>> good morning, everybody. >> good morning. glad to see you her. welcome to her majesty and the mayor and the ministers joining us today and everybody joining us today. i'm alicia belligerent star and the president and ceo of spur which is an urban policy and urban planning nonprofit that focuses here on the bay area but we constantlily are looping at the netherlands for inspiration so i'm excited to be with you for an a hissing set of conversations. we're going to have panels tackling different topics and it's going to be fun and excited about it and to start our program i have the honor as introducing mayor london breed to give us a few remarks and mayor breed as you may know is the 45th mayor of

san francisco. she was born and raised here and in her tenure she has been very focused on a lot of the challenges and opportunities that we are going to be discussing today in our panels and otherwise and in particular, has really made the affordability and availability of housing one of her commitments as mayor. she, i think as part of her experience growing up in san francisco has brought from my perspective, i'm editorializing, a practical approach to the way she works as mayor, she's very committed to results more so than ideology and that i think serves the city of san francisco very well. she's of course gained national recognition even international remembering fission under the stewardship of san francisco throughout the covid-19 pandemic and in my experience has been a true champion and so pleased and

excited to introduce mayor london breed. [applause] >> first of all, thank you for joining us here today and i want to start by welcoming her majesty to san francisco. it's an honor to have you here. we were in the castro talking about the history and the culture of the movement with a number of leaders and did a walking tour of the castro and it was so, not only beautiful because the weather in san francisco is always perfect but it was amazing because -- [laughter] just the people out there and the information they provided and the natural chemistry that existed between the queen and people in san francisco. it's wonderful and so i'm grateful to be here to have these conversations and the one complaint i have is that there is no fun on the queen's agenda, so hopefully you could at least make this panel a little

interesting. [laughter] not all work. we're really honored to have you here today and we're really sorry that the king was unable to join us but we are definitely wishing him a speedy recovery and make sure he knows he is truly missed. we just, as i said, while we might be far away from each other on the map, our values and our borders, share a close bond and that's why we're here today. to is about bringing california and the netherlands and recognizing the values we share, the challenges we face and the opportunities that we have to learn from one another, so that we can see growth and we can see excitement in our various locations. here in san francisco and in california, so many of our conversations stem from our lack of housing. i know that the netherlands faces these same challenges especially in its largest city like amsterdam.

we're working on our plan to meet our goal of adding 82,000 new homes over the next eight years in san francisco. very ambitious goal. this is a significant number of homes which we need but it's going to take real change and the queen and i were talking about not only the homes that need to be built but the transportation network that needs to be connected to move people around efficiently and safety. we can't continue to do things the same way. we have to be aggressive because when you don't have enough housing, the impacts ripple throughout the city as we continue to see. it impacts our workforce that can't afford to live here, near near places like (indiscernible), it's not just the people who work and do the more high-tech jobs but it's also the people who are hr managers, the people who are janitors and security and all of the different layers that make a building like this works. it impacts the environment because

people have to drive long distances instead of taking a short bus ride or walk to work. the lack of housing impact homelessness and the conditions that sadly we see on our streets. and dries away our families and they want to raise their kids in a dynamic and growing city. you create healthy cities by having housing for people, not just for those who are the wealthiest and the few to who can access our limited subsidized housing but for everyone and here in san francisco, we have an opportunity for real change much we can't just keep talking about it. we have to do something about it. we have solutions before us now to get rid of the obstruction that gets in the way of actually building the housing we need in the city but even with that, we need to do more. i'm eager to learn more about how the netherlands is approaching the same housing shortage problem especially in its largest cities and as we build housing, we're creating more sustainable cities, people walking and biking and taking

public transit, people living near their friends and family where they can knock on the door and have a glass of wine or champagne or something. [laughter] cities like san francisco are also much more climate friendly, not just because of the nature of our urban living but because of the aggressive goals we set in our climate action plan. we set a goal of getting to net zero emission by 2040. the netherlands have similar goals which is why we're similarly aligned and that's who we are, our shared values of california and the netherlands and this isn't just about being a leader on climate but it's about protecting our cities catastrophe and sea level is looming blocks from here, it's not hard to imagine what could happen if we don't take action to reverse climate change. it's why this work is so important. it's why i'm honored to have our

special guests, her majesty and her delegation here today to have this dialogue, so thank you to everyone who is joining us to participate in these critical conversations. all of you are doing incredible work of creating healthier urban environment and i'm looking forward to the discussion ahead to talk about it and then to finally make it happen, so that we see a better future for california and the netherlands, thank you all so much for being here today. [applause] >> thank you so much, mayor breed. i would love to welcome our first panel. you are already here. perfect. go ahead. and i'll do some, i was going to do a full bio but then i realized that was going to take the entire time so i'm going to introduce folks by your current role, so first we have yana

gonzalez who is the secretary for the california department of environmental or the environmental protection agency. sorry about that. and just recently if i'm correct, right. one of our first public appearances is here with you all. [applause] next we have ann capers. i feel as though i'm not saying this in the proper pronunciation but i'm trying. minister of health welfare and sports from the netherlands and vifsh january hanna -- vivian hanna, minister for the environment for the netherlands and pleased to be with you today and mayor breed touched on part of what i had been thinking about which is, we share so many similarities between the bay area and the netherlands and really anywhere you go in the world, people have some basic requirements that they need in order to live healthy, full lives. i would

love to know, given that we have this incredible array of people, you're going to be speaking with so many different groups while you're here, what it is that you are hoping to gain from this exchange? and how that relates to the policy areas in which you work and secretary gonzalez maybe we can start with you. >> sure. first of all, thank you so much for having me. this is my second full day -- oh, apologies. thank you so much for having me. this is my second full day on the job. laufr laugh i took my seat early. i didn't want to take the panel late. thank you to the majesty and the pin sters here and the mayor is in the audience, mayor breed, thank you for having us and it's an honor to be here on a momentous occasion. mayor breed touched upon the importance of equity and i think you know, some of the issues that transcend both california and

