check one two. it's that time. first, let me introduce phil ginsburg, the general manager of park and rec is going to introduce the mayor. let's welcome phil ginsburg. >> happy holidays everybody. >> welcome back after a really difficult couple of years. welcome back to golden gate park. it's crazy out here. first thing i want to do is let's hear it for our

incredible mc. unique. all right. so my job is to welcome you all to the annual lighting of our beloved uncle john tree and the kickoff of the lights. brought to you by the recreation and parks department. the san francisco parks alliance, illuminating the conservatory of flowers and the national memorial grow. all right. i only have about 20 more minutes. it will be good. so let's talk about how important this celebration is. this special v.i.p. i'm going to bring up in a second has

been lighting holiday trees and and menoras all over the city for a week. there's only one city holiday tree and it's right behind you. let me tell you a little bit about this tree because to understand this tree, to understand our city and to understand golden gate park. this tree, uncle john's tree named after john mclaren who was the longest serving parks director in city history, 56 years. madam mayor, do you know the second? uncle john's tree is a cyprus and it was planted in 1986. of the that's 125 years ago.

this ceremony tonight this ceremony tonight has been going on since 1930 which is the first time this tree was lit. so we are here on its 91st year which is pretty mazing. and madam mayor has been coming to this tree lighting since 1970 started by mayor liota. for 51 years. that's longer than the mayor's been alive. so with that history in mind, golden gate park is always magical during the holiday season and this year, madam mayor, it's bigger and better than ever. so let me tell you, let me walk you all we're going to light the tree. afterward, we're going to walk down to that music concourse

for part two to see the magic. one of the most popular installations of all timeses, this is an illuminated meadow of interchanging lights. it's fantastic. right across from intwined and a little closer to us is the circle of light and it did it just two nights ago and you see the conservatory of flowers. and then you keep walking past how many people went on the sled tonight. let's give it up for the recreation and parks department. and then we keep going and all the trees around jfk, they're all lit up and then we work our way into the music concourse and there's doing to be free

music on that big old 150' ferris wheel is lit up. that's how we celebrate the holidays in san francisco. all right. so a few thank yous and i'm going to bring up the woman who's in charge of lighting this tree, but i want to thank all of our wonderful artists and performers, charles is here. of the joshua hubert has lit up all the trees. oliver did the circle of lights. dana king who did the incredible exhibit monumental reckoning and the music concord, ben davis who's here. i want to thank you to all our partners and then behind me, we had some amazing people the

incredible department heads. our entire recreation and park commission. our staff who worked so hard to put this on and then a special thank you to our parks program. in our san francisco police department and offer safe spaces. that's what parks are. safe spaces. healthy recreations for park visitors of all ages, for building jobs and leadership skills boosting college readiness and giving kids a good time. over the last four years, rec and park has hired 100 kids from our park program in just four years. we have 100 kids working for us, but tonight, they're only job is to help us with the

count down. our park champion and chief. she's everywhere. she's keeping people working. she's keeping people happy because she loves the fun and she loves her parks and she's been all over the last couple of weeks lighting trees. but tonight, madam mayor is the night. so give it up for our mayor. the honorable london breed. >> first of all, i don't think i've ever seen this many people at this tree lighting and it just makes me so happy because as you know last year, we couldn't come together in the same way, but we're here to celebrate the holidays and it just takes me back to when i was a kid and i used to beg my grandma, please, mom, i want

this doll for christmas and please, mom, can we go downtown to woolworth where we can get toys and have fun and my grandmother would say only if you did good. only if you did your homework, only if you listen. and i tried my best. i did the best i could. but during the holiday season, i can't help but think of the memories when i was a kid and what the time that i spent in san francisco and looking at the kids here now and thinking about the memories that they're creating. they're going to remember the days that they came here with mom and dad and grandma and uncles and just a different program to light this tree. so just remember this moment, remember where you are and remember who you were with because today, we're creating memories. and i want to take this opportunity to really thank the rec and parks department for all the work in this pandemic.

