tv SF GovTV Premieres SFGTV April 7, 2023 3:00pm-3:31pm PDT
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only am i able to enforce the code and make changes to help the citizen of san francisco be safe in their homes or place of business, but i think my work also make sure that my fellow firefighters and first responders, when they respond to a fire, the building is also safe for them. >> you're watching san francisco rising with chris manners. today's special guest is brooke jenkins. >> hi, i'm chris manners and you are watchs san francisco rising, the show about restarting rebuilding and reimagining our city. ourguest san francisco district attorney brooke jenkins here to talk about theopeioid crisis, criminal justice and more. >> thank you so much for having me. >> thank you for being here. let's start with organized restale threft. some jurisdictions across the country imposed most of the punishment against people shop lifting in groups but that may be applied disproportionately to epipooal and doesn't address the organization behind it all. how can we make sure both prosecute the ring leaders behind the crimes and make sure justice is handed out eveningly? >> making sure we get to the
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higher level of organizations in the organized retail threrft area so that is something myophilus is very much focused on working the police department on. looking at organized retail threat ringzsx but we have to make sure people are being caught who have stealing and that is a big challenge in the sit a so we have worked with retailers and small business owners to insure the necessary protocols and procedures are in place to at the very laest catch people who are stealing because they have been running out of the stores and therefore facing no consequence so we have to start there and trying to do more with intervention with the youth who are some of the population doing some of the threfts. many stores have turned to not detaining employees stealing oertrying to stop them and that change in procedure lead to making it very difficult for the police department to capture these people stealing. we have been working with them on a change in their protocol
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going back to the way it used to be done so we can actually have the opportunity to have people face consequences. >> right. so, let's move to the opioid crisis which had a devastating impact across the community and across the country, including san francisco. how can your office help address the issue? >> the main thing is going back to where people feel there is a consequence dealing drugs in the city. we can't treat drug steel dealing as a victimless crime. we have ooverage 2 people dying a day from overdose. there are victims of this offense so quha what is did is say no longer the case we decriminalizing drug sales in san francisco as the da office. we have to put consequence on the table and insure the most agregiouss sellers so massive quantityties of fentanyl, some enough to kill all most half the city. sometimes with people
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with wep ens and guns are multiple of cases with fentanyl are treated differently then thoges with small contties so i ask those people detain in custody. we can't have them on the street hours later, but also trying to work with the police department and our city making sure our laws are enforced. it is the only people people suffering from addiction will have a opportunity at recovry. imagine if you are trying to get clean and every 10 steps doin the block you are offered the drug you have been addicted to. it is impossible. that is one way we are dealing with the supply side and we are taking a different approach on the demand side, which is to say, if people are publicly using drugs over and over again, that we believe we need to intervene in those situations and so the police are citing them and when somebody reaches 3 of the citations, we then file a complaint, but route them into a treatment court to
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try to help them get help. >> they have a option take treatment or face charges? >> correct. essentially. we of course encourage treatment because that is what these folks need. >> absolutely, absolutely. san francisco is known for being forfront of criminal justice reform with initiatives such as community justice center and restoreative justice, how do you plan to build on the efforts and push for aggressive policies insuring we have a fair system that holds people accountable? >> i have been clear accountability comes in many different forms. historically, da office used one form and that is incarceration. the way i functioned as a prosecutor over the years is make sure we are finding the appropriate form of accountability for each and every person for their specific circumstance, and so for some people it may be incarceration, others it is treatment and going
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through behavioral health to stabilize mental health issue. some it is say ing we toopt see you get a job so we require that you go through a trade program so you can get a skill that allows you to take care of yourself in a different way. for me it is investing in those opportunities which requires us to be partnering with community based organizations to identify what programs we can send people to, but i'm very much invested in seeing our collaborative courts, which is what community justice center, drug court, young adult court seeing those courts thrive and encouraging the lawyers to explore those opportunities. >> right. what role do you think the da office can play addressing the issue of police misconduct and promoting accountability? >> our job is to prosecute police officers when they commit such misconduct and use excessive force in a way that