the netherlands and in many of my former roles, this is my primary focus to embed equity into the framework of all it is we do and i think there is, there's no more urgent of a time to do that right now. we are in the mist of an unprecedented heat wave this late in the summer for us here and yes, the weather is nice and it is also very hot for the season, so the relevance of being here together to build this type of a partnership through the execution of this mou, it's extraordinarily timeline and i'm excited to move forward in the work plan, the joint research that i think we're going to effectuate but to take action here. i think it will, it is known that governor newsom and our administration takes climate change and the threats of our new climate reality very seriously. we are committed to investing in the resilience of

our state, the resilience of each community across our state, just last week, the legislature passed an an ambitious legislative package really led by governor newsom's administration and this package does many, many things. one of which is to codify our goal to be climate neutral by 2045 at the very latest. it also a fek yates the largest climate change. $50 billion for climate investment and that's across the economy, that's across our state as a whole so excited just to be here today, to be able to discuss some of the shared priorities with our partners and really ultimately to roll up our sleeves and get to work in what our communities are asking of us and what we really need to meet this moment. thank you. >> thank you so much, secretary. mr. capers. >> yeah, thank you, alicia. when looking out of the window

of my hotel room this morning, i thought that it has been more than 30 years since i first visited your beautiful city and at that time, i came with my girlfriend, now my wife and two friends and we were using a very typical dutch way of transport. we arrived the golden gate by bike. after having been on the road for more than three weeks, it was a beautiful trip and after a few years, we found ourselves working in the united states closely collaborating with colleagues from kaiser permanente from usf and in my area was cancer prevention. if you look at the 30 years since then, we have made a cost (indiscernible) very significant progress in health care and i'm understanding disease and diagnosis and treatments and et cetera and if you look at the situation where we are now, then the challenges are far longer

than they were 30 years ago. this has to do with health and equity and equality. it also has to do with limitations and access in your and ours health care system. it has to do with limitations and shortage in staff and staff attrition and on top of that, it has to do with the quality of our environment, our urban environment, living conditions, what people do not work quickly under estimate as a significant impact this has on the health, the daily health of many, many people. so what i hope we will learn here at this focus of knowledge is a lot about these issues which we both here and i'm proud to bring with me, a very launched delegation of representatives from dutch cities, universities, hospitals, and also from a whole ranch of companies and i hope this will increase collaborations and bring new solutions.

>> thank you so much, minister. clause ms. hannan. >> i'm excited to be here to be honest and that sustainability mobility is a nice addition to also making the environment and the health of people benefit a lot. one of the good things is that in the netherlands, we have a lot of knowledge when it comes to sustainability mobility and we have a lot of companies that's investing a lot in the infrastructure for the charging systems, for cars for example. but cycling is also something that is very important in the netherlands and we have more bikes than people over there and i think that we can also learn from the system you're using here if san francisco and in other places in the u.s. because i'll be visiting los angeles later on this week and it's very i am policive to see what is -- it's impressive to see what's

happening here. i had an opportunity to walk around on sunday and i visited some of the areas and what you see is that this particular area is very much focused on improving the environment but focusing on sustainable transport and sustainable ways of transport and here are enormous opportunities and i had the opportunity this morning to speak some companies share -- speak to some companies sharing their knowledge on sustainable charging system but sustainable transport systems and vice versa because there's also a lot of knowledge hereof course. and in order to reach all these ambitious climate goals but also the health goals, we have to be able to innovate and invest and here we can really learn from each other and i'm really hoping that all the companies that are present here today will share experiences, share knowledge, share in that work in order to make sure we are all getting better in a faster pace even

than we already want to reach. >> thank you so much. [applause] i really appreciate all of the elements that each of you have highlighted from what we're hoping to get from this experience and i will say, i'm often accused of being very ambitious in the policy work that my organization does but you have given us a lot to go over in the next few days and next panel. i appreciate your time this morning and i'm going to let you return to where you're going and bring up our next panel. thank you so much. [applause] so, if the panelist want to join me. i'm going to do introductions while getting settled. all right. so my direct right is eric shaw and eric is the director of the san francisco mayor's office of

housing and community development. he oversees the development of affordable house and ensures local communities have access to essential resources. he has a broad range of experience in government leading planning, community and economic development and worked in emergency services which seems to be very appropriate for the current times. and worked in many jurisdictions as well including salt lake city, utah, washington, d.c. and here in san francisco san francisco and for the state of california. next, we have lauren. she's the sustainable officer for the city of los angeles where she's driving the implementation of la's green new deal which is a policy for local action to confront the climate crisis and build an inclue sifsh green economy that prioritizes equity. and lauren works on environmental issues from the defense fund which is the major ngo and working as a senior policy advisor at the british embassy and secretary for

climate change programs at the california environment protection agency. next we have sharon. she's the 332nd mayor [laughter] . we thought we were getting up there with 45 in san francisco. 332nd. not getting up in there age but numbers. [laughter] so, prior to this, she has held a number of important government roles including as member parliament and state secretary for education, cultural and science, states secretary for economic affairs and state secretary of infrastructure and the environment. she served as deputy mayor for traffic and transport, water and air quality for the municipality of amsterdam. our panel; josha is the direct of urban plan and sustainability at the city of

amsterdam and she focused on major housing development ask connectivity and she was active at the director of facilities cam tuesday organization at the friday university for ten years. focusing on sfashl spatial planning and back ground in urban geographer and aerial developer, welcome each of you. again, i'm excited to be in conversation with all four of you this morning. you could cover a lot of topics and we have heard rays, i made a note for myself in the prior comments, housing, equity and inequity, health, climate and sustainability mobility. as i referenced in the opening panel, there's, every time the spirit of the study, we do study trips all over the world to learn from other cities and how we can incorporate solutions from elsewhere, what i'm struck by is how similar we are across the

