which is to withdraw. if there is a critical incident, are you willing to take responsibility that there was no m.o.u. in place to ensure a fair and independent investigation? >> i believe i understand your question, and yes, commissioner, i will take responsibility for any decision that i make. and i will say this: the district attorney has made it clear that he intends to conduct investigations, and we will cooperate with the district attorney like we always do and always have, and make sure that that happens. but to answer your question, yes, i take responsibility for any decision i make. and i am in this to hopefully do my part to make this situation and make this

situation what it's supposed to be. we cannot have violations of the m.o.u. i will go back to what i said previously, and it is dependent upon the sharing of information in the m.o.u., and that does not happen, particularly when it does not happen. it doesn't madam speaker how it played out in the long run. what matters is the process is not seen as fair.

it's not a small thing for intentional violations of the m.o.u., and again, my purpose is to do what we can to make sure that we have a document that calls these types of things out, and there's accountability when they happen for us, for the district attorney's office, so you can get to accountability and what this process is designed to do. so i hope i answered your question, but i just want to reity rate that this is not a small thing. that keeps getting passed around, and the district attorney has put that out in

the public, and others, and it's not a small thing. ask them whether it is a small thing. >> great. thank you, chief. those are all my questions. >> thank you. >> president cohen: all right. next up, we'll hear from commissioner yee. >> commissioner yee: thank you very much there, madam presence. chief scott, you mentioned earlier that you're now sitting at the table with the district attorney. is that correct, on the restricted m.o.u.? >> that is correct, commissioner. >> so do you plan to sit with them on this coming friday, is that correct? >> the first draft of the

interim agreement, in the event there's no m.o.u., we're working through the department to make sure that there is a first draft, and we will discuss it on tuesday. >> commissioner yee: you hope to have a tentative agreement within the week, is that correct? >> well, we're going to do what we can on the other issues. the police department is giving its list of what the major issues are to the attorney general's office, i can't speak for the district attorney. i know he's going to make an effort to do that. i know we've given ours, so we're ready to, at least from our end, have that discussion

about the things that we hope to resolve. >> yeah. just going back to what john sam ahacky said, i guess how do we get back to -- john hamasaki said, how do we get back to before this happened, and the date, the 23, where it's expected to expire, i guess what i'm looking at to maybe reconsider to move this out to 30 days or whatever it is, do you think that will give us enough to have escape this impasse on this m.o.u.? >> i'd say i hope so. i mean, what's on the table

right now is make sure we have something in place if there's the worst case scenario, no m.o.u. we're going to work to address these issues, and what i expect, honestly, is whatever the district attorney comes up with, we'll have to look at their grievances and address those, as well. but i think going back to what commissioner carter oberstone -- we're not -- we're looking at we should be doing these things, too. to answer your question, we're going to move as fast as we

can. >> commissioner yee: so this m.o.u., i guess we have differences on this agreement. looking at the mediation, i guess, that's brought you guys in right now, or the attorney general and the city attorneys, do you see a progress going forward? >> i do, yes. i honestly do. >> commissioner yee: okay. well, my recommendation would be to continue it as 30 days out. i think we need the mediations. i think if you feel it's moving, i think we need to continue that, and making sure that we have confidence in the m.o.u. and making sure that police accountability is in

place, and as commissioner carter oberstone has stated, making sure that we're not left with nothing there that is -- especially if there's a major event where there is a police involved shooting death, so we have our process in place, but it's something i feel we truly need to have. so i'll give it back to the rest of the board and our commission. >> president cohen: thank you, commissioner. next, we'll hear from commissioner yanez. >> commissioner yanez: thank you, madam president. chief, i just have a couple of questions. you know, you participated in developing this m.o.u. from the outset, and language was included in there about information sharing that, at that point, made sense, right?

and i believe this all came to light based on a different opinion and interpreting that m.o.u., right? unfortunately, we only have this side of the story and what's come out in the media that's kind of created a bigger storm than we have right now, although we needed the rain. and what has happened, you know, you mentioned, when you first told us about skeg this -- about scheduling this issue that came up about the morale and the police officers -- and i want to remind us that this morale issue in the police department has been there for long before this m.o.u. so that

we're clear that maybe there's -- you're hearing or maybe officers are bringing things to your attention specific to this m.o.u., creating a trust issue, but the morale issue is very different, and i want to be sure we separate those two. to make a decision to unilaterally cancel that m.o.u. based on that decision that you own right now without the process of this collaborative reform initiative kind of mind said and spirit, you know, now, we're at this place where we, it seems-like, are pretty clear, and i'm not speaking for