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is illegal so we'll continue to maintain that is our job and our position. we prosecute all crime in san francisco, it is not about what your statue is, what your position is or what office you hold. the law will always be our standard. we can't treat differently where they come from, whether they wear a uniform or not, our standard is the law. for me, as a black latino woman it is issue very personal to me. we had a death in police custody in my family that i heard about my entire life. i'm raising two black children including a black son who you know, i will have to talk about these type of issues as he grows up. i was out raged long before george floyd. the list goes on and on, but as a prosecutor i have to maintain one standard and it is whether somebody according to the law has committed a crime and
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so that's what we always look at. >> absolutely. finally, what message do you have for the people of san francisco and what you hope to accomplish during your tenure? >> i want the people of san francisco to know i'm committed serving the function the da office was designed to serve which is make sure we promote public safety across san francisco. like i said, we have to have accountability in our city. what we see going on in our streets is the result of people feeling as though there was none. they didn't fear even the police walking by as they were committing a crime because there was a belief that even if you arrest me, the da office isn't going to do anything that i'm afraid of experiencing, and so we want people to have a healthy fear of what a consequence will be, but i also want san francisco to know we are a da office that stands by the val aoos we have here in san francisco which is second chances, compassion,
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responsible alternative to incourseeration bought the end of the day accountability has to be what people said back on the street or community in a fashion where they can succeed. every time somebody cycles into the system we are thoughtful what the person needs to get back on their feet and not create another victim in the future. >> quite right. thank you. thank you so much for coming on the show. i really appreciate the time you have given us today. >> thank you. >> that's it for this episode. we'll back for another shortly. for sfgovtv, i'm
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>> my name is nary shay assistant fire marshal. assigned at fire pro investigation. i was born in hong kong age 8 me and my family- (indiscernible) i grew up in sunset area and all employment jaibs are with the sitdy of san francisco. when i was growing up my parents were traditional chinese parents. they emphasized school. they didt want us to join or play sports because they said school is the only thing that is important and want us to get a college education. i envisioned myself maybe being a doctor. after high school i went to uc
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berkeley and major in bio chem. after college what i did happen is-what happened was i landed a job at ucsf and was a research associate there. one day me and my co worker were talking and don't know how it came about, they talked about fire department and someone mentioned i would be good for the fire department. even though i didn't play much sports i was still athletic. fire department, what will i do in the fire department because i didn't know there were women on the engines and trucks and didn't know the difference between engine and truck. the same night i was watching tv and there was a commercial of the fire department recruiting women firefighter and there was a woman all dressed and tolds to go to
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division of training and 27 and a half year later i'm erhoo. when there is more presence of asian person, asian community it educates the population and helps people understand our community rchl ism i think people hate because they don't understand. i will tell the young women that definitely consider you know, a career in the fire service. don't just think it is just for men, because the fire service is not just suppression. suppression is one portion of it it. there are different parts of it. there is ems portion, the medical portion, the fire prevention portion, and there is also the fire investigative portion. all of the departments needs to work together to keep the city of safe, not just the citizens safe, also the first responders. i thinks the career in the fire department is great. i start #d as a
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firefighter, i had the opportunity to also become a paramedic and then i landed in fire prevention. i'm very happy at fire prevention because not only am i able to enforce the code and make changes to help the citizen of san francisco be safe in their homes or place of business, but i think my work also make sure that my fellow firefighters and first respond ers, when they respond to a fire, the building is also safe for them. >> >> >> >> >> my name is bal. born and
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raised in san francisco. cable car equipment, technically i'm a transit operator of 135 and work at the cable car (indiscernible) and been here for 22 years now. i grew up around here when i was a little can i. my mom used to hang in china town with her friends and i would get bored and they would shove me out of the door, go play and find something to do. i ended up wandering down here when i was a kid and found these things.
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♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ >> fascinated by them and i wanted to be a cable car equipment from the time i was a little kid. i started with the emergency at the end of 1988 and drove a bus for a year and a half and i got lucky with my timing and got here at cable car and at that time, it really took about an average five to maybe seven years on a bus before you could build up your seniority to come over here. basically, this is the 1890s verse ever a bus. this is your basic public transportation and at the time at its height, 1893, there were 20 different routes ask this powerhouse, there -- and this powerhouse, there were 15 of them through out the entire city. >> i work at the cable car division and bunch with muni for 25 years and working with cable
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cars for 23 years. this is called the bar because these things are horses and work hard so they have to have a place to sleep at night. joking. this is called a barn because everything takes place here and the powerhouse is -- that's downstairs so that's the heart and soul of the system and this is where the cable cars sleep or sleep at night so you can put a title there saying the barn. since 1873 and back in the day it was driven by a team and now it's electric but it has a good function as being called the barn. yeah. >> i am the superintendent of cable car vehicle maintenance. and we are on the first and a half floor of the cable car barn where you can see the cables are moving at nine and a half miles
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an hour and that's causing the little extra noise we're hearing now. we have 28 power cars and 12 california cars for a total of 40 revenue cars. then with have two in storage. there's four gear boxes. it's gears of the motor. they weigh close to 20 tons and they had to do a special system to get them out of here because when they put them in here, the barn was opened up. we did the whole barn that year so it's difficult for a first of time project, we changed it one at a time and now they are all brand-new. engineer's room have the four monitors that play the speed and she monitors them and in case of an emergency, she can shutdown all four cars if she needs to. that sound you heard there, that's a gentleman building, rebuilding a cable. the cable weighs four hundred pounds each and they lost three days before we have to rebuild them. the cable car grips, the bottom
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point is underground with the cable. it's a giant buy strip and closes around the kab and they pull it back. the cable car weighs 2,500 people without people so it's heavy, emergency pulling it offer the hill. if it comes offer the hill, it could be one wire but if it unravels, it turns into a ball and they cannot let go of it because it opens that wide and it's a billion pushing the grip which is pushing the whole cable car and there's no way to let go so they have to have the code 900 to shutdown in emergencies and the wood brakes last two days and wear out. a lot of maintenance.
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♪ [ music ] ♪ ♪ >> rail was considered to be the old thing. rubber tires, cars, buses, that's new. there were definitely faster and cheaper, there's no question about that. here at san francisco, we went through the same thing. the mayor decided we don't need cable cars (indiscernible), blah, blah. we can replace them with buses. they are faster and cheaper and more economical and he was right if you look at the dollars and cents part. he was right. >> back in 1947 when they voted that, i'm surprised base of the
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technology and the chronicle paper says cable cars out. that was the headline. that was the demise of the cable cars. >> (indiscernible) came along and said, stop. no. no, no, no. she was the first one to say we're going to fight city hall. she got her friends together and they started from a group called the save the cable car community, 1947 and managed to get it on the ballot. are we going to keep the cable cars or not? head turned nationwide and worldwide and city hall was completely unprepared for the amount of backlash they got. this is just a bunch -- the city came out and said basically, 3-1, if i'm not mistaken, we want our cars and phil and her group managed to save what we have. and literately if it wasn't for them, there would be no cable cars. people saw something back then that we see today that you can't get rid of a beautiful and it wasn't a historical monument at the time and now it is, and it was part
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of san francisco. yeah, we had freight back then. we don't have that anymore. this is the number one tourist attraction in san francisco. it's historic and the only national moving monument in the world. >> the city of san francisco did keep the cable car so it's a fascinating feel of having something that is so historic going up and down these hills of san francisco. and obviously, everyone knows san francisco is famous for their hills. [laughter] and who would know and who would guess that they were trying to get rid of it, which i guess was a crazy idea at the time because they felt automobiles were taking the place of the cable cars and getting rid of the cable car was the best thing for the city and county of san francisco, but thank god it didn't. >> how soon has the city changed? the diverse of cable cars -- when i first came to
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cable car, sandy barn was the first cable car. we have three or four being a grip person. fwriping cable cars is the most toughest and challenging job in the entire city. >> i want to thank our women who operate our cable cars because they are a crucial space of the city to the world. we have wonderful women -- come on forward, yes. [cheers and applause] these ladies, these ladies, this is what it's about. continuing to empower women. >> my name is willa johnson is and i've been at cable car for 13 years. i came to san francisco when i was five years old. and that is the first time i rode a cable car and i went to see a christmas tree and we rode the cable car with the christmas
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worker and that was the first time i rode the cable car and didn't ride again until i worked here. i was in the medical field for a while and i wanted a change. some people don't do that but i started with the mta of september of 1999 and came over to cable car in 2008. it was a general sign up and that's when you can go to different divisions and i signed up as a conductor and came over here and been here since. there were a few ladies that were over at woods that wanted to come over here and we had decided we wanted to leave woods and come to a different division and cable car was it. i do know there has been only four women that work the cable car in the 150 years and i am the second
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person to represent the cable car and i also know that during the 19, i think 60s and women were not even allowed to ride on the side of a cable car so it's exciting to know you can go from not riding on the side board of a cable car to actually grip and driving the cable car and it opened the door for a lot of people to have the opportunity to do what they inspire to do. >> i have some people say i wouldn't make it as a conductor at woods and i came and made it as i conductor and the best thing i did was to come to this division. it's a good division. and i like ripping cable cars. i do. >> i think she just tapped into the general feeling that san
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francisco tend to have of, this is ours, it's special, it's unique. economically and you know, a rationale sense, does it make sense? not really. but from here, if you think from here, no, we don't need this but if you think from here, yeah. and it turns out she was right. so.... and i'm grateful to her. very grateful. [laughter] >> three, two, one. [multiple voices] [cheers and applause] >> did i -- i did that on purpose so i wouldn't. ♪ [ music ] ♪ television.
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>> in 1948 swensen's ice cream used to make ice cream in the navy and decided to open up an ice cream shop it it takes time for the parent to put money down and diane one of the managers at zen citizen in arena hills open and serve old-fashioned ice cream. >> over 20 years. >> yeah. >> had my own business i was a firefighter and came in- in
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1969 her dad had ice cream and left here still the owner but shortly after um, in here became the inc. maker the manager and lead and branded the store from day to day and in the late 90s- was obvious choice he sold it to him and he called us up one night and said i'm going to sell the ice cream store what you you talking about diane came and looked at the store and something we want to do and had a history of her dad here and growing up here at the ice cream store we decided to take that business on.
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>> and have it in the family i didn't want to sell it. >> to keep it here in san francisco. >> and (unintelligible). >> share worked there and worked with all the people and a lot of customers come in. >> a round hill in the adjoining areas loved neither ice cream shop in this area and support russia hills and have clean up day and give them free ice cream because that is those are the people that keep us the opportunity to stick around here four so many years next generations have been coming her 20 er thirty or 40 years and we have the ingredients something it sold and, you know, her dad
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said to treat the customers right and people will keep on coming back and 75 or 74 years, you know, that is quite an accomplishment i think of it as our first 75 years and like to see that, you know, going into the future um, that ice cream shop will be around used to be 4 hundred in the united states and all gone equipment for that one that is the first and last we're proud of that we're still standing and people people are you tell people it's been around in 50 years and don't plan on
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>> all right. what an exciting building. where all my department people? supervisor, welcome. >> okay. how are you? >> first of all, thank you all for being here a.m. san francisco mayor breed. and we are here at a building and a place that has been i would say decades in the making. many of us struggle with the bureaucracy of the city and the
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