planet because people are people. and we may address our challenges differently because we work in different context and different cultures but we've generally face the same challenges in cities and as humans, we need things like safe and affordable housing, clean environments and the ability to belong in a community so there's different components that make up a healthy urban environment and each of you is working at a municipal scale to bring that into being. i'm hoping that you can talk just a little bit about what you see as one of the sort of primarily issues facing your current or your city where you work and what you're doing to address it. eric, why don't we start with you. >> hello, thank you very much and your majesty. i have the fortune for working for mayor breed. what we have learned, to address a challenge requires leadership and she and i grew up in the bay area and we have left

in the space of sustainability of equity and of intention. and so as we approach this challenge of building much-needed affordable housing at all scales for all incomes as fast as possible, i think you heard my charge from the speech here, we really are just really trying to be leaders in this space and be intentional. i have a wealth of riches right now. i'm saying we do more with more in san francisco. we have really aggressively leadership on expediting the creation of housing and we have state leaders that are promoting the ability to get affordable housing done faster, we're very fortunate that our public has voted for $1.5 billion for the creation of affordable housing, $1.3 billion to help solve homelessness. in addition to that, we form relationships with the federal and state government although we need more from the state, to really accelerate that so it's requiring us to think outside the box and show leadership and leverage those

resources and lever arrange the relationships to advance this work. i'm fortunate this time the community has support, we have the support of the mayor and we have support of the partnerships to advance that and so, i wake up everyday, resource to meet the challenge. and a lot of organizations and even the miss region don't have that leadership. that's what i want to lead with you. >> thank you, interesting concept. the resource meets challenge. lauren, how about you. >> it's nice to see you and your majesty. thank you for allowing me to participate from los angeles. i'm the chief sustainable officer for the city of los angeles and it's a city of $4 million residents nestled in a county of 88 cities and we're the largest but that puts us in ten million. and it may not be a surprise that coming from l.a. that i would say that one of our largest challenges as

it relates to urban health is air pollution and gridlock and so, i say that because los angeles has some of the worst air quality in the country and angeleno spends double the amount of time in their cars as the national average and what we see is that those issues of unhealthy air, of time spent in your car, the inability to have a high access, high-quality public transit, it really affects our health, it affects the climate, it affects racial inequality that we're seeing a history of dissecting the city through our freeways and high density transit where communities of color, black and latinos are trapped in and around the freeways through a history of institutional racism and it also is affecting our prosperity and economic mobility when you don't have the

opportunity to move around. so you're stuck in unhealthy spaces and so everything that we do to combat air pollution and combat traffic is addressing all of those issues and addressing our greenhouse gas emission ask addressing pollution and transportation is by far the largest source of air pollution on road cars, buses, trucks, so as we electrify those vehicles and as we help people get out of their cars by developing zero emission car share, electric vehicle car sharing and building out our public transportation system in los angeles, we are embarking, we have embarked on the largest infrastructure project in the history of the united states times two by building out the public transportation system of los angeles. and in so doing, we are putting a down payment on equity, on air quality and on economic mobility. access to those jobs when you can move

around. we're seeing that every single major electric bus manufacturer is located in the los angeles area. so it's a huge amount of job opportunity and building out the electric infrastructure in that manufacturing so all those things are the types of things we're doing to address these challenges. >> thank you so much. mayor? >> yes. first of all, thank you for having me here. i also would like to thank the mayor under her excellence opening speech. you really are a breath of fresh air, i would say. that's what we actually need. [applause] and we need this because i fully agree with the minister of health that the times that we are living now are not only challenging. they are sometimes even frightening actually. there are a lot of crisis going on. in the netherlands, for instance,

we're heading for a new crisis, the energy crisis since the russian invasion in ukraine. we have the refugee crisis, working force crisis, et cetera. so, what keeps me going as mayor is to combine all these challenges and to find solutions for the citizens which really make them trust us as governance and that's something we most of the times face that nobody trust the institutions anymore, so that is maybe the biggest challenge for all of us, how to become more trustworthy to work for our citizens so yes we need to build affordable houses and we need to make them sustainable to the energy prices of the citizens are going down instead of up. we need to rebuild infrastructure which makes cycling more challenging and attractive instead of taking a car. in

immediaty val city and this is why i'm the 322nd, there is just not enough space for all these cars. [laughter] so we need to try to find a way to attract people to temp them to make different choices and it that's to be the cheap choice. i would last with one example, what we are doing, we are -- nobody knows so i'm telling you know, don't forget this, we are the cycling capital of the world. it's really true. and it is not because -- [applause] yeah. and it is not because we have so many people only using the bike but that's because we have a whole holistic program of infrastructure which is bike-friendly. cars are guests on the street. this is why we help out poor families whose

children are not able to afford a bike to give it to them so we have a whole program and this is why you can really make a big step forward and i wish we would team up with all the companies here, all the scientist because with a triple approach, we can face these challenges, thank you. [applause] >> thank you. osha, we would love to hear from you. >> thank you, your imagine tree and mayor breed for welcoming us in san francisco. i feel really, really welcome. and i'm happy so many companies out here -- to learn more about the traffic, low traffic program we have because it is a total way of planning our city from modal to where we give back to the public realm to the people where you can meet, where they can express

themselves, so we don't start with the traffic. we start with the space to stay, to meet, and space for bicycles and of walkable city and linked this policy with bicycle storage facilities, with car -- with bicycle sharing, but also with mobility hubs, so i'm really glad that the companies here with help us with that. what brings with that? it brings more clean air and healthy environment, more possibility to meet and if i look further on, maybe i can make that (indiscernible), is that right. or do you want to do that? >> no, go ahead. >> okay. because mayor breed was talking about the housing crisis of course and what we're doing in amsterdam, we're expanding

