just on eddy street. >> there are a number of signs in the tenderloin and many more that are waiting or wanting to be restored. i have worked with randall and al, and we've mapped out every single one of them and rated them as to how much work they would need to get restored. that information is passed onto sf shines, and they are going to rank it. so if they have x budget for a year, they can say all right, we're going to pick these five, and they're putting together clusters, so they build on top of what's already there. >> a cluster of neon signs is

sort of, i guess, like a cluster of grapes. when you see them on a corner or on a block, it lights up the neighborhood and creates an ambient glow. if you havy got two of three of them, you've created an atmosphere that's almost like a movie set. >> some of the hotel, we've already invested in to get those neon signs for people to enjoy at night include the elk hotel, jefferson hotel, the verona, not to mention some we've done in chinatown, as well as the city's portal neighborhood. >> we got the fund to restore it. it took five months, and the biggest challenge was it was completely infested with pigeons. once we got it clean, it came out beautiful. >> neon signs are often equated with film noir, and the noir

genre as seen through the hollywood lens basically depicted despair and concentration. >> you would go downtown and see the most recent humphrey bogart film filled with neon in the background. and you'd see that on market street, and as market street got seedier and seedier and fewer people continued to go down, that was what happened to all the neon strips of light. >> the film nori might start with the light filled with neon signs, and end with a scene with a single neon sign blinking and missing a few

letters. >> one of my favorite scenes, orson welles is chasing rita hayworth with neon signs in the background. >> i think what the office of economic and workforce development is very excited with is that we'll be able to see more neon signs in a concentrated way lit up at night for visitors and most especially residents. the first coin laundry, the elm hotel, the western hotel are ones that we want to focus on in the year ahead. >> neon signs are so iconic to certain neighborhoods like the hara, like the nightcap. we want to save as many historic and legacy neon signs in san francisco, and so do

they. we bring the expertise, and they bring the means to actually get the job done. >> people in tenderloin get really excited as they see the signs relit. as you're driving through the tenderloin or the city, it pretty much tells you something exciting is happening here. >> knee an was created to make the night more friendly and advertise businesses. it's a great way of supporting and helping local businesses. >> there's so many ways to improve public safety. the standard way is having more eyes on the street, but there's other culturally significant ways to do that, and one those ways is lighting up the streets. but what better way and special way to do that is by having old, historic neon signs lighting up our streets at night and casting away our shadows. >> when i see things coming back to life, it's like remembering how things were. it's remembering the hotel or

the market that went to work seven days a week to raise their money or to provide a service, and it just -- it just -- it just

>> i view san francisco almost as a sibling or a parent or something. i just love the city. i love everything about it. when i'm away from it, i miss it like a person. i grew up in san francisco kind of all over the city. we had pretty much the run of the city 'cause we lived pretty close to polk street, and so we would -- in the summer, we'd all all the way down to aquatic park, and we'd walk down to the library, to the kids' center. in those days, the city was safe and nobody worried about us running around. i went to high school in spring valley. it was over the hill from chinatown. it was kind of fun to experience being in a minority, which most white people don't get to experience that often. everything was just really within walking distance, so it make it really fun.

when i was a teenager, we didn't have a lot of money. we could go to sam wong's and get super -- soup for $1. my parents came here and were drawn to the beatnik culture. they wanted to meet all of the writers who were so famous at the time, but my mother had some serious mental illness issues, and i don't think my father were really aware of that, and those didn't really become evident until i was about five, i guess, and my marriage blew up, and my mother took me all over the world. most of those ad ventures ended up bad because they would end up hospitalized. when i was about six i guess, my mother took me to japan, and that was a very interesting trip where we went over with a

boyfriend of hers, and he was working there. i remember the open sewers and gigantic frogs that lived in the sewers and things like that. mostly i remember the smells very intensely, but i loved japan. it was wonderful. toward the end. my mother had a breakdown, and that was the cycle. we would go somewhere, stay for a certain amount of months, a year, period of time, and she would inevitably have a breakdown. we always came back to san francisco which i guess came me some sense of continuity and that was what kept me sort of stable. my mother hated to fly, so she would always make us take ships places, so on this particular occasion when i was, i think, 12, we were on this ship getting ready to go through the panama canal, and she had a breakdown on the ship. so she was put in the brig, and i was left to wander the ship until we got to fluorfluora few

days later, where we had a distant -- florida a few days later, where we had a distant cousin who came and got us. i think i always knew i was a writer on some level, but i kind of stopped when i became a cop. i used to write short stories, and i thought someday i'm going to write a book about all these ad ventures that my mother took me on. when i became a cop, i found i turned off parts of my brain. i found i had to learn to conform, which was not anything i'd really been taught but felt very safe to me. i think i was drawn to police work because after coming from such chaos, it seemed like a very organized, but stable environment. and even though things happening, it felt like putting order on chaos and that felt

very safe to me. my girlfriend and i were sitting in ve 150d uvio's bar, and i looked out the window and i saw a police car, and there was a woman who looked like me driving the car. for a moment, i thought i was me. and i turned to my friend and i said, i think i'm supposed to do this. i saw myself driving in this car. as a child, we never thought of police work as a possibility for women because there weren't any until the mid70's, so i had only even begun to notice there were women doing this job. when i saw here, it seemed like this is what i was meant to do. one of my bosses as ben johnson's had been a cop, and he -- i said, i have this weird idea that i should do this. he said, i think you'd be good. the department was forced to hire us, and because of all of

the posters, and the big recruitment drive, we were under the impression that they were glad to have us, but in reality, most of the men did not want the women there. so the big challenge was constantly feeling like you had to prove yourself and feeling like if you did not do a good job, you were letting down your entire gender. finally took an inspector's test and passed that and then went down to the hall of justice and worked different investigations for the rest of my career, which was fun. i just felt sort of buried alive in all of these cases, these unsolved mysteries that there were just so many of them, and some of them, i didn't know if we'd ever be able to solve, so my boss was able to get me out of the unit. he transferred me out, and a couple of weeks later, i found out i had breast cancer. my intuition that the job was killing me. i ended up leaving, and by then, i had 28 years or the

years in, i think. the writing thing really became intense when i was going through treatment for cancer because i felt like there were so many parts that my kids didn't know. they didn't know my story, they didn't know why i had a relationship with my mother, why we had no family to speak of. it just poured out of me. i gave it to a friend who is an editor, and she said i think this would be publishable and i think people would be interested in this. i am so lucky to live here. i am so grateful to my parents who decided to move to the city. i am so grateful they did. that it neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

>> president bleiman: public comment will be available on every agenda item on the agenda. both channel 26 and sfgovtv.org are streaming the number across the screen. each member will be allowed two minutes to speak. opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available using the platform