>> all right, let's get going. a lot of smiles out here today. hi everybody my name is phil i'm the general managers of your san francisco recreation and parks department. and welcome to the city's newest park. so the, the mythical soccer coach ted lasso likes to use the word believe. today we believe, we believe in the power of to transform challenging spaces. we believe in the power of

several city agencies private partners, community benefit districts, nonprofits to come together to transform a space into something that is happy and hopeful. today, we believe. the anchor. [applause] the anchor of this new space, is a 13,000-square foot skating area. it is the nation's first of its kind street skating plaza at this scale. you're going to hear from him in a little bit and you're going to see him when we cut the cover of one of our skate ramps, decide for skaters and actually includes elements from

san francisco's legendary skating history, that used to be skated illegally. i learned in partner with the skate community, that san francisco if you didn't know, to be one of the best urban skate destinations anywhere. people come from around the world to skate san francisco. so why not skate here? we are, we are incorporating best practices from paris, from barcelona about how to transform challenging difficult spaces into happy spaces. but of course, u.n. plaza this new park is not just about stating. --skating. there is something for every one. we've got chess, ping-pong, a

couple of new games, tek ball. the tek balls over over there and demonstrating. a mix of faoz ball and ping-pong. we have a beautiful fitness studio and from tichi to rum ba. you can shop at the amazing farmers market. you can sit by the fountain which has been completely renovated with over 30 trees. you can hang out here in the morning, noon, or night. and none of this, could have happened without our first speaker. an incredible supporter of parks and public space, somebody who gave us the room to be a little edgy. who had our back when the change haters starting yelling at us.

she gave us room, she has our back. she is our very own, ted lasso, the mayor of san francisco, london breed. >> mayor london breed: thank you, phil. and i will start the use for a skate park rather than a supervisor meeting is a better use! but u.n. pla is a park and a place meant for people to enjoy themselves in so many different ways. before there was technology and cell phones and everything else you can think of, there is been skating and chess and yes, checkers, i know checkers was not on the list but hopefully one day we'll get it out there soon. the ability for people to come together in these spaces and to have these opportunities, this is what bringing community together is all about. yes, it meant a bit of a change

for the farmrs market. but i'm so happy that the farmers market is closer to city hall. so thank you to the folks who are part of the farmers market and the people who continue to support the farmers market that is just opened today just in case you want to get fresh vegetables and fruit. but here we are, today and i want to say to phil, thank you so much. let me tell you, he and i have been having discussion buzz u.n. plaza for a long time. and the staff and staff and park rangers they've been working overtime. but nothing is going to make this more exciting than to see the skate community descend. and some of you may not believe that the mayor can be a skateboard fan.

before i was not a elected official, i ran an arts organization and i remember when we worked with k dub and we created a number of sports, and spray painted and we made it an exciting place for community. and we want to do that here at u.n. plaza. we want this to be an exciting place for community. that includes the skateboard community, that includes those who think they are great at ping-pong and those who want to play chess or take one table to play checkers and that includes the fitness center. thises how it should be rused, for the community, for the people that enjoy the park system and i'm so grateful so all the city workforce, to the toekz who helped with the climb walls and all the thaingz are going to be part of this

wonderful community. i also want to give shout out to urban alchemy, to the ambassadors and so many of our city agency who's will ensure that this space is used for the purpose intended. so, [applause] thank you again, all of you and especially thank you to the skateboard community for your support and your patience. and also helping us design this place. because it was not about people who don't skateboard, it's about people who understand what they want to see. one of the things that bill said to me when he went over the details of this project. these are all the elements of different parts of san francisco that are very popular in the skateboard community. we are bringing every element to u.n. plaza unlike ever before. so we look forward to seeing a vibrant area and exciting area and we thank the rec and park department for their excitement, their work in getting this done in record time.