the city with the problem of urban sprawl and at least getting people on a longer distance to work but to really focus on the pollee central area, metropolitan area where we strengthen the centers in the same way with a tight connectivity with the amenities and with schooling and employment. i think that's also the model which (indiscernible) is promoting on the (indiscernible) model and we embraced that model as a framework for a responsible economic growth because the cities will stay magnets, it will be a trend which will be stop. so it's our responsibility also as urbanist and planners to choose for this

sustainable approach and responsible growth within the planetary boundaries on the social justice city. >> thank you so much. [applause] so, you know, mayor, you raised something i wanted to bring back to the panel and you talked about how there's so many crisis you deal with on a daily basis and working with public service in the past, the focus of public service is so often today dear with the crisis of today and yet, our job as public servants is also to think ahead, to think about what happens in ten years and in 20 years and i wonder if you could speak a little bit about where you're focused on the future, what you hope to see in that next timeframe? >> yes. i agree with you. i think that one of the reasons why sometimes corporations between for instance public

administration and companies is difficult because companies need this long-term security on what is the course, where are we heading for? i think we try to have a vision on 2040 and to tell everybody this is the amount of houses that we need. we need them also in special categories for being available and affordable for many people, also with lower income and then we also want to include what is necessary for people to have a heathy and also happy life because you are not only there with building houses, what you need to do is build the old infrastructure around it. like, theaters, schools, doctors, everything. so, we include this in a so-called bar code in which we had found out a way that if you build a certain amount of houses, we already know that what is else needs to be included in the whole package in

order to build a, not only sustainable city but also a city which is future proof and what we try to do for instance with the infrastructure is heavily invest in public transport and in our cycling infrastructure because we know this is the future and we do not want to take any step back, but that ask sometimes that you are able and a little bit rebel rebel yours because you have to step over your line so you have to raise above your grade, so-to-speak instead of staying in your own area and time. this is something that is really asking people who are willing to take both steps and not afraid and that is what this time needs, i think. >> thank you. [applause] and lauren, it strike me that in

some cases responding to the crisis is actually a tenure endeavor or 20-year endeavor, but how are you thinking about balancing what we need today verses what we need tomorrow? >> that's exactly right and mayor, you really touched -- mary you touched on something i was thinking about. we think about the future, when we plan, we have to listen to our residents, to our local businesses about what they want, what they need, and we also have to benefit from looking around us to our sister cities and our partners around the country and around the world and that's why working with amsterdam and san francisco, mayor, san francisco is such an incredible leader on so many, as the netherlands on zero waste and green buildings and mobility and we learn and we take so much away from others as mayor garcetti always says, good mayors borrow and great mayors

steal. [laughter] so that is our montra when we think about how to look ahead and develop the solutions now that's going to improve communities today. i'm going to leave you with two examples, one, in downtown los angeles, downtown community plan, growing up in los angeles, there was no reason, i never went to downtown, there was no reason to go down there and now i work there, but when we look at our community plan and how to plan for the city by 2040, we're anticipating housing 20% of the population growth between now and 2040 and one percent of the land area of los angeles in downtown and what does that look like? that looks like mixed-use housing, it could be anything from micro units to work/live setups and of course being transit oriented and going from a city that was all about parking minimums to doing away with that and now moving toward bike parking minimums. and you know, that is really changing the face of a blighted under

invested part of the city that is becoming awe city center so that's a really exciting process underway. another example is what we call a universal basic pilot in south los angeles which is a city on to itself. south los angeles and it is made up of predominately black and latino angelenos and under invested community, so we rolled out a nearly $18 million investment in what we call universal basic mobility so that's bringing forward electric vehicle car sharing and e-bikes, subsidizing transit passes and electric vehicles charging across the neighborhood, looking at expanding our workforce development in all of these different transportation, clean transportation modes, so we can demonstrate how all of these different modes fit together and that improves mobility and health and fights climate change.

>> thanks, lauren. you're just doing a little bit. [applause] yosha, do you want to speak to this. i'm recognizing the parallels between what lauren was raising and what you were raising. do you want to speak, what comes in the next 10 to 20 years? >> it's very important that we chose to densify within the current city so we can make use of the public transport which is there so we'll focus on the multimodal centers and we have to densify high rise because we have to invest in the quality of green spaces and also taken into consideration the climate adaptation because we -- we have, now we have a heat wave also and (indiscernible) in the soil and et cetera. but in the

meantime, we also have lots of rains, extreme rains and winds where we have to combine the public, design of the public space not only for the green but also by diversity and also to retain water a longer time, so it's not to flood the streets. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> this is all sounds very familiar and i'm going to come to you, eric with the last word. >> well, thank you once again. so, it's about investment and you know, once again, as we talked about how to do more with more. it's about investing in people, it's about investing in place and about investing in community. to really create resilience systems. we are being extremely intentional about understanding how capital and policy have created system racism and economic inequity and we work everyday to be

intentional in the work we do, to unwind that work. also it's amazing, if you guys don't know, san francisco's is the forth large effort city in california but we're one that is the global capital and i think that we need to do two things. one, be very honest with global capital but how we have expectations around equity and investment to invest with heart here in san francisco, like we do. but also the second in the end is, sometimes capital moves really fast and you don't realize one day how rents went up or prices went up and we have to do? deep reflection --? deep reflection on the boons and the crash and how we're being strategic in the investment to make sure we can leverage and weather and ride out those systems so it's being very intentional and public globally with all of our partners here, that san francisco leads with heart, invest in people and community and hopes to have partners that

believe in those same intentions. and also in the end, just being mindful of learning from the past. we have been the global capital since -- but it takes leadership and reflection because things move so fast and you have to slowdown for a second and do that analysis as well. so, anything with data and the people know here, any gis, any trend analysis, any history folks here, i would welcome any input and partnership in that space as well. >> thank you. [applause] so i want to thank all for a fantastic conversation this evening. i speak more than myself, it makes me feel optimistic and confident to know you're in positions of leadership in the cities you serve so thank you for all you do and your time this morning. i really appreciate it, thank you. [applause]