everybody on this commission, but most people on this commission wants to preserve, at least this commissioner wants to preserve the m.o.u. because it had an impact. the m.o.u. being in place alone served as a deterrent, and moving forward without something in place is unacceptable, and i'm happy that you're moving in place to preserve some level of accountability, but we need to make sure that as we delve further and move forward, that we accept that if an m.o.u. was

created with certain conditions in place, that once a misunderstanding or a different interpretation of the language that comes up, that we address that issue. and from what i'm hearing now, the issue is more than just information sharing. the issue will be a myriad of other things that we're not privy to unfortunately. but ultimately this agreement in place was working. there are challenges with it obviously that can be resolved, and glad that there is a group of speertess at the table with you. and i don't want your officers or -- expertise at the table

with you, and i don't want your officers requesting, encouraging, almost demanding that we keep this m.o.u. in place with us not supporting you at a chief of this police department or conflate that with us not caring about the officers and the fact that they do one of the hardest jobs in this city. and with that, all i want to do is encourage you to reflect on that and move forward with the best interest not solely of one or two or a group of people that may have encouraged you or propelled you into this reactionary decision, and that you listen to the voices of a lot of reason here, and we

continue to hammer out something that worked for your department, for the district attorney's office, more importantly, or the residents of san francisco. thank you. there were no questions there. >> thank you, commissioner. >> president cohen: thank you very much. i'm going to skip over you, hamasaki, and go to cindy because she hasn't asked a question yet. >> vice president elias: it is a question. i think commissioner yanez and commissioner carter oberstone really addressed it, but i think just to be clear, chief, we as a commission also want a fair process. i don't think our intent is to create an unfair process.

moving forward, how is it going to be addressed so that you're involved in the conversation and are privy to investigation? >> president cohen: before we move forward, i think that's something we should be taking up. as they're tweaking their m.o.u., we should be tackling our d.g.o. as it regards to when a chief can pull out of an m.o.u., the required notification that needs to happen, the conversation, the due diligence. that's definitely something that we can own, and will own.

this is a learning lesson for all of us, right? there's room for us to step into this space and strengthen or fill in the gaps, and one of those is the decision making power. so i just want to take that question and own it because that's actually right there in our wheel house, and i actually have a couple of ideas around that, too, that we can discuss. >> president cohen: chief scott, do you have anything that you wanted to opine? >> yes, thank you, president cohen. thankfully, there have been some ideas already presented by the attorney general, really, from the on set that i believe will help address this issue, and just hearing president cohen's comments, i think

whatever possible -- whenever possible, we can move forward, but we need to have conversations confidential, but i really appreciate those comments over those suggestions, and i hope that we can put them to fruition, and when i'm giving the opportunity, the okay to talk more about that, i will do just that. but i -- i believe it addressed some of what you're saying. >> vice president elias: great. thank you. >> president cohen: okay. yep. commissioner hamasaki, you're up, and then, we're going to hear from public commenters. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. you know, i wanted to make one

other point that i had written down earlier and forgotten about, that you think a lot of these comments arise from a different understanding with the departments that -- the department's being investigated, so i know that you have been saying that it needs to be a two-way street, but chief, if you were vehicling somebody for criminal conduct, you're not in an information sharing arrangement with that -- if you were investigating somebody for criminal conduct, you're not in an information sharing arrangement with that person. i think that's why the comment about the end of prosecution or the decision to end the case,

that certainly information would be turned over then. and i think a lot of the concerns seem to come from the idea that the officer under investigation or the department or his supervisors or his seniors should have access to the investigation, but logically, and within the confines of our legal system, that's just not how we generally do that, and that's not how you do that as an investigating officer, right? >> commissioner, that's right. and so let me just -- let me just clarify a couple of things, and thank you for bringing that point out. this letter was sent to the district attorney, and this is based on some of these issues that we're talking about. one of the things in this letter says, sfda, and this is at request of our police

department, should provide a copy of a case file upon completion of a criminal investigation within 30 days -- we asked within 30 days of declaration of a declination letter or within 30 days of the conclusion of the investigation.

>> commissioner hamasaki: -- out of respect for, i think, your members who will be calling in, and i don't know if other people will be calling in, but i would like to move on from that point. i just wanted to raise -- >> sure. thank you. >> commissioner hamasaki: so thank you, chief. and then, i would like to make

a motion, based on commissioner yee's statement, that we main -- direct the chief to maintain the m.o.u. for 30 days. i think that would be the prudent path forward, and then, if a memorandum or a letter of intend -- intent is reached, then we can address it at that time. but i think commissioner yee is right, if you have 30 days, you folks can work on it, get it done, everybody can kind of take a step back, take a breath, and at least we're not necessarily having to call a special meeting when we do have everything here tonight when we don't know if that's going to happen at a later date.

>> president cohen: i'm definitely not in favor of that motion for a number of reasons, and i believe every commissioner would make it their priority to be here in an emergency meeting. i haven't talked with every commissioner, so i don't want to be in violation of the brown act, but there is a process that you heard that is in place tonight. that process needs to continue to mature and unfold. we're talking about a difference of a week here, so i just want to be very clear that i am not in favor of this in this motion. i hope it does not go forward, and that we allow the attorney general's office to continue to mediate. >> commissioner hamasaki: maybe i misspoke, president cohen, but all it would do would maintain the m.o.u. until they

reach a letter of understanding. so it's not impacting what's taking place within the meetings that are taking place. >> president cohen: well, commissioner hamasaki, you're a master of negotiations. if there's a back door or an escape, people are use it. we don't want to give them that back door. what we've discussed, a lot has already been said. >> commissioner hamasaki: i don't know what you mean, press cohen. >> president cohen: okay. anybody else want to comment? >> commissioner hamasaki: i guess, what would be the harm in keeping the m.o.u. until they reach the letter of intent, which is the plan? or actually, you know what? why don't we actually open it up to the commission for discussion? >> president cohen: before we do that, we need to hear from director henderson. he's been waiting.

>> commissioner hamasaki: well, he can wait. he's not a commissioner. there's a motion. >> president cohen: you're right. he is not a commissioner, but i asked him to wait until every commissioner spoke until it was his turn to speak. it is now turn to speak. >> i just want to say, i know we've had a lot of discussion here, but i wanted to point out something here: that i would encourage the parties that are still at the table to address some of the inconsistencies that have taken place in the past to address that, but this is an opportunity. if there's going to be a new m.o.u., that it is more clear, more defined, more specific, has some sort of independent

oversight or specific. it is my strong suggestion, and i hope that i am supported in this, not just from the commission but from the parties themselves, that d.p.a. either be at the table specifically or be intentionally included in the understanding or the agreement in case it has not been made clear -- agreement. in case it has not been made clear in conversation from the past, d.p.a. is the only department mandated to be involved in officer involved shootings, and to the agree they are involved in this process, i think it's important to recognize the role that civilian oversight plays, and it's part of the same mandate and significance that i think that the commission operates under every day. i do think that it is

absolutely relevant that we don't miss this opportunity to address the deficiencies of having individual m.o.u.s from the district attorney to the police, from the police to the district attorney, and from the police to the d.p.a. i think there needs to be shared evidence with regard to that process. it's not lost on me, and i'm sure it's not lost on the public that in many instances when there are officer involved shootings, d.p.a. is the only agency that comes up with accountability, sustained cases, and/or the follow up that leads to both transparencies and accountabilities in ways that

we have not found in the past in the criminal lanes of accountability and sometimes in the civil lanes of accountability. i think that the work that gets done in the d.p.a. is valuable. i just don't want it to get short shrift no, sir be left out of the conversations to come as we work out a remedy. i would say this is something i feel personally responsible for at the d.p.-a. the work that we've done, the first sustained case for accountability from an officer involved shooting came while i had been at the d.p.a., and i don't want those opportunities to be left behind in the conversation to address something knew and clear, and i just wanted to articulate that

and to make sure that people were including that in their conversations as we move forward. that's it. thank you. i know i don't get a vote, but my opinion matters, that perspective matters. it's part of why i'm here. >> commissioner hamasaki: we're on an issue here, though. >> totally understand. >> president cohen: so listen, in the event -- i'm not looking to -- certainly not looking to give the media for fodder, and i'm certainly not looking for a fight, certainly not with hamasaki, perhaps i can offer something of a conciliatory officer. a motion for the chief of police to negotiate an interim

m.o.u. until they can negotiate a new one. i'm willing to meet halfway. although i'm not interested in a vote, i'm willing to meet you halfway. >> commissioner hamasaki: so the problem is if you're asking them to negotiate, they're already negotiating, right? and so what if the m.o.u. lapses? and i think that's what you expressed last week, every commissioner on here expressed that we cannot let the m.o.u. lapse. and so whether it's a -- i was just following commissioner yee's lead on that, but president cohen, you say a 15-day one until our next meeting, i think it would be 15 days. that's final. i'm not -- >> president cohen: if i hear you correctly, you're concerned with a lapse. what i would propose is if a lapse should occur.

i don't believe a lapse would occur, but if this would give you comfort, it would be giving permission for the police department to negotiate an interim m.o.u. while negotiating another m.o.u. >> commissioner hamasaki: i guess i'm not understanding how that stops the m.o.u. from lapsing? >> president cohen: say it again? >> commissioner hamasaki: i'm sorry, president cohen. i'm not understanding directing the chief to negotiate -- like, a negotiation can take months, and what if the m.o.u. lapses -- if it lapses when i'm out of session. and i'm in l.a. -- i know you said we can be available -- >> president cohen: the interim agreement that i'm proposing would cover in place of a

lapse, but let's be clear, i'm offering this in a conciliatory agreement. there's nothing in place, the mediation is continuing moving forward. i don't believe everyone is prepared to make a vote tonight. >> commissioner hamasaki: i don't believe anybody said that, but i appreciate you directing the conversation. >> president cohen, if i may be heard? >> president cohen: absolutely. >> maybe declaring an emergency meeting next wednesday --

>> commissioner hamasaki: i'm not available. >> but i think preparing to do that is the best way forward. >> commissioner hamasaki: yeah, the issue is i'm not available on wednesday. >> president cohen: well, commissioner hamasaki, we know you want to be available, but we can still conduct business of this body because we'll have a quorum. we know that you, more than anything, how you feel. you have weighed in. i will schedule a meeting for next wednesday, an emergency meeting of the police

commission to take up this one issue. sergeant youngblood? >> clerk: yes, ma'am. >> president cohen: commissioner youngblood, let me ask you something to accommodate the schedule as commissioner hamasaki said he would be available on tuesday. would we be able to meet on tuesday or does that affect the other regularly scheduled broadcasts that are already scheduled for tuesday? >> clerk: i might have to defer to the city attorney and then also contact sfgovtv to find out the logistics of doing that. >> president cohen: that's what i was thinking. what is next wednesday's schedule looking like?

>> clerk: we -- the commission office is not -- is open next wednesday. >> president cohen: excuse me? >> clerk: the commission office is open next wednesday, on the 23, and is available. >> president cohen: so i think part of the problem with tuesday is i think it's just going to be on going negotiations happening on tuesday, so wednesday is probably going to be the best time to have this emergency commission meeting, so i'm going to go ahead and direct him to have this meeting on wednesday, february 23, which is the same day that the m.o.u. is set to expire. so let's be prepared to come and vote if necessary. alicia cabrera, i see you joined us. is there anything that you wanted to opine on this matter?

>> no, i turned my camera on because stacey mentioned it's something that we have to check in with sfgovtv regarding those details, but there's nothing legally preventing us from scheduling a meeting next tuesday. >> president cohen: okay. let's say this. we will schedule a meeting either next tuesday or wednesday, and we will wait for sfgov to tell us which day would be best to broadcast this meeting. >> commissioner yee: madam president? >> president cohen: yes, commissioner yee? >> commissioner yee: that is to meet if they have not reached an agreement on the m.o.u. >> president cohen: yes. [please stand by]

>> 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 never you're watching san francisco rising.

today's special guest is monique gray. >> hi. i'm chris mannis and you're watching san francisco rising. the our guest today is marquise gray. he runs out of the office of the mayor in the city and county of san francisco. and he's with us today to talk about the recent progress of the sunnidale hope sf housing project. welcome to the show. >> good morning. thank you for having me today. >> let's start by talking about the existing residents of sunnydale and their history. >> so sunnydale was built in the 1940s for a workers. it's the largest public housing community west of the mississippi. it's about 50 acres. pretty huge. about 760 single story units

one to four bedrooms. >> i understand it's an ambitious rethinking of the residences. can you briefly describe the scope of the program and hope sf's involvement? >> yeah. the work of hope sf is this idea of more than housing. that acknowledging that our public housing community, the levels of violence and poverty that are in these communities are not by accident. you know, it's our opportunity to address a system issue, you know, that people need more than housing. they need health services. resources. economic investment opportunities, jobs and things of that nature. and so hope sf strives to work with our city systems to better serve our public housing communities. >> so recently, mayor breed and speaker pelosi toured the site to both put focus on a national housing initiative and also to highlight the completion of the

first new building. how many units does it contain and when will people start moving in? >> yeah. it was an amazing event. honored to have the secretary here with us as well in our community. it's 167 units. it's about 75% going back to the original families that currently live on site. so the replacement. so i did forget to mention i want to say real quick, the beauty of hope sf is housing development, new development without displacements or anti-displacement initiatives. so, for example, the building is 167 units. 75% of those units going to families that have lived there in the community for generationings and the other 25% are tax credit units adding to the affordable housing stock here in san francisco and those units are up and running now. they're leasing them as we speak. people are picking their units each week until they're filled

up. >> so was this particular building put on a new plot of land or did people have to move out so it could be constructed? >> that's a good question. our first building was vacant which you may have saw across the street from this building and then this plot of land is the way we kind of do it, we do it in phases. once one goes in, we're able to move families into the new unit and where they previously were occupying, able to demolish old buildings to build the new. so this area had some older units that were demolished. >> it's impressive that construction has been able to continue during the covid-19 pandemic. can you talk about some of the challenges that needed to be overcome and how the community has managed during the crisis? >> that's a great question. you know, in san francisco, if i understand it correctly, i could be wrong, i believe housing was an essential service. the mayor made a strong

commitment early on in the pandemic that we would continue to build housing as housing has been a critical issue in our city. so the housing part hasn't impacted us too much. 67 units have been going on its current time line. the bigger challenge for us was showing the families in our communities, low income families had the resources we need to survive the pandemic. many of our families didn't have the luxury of working from home, working in the zone and things of that nature. making sure they had access to covid testing and things of that nature. so i want to give a big shout out to our resident leaders, our service providers across all four sites. for those that don't know, hope sf is four sites. sunnydale is one of the four sites.

and so across those four sites, the most critical thing was making sure folks in these neighborhoods which have historically have been disconnected from resources have the things that they need to remain healthy, to, you know, survive the pandemic as we all had to survive the pandemic and we did pretty well. we were able to bring back scenes and covid testing on site. food distribution was happening all throughout the week. wellness services and things of that nature were all happening on site thanks to our resident leaders and our service providers across the sites. >> so, finally, when could we expect the next set of residents to be ready? despite -- i guess we just said covid doesn't have an impact on the schedule. when will the next residences be ready? >> yeah. things are rolling. we have block a3 and block b3 to the building we were referring to earlier. and things are on pace.

things are going really well. so we're looking at starting construction spring of 2022 and that will be 170 units and the goal is to have that lease up around 2024. >> well, thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. gray. thank you for giving us the time today. >> thank you, chris, and i really appreciate your time as well. >> and that's it with this episode. you've been watching san francisco rising for sfgov tv i'm chris manners. thanks so much for watching. >> hello everyone. welcome to the bayview bistro. >> it is just time to bring the community together by deliciousness.

i am excited to be here today because nothing brings the community together like food. having amazing food options for and by the people of this community is critical to the success, the long-term success and stability of the bayview-hunters point community. >> i am nima romney. this is a mobile cafe. we do soul food with a latin twist. i wanted to open a truck to son nor the soul food, my african

heritage as well as mylas as my latindescent. >> i have been at this for 15 years. i have been cooking all my life pretty much, you know. i like cooking ribs, chicken, links. my favorite is oysters on the grill. >> i am the owner. it all started with banana pudding, the mother of them all. now what i do is take on traditional desserts and pair them with pudding so that is my ultimate goal of the business. >> our goal with the bayview bristow is to bring in businesses so they can really use this as a launching off point to grow as a single

business. we want to use this as the opportunity to support business owners of color and those who have contributed a lot to the community and are looking for opportunities to grow their business. >> these are the things that the san francisco public utilities commission is doing. they are doing it because they feel they have a responsibility to san franciscans and to people in this community. >> i had a grandmother who lived in bayview. she never moved, never wavered. it was a house of security answer entity where we went for holidays. i was a part of bayview most of my life. i can't remember not being a part of bayview. >> i have been here for several years. this space used to be unoccupied. it was used as a dump. to repurpose it for something like this with the bistro to

give an opportunity for the local vendors and food people to come out and showcase their work. that is a great way to give back to the community. >> this is a great example of a public-private community partnership. they have been supporting this including the san francisco public utilities commission and mayor's office of workforce department. >> working with the joint venture partners we got resources for the space, that the businesses were able to thrive because of all of the opportunities on the way to this community. >> bayview has changed. it is growing. a lot of things is different from when i was a kid. you have the t train. you have a lot of new business. i am looking forward to being a

business owner in my neighborhood. >> i love my city. you know, i went to city college and fourth and mission in san francisco under the chefs ria, marlene and betsy. they are proud of me. i don't want to leave them out of the journey. everyone works hard. they are very supportive and passionate about what they do, and they all have one goal in mind for the bayview to survive. >> all right. >> all right.

>> on behalf of the san francisco office and historical society, our partners and sponsors, welcome to the 2022 black history month kickoff program. i am aloe williams, president of the society's board of directors. the society was founded in 1955. in 1958, it merged with a local chapter of the association for the study of african-american life and history, which is better known as the national group which started the celebration of what is now black history month. that is the society became the official sponsor of black history month in san francisco. from the beginning, the society has centred its black history month activities around the theme established by the group.