let me tell you. this pandemic has been hard on so many of us and because our parks were still open and available to us, it was really the only sanity i'm sure many of us had especially the parents and i want to thank them for their work and all the commissioners that are here. thank you to the families and all the people in san francisco. last but not least, before we light this tree i know we're tired of hearing talk, i just want to say we're at 70% of san franciscans vaccinated. so i am really excited about continuing to re-open our city. continuing to enjoy the holidays. so at this time, it is time to light the largest tree in san francisco to celebrate the holidays.

happy holidays, mayor christmas, happy hanukkah and all the holidays in between. phil, can we get this thing starting? count it down. you can help me count it down. okay. are we ready? we're going to start at 10 and count backwards. are we ready? all right. ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! turn the switch! happy holidays everyone.

hi everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i know that many of

you have been anxious to hear what's happening with this new omicron variant. the coronavirus and we're here today to talk about and announce that here in the city and county of san francisco under the university of california san francisco and our partnership with the department of public health using the latest of technology, we have discovered our first case not only here in san francisco but the entire country and i wanted to at this time introduce dr. grant colfax to talk about the specifics and what that means in terms of what we need to do as a city. dr. colfax. >> thank you, mayor breed. good morning everybody and thank you, mayor breed, for your ongoing leadership during this pandemic. and i want to thank our partners at u.c.s.f. and

especially dr. charles chiu and his team and i'd also like to thank our testing partner dr. scott topper. both are here today. and, of course my partner dr. mary ellen carol. all of us have been working in the last 24 hours with our state and federal partners at cdc and the state department of health to determine whether this indeed is the first case of omicron that has been detected and that has indeed been the result of our work overnight. i want to acknowledge our health officer dr. susan philip. but i also want to emphasize this is not a surprise. for those of you who knew, we

thought omicron was already here. we just hadn't detected it yet. so this is cause for concern, but it's also certainly not a cause for panic. we are prepared in the city for this with regard to the case itself. the person recently traveled to south africa and they did the right thing and got tested and reported their travel history. they had mild symptoms and thankfully recovered. contacts have been notified by the health department. and, again, here's what we know now. san francisco is relatively well positioned to respond to variants. our vaccine rate is high. more boosters are going into arms every day. 5-11-year-olds are getting

vaccinated at rapid uptake. our masking and vaccine requirements are among the most stringent in the country. these efforts have been very effective in helping us slow the spread of the virus. and there's still a lot we do not know about omicron. we don't know how infectious itself although there's a strong likelihood that it is more infectious than delta. we don't know how sick it makes people. and we're studying that throughout the world. we don't know how the vaccines will protect against transmission due to omicron. but most experts that i have

spoken to believe the vaccine is still protective against the omicron variant. to best protect against this variant, get vaccinated for goodness sakes if you have not been vaccinated. get your booster if you're eligible. continue to wear those masks inside where required. continue to take the steps that we know that has been successful in san francisco to prevent major loss of life and to slow the spread of this virus. we know how to do this, san francisco. at this time, we do not anticipate changing any of our health orders or changing restrictions or imposing new restrictions in san francisco. we will share information as we have it and get vaccinated, get

your booster, wear the mask and for goodness sakes it's been a long almost 24 months now. please have a great holiday season with your family. and now i'd like to turn it over to dr. chiu whose team worked so hard overnight to make sure we get this information as quickly as possible. thank you. >> good afternoon. so my laboratory at university california san francisco has been working very closely over the past year with the san francisco department of public health, the california department of public health and color genomics on genome basics of the virus. by that, we identify covid positive cases in the city and county, we make an attempt to sequence all cases that we are able to identify.

this particular sample, i heard about it yesterday at about 3:00 p.m. and we were able to receive the sample in the laboratory by 8:00 p.m. we ran a very fast molecular test which looks for psychgene drop-out. we were able to get the results of that test within two hours showing that potentially this sample was an omicron variant sample l. to concur this finding, we needed the viral genome of this virus and we used a pocket size sequencer made by oxford technologies. this is a sequencing technology in which we can go from detecting the virus to being able to detect the entire genome within a few hours. we were able to confirm the detection of omicron within

five hours and we had most of the genome within eight hours. so 4:00 a.m. last night we were able to detect the omicron variant. thank you. >> thank you. i think the goal of the public is to get vaccinated. the challenges with the covid-19 virus and what this means is we want to make sure that people get vaccinated. so at this time, if anyone has any questions, please let me

know. are there any questions? yes. i'll let dr. colfax answer that question. >> i'm sorry. i heard about sequencing, but i didn't quite hear the details of the question. i'll try to answer what i take the character of the question to be which is we are continuing to work with color, with dr. chiu's lab, with the state to sequence samples. we work with a number of partners in doing that.