>> welcome to urban dialogue. a new program where we come together to solve urban challenges. cities are economic powerhouses. places of social interaction and creativity. cities are also where major worldwide challenges present themselves. we present you urban dialogues. using an innovative form mat, we have dutch and american experts from discipline from the public and private sector, academic institutions and other stakeholders and zooming in on the fabric of the city to increase prosperity, promote social inclusion and enhance resilience and environmental sustainability. let's work together solving the challenges we all face. agr food

and feeding cities together. infrastructure and water, advancing mobility and resilient cities together. climate and circular economy, creating circular cities together. healthy living. promoting heathy cities together. creative industries. nurturing creative and inclusive cities together. peace, justice and security, creating safe and friendly cities together. urban

dialogues. coming to your city soon. [applause] >> all right. this time i think that's the full video so i just want to thank you all so much for being part of this program this morning. we covered so many topics and i know it was pretty quick but i hope you'll have an opportunity over the course of the next few days to really dive deeper into many of these. we gained so much when we learn from each other and when we get to experience each other's context and cultures and environments and i'm pleased that you're all here with us so thank you and enjoy the rest of your time. thank you. [applause][music]

>> all right, good morning, everyone. welcome to our citizenship month celebration, my name is rich, i'm the acting director of the office of civic affairs and immigrant affairs and we're excited to celebrate on this hot and beautiful day. just for today, we'll be celebrating many of the great resources available to san franciscans to support citizenship services. whether that includes immigration legal services, immigration fee assistance or esl and citizenship preparation classes so we're delighted to be joined by special guest and community member to celebrate this day and i'm going to hand it over to our mc for the day, the ceo for self help, lead agency for the pathway to citizenship initiative and a fax knowledge person and community leader, annie chung. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, richard, but our

phenomenal partners are all right here on the podium next to the podium. so, thank you very much, everyone for attending this, very very important day. we're celebrating national citizen shich month and we have a lot of our -- citizenship month and we have leaders to help us do the kickoff and make announcement of the important resources we have, on behalf of the san francisco initiative, i want to thank our elected officials from our city administrator and woun derful supervisors and each of them will make remarks to us and we also have a little recognize next right after this. it's hard richard so let's get the show on the road. all right. so, good morning, everyone. so again, to start off the national citizenship month, we're going to invite mayor's office chumaca

to make briefs. >> good morning, it's wonderful to be with you. my name is chumaca and i'm here on behalf of mayor breed who wasn't able to attend so she sent me. we recognize around 50,000 green card holders in san francisco are eligible to naturalize and the message from the mayor is simple, now is the time to become a citizen and the mayor, our board of supervisors and all of our community partners are here to support them in that journey to becoming a citizen. stint ship convey so many benefits and you can get a job and earn higher wages and allows you to vote and help shape the future of our city and our nation and it also ensures your right to remain in the united states and it can never be taken away from you and our green card holders form a social are and cultural fabric in the city and the major -- the mayor encourages you to become a further embedded part of that fabric. on behalf of the mayor, i would like to thank osia, our

immigrants right commission and the pathway to citizenship initiative and community partners for the work they do to support our green card holders and folks pursuing naturalization in the city. i like to issue a congratulations to the folks who have become naturalized citizenship. congrats again, that's bon derful. thanks to the folks who are actively pursuing and on the path to becoming citizens, without further or do, i'm excited to declare september citizenship month in the city and county of san francisco. thank you all. [cheers and applause] thank you again. >> what a wonderful honor, thank you, chuamac. i heard with this certificate we can park anywhere for a day, right. now, since the mayor announced this as a month

of citizenship, so does it mean that all of us new citizens and citizens, no parking tickets. all right. [laughter] if we get one, we'll bring them to supervisor peskin. >> that's right. >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much. next will be our really, really honorable president of our board of supervisors, supervisor of the district ten, supervisor and president of the board, shamann walton. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, annie. good afternoon or good morning. it looks like the afternoon. first of all, i want to say it's always a privilege to share the same podium with annie chung who works so hard for our seniors in this city but also for our immigrant community and it is exciting to be here to celebrate all of the new citizens that we have here in san francisco and of course, across the country. since 2013, sf pathways provided

an opportunity to citizenship for over ten thousand residents here in san francisco across our communities and that's a milestone that we should celebrate. [cheers and applause] we know, you heard a little bit about the importance of becoming a citizen and what it does for wages, what it does to make sure that you have more family security, but i do want to put emphasis on the fact that it also gives you the right to vote here in san francisco and that is a major importance as we are coming up on election for november 8th, we have so many new voters, so many new people who can exercise their right and you all know that one of the most important rights we could have here in san francisco is that right to vote. so i'm excited to celebrate not only the citizenship new residents ask of course, new citizens -- and of course new citizens but the fact we have provided the opportunity for more people to have a vote, more people to have a say in their future, more

people to have a say in their representatives and more people to have a say in how they are governed and i think that's important as we live here in san francisco, so thank you so much for coming out and showing your support for all of our new citizens, making sure that we do everything we can to ensure everyone has the right to be protected here in san francisco. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> thank you so much, president walton. our inspection speaker, she's my -- our next speaker and she's my supervisor because i'm a resident of sunset. she was a supervisor of district four and she went on to be our accessory recorder and she's our city administrator, chu. >> hello, i'm happy to kickoff citizenship month. it's personal for me because my parent were immigrants year ago me dad worked in the kitchen and

my mom sold clothes in garment factors and despite that hard work they made time to go after work, to go to city college, to learn english so they become, they could become naturalized citizens. they knew how important it was to be able to establish security for our family here but more importantly, they also knew they needed to have a full set of rights when they were here as well. so, i really think being able to have such wonderful partnerships with people like annie chung i'm in with the immigrant rights commission and with rip ripple who is our -- rich ripple who is our acting director at oci and it's important, why? at that time when my parents had the least amount of resources, had the least amount of time, they had to pay legal fees, they had to figure out the ways to make it work and navigate a system that was hard, complex and not easy for someone who couldn't understand english. so being able to have a program like this in san francisco this pathway program where you're able to get