we started this project this year in san francisco and finished it this year, that is fast for bureaucratic years! so congratulation sxz thank you all for being here. [applause] >> thank you, coach, i mean mayor. all right, before our next speaker. there is going to be a lot of acknowledgments, it's been said that victory has many parents and there are a lot of parents declaring victory today. but i want to acknowledge a few of our, a few special partners and person for our speakers without this would not be possible. first of all, thank you, thank you, thank you to the civic center and executive fearless tracy. tracy you and you and your team it's been an amazing partnership. bill, thank you for giving tracy the ability to run and

bill, for this civic center. [applause] and then even she is really a parky at heart, this morning, she was just announced as the new permanent director of public works, my partner my partner in good on this project and getting back to believe. believe, folks that city agency kz tear down those silos, work together and not squabble over who is paying for what, but just get it done. that's the valley that the mayor has infused in her city department and one where carla and i and several other city departments who are going to be singled out in a minute, we infuse it in this project. carla short, thank you so much! [applause]

and then last but not least, this had to get built. and as the mayor said, it got built fast. and that means there is a project manager out there that did not sleep, a little more hunch over and did. and it's not me. i don't really know how to do that. the next person i want to celebrate from rec and park, dan mar who ran this project. where is he at? [applause] all right, what we've got here is a skate park that is a worldwide destination but also a local park and a local park for a very important community and the next two speakers are going to talk about how important this space is to the

neighborhood and local community. first up, my friend, a fierce advocate. >> good morning, i've been working with tenderloin, working with residents who work with increasing housing resident and housing clinic for a long time and calling for u.n. plaza to be a safe and open place. i'm excite today see the transformation of u.n. plaza to positive useable space which for few years, you've seen it as a problematic area. where the u.n. plaza has turned out to be a place where open air drug dealing, vending and also drug use. thank you.

the u.n. plaza is surrounded by various neighborhoods. and people who work around, surrounding areas, use u.n. plaza not only to be here but to get public transportation and also to go from one place to another. i in all of my years of working in tenderloin and advocating for open space, i know one thing for sure. that is a open space has to be a defined open space if not it wouldn't be a positive one. and i have to say, you guys have seen it for years, for almost a couple of years now, the dog park which is right around the corner and it was an open space but once it became a dog park, there are a lot of dogs that go there. so when it's designated it's safer and much easy to use. i have to say, thank you, phil, for implementing this

designated use of u.n. plaza and i'm looking forward to have this positive not just for this place but also for surrounding neighborhoods. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, fortiba. next up, also representing this community, is the chancellor of uc law formerly called hastings, right there. this is that community's front yard now and uc law in addition to all the students and faculty, just cut a ribbon on 670 new housing. this is your part. >> thank you, phil, thank you, mayor breed. let me just say, it's an honor to be here. good morning p i thought i was going to be invited because of my skateboarding ability but that's clearly not the case and it would move up any knee surgery, i need.

this is our front yard. we have for more than 50 years, been in that building with 270 units. and of course we occupy the entire block. we have what we call an academic village and the academic village that just opened this august, that mayor breed graciously came to the ribbon cutting. we are putting together a collaboration of universities in the bay area. so one-third of the 656 units of housing will be occupied by ucsf but also open to san francisco state, uc davis, berkeley graduate program, university of pacific dental school and we're creating an opportunity to bring all of these graduate communities together. and we want to be in partnership with the city of san francisco with the

tenderloin neighborhood. we want to have, if you look at our new buildings, they're all glass. we want to be open to. we want our clinics, our centers to work with the local community. i hell you what, i was visit withing one of our partner units and we were up in what we call the sky room which is on the 24th floor of the building that is going to be renovated. and one of the dean said, you know the neighborhood looks really good from up here. and i thought, it does look really good from up here. but we want to make it look good down here and we're committed to that partnership and we're committed to this neighborhood in this community. i'm thrilled part of this celebration. i'm not much with the skateboarder but i'm good with a ping-pong battle so i challenge anybody that wants to play me in ping-pong, let's do it. thank you very much. great to see you. [applause]

>> this next speaker, one of our part nrz who knows full well that parks are full end solution to public safety and he's been the champion every step of the way. we almost talk daily for almost six months now, our police chief, bill scott. [applause] >> thank you, phil. i just want to start with saying thank you to mayor breed and phil ginsburg, this would not happen without their vision and their support. i've got a lot of people to thank, so my few minutes will be thanking people. i want to thank all of our city partners. with the mayor's leadership and partnership, we opened the drug market coordination center. and all the city departments representing the work that went into this, i want to say thank you. dr. grant, at dph and his team.