so generally, we're sampling more in san francisco and it depends on the site. so with our partnership at u.c.s.f. and the latino taskforce, all those samples are being sequenced and then i'll turn to have them answer what percent of their samples are being. i think the key with the sequencing right now with the sample, the turn around time is considerable. so that's why we really wanted to run this sample locally as quickly as possible. as you know, across the nation and across the state locally, we're continuing to ensure that we sequence specimens as quickly as possible. again, i think the point is omicron is here. i don't want to be focused on when's the next case coming.

we should all be reactive as we were yesterday. we need to get those vaccines and boosters get tested if you know that you've been exposed and continue to wear those masks. and i don't know if you have more to add. dr. topper. >> yeah. so color health provides much of the infrastructure to execute their programs to defend against covid. to make unique samples available for sequencing. almost 100% of the samples, of the positive samples that are identified in san francisco and in california are being routed for sequencing. my name's scott topper. i'm the vice president of clinical operations at color.

i'm going to let dr. philip answer that question. >> i believe you were talking about walking through contact tracing. first of all. thank you to our lab partners. also, thank you to the individual themselves. they recognized that they had symptoms and they did what we should all be doing which is to get tested with symptoms. and then they reached out to sfpdh, with our team. we were able to speak with them. so with all investigations and contracting, we're talking to the individual, understanding what their risk factors might have been, in this case travel and i'm speaking with them to

make sure they're staying home and once they know they have a positive test and then speaking to them about close contact. so that is the usual path that we follow, that is what we're doing in this case and we're in the process of doing that with this individual now. the question was what kind of close contacts? yeah. for privacy reasons, we are giving out limited information about the specifics of the individual, but we are in the process of finding out the people that may have been in close contact with them and reaching out to those individuals specifically. the general definition is of a close contact is someone who has been within 6' for 15 minutes or more. that's the definition that has not yet changed. as we are learning more. we will understand that that definition has to change if

this virus was more transmissible and that is generally what we ask people about. we most often will ask what other people are residing in the home. it's generally the length of time and being with someone. that is all in process now. the question is now people have been traveling outside southern africa. the travel policy is governed at the national level and so we know there is a restriction, noncitizens traveling. we understand from our cdc colleagues that additional steps and requirements will be coming into place. and people are required to have a test within 72 hours. and we likely will be hearing more in the coming days with omicron of additional steps people will be asked to take

pre and post travel. >> the question was about age. we're not giving specific information. this was a previously healthy individual. their symptoms were mandy bujold and they did not have to be hospitalized. yes. this person was aware of the news of omicron and that's why they appropriately reached out after they returned from travel and then had their positive test result through the color laboratory. they got their result and reached out to public health. so i really appreciate the person's awareness and collaboration on this case.

>> yeah. there's another question here. yeah. i think that's probably an answer for dr. chiu. so the question is what lessons could sequencing provide for you. sequencing is very useful, has been shown to be very useful as a way to understand how understand the emergence of new variants in the community. it can also help with contact tracing, with being able to investigate outbreaks because the genome sequence is very often is specific for giving an individual so we can use the genomic sequence for how the

transmission chains from person to person in the course of an outbreak. and from this example, it's useful in identifying specific variants such as the omicron variant. to be able to identify the new variants in the community. i'm sorry. i missed that question. >> reporter: [inaudible] >> based on the question you're asking, is this the first sequence -- is this the first sample l that we've sequenced outside of the country? this is the first example of where we saw the s-gene sample.

i've been told we have time for one more question. thank you and just to emphasize, you know, this is not where we were 20 months ago. we are in a much better place. i don't want us to focus on counting omicron cases as much as the fact it is here, it's likely to increase over assume. we've got to get those boosters and vaccines. continue to wear the masks. thank you. >> what we're trying to approach is bringing more diversity to our food. it's not just the old european style food.