free legal advice, you're able to actually understand the process and work with people who have helped many, many and thousands of people before reached citizenship is a huge comfort and a wonderful bottom line impact for people who don't have as much resources as we would want and so again, i'm happy to be here and i want to thank all of the folks who are here today, all the board members who joined us and annie for our incredible service, thank you so much. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, carmen. we would like to invite supervisor chung. of district one to make comments. thank you, connie. >> thank you. [foreign language] thank you. i want to congratulate everyone here for becoming citizens and i know it's hard work because i have been through that process but it's not just about hard work

but it's about studying english because if that's not your first language, you have to really study it but remember the history and remember so much more. i would say for some of you, you have been through a lot more than some of our kids, i think, through the public education and to actually earn your citizenship and like some of those who are born here and sometimes i think my own kid take it for granted the freedom and the rights that you have as american citizens. so again, congratulations. [applause] it is the reason i think we should celebrate it but i'm going to keep it short because it's hot out here and we see the seniors here but let's say to celebrate this month as a citizen month, but let's also think about, you know, just every month and everyday like all that san franciscans and the residents here working really hard towards making the city better, that they may not be

citizens in the united states. still, their contribution should be recognized and respected and they still work hard towards citizenship because they love our city, they love our state and love this country, so let's also make sure during their path to citizenship that we still provide them essentials in san francisco and create that safe space for them and i think this is what today is about. you see the people behind me, there's funding resource asks contributions -- and con and thanks to the city administrator and providing funding and providing a safe pathway for citizenship, so for that, thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, connie. next, we're going to invite supervisor gorman mar representing district four. >> thank you so much, annie and i'm also really excited to be here today with everyone to really celebrate national naturalization month here in san francisco and more importantly

to celebrate the pathways to citizenship initiative that is now ten years old in our city and played an important role in supporting and lifting up and empowering our immigrant communities here in the city. when i first moved to san francisco decades ago, fresh out of college and a community organizer in china town, we were working on grassroots efforts to support naturalization and voter registration in our community that was happening in the immigrant communities throughout our city but through the vision of mayor ed lee and also community leaders like annie chung and other city leaders, we created the model for naturalization and immigrant community empowerment in the country here through the pathway through citizenship initiative and the immigrants rights commission i would say as well. we should be proud of the work we have done here to support immigrants, to naturalize, to register to vote and become active politically and civically in our city and let's keep it

up. there's so much work to do to support our immigrants because our immigrant communities make san francisco what we are, right. there's the diversity, the beautiful diverse of our city. they are our small business owners and service workers and tech workers and our cultural, and add so much cultural to our city. let's keep uplifting our immigrant community and congratulations everyone. and of course to our new citizens and introduce, my colleague district three, supervisor aaron peskin. [applause] >> thank you, annie, thank you to my colleagues. almost everything has been said but not everyone has said it, so i will say this, my mother did it 58 years ago and be like my mother who has never missed an election since she become a citizen. thank you and congratulations. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, aaron. and

supervisor representing district 7, supervisor myrna melgar. >> thank you, annie. congratulations, everyone. [foreign language] i'm myrna melgar and i was born and raised in central america in el salvador and in 1996 i became a u.s. citizen and in 2020 i was elected to the board of supervisor for san francisco, a city that gave my family, my sisters, my parents so much opportunity to thrive, to be educated, to build our families and now to represent district 7 on the board of supervisors which will be you some day or your children. i want to say how happy i am to be a part of this event and how grateful i am for the work of osia and to carmen chiu in they're and annie chung

and all the people who have worked so hard to integrate immigrants and to make sure that, you know, the fabric of our democracy is strengthened by your experiences because you have lived, we have all lived through this world in a different path. we know what it's like to come to this country, to learn a language, to work hard, to put our kids through school and to be a part of the country, to be grateful for what we have been given and to contribute. i have voted in every single election since becoming a citizen and i know you will too. and thank you, everybody, for the support. i know we in san francisco will keep growing, the system we have to support immigrants to create that pathway and to make sure that they are integrated and they vote, thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you so much, myrna and all supervisors today made special arrangement to attend this celebration with us. thank

to them. they have to get back to their committee meetings so if you don't mind, syleena, hold your item and i would like to invite our partners of the sf pathway to citizenship to present something to celebrate, not just national citizenship month but the (indiscernible) festival which is this saturday. [applause] so with compliment from our family association, the landlord and they have generously contributed some beautiful moon cakes for each one of our esteemed guest today, so i ask our partners at the same time introduce them to you, so representing the api legal outreach, wong. so would you present the moon cake and then representing the international institute of the bay area. i'm

sorry, i couldn't hear. representing our jewish family and june services, we have brett snyder or supervisor chang and representing the immigration advocacies, we have amy or claire. are they -- okay. [applause] sorry. please present our moon cakes to supervisor peskin. it's a mini moon cake so don't worry about the calories, okay. [laughter] so, representing -- all right. so, representing the larasa community resource center, we have gabriel or shawn or wendy. i don't know if they are here. if not, then we have carlos representing the labor council, we rise immigration center, so supervisor gordon mar. [applause] thank you. and if --

representing the elderly would give one to shamaka from the mayor's office. and then i think shamann went back to the chamber so we'll bring his box. let's give a big hand to the supervisor's office and mayor's office. [cheers and applause] and then we'll go back to our agenda. it's very hot today.

[taking pictures] >> thank you! [indistinct chatter]

>> all right. sorry for the interruption but we now, i would like to invite the chair of our immigrant rights commission, ms. celine canelli to say a few words and i have to tell celine, she's very, very supportive of the sf pathway really from the day one since we conceived the idea and supported it with fund and the oc office and all of the community ambassadors, for every one of our workshop, so thank you celine. let's give a warm welcome to celine. [cheers and applause] >> good morning, everyone. i think we're -- are we still in the morning? just about. i'm delighted to be here this morning. i'm a naturalized

immigrant and i remember going on the path but the excitement as you go on that path, the day i was eligible to apply, the day i got the notification, my application had been accepted and the interview, it's a process. it's a long road and but it's so worth it when you get to the end of it, so i very much encourage the 50,000 lpr who are eligible to apply to please get on the path. so, on behalf of the immigrant rights commission, we are proud to be here today to celebrate the more than ten thousand san franciscans who have naturalized through sf pathways. sf pathways really, really emphasizes the importance that the city puts on our immigrant community and look at the display of support we had from the mayor's office, from our city assessor and all our supervisors this morning. so, the new citizens who are here with us today, and those who have been through sf pathways were able to get help with their applications for free. they

attended free workshops and got help from pro bono attorneys and these attorneys give their time, month after month, year after year to make sure that our immigrants get to naturalized and many applied for fee waivers if they couldn't afford the fee and sf pathways saved applicants $1.5 million in application fees. for those who don't qualify for a fee waiver, san francisco in its usual creative way launched a program to help cover the cost. ocf and the nonprofit mission fund provide a 50 percent match to help people apply for citizenship, so half of the cost is covered by a grant. the collaborative have done something unique in san francisco. it has made citizenship accessible to all eligible green card holders regardless of income and the immigrants rights commission and i see my vice-chair mario has been able to join us today. we

have supported the work of sf pathways from the beginning and we're proud to be here today to celebrate its continued success. so, a huge thank you to sf pathways and all partners, to ocf, director rupa and mission (indiscernible) fund and the partners and volunteers. if you haven't had an opportunity to volunteer, please do so. you'll see it on social media and sign up and it's a rewarding feeling so congratulations to you all and congratulations to sf pathways. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, celine so much. if the weather is more cooperative, we would have asked celine to send us her beautiful song, right but today we're going to let her voice rest. nancy, on behalf of the sf pathway present our many moon cakes to celebrate the mid autumn festival to our wonder of, wonderful celine, thank you, celine and the

immigrants commission. for the next program, we prepared threw new citizens that used our pathway services to become u.s. citizens, so we like them to share a very short, you know, their experience and why they want to become a citizen now. so, first speaker would be ms. tang. she will speak in chinese very short and then jen, our director of our program will do the translation for her. ms. tang. [foreign language] [applause] >> hello, everyone. [foreign language] >> interpreter: i'll do the translation. so, hello everyone. my name is pang tang and i'm 72 years old. i came to the united

states in 2012 from china. are -- i become a u.s. citizen in 2022. [applause] i'm delighted to be here to share with you my pride and joy in becoming an american citizen. >> [foreign language] >> interpreter: for the first few years in the united states, i couldn't imagine myself passing the test to become a u.s. citizen because i didn't know english. later through the

naturalization class of ms. tang which was run by self-help for the elderly, i'm english blind person who didn't know abc and i mastered the basic knowledge for the naturalization test. last year, i got a service of filling out the naturalization form and the fee waiver form for free at the san francisco pathway to citizenship initiative workshop in san francisco and successfully passed the test in march this year to become a u.s. citizen.

[applause] [foreign language] >> interpreter: i would like to express my heartfelt thanks to self-help for the elderly and s fpc i for free citizenship workshop. thank you to the city government for funding to provide a one-stop free service for all our immigrants to become a u.s. citizen. [applause] [speaking foreign language] >> interpreter: we cannot achieve our american dream without your full help. i would

lift up to your expectation and be a good citizen. i'm registered to vote. [audience cheering] after naturalizations, i'll continue to study and encourage other students in our self-help citizenship class. if needed in the future, i will try to volunteer at the san francisco free citizenship workshop. thank

you everyone! [cheers and applause] >> our citizenship class now has over 400 students. finally on behalf of all my classmates, we like to express my gratitude to you all. thank you everyone. >> so richard and celine, i would like to bring our really wonderful instructor lynn tang, can you come up and can brett and justin help us present two souvenirs ever moon cakes, one to lynn and ms. tarng. let's is a wonderful leadership instructor and that's we have over 400 students and she's creative in advising and encouraging people like ms. tang, our speaker, even though they didn't speak one of english, not even the alphabets

when they first started and then through lynn's hard work, she become u.s. citizen, so congratulations to both of you. so, thank you lynn and thank you, ms. tang. >> thank you. all right, our next speaker is marcella alvarez will share her experience with us as a new citizen. [applause] >> thank you, my neal is marcella and i'm here today with extremely gratitude and i wanted to express to the san francisco pathways to citizenship. as i consider myself a product of the work that they do. i always dream on becoming a citizen, growing up in san francisco as a latina, as an immigrant, and being so a flayed of express my political opinion was always a challenge and i knew once i become a citizen, i was going to be able to choose who i want to

represent me, who you know, who take a lead on -- speak for my family or for those who don't have the right to do it, so go years ago i -- so two years ago i became a citizen and it was nice to check my register voting and take part of, you know, this city and everything that this city give us. i'm a mother of three kids and the future of this city is, like, what's most important for me and i think that if we -- if we exercise our right to vote and we do our part, this is going to be, you know, better in the coming years, so i encourage you all who are residents to please take, take the time to become ape citizen and to never be afraid again to speak for yourself and to travel, to

travel without fear and visit your loved ones abroad. my name is marcella. [speaking foreign language]

[cheers and applause] >> we all love marcella. marcella used to work for one of our partners and then osia hired marcella to now work for the city and at the workshop, i will be talking to marcella because she's always there and her three children are just the most beautiful children. when she showed me the baby pictures and marcella, thank you, can you come back out so carlos can help us present your moon cake to you and your family. thank you, marcella. next, we're going to ask join that to speak for the

togala. >> i'm originally came from the philippines and i'm so, so happy, it is -- it is my first time to talk to all of you and wow. i got my citizenship. [cheers and applause] it was a long journey. i could say. i come here as an immigrant 2009 but i dream some day i will be a citizen and here it is. [cheers and applause] thank you very much for attorney carlos boras for helping me to achieve my dream. and to all of you, keep dreaming. it's not

impossible to dream big. like my, i'm an ordinary filipino in our country but i dream i will be here in the united states and i will serve all the people that needs my help, so on behalf of filipino community, chinese community, and all the races that is present here, i'd like to thank all of you for this special event and hope i could see you next year for another citizenship event. thank you so much. have a nice day. and thank you so much. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, join that. the chinese saying, when they become u.s. citizen, it becomes [foreign language, you become a beauty so today you're really beautiful. so thank you so much

for your remarks. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you. so, next, we're going to recognize some of the really important partners of sf pathway. we couldn't do our job without them. so, first, i would like to ask richard to come back up and representing the thunder that san francisco pathway (indiscernible) in 2013. never giving up on us for extending our contract year after year, for finding us a new money when we need additional resources, so can all the pathway partners come up to make this presentation and recognition. and richard, if you don't mind, aid like to ask some of your staff, team members to come up to join you because we really couldn't have done all our work without them, so alyana, melissa, jaime. >> yes, especially the folks who helped put together today's event, come on up. come on up,

team osia. thank you. >> we know that one box of moon cakes will not be enough. and later, i have -- okay. mario, could you come up please, mario. so we're going to present you six boxes of moon cakes and more if you have left. [laughter] so everyone will get a moon cake. mario, i'm going to introduce you, yeah. staff, can you bring up six boxes. >> oh, my goodness. >> and the partners please represent -- can we all say thank you to osia. one, two, three. thank you, osia. >> thank you! [laughter] >> thank you, melissa. >> thank you. >> all right. our second recognition goes to the immigrant rights commission. so, celine and mario representing the chair and the vice-chair. so, mario, want to say a few words. >> thank you, annie. i want to

congratulate our new citizens, i'm so excited that you will be able to fully participate in our democracy so thank you for your hard work and thank you to pathway to citizenship and annie chung, you're an amazing leader, thank you everyone. thank you. >> mario new me when i was in the philanthropy world and he kept sending money we needed. thank you, mario. we thank the rios and the new campaign, i want to introduce lucia to say a few words. >> thank you so much and thank you for the recognition but none of this would not be possible without the partners and those who collaborated in san francisco. i lead a collaborative of two hundred partners across the country and san francisco has been an example of collaboration and work can be done. there's over 9 million people in the united states that can naturalize and

you're an example that can be replicated across the country and we have helped over half a billion people neutralize and save $600 million in the united states for people like you to become u.s. citizens, congratulations and thank you for being an example to all of us. [applause] >> thank you, lucia. please, thank eric for us because he's the one that got it all started. next, we have (indiscernible) representing mission sf fund. doris, are you here? doris, please come up. as you heard from our supervisors, the application fee is very expensive. so, for those that could not afford it, we come, here comes our partner sf fund and doris will let you know how much they helped us. >> thank you. i know, i am. [applause] hey, good morning, everyone. congratulations new citizens. you did it. mission fund is a nonprofit organization in the city of san francisco and we're

assisting with a 50% grant thanks to lucia for funding citizenship applications, green card loans, daca tps and visa. this is an important milestone for every individual and we encourage people to become citizens because everyone has the right to vote, everybody has the right to be heard and this is what we need within our community, so thank you very much again for becoming citizens and let's keep passing on the voice about how important it is to be a citizen and the resources that the city of san francisco serves. thank you. [applause] >> doris, thank you. so, we have other partners who are not here today but we want to mention them and thank them. one very, very important city partner is hsa, human service agency

because before every workshop they have sent out thousands of package like invocation letter and documents that the green card holders need to bring in order to get their citizenship papers fulfilled so we want to thank john murray and trent ross of the hsa and we save them a box of moon cakes whether we see him. next is also the san francisco public library right across from the plaza. and unfortunately, they are not here today, so we also want to thank katherine apla and also michael kayla. the other partner is sfo and sometimes we will go to sfo to do these citizenship workshops and we hope that carlos maybe, we assume that very soon. okay. so, that's about complete our program and for closing remarks, i would like to ask richard to say a few words, richard.

[applause] >> let's give a hand to annie chung for all this -- the great work she leads, thank you annie, a remarkable leader and it's hot so to keep it brief, a reminder, there refree resources for citizenship services in san francisco. that's the take away today whether it's immigration services at workshops or application fee, the -- these services exist for those in san francisco. we have a workshop in celebration of citizen month. we have a workshop september 24th. it's the osha campus. visit our website for information. it's an appoint base workshop so you need to make an appointment and my fantastic colleagues will pass out flyers and september 24th, a free citizenship workshop and come through. all resources available. a huge thanks to my colleagues at the immigrant a faurs for plan and putting on today's event and supporting our partners with the sf path to

initiative citizenship. have a wonderful day and happy citizens month, everyone. >> thank you, richard and thank to all media and press friends, to come here and do this report under such extreme weather. we really appreciate you covering this news to us and thank you to all new citizens, going to be citizens and definitely please vote on november 6th. all right. so thank you to all our staff, from our partners and self-help and thank you to all volunteers and thanks to the city hall crew who helped put up this podium and pa system for us, so maybe we can take one last picture and call it a day. it's too hot. thanks, everyone.

>> good afternoon. we are here today for virtual town hall regarding a officer involved shooting that occurred saturday august 6, 2022 at 18 and shotwell street. before proceeding, i like to announce to our viewing and listening audience that this town hall is being translated into spanish, and american sign language. today's presentation include details from officer involved shooting that occurred between uniformed san francisco police officers and 51 year old jose cavera. the san francisco police department we recognize that our sworn duty as law enforcement officers imposes no more solemn obligation on us then to