[applause] that's right. sheriff yamimoto and his team. dr.er sharaoen and her team. fire chief and her team. chief crystal and bro basing team, they're out here. we have deputy chief scott, my cousin, no we're not cousins, bart police and his team. who am i missing? we have the park rangers and where is chief murphy and his team? [applause] dem, and mayor alan carol and her team. but most importantly, the community members. the community members who hold us accountable who push us and a lot of you are out here. we spend so much time meeting and talking and trying to plan and really, sometimes deservedly so, taking a lot of heat about what we're going to

do to make this space better and make this community better. and this is a first step, but let's not let it be the last step because we have more work to do. and i just want to say also to dean and the u.s., uc a team and many of you are out here. and those biweekly meet that'sing we have, i think we've been having them for couple of years, this is what we meet for. we meet to make progress and this is real progress. so as i close, i want to say a couple of things. the mayor mentioned this and i want to reiterate. this is a beautiful space, we are commit today keeping it a beautiful place. last niem phil ginsburg called me late last night and we talked about for about 30-45 minutes about what is next. how do we keep this space beautiful. how do we keep this place safe? we're not done yet. we still have challenges.

we have a whole community and we're committed to doing that. thank you all for being here and thank you all for your support. thank you, mayor for your leadership. >> okay, now we got the stars of the show, we're coming down to it. next up, from our skate community, we've got sean connolly, and chico brenis, tell us what you think, guys! come on up. >> hey, what's up, everybody? >> i'm going to read this off my phone. i wrote a little something special to me to be part of this. so i really appreciate it. sorry. to no end, sion william gains, peppy mono, spence cer, po blo

ramirez, trevor prescott, jake phelps, basto, botelo, eric swanson and mark dillard. [applause] i say these names in remembrance and also as a reminder of how short life is. it seems like yesterday i was here to take advantage of all you can eat hot cakes before 8:00 am at the carl's junior over there. make sure you don't lose your receipt. i'm extremely honored to speak at this opening ceremony, a skate spot for some of us. although it may seem like an exaggeration, is another way of saying home. when i lived up the street, my apartment was very small. at that time, i could navigate

the sidewalks and city streets as i wished. as a matter of fact, i used to warm up on the same black marble benches right over there besinger as i made my way down to embarcadero. like most did and now referred to as the mid-90s, but there is a lot of youth out there that live just up the street and they're too young for this to be an option and do whatever you want to do. for kids like that, they live in densely populated regions like this, they're space is shared with the entire city. for many of us skateboarding is a lifelong passion, but try to tell this to somebody when you ask them to move a bench when they look at you and they look like they have not eaten in a week. i'm coresponder of, we wanted create a space that never existed before.

a welcoming location where skateboarding brings us together. but this is another example of that, a place where people come together with a like minded passion. day after day, it becomes our home. identify like to acknowledge and give a shout out to the city just for building spots like this. after losing a lot of our plazas, and open public spaces like embarcadero, the main library, as it used to be, brown marble and bay blocks and appear, it's excite to go see a location in the middle of the city dedicated to us. [applause] keep working, keep striving, and keep drawing. fall down 7 times, get up 8. thanks. [applause] >> hello everybody i'm chico brenis. what's up. first of all, i want to say

thank you to the city and everybody involved for makering this happen. it truly was made in record time. about three months when the first time i heard about it and now we're skating this. the crazy thing, is i grew up down here back in the 90s, that was the mecca of skateboarding back then. that's where i practiced all of my skills and craft after school, weekends and summer. it's also where i met lifelong friends, that to this day i'm connected to and close with. i'm sure this is going to do the same for the youth and for our community. thank you skateboarding and let's shred, man! [cheers and applause] >> all right, we're almost there. everybody has been waiting a long time. we're going to get that inaugural grind, behind us. and this is a nod to very

famous, to pueblo po bl* ic in paris. but still for grad you'd and it would be wrong not to acknowledge so bear with me, i'm going to call out the institutions and not the people so that we can get to the skating. but our profound thanks goes to the folks at 11 market. 83 can do street association. asian art museum, bart, the central city collaborative, civic secondary school, the department of emergency management, delux distribution especially andy pets, the federal government, fitness zone, heart of the city fitness market. the l.a. who are doing the demonstration over there. mechanic that is programming chess, mo magic, the fitness campaign. thank you.

ray studios, rns construction, thank you matt ramirez, sf adult probation, sf library, mta, the parks alliance, sf planning, police, the skate club, symphony, the department of public health, the sheriff's department, the state of california, general services administration, the tenderloin clinic, thrasher, trinity plaza, uc law school, at mazing men and women at urban alchemy, the y*u w w*i school and many many more. special shout out one last time, to our own staff. i want to thank our commissioners for being here. commissioner kerry windtrap among others. to the amazing staff and barber who put this event for us today. let's do it! thank you.

>> you are watching san francisco rising. [music] today's special guest is mano raju. hi. i'm chris and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting and rebuilding and reimagineings our city. our guest is mano raju san francisco's public defender great you could be here. actual at this time us about yourself how you became the public defend and why it is important to provide legal

representtation to people that can't afford council. >> i started in contra costa county graduated from berkeley and a liven deputy for you a number of years special jeff recruited me to san francisco the former elected public defender of san francisco and i began as a line department here and then asked me to be training direct and the managers of the felony unit the unit most serious case. after he passed away, i was appointed to be the public defend and electd and recently reelected. but you know what i think about what you know the story of public to the office i like to start with my parents. they come from a farming village in india and dad was the first in family to finish high school. there were a couple people in his village who saw him and

encouraged his parentses to pursue studies and move in the country when i think of what public defenders dot most person thing is to see our clients so than i can hopefully realize their full potential that is important to me and to our office and the cult usual of our office. >> you know the right to a public defender was developed in 1963 in gideon case ensuring the right to a public defender. we take this very seriously in our office. my vision is that anyone in our office should be representing the people represent the same way they want their love 1s to representd and people think if you have a public defender representing you in san francisco you will bet better than a private attorney. we will leave no stone unturned no motion unfiled and try to perform the highest level for clients >> that's fantastic >> often when people think public defenders they jump to

the idea of somebody defending somebody in court your office does more than courtroom representation. >> i'm an elected public dem felonieder i campaigned on that it is important we break the mold of what is public for our office on accomplish. fiercely defending is the core of what we do and that will never go, way. as the only elected public defender there is an elected da and sheriff in every county. in the state but one elected public defender. it is important our office pushed envelope and engage in the national and state wide and local policy that will impact community how public safety and our clients. we have local policy directors, state policy director. we are active in sacramento in trying to make the law change in order to be more humane system

for our clients. we are believer in advocating for community power. we have two 501c3's in bayview and fillmore that are be more magic under the umbrelast public defender's office. these are youth empowerment organizations that do programming throughout the summers. which back pack give, ways to kid school sflois start the school year and believe engaging youth will prevent them from become clients. and put people on the path to thrive. we have a program, end of cycle program. culturally competent social workers going to the jails and finding out what the individual needs. we'll fight for their best legal outcome in the case. and the position of trust the fifth amendment protects the conversations that our clients can have with us.

we can use that to really encourage a trusting rep and telling us what they need and be frank and connect that individual with the substance abuse or mentor or housing or employment and educational opportunities hamp that individual needs to thrive and reach their full potential. that is another piece behalf we do. 17 units across our department and you know we take collaborating across units something we try to do every tail to meet our mission, vision and values >>. a part is ensuring recidivism does not reoccur >> of course the left thing we want to see is a client to return to be a client again. we work intentionally from the moment we start representing a client with our skilled staff and other members of our team to try to figure out what is that future going to be for the client when they leave our care? >> now, some critics argue

public defenders have a heavy case load. how is your office mechanicing this and what issues are most important to you. why we have a heavy case load. unfortunately, this is a problem across the country, public defenders are not funds equal low to da offices our fund suggest 61% of the da office. and the police department has 14 time the our budget. and there is the sheriff's department and any time the entities are detaining our cloinlt in i way it is up to us to defend this is manage we are working on locally. and alsoination wide to change that. we need more staff and every wing of our office. the logo is greater than one. so we know that we need to be greater twhoon individual in the office and use our teams effectively and strategically and skillfully and put in more

hours to make sure we reveal truth and make justice happen in courtrooms. greater than one also symbolizes the fact we are collaborating with other communities organizations to try to support and help our client and move policies that will help our clients. an example of this is the pretextual stop campaign we collaborated with 110 organizations throughout the city to convince the police commission to pass the general order that stops some of the stops traffic stops for things that don't impact public safety and lead to often con41ational interactions with the police and civil yens and. we wanted to minimize that mostly the shootings we read about and the the violence of inneraction gets in car and tragic occurrence that can happen. by collaborating we can be

powerful than the sheer numbers in our organization. >> sure. so you know like cities cross the country san francisco struggling with fentanyl and homelessness, how can our office contribute to help mitigate or solve those problems? >> one thing we can do, again often times with community based organizations; is to really try and figure out how we address the demand. you know. treatment on demand. again. finding people opportunity with housing or employment opportunity. you know mitigation or just any form of counciling that helps people. move in more positive direction in a way more inviting oppose to co hearsive. now we don't have enough beds for everyone who needs that intensive treatment. contributing to staffers to get more funding for people to get

treatment they need. because the reality is there will always be someone to fill the need. we work on the demand, which evidence based there was fee of dealing with addiction will move in a more positive direction. >> then, finally, what else would you like residents of san francisco to know about you and your office? >> i think what i like the san francisco residents to know is how muchow important it is that the public defender be aggressive. right now we had a huge backlog of cases in san francisco. there were over a housand passed the last day. a right to a speedy try and have case passed the last day. we had to plaintiff and against the court t. is important this we have an independent public defend 30 is willing to do that. and we got a good decision from the court of appeal and now the

courts move quick and are honoring this and the effort from policy team to 850 bryant the courthouse is to draw attention to this issue it is important we have an aggressive public defender. had someone gets convicted for something they did not do it impacts their family. clients are greater than one, it is important we fierce low defend. the same time because when someone gets convicted of something they did not do they are less likely to access the j.w. they need for stability or housing and then will impability a lot of people and lead to more issues on the streets and affect public safety. also to realize we are a public safety organization. we have social workers and take

this social worker mentality or support facilitative prop and get cloinlts to a better place. when our clients get to a better place we are all safer >> thank you mr. raju. we appreciate the work. thank you for your interest in the development. you know i wanted to say if anyone wants to know more about a lot of the initiatives and unit in our department they can go to you tube we have a dairy defender series. and people should look at that to learn more about the different units. also we talked about the dibilltating impact of convictions we have a clean slate program exsponging hundreds of records every year. and people can go to our website sfpublicdefender. org and move their live in a positive direction >> thank you very much. >> thank you >> that's it for this episode we

will be back shortly for government government i'm chris manners, t watching. >> pay by mraft parking meter pay for parking in san francisco and the video/show you how to do that the first one is no traditionally parking instead of the pay by played has instructions and options to activate the screen press any bottom or press the language bottom and enter the license plate or the last 5 numbers of identification and press the

great check about how many audible convicted is to be using to adjust the time and press the marx bottom to select the ma'am, time allowed and after you select the parking duration asked to pay pay users coins or smart phone or debt or credit card tap that on the reader or insert to the magnetic strip and if you're paying by smart phone with apple enter k once you pay the meter will send out a receipt and alert any control officer i have paid an ordinance to make a phone call cotton 866490 and enter the 10 digit forbes or press the star and

enter the pin and at last four digits of the credit card and the number of the minutes and at the end of the call audible hear he payment successful. and finally, there are no refunds if you return to our car hsa and that's it you're all set the license plate will only be saved for the duration of our parking time check for the area and show you're parked legally and they're an easy way to pay for parking. >> we hope this video has been helpful thanks for >> hello. you're watching the show that explores san francisco's love affair with food.

there are at least 18 farmers markets in san francisco alone, providing fresh and affordable to year-round. this is a great resource that does not break the bank. to show just how easy it can be to do just that, we have come up with something called the farmers' market challenge. we find someone who loves to cook, give them $20, and challenge them to create a delicious meal from ingredients found right here in the farmer's market. who did we find for today's challenge? >> today with regard to made a

pot greater thanchapino. >> you only have $20 to spend. >> i know peter it is going to be tough, but i think i can do it. it is a san francisco classic. we are celebrating bay area food. we have nice beautiful plum tomatoes here. we have some beautiful fresh fish here. it will come together beautifully. >> many to cut out all this talk, and let's go shop. yeah. ♪ >> what makes your dish unique? >> i like it spicy and smoky. i will take fresh italian tomatoes and the fresh seafood, and will bring them to other with some nice spoked paprika and some nice smoked jalapeno peppers. i am going to stew them up and

get a nice savory, smoky, fishy, tomatoy, spicy broth. >> bring it on. how are you feeling? >> i feel good. i spent the $20 and have a few pennies less. i am going to go home and cook. i will text message u.n. is done. >> excellent and really looking forward to it. >> today we're going to make the san francisco classic dish invented by italian and portuguese fishermen. it'll be like a nice spaghetti sauce. then we will put in the fish soup. the last thing is the dungeon as crab, let it all blend together. it will be delicious. when i could, i will try to make healthy meals with fresh ingredients, whatever is in season and local. those juicy, fresh tomatoes will take about an hour to cook down into a nice sauce. this is a good time to make our fish stock.

we will take a step that seems like trash and boil it up in water and make a delicious and they speed up my parents were great clerics, and we had wonderful food. family dinners are very important. any chance you can sit down together and have a meal together, it is great communal atmosphere. one of the things i like the most is the opportunity to be creative. hello. anybody with sets their mind to it can cut. always nice to start chopping some vegetables and x and the delicious. all this double in view is this broth with great flavor. but your heart into it. make something that you, family, and friends will really enjoy. >> i am here with a manager at the heart of the city farmer's market in san francisco. thank you for joining us. tell us a little bit about the organization. >> we're 30 years old now. we started with 14 farmers, and it has grown out to over 80.

>> what is the mission of the organization? >> this area has no grocery store spiller it is all mom-and- pop stores. we have this because it is needed. we knew it was needed. and the plaza needed somebody. it was empty. beautiful with city hall in the background. >> thank you for speaking with us. are you on the web? >> yes, hocfarmersmarket.org. >> check them out. thank you. >> welcome. the dish is ready. >> it looks and smells amazing. >> thank you. it was not easy to meet the $20 budget. i checked everybody out and found some great produce. really lovely seafood. i think that you are going to love it. >> do not be shy. you know this can run you

$35 to $45 for a bowl, so it is great you did this for $20. >> this will feed four to six people. >> not if you invite me over for dinner. i am ready to dig in. >> i hope you'll love it. >> mmm. >> what do you think? >> i think i am going to need more. perhaps you can have all you want. >> i am produce the that you have crushed this farmer's market challenge by a landslide. the first, we're going to have to tally of your shopping list and see what you actually spend that the farmer's market. >> and go for it. >> incredible. you have shown us how to make super healthy, refresh chapino from the farmers market on the budget, that for the whole

family. that is outstanding. >> thank you peter i am glad that you like it. i think anybody can do it. >> if you like the recipe for this dish, you can e-mail us at sfgtv@sfgov.org or reach out to us on facebook or twitter and we >> long it was in fashion, o'shaughnessy water system has been sustainable. in addition to providing water for the bay area, it also generates clean hydroelectric power to run city buildings and services. and more recently, some san francisco homes and businesses. >> satