>> good morning, everyone. my name is jeffery tumlin, and i am the executive director of the sfmta, and welcome to the new van ness avenue. this has been a very long time in coming, but i am so proud of the results that all of my teams have produced. the new van ness avenue is a part of our efforts to reimagine san francisco streets, to rethink our streets to allow them to move more people as the city grows, and to prioritize the people with the fewest mobility choices, and that is what we're steadily delivering all over san francisco, so these projects

include some obvious components like the bright red new transit only lanes that are built of 2 feet thick of red concrete that's red all the way through. it includes rebuilding everything of the overhead power structure, including 375 new trees and 4,000 drought resistant new shrubs, but the best part is the undergroundwork. we dug up and unsnarled 150 years' worth of crazy utilities, including 10,000 feet of communication fiber optics lines, 18,000 feet of sewer pipes, including 19 century brick sewers, 25,000 feet of water pipes, and 5,000

feet of ductwork to power our buses and power signals. rebuilding all of these utilities and strengthening them for earthquake resistance means we will not have to do that again for another 150 years, and i am so glad for that part of the project. this project was the result of -- okay. we could not have done this without a very, very large team, so i'm going to go through and thank some of our partners, and i will miss some. so thankful for the transit commission, to the san francisco county transportation authority who is our funding and planning partner, to mayor london breed and the board of supervisors who have prioritized this project again

and again for over a decade. to the planning department, who helped us reimagine the space, to public works department, the public utilities commission, who helped us reimagine the under ground staff. to the arts commission, who helped us choose the art, to the city attorney's office, to the historic preservation commission, particularly here in the civic center area, to the mayor's office on housing development, but we also owe a very strong debt of gratitude to the folks who live and work along this corridor. digging up this entire street to replace 150 years of utilities resulted in some major disruption and impacts as

a result of the construction, and i really want to extend my gratitude and sincere apologies to all of the business owners and residents along this corridor. thank you for your patience. you put up with years of noisy and disruptive work at all hours of day and night. we have learned a lot of lessons from this project, and we are already applying this lesson to other projects, so i also want to thank, in addition to the residents and business owners for their patience, i also want to thank the people who worked on this project.

i want to thank everybody for their work along with hundreds and hundreds of people, but particularly those people who have spent the last decade making this happen. from the san francisco transportation authority, i want to thank tilly chang and bob masis, and then, i want to particularly want to thank walsh construction and all of their technical subcontractors for being out here delivering this work, including the ballet dance of rebuilding the mission and south van ness intersection. so thank you to all of those people for really making this happen. so it's very, very exciting to finally be here. this is a very big year for the sfmta. we completed the first phase of the geary rapid project earlier this year. we completed the first phase of rebuilding taraval and the el

taraval this year, and indeed, we're going to open the central subway later this year, in the fall, and i'm so happy to be here, finally opening the van ness area bus rapid transit. so without further adieu, may i introduce the mayor of san francisco, london breed. [applause] >> the hon. london breed: wow. what a big deal in san francisco today. thank you so much, jeff, and thank you -- let's give another round of applause to the great san francisco symphony for that beautiful rendition of "i left my heart in san francisco." yes, our hearts are in san francisco today, and today, because of that, we are rolling out the red carpet. no, this is not an april fool's joke, this is finally done, because it has been a long time

coming. the people of san francisco, the voters of san francisco approved this back in 2003, and the work began to look at how we were going to reimagine what van ness boulevard would be in order to provide efficient transit and safety and all the things that we need. when i think back to the history of van ness boulevard and what it represented after the 1906 earthquake, when i used to walk up and down these streets and catch the 49 to the 47 to galileo high school, not too long ago, it was auto row. this city was built mostly to accommodate vehicles, and over the years, we've seen a significant shift, people using

various modes of transportation. but also, because we are a city who pride ourselves on making sure we are good stewards of the environment, we noticed something. 47% of greenhouse gas emissions happen in this city because of vehicles, and we need to make changes. we need to make our public transportation system more efficient. we need to make sure that we improve our infrastructure so that different modes of transportation be moved around san francisco in a safe and efficient manner and at the same time having positive effects on the environment. yes, this project took a very long time, starting when i was on the board of supervisors in 2016, but you know how that is. even scott wiener was on the board of supervisors. bureaucratic years take forever in this city, but guess what?

i feel like we're opening it right on time after dealing with two years of a global pandemic, so please forgive me if i don't recognize you anymore. as we begin to reemerge, i can't believe how strong and resilient this city is. we've endured so many challenges in our city's history, but when we're able to complete challenges like this, we celebrate, but we also understand the value of what this will mean for people to get around this city, for the commuters that come all over the bay area -- golden gate regional, and the folks who catch muni, and the kids who

try to pretend to get to school on time at galileo -- this is going to be a meaningful change, reducing the travel time by 30%, making public transportation more attract attract -- attractive to people. that's our goal in these various transportation projects, so as we reopen, we have to make sure we can get people around efficiently and safely, and i am so happy that this is finally getting done because now i can catch the 49 to the house of prime rib and get there in a timely manner. now we can make sure that we support all of these businesses. yes, the city came together and provided millions of dollars for grants for small businesses, but it clearly was

not enough, and so now, the real work began -- begins. using this system, enjoying the public art, commuting back and forth to wherever we need to go and supporting the businesses along van ness, but i want to say to the kids of galileo, don't get off before it's time because we don't want this transit system to be a way to let you do what you're not supposed to be doing. i want to thank the county transportation union, the people who live along this area, work along this area and have businesses along this area. we owe you a debt of gratitude for what you've endured during this time, and i think this is

a shining example of san francisco and our resilience of what we've had to endure the last couple of years. we are going to continue to host the cleanest and the greenest fleet and move san francisco in a direction where we meet our climate goals, and we make sure that we provide transportation that makes this the priority in san francisco, using public transportation as the priority in san francisco to get around because it is more efficient than any other mode. thank you all so much for being here. we appreciate everyone that's participated in this project. [applause] >> thank you, mayor london breed. fun fact: in 2001, i was quoted by san francisco columnist john king in a newspaper story in the chronicle talking about san francisco bus rapid transit, and the mayor, at the time, i

don't know -- at the time, upon reading this article, tried to fire me over the radio. thank you, mayor breed, for your support strong of transit in san francisco. meanwhile, the author of this recent legislation would have saved -- shaved significant time off of transit in a year. senator scott wiener. scott? >> i am so excited. as a 25-year muni rider, i've seen the good, the bad, occasionally the ugly. i love the subway, i love trains, but in my heart, i am a bus person. and buses, you know, get really neglected a lot of times. it's the large majority of

transit here in san francisco, is buses. we need to find ways to make buses faster, more efficient for people. they shouldn't have to live by a subway line to be able to use transit. they should be able to use transit everywhere, and buses are the way to do that, and rapid area transit is the way that we do that. this is just incredibly exciting. when you look at the future of san francisco, we need a lot more housing. we need to put a lot more housing here in san francisco so that people can be paired to

live here. but we have to have more and more trouble transportation to support it because if it's just a bunch more cars, the geometry doesn't work. we need to put it all together to make this the most amazing and sustainable city in the world. this has been a real team effort. when you look at the work that's being done here on van ness and other amazing transit projects in the city, i had the honor of chairing our county transportation authority, and we worked really hard with the mayor, with then-supervisor breed to move this forward, but we also worked at the state level, and i want to really thank and acknowledge our entire current and former state legislative delegation, our city attorney, david chiu, who we really miss in the

legislature. let's hear it for mr. chiu. when he was on the board of supervisors, his district was right along van ness, and he helped guide this along, and working with phil ting, the chair of the assembly budget committee, we've worked hard to get more funding in san francisco. we're getting more and more momentum to have the state be a better partner to counties and cities to make sure that we're adding more transit. so this is amazing. congratulations to everyone. we learned a lot from this project. it can -- it will not take this long in the future. we're working, as jeff mentioned, on legislation to dramatically streamline bus and rapid transportation. let's get more of it, let's get it done faster, and congratulations, everyone. thank you.

[applause] >> thank you, senator wiener. one of the places that the bus will take you to is the san francisco opera, and so i am very pleased to introduce elisa sunshine and andrew king from the san francisco opera. [applause]

[♪♪♪]

[applause]

>> over 40% of california's greenhouse gas emissions come from the transport sector, and of that, the vast majority of personal driving. and in addition, here in california, we're no longer demolishing low-income neighborhoods in order to widen highways, and yet, the state is growing. we are growing jobs, we're adding people. california is still a land of opportunity, and so i am utterly delighted to watch new leadership at the state department of transportation who's working to reimagine the state highway system in order to move more people rather than just moving more cars and to help the state achieve its greenhouse gas emissions goals. so i am very honored to introduce the california secretary of transportation.