we are seeing a lot of influences, and all of this is because of our students. all we ask is make it flavorful. [♪♪♪] >> we are the first two-year culinary hospitality school in the united states. the first year was 1936, and it was started by two graduates from cornell. i'm a graduate of this program, and very proud of that. so students can expect to learn under the three degrees. culinary arts management degree, food service management degree, and hotel management degree. we're not a cooking school. even though we're not teaching you how to cook, we're teaching you how to manage, how to

supervise employees, how to manage a hotel, and plus you're getting an associate of science degree. >> my name is vince, and i'm a faculty member of the hospitality arts and culinary school here in san francisco. this is my 11th year. the program is very, very rich in what this industry demands. cooking, health, safety, and sanitation issues are included in it. it's quite a complete program to prepare them for what's happening out in the real world. >> the first time i heard about this program, i was working in a restaurant, and the sous chef had graduated from this program. he was very young to be a sous chef, and i want to be like

him, basically, in the future. this program, it's awesome. >> it's another world when you're here. it's another world. you get to be who you are, a person get to be who they are. you get to explore different things, and then, you get to explore and they encourage you to bring your background to the kitchen, too. >> i've been in the program for about a year. two-year program, and i'm about halfway through. before, i was studying behavioral genetics and dance. i had few injuries, and i couldn't pursue the things that i needed to to dance, so i pursued my other passion, cooking. when i stopped dance, i was deprived of my creative outlet, and cooking has been that for me, specifically pastry.

>> the good thing is we have students everywhere from places like the ritz to -- >> we have kids from every area. >> facebook and google. >> kids from everywhere. >> they are all over the bay area, and they're thriving. >> my name is jeff, and i'm a coowner of nopa restaurant, nopalito restaurant in san francisco. i attended city college of san francisco, the culinary arts program, where it was called hotel and restaurant back then in the early 90's. nopalito on broderick street, it's based on no specific region in mexico. all our masa is hand made.

we cook our own corn in house. everything is pretty much hand made on a daily basis, so day and night, we're making hand made tortillas, carnitas, salsas. a lot of love put into this. [♪♪♪] >> used to be very easy to define casual dining, fine dining, quick service. now, it's shades of gray, and we're trying to define that experience through that spectrum of service. fine dining calls into white table cloths. the cafeteria is large production kitchen, understanding vast production kitchens, the googles and the facebooks of the world that have those types of kitchens. and the ideas that change every year, again, it's the notion and the venue.

>> one of the things i love about vince is one of our outlets is a concept restaurant, and he changes the concept every year to show students how to do a startup restaurant. it's been a pizzeria, a taco bar. it's been a mediterranean bar, it's been a noodle bar. people choose ccsf over other hospitality programs because the industry recognizes that we instill the work ethic. we, again, serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. other culinary hospitality programs may open two days a week for breakfast service. we're open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner five days a week. >> the menu's always

interesting. they change it every semester, maybe more. there's always a good variety of foods. the preparation is always beautiful. the students are really sincere, and they work so hard here, and they're so proud of their work. >> i've had people coming in to town, and i, like, bring them here for a special treat, so it's more, like, not so much every day, but as often as i can for a special treat. >> when i have my interns in their final semester of the program go out in the industry, 80 to 90% of the students get hired in the industry, well above the industry average in the culinary program. >> we do have internals continually coming into our restaurants from city college of san francisco, and most of the time that people doing internships with us realize this is what they want to do

for a living. we hired many interns into employees from our restaurants. my partner is also a graduate of city college. >> so my goal is actually to travel and try to do some pastry in maybe italy or france, along those lines. i actually have developed a few connections through this program in italy, which i am excited to support. >> i'm thinking about going to go work on a cruise ship for about two, three year so i can save some money and then hopefully venture out on my own. >> yeah, i want to go back to china. i want to bring something that i learned here, the french cooking, the western system, back to china. >> so we want them to have a

full toolkit. we're trying to make them ready for the world out there. is -- >> our united states constitution requires every ten years that america counts every human being in the united states, which is incredibly important for many reasons. it's important for preliminary representation because if --

political representation because if we under count california, we get less representatives in congress. it's important for san francisco because if we don't have all of the people in our city, if we don't have all of the folks in california, california and san francisco stand to lose billions of dollars in funding. >> it's really important to the city of san francisco that the federal government gets the count right, so we've created count sf to motivate all -- sf count to motivate all citizens to participate in the census.

>> for the immigrant community, a lot of people aren't sure whether they should take part, whether this is something for u.s. citizens or whether it's something for anybody who's in the united states, and it is something for everybody. census counts the entire population. >> we've given out $2 million to over 30 community-based organizations to help people do the census in the communities where they live and work. we've also partnered with the public libraries here in the city and also the public schools to make sure there are informational materials to make sure the folks do the census at those sites, as well, and we've initiated a campaign to motivate the citizens and make sure they participate in census 2020. because of the language issues

that many chinese community and families experience, there is a lot of mistrust in the federal government and whether their private information will be kept private and confidential. >> so it's really important that communities like bayview-hunters point participate because in the past, they've been under counted, so what that means is that funding that should have gone to these communities, it wasn't enough. >> we're going to help educate people in the tenderloin, the multicultural residents of the tenderloin. you know, any one of our given blocks, there's 35 different languages spoken, so we are the original u.n. of san francisco. so it's -- our job is to

educate people and be able to familiarize themselves on doing this census. >> you go on-line and do the census. it's available in 13 languages, and you don't need anything. it's based on household. you put in your address and answer nine simple questions. how many people are in your household, do you rent, and your information. your name, your age, your race, your gender. >> everybody is $2,000 in funding for our child care, housing, food stamps, and medical care. >> all of the residents in the city and county of san francisco need to be counted in census 2020. if you're not counted, then your community is underrepresented and will be underserved.

[♪♪♪]

>> my family's starts in mexico in a small town. my parents are from a very, very small town. so small, that my dad's brother is married to one of my mom's sisters. it's that small. a lot of folks from that town are here in the city. like most immigrant families, my parents wanted a better life for us. my dad came out here first. i think i was almost two-years-old when he sent for us. my mom and myself came out here. we moved to san francisco early on. in the mission district and moved out to daily city and bounced back to san francisco. we lived across the street from the ups building. for me, when my earliest memories were the big brown

trucks driving up and down the street keeping us awake at night. when i was seven-years-old and i'm in charge of making sure we get on the bus on time to get to school. i have to make sure that we do our homework. it's a lot of responsibility for a kid. the weekends were always for family. we used to get together and whether we used to go watch a movie at the new mission theater and then afterwards going to kentucky fried chicken. that was big for us. we get kentucky fried chicken on sunday. whoa! go crazy! so for me, home is having something where you are all together. whether it's just together for dinner or whether it's together for breakfast or sharing a special moment at the holidays. whether it's thanksgiving or christmas or birthdays. that is home. being so close to berkley and oakland and san francisco,

there's a line. here you don't see a line. even though you see someone that's different from you, they're equal. you've always seen that. a rainbow of colors, a ryan bow of personalities. when you think about it you are supposed to be protecting the kids. they have dreams. they have aspirations. they have goals. and you are take that away from them. right now, the price is a hard fight. they're determined. i mean, these kids, you have to applaud them. their heart is in the right place. there's hope. i mean, out here with the things changing everyday, you just hope the next administration makes a change that makes things right. right now there's a lot of changes on a lot of different levels. the only thing you hope for is for the future of these young kids and young folks that are getting into politics to make the right move and for the folks who can't speak. >> dy mind motion.

>> even though we have a lot of fighters, there's a lot of voice less folks and their voiceless less folks and their voiceless >> first it's always the hardest and when they look back they really won't see you, but it's the path that you're paving forward for the next one behind you that counts. (♪♪♪) hi, my name is jajaida durden and i'm the acting superintendent for the bureau of forestry and i work for public works operations. and i'm over the landscaping, the shop and also the arborist crew. and some tree inspectors as well. i have been with the city and

county of san francisco for 17 years. and i was a cement mason, that was my first job. when i got here i thought that it was too easy. so i said one day i'll be a supervisor. and when i run this place it will be ran different. and i didn't think that it would happen as fast as it did, but it did. and i came in 2002 and became a supervisor in 2006. and six months later i became the permanent supervisor over the shop. >> with all of those responsibilities and the staff you're also dealing with different attitudes and you have to take off one hat and put on another hat and put on another hat. and she's able -- she's displayed that she can carry the weight with all of these different hats and still maintain the respect of the director, the deputy director and all of the other people that she has to come in contact with. >> she's a natural leader. i mean with her staff, her staff

thinks highly of her. and the most important thing is when we have things that happen, a lot of emergencies, she's right by me and helps me out every time that i have asked. >> my inspiration is when i was a young adult was to become a fire woman. well, i made some wrong decisions and i ended up being incarcerated, starting young and all the way up to an adult. when i was in jail they had a little program called suppers program and i -- supers program, and i met strong women in there and they introduced me to construction. i thought that the fire department would turn me down because i had a criminal history. so i looked into options of what kind of construction i could do. while i was in jail. and the program that i was in, they re-trained us on living and how to make the right decisions and i chose construction. and cement mason didn't require

a high school diploma at that time so i figured i could do that. when i got out of jail they had a program in the philmore area and i went there. my first day out i signed up and four days later i started to work and i never looked back. i was an apprentice pouring concrete. and my first job was mount zion emergency hospital which is now ucsf. and every day that i drive by ucsf and i look at the old mount zion emergency, i have a sense of pride knowing that i had a part of building that place. yeah, i did. i graduated as an apprentice and worked on a retrofit for city hall. i loved looking at that building and i take big pride in knowing that i was a part of that retrofit. my first formen job was a 40

story building from the ground up. and it's a predominantly male industry and most of the times people underestimate women. i'm used to it though, it's a challenge for me. >> as a female you're working with a lot of guys. so when they see a woman, first they don't think that the woman is in charge and to know that she's a person that is in charge with operations, i think that it's great, because it's different. it's not something -- i mean, not only a female but the only female of color. >> i was the first female finisher in the cement shop and i was the first crew supervisor, in the shop as a woman. when i became a two, the supervisors would not help me. in the middle, they'd call me a rookie, an apprentice and a female trying to get somewhere that she don't belong.

oh, it was terrible. it was terrible. i didn't have any support from the shop. the ones who said they supported me, they didn't, they talked about me behind my back. sometimes i had some crying, a lot of crying behind doors, not in public. but i had a lot of mentors. my mentor i will call and would pick up the phone and just talk, talk, talk, please help me. what am i going to do? hang in there. it was frustrating and disheartening, it really was. but what they didn't understand is that because they didn't help me i had to learn it. and then probably about a year later, that's when i started to lay down the rules because i had studied them and i learned them and it made me a good supervisor and i started to run the ship the way that i wanted to. it was scary. but the more i saw women coming through the shop, i saw change

coming. i knew that it was going to come, but i didn't know how long it would take. it was coming. in the beginning when i first came here and i was the first woman here as a finisher, to see the change as it progressed and for me to become a permanent assistant superintendent over the cement shop right now, that's my highlight. i can look down at my staff and see the diversity from the women to the different coaches in here and know that no one has to ever go through what i went through coming up. and i foster and help everyone instead of pushing them away. i'll talk to women and tell them they can make it and if they need any help, come talk to me. and they knock on my door and ask how i move up and how i get training. i'm always encouraging to go to school and encourage them to take up some of the training with d.p.w. and i would tell them to hold

strong and understand that things that we go through today that are tough makes you stronger for tomorrow. although we don't like hearing it at the time that we're going through all of this stuff, it helps you in the long run to become a better woman and a person

>> president walton: good afternoon. and welcome to the december 14, 2021 regular meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. madame clerk, would you please call the roll? >> thank you, mr. president. supervisor chan? >> supervisor chan: present. >> supervisor haney: present. >> supervisor mandelman: present. >> supervisor mar: present. >> supervisor melgar: present. >> supervisor peskin: present. >> supervisor preston: present. >> supervisor ronen: present. >> supervisor safai: presente. >> supervi