>> thanks for the set up, director tumlin, to have me come after that performance. how in the world do you top that? so when you schedule an event on april 1, and and it has the history that this event has, immediately, the thought is, is this real? is it actually going to happen? everybody can see today what the fortitude of mayor breed, director tumlin, it is real, so kudos to everyone for making this happen. i'm the secretary for transportation for the state, here on behalf of governor

newsom. he would have loved to be here because he loves transportation, but he was busy this morning. we know what this is going to mean as far as reduction in travel time throughout downtown san francisco and the region, so efficiency is a big part of what we're going to gain from this. number two, the environmental benefits. environmental benefits are going to be huge. environment impact, nearly 50% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. transportation is the largest, the biggest culprit of our environmental challenges in this state, and projects like this will improve that.

it definitely will improve that. it will address it. and finally, thirdly, equitable. we know how much senator wiener mentioned it before -- how much of a challenge it is to afford to live in this state, but we are coming up with solutions to make it less costly, more equitable for people to be able to move about is exactly the direction that we need to go. so kudos for people moving in the right direction but to actually be able to deliver this project today. i city -- see ray from caltrans

team. our district director, thank you for your leadership. city and county staff, mayor breed, congratulations on an amazing day like today. thank you again for having me here. thank you very much. [applause] >> completing a project of this magnitude also requires strong managerial support, so i am proud to introduce supervisor

raphael mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: director tumlin, you actually got it done. congratulations. but you know what got it done? the union workers who show that sustainable projects and union jobs go hand in hand. there were lessons to be learned, mistakes not to be repeated, but this project will make a difference in the lives of san francisco every day as transit riders whiz past cars stuck in traffic carrying students, construction workers, seniors, tourists, and anyone wise enough to choose transit first, this project will make a difference for our quality of

life. the transportation authority is proud to have helped lay the groundwork for this day by leading the planning and environmental review phases of the project as well as providing nearly $45 million to support every phase of the project from planning to construction. these funds were from the transportation authority's half cent sales tax, proposition k, which included $500 million for muni and other projects when it passed in 2003. as we look forward to another critical transportation funding source in november, i want to thank san francisco voters for their consistent support of transit first investments like this one. yeah, give it up for the

voters. [applause] >> supervisor mandelman: in the case of the van ness improvement project, this investment paid off multifold. local city and sales tax leveraged $120 million in state and local funds to support this project. so we want to thank our friends at the f.t.a.s and at caltrans for their partnership over the years of this project. finally, i do want to recognize our transit authority staff who are instrumental to the development phase of the project. tilly chang and our deputy director of planning, rachel hyatt, and our deputy for policy and programming, anna la

forte, whose staff supported each phase of the project. and i want to thank michael short who was the manager of the e.i.r. under rachel and flew in from north carolina to be here with us today. now that is love. i would be remiss if i did not acknowledge my colleagues on the transportation authority board who made it out here this morning, commissioner stefani, commissioner melgar, commissioner safai, and commissioner haney. so with that, congratulations, everyone. san francisco's coming back on transit. [applause] >> as we've already mentioned, this project took way too long, and it also required digging up the entire street curb to curb

to unsnarl a mess of utilities completely down the street. i am therefore very pleased to introduce our final speaker, one of the -- one of our favorite business owners in the corridor, joseph betts, who is the owner and manager of the house of prime rib. mr. betts, please join us. [applause] >> thank you very much. i'd like to just is you, commissioners, for inviting me. you know, there's not much to say that's not already been said, however, i'd like to tell you my point of view. yes, it was difficult, but there are two people that i'd like to thank. katie mccarthy from the city. she informed me what was going on. we had a meeting before things

started, and during construction, she always informed me when i called. the answer was right away, and this way, we could plan. we were not blindsided. another one who i really appreciated to work with is david costello. he was the best. again, a lot of things have been said already that i don't want to repeat, but there's one thing i want to say, an old saying. you forget the price, but you don't forget the result, and the result is beautiful. when you look at van ness, the trees in the middle, the bright striping in the middle, it looks great what you have

accomplished. thank you. [applause] >> so thank you all, and i also want to thank a few additional people for their strong support throughout this project. city attorney david chiu, jose cisneros, treasurer, ralph remington from the arts commission, and our entire m.t.a. board, almost all of whom are here, manny yekutiel, fiona hinze, sharon lai, chair borden. thank you to all of you. now, who wants to cut a ribbon

so that we can actually start service on this corridor and get on a bus and ride to galileo high school with us? one thing that i do want to remind everyone if you are going to get on a bus, which is going to start running in about five minutes, please do wear your masks. we'll be going to galileo high school where there will be some additional activities. get on the bus. >> the hon. london breed: well, we've waited long enough. everybody join us. five, four, three, two, one. [cheers and applause]

[♪♪♪]

valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. the first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the mission neighborhood extending from market to mission street. >> it is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. >> from 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. the mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m.t.a. to put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on

valencia street within four months time. [♪♪♪] >> valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in san francisco. it has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. we promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. valencia is our mission -- fits our mission perfectly. our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. >> i have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. during that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. >> we have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber

taking folks to concerts at night. one of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. >> the most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. >> we kept all the passengers -- the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. >> most people aren't actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. >> half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6:00 p.m., so could be used for five-minute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. >> the five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be.

>> one of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. >> we worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. >> on this lot, there are a few schools. all these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. to address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings -- railings that channel -- channeled a designated crossing plane. >> we had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons? >> i do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. >> we have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the right-of-way so they can cross the roadway. this is probably one of the most

unique features. >> during the planning phase, the m.t.a. came out with three alternatives for the long term project. one is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. a two-way bikeway. the third option is a center running two-way bikeway, c. would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. >> earlier, there weren't any enter lane designs in san francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for san francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesn't exist already. >> with all three concepts for valencia's long-term improvement , there's a number of trade-offs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the

intersection for signal infrastructure. when he think about extending this pilot or this still -- this design, there's a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. >> the pilot is great. it is a no-brainer. it is also a teaser for us. once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. >> what we're trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. the pilot project is one of our first major improvements. we will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. this fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. by spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about long-term improvements. >> i appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the community workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. >> we want to see valencia become a really welcoming and

comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and abilities. there's a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. we will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [♪♪♪]

>> growing up in san francisco has been way safer than growing up other places we we have that bubble, and it's still that bubble that it's okay to be whatever you want to. you can let your free flag fry -- fly here. as an adult with autism, i'm

here to challenge people's idea of what autism is. my journey is not everyone's journey because every autistic child is different, but there's hope. my background has heavy roots in the bay area. i was born in san diego and adopted out to san francisco when i was about 17 years old. i bounced around a little bit here in high school, but i've always been here in the bay. we are an inclusive preschool, which means that we cater to emp. we don't turn anyone away. we take every child regardless of race, creed, religious or ability. the most common thing i hear in my adult life is oh, you don't

seem like you have autism. you seem so normal. yeah. that's 26 years of really, really, really hard work and i think thises that i still do. i was one of the first open adoptions for an lgbt couple. they split up when i was about four. one of them is partnered, and one of them is not, and then my biological mother, who is also a lesbian. very queer family. growing up in the 90's with a queer family was odd, i had the bubble to protect me, and here, i felt safe. i was bullied relatively infrequently. but i never really felt isolated or alone. i have known for virtually my entire life i was not suspended, but kindly asked to not ever bring it up again in first grade, my desire to have a sex change. the school that i went to

really had no idea how to handle one. one of my parents is a little bit gender nonconforming, so they know what it's about, but my parents wanted my life to be safe. when i have all the neurological issues to manage, that was just one more to add to it. i was a weird kid. i had my core group of, like, very tight, like, three friends. when we look at autism, we characterize it by, like, lack of eye contact, what i do now is when i'm looking away from the camera, it's for my own comfort. faces are confusing. it's a lack of mirror neurons in your brain working properly to allow you to experience empathy, to realize where somebody is coming from, or to realize that body language means that. at its core, autism is a social disorder, it's a neurological disorder that people are born

with, and it's a big, big spectrum. it wasn't until i was a teenager that i heard autism in relation to myself, and i rejected it. i was very loud, i took up a lot of space, and it was because mostly taking up space let everybody else know where i existed in the world. i didn't like to talk to people really, and then, when i did, i overshared. i was very difficult to be around. but the friends that i have are very close. i click with our atypical kiddos than other people do. in experience, i remember when i was five years old and not wanting people to touch me because it hurt. i remember throwing chairs because i could not regulate my own emotions, and it did not mean that i was a bad kid, it meant that i couldn't cope. i grew up in a family of

behavioral psychologists, and i got development cal -- developmental psychology from all sides. i recognize that my experience is just a very small picture of that, and not everybody's in a position to have a family that's as supportive, but there's also a community that's incredible helpful and wonderful and open and there for you in your moments of need. it was like two or three years of conversations before i was like you know what? i'm just going to do this, and i went out and got my prescription for hormones and started transitioning medically, even though i had already been living as a male. i have a two-year-old. the person who i'm now married to is my husband for about two years, and then started gaining weight and wasn't sure, so i went and talked with the doctor at my clinic, and he said well,

testosterone is basically birth control, so there's no way you can be pregnant. i found out i was pregnant at 6.5 months. my whole mission is to kind of normalize adults like me. i think i've finally found my calling in early intervention, which is here, kind of what we do. i think the access to care for parents is intentionally confusing. when i did the prospective search for autism for my own child, it was confusing. we have a place where children can be children, but it's very confusing. i always out myself as an adult with autism. i think it's helpful when you know where can your child go. how i'm choosing to help is to

give children that would normally not be allowed to have children in the same respect, kids that have three times as much work to do as their peers or kids who do odd things, like, beach therapy. how do -- speech therapy. how do you explain that to the rest of their class? i want that to be a normal experience. i was working on a certificate and kind of getting think early childhood credits before i started working here, and we did a section on transgender inclusion, inclusion, which is a big issue here in san francisco because we attract lots of queer families, and the teacher approached me and said i don't really feel comfortable or qualified to talk about this from, like, a cisgendered straight person's perspective, would you mind talking a little bit with your own experience, and i'm like absolutely. so i'm now one of the guest speakers in that particular

class at city college. i love growing up here. i love what san francisco represents. the idea of leaving has never occurred to me. but it's a place that i need to fight for to bring it back to what it used to be, to allow all of those little kids that come from really unsafe environments to move somewhere safe. what i've done with my life is work to make all of those situations better, to bring a little bit of light to all those kind of issues that we're still having, hoping to expand into a little bit more of a resource center, and this resource center would be more those new parents who have gotten that diagnosis, and we want to be this one centralized place that allows parents to breathe for a second. i would love to empower from the bottom up, from the kid level, and from the top down, from the teacher level. so many things that i would love to do that are all about changing people's minds about certain chunts, like the transgender community or the

autistic community. i would like my daughter to know there's no wrong way to go through life. everybody experiences pain and grief and sadness, and that all of those things are temporary.

>> i don't want to be involved in the process after it happens. i want to be there at the front end to help people with something in my mind from a very early age. our community is the important way to look at things, even now. george floyd was huge. it opened up wounds and a discussion on something festering for a long time. before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around

at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down

sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. that is the traditional foods or movies. they were able to celebrate the culture in that community. my family also had a dry-cleaning business. very hard work. the family grew up with apartments above the business. we have a built-in work force. 19 had 1 as -- 1941 as soon as that happened the entire community was fixed. >> determined to do the job as democracy should with real consideration for the people involved. >> the decision to take every one of japan niece american o

japanese from their homes. my family went to the mountains and experienced winter and summer and springs. they tried to make their home a home. the community came together to share. they tried to infuse each home are little things. they created things. i remember my grand mother saying they were very scared. they were worried. they also felt the great sense of pride. >> japanese americans. >> my granduncle joined the 442nd. when the opportunity came when the time that was not right. they were in the campaign in italy. they were there every step of

the way. >> president truman pays tribute. >> that was the most decorated unit in the history of the united states army. commitment and loyal to to the country despite that their families were in the camp at that time. they chose to come back to san francisco even after all of that. my father was a civil servant as well and served the state of california workers' compensation attorney and judge and appellate board. my parents influenced me to look at civil service s.i applied to police, and sheriff's department at the same time. the sheriff's department grabbed me first. it was unique. it was not just me in that moment it was everyone. it wasn't me looking at the crowd. it was all of us being

together. i was standing there alone. i felt everyone standing next to me. the only way to describe it. it is not about me. it is from my father. my father couldn't be there. he was sick. the first person i saw was him. i still sometimes am surprised by the fact i see my name as the sheriff. i am happy to be in the position i am in to honor their memory doing what i am doing now to help the larger comment. when i say that we want to be especially focused on marginalized communities that have been wronged. coming from my background and my family experienced what they did. that didn't happen in a vacuum.

it was a decision made by the government. nobody raised their voice. now, i think we are in a better place as country and community. when we see something wrong we have change agents step up to help the community affected. that is a important thing to continue to do. you talk about change and being a leader in change and not knowing whether you have successes or results. the fact of the matter is by choosing to push for change you have already changed things. through inspiration for others, take up the matter or whether it is through actual functional change as a result of your voice being heard. i think you have already started on a path to change by choosing that path. in doing that in april of itself creates change. i continue in that type of service for my family. something i hope to see in my

children. i have a pretty good chance with five children one will go into some sort of civil service. i hope that happens to continue that legacy. >> i am paul, sheriff of san francisco. [ music ]

. >> secretary: please stand if you're able to for the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> president: hello good evening. welcome to the april 13th, 2022, meeting. sergeant kimshaw, we're able to have you here again and welcome any future appearances by you as well. sergeant renolds, can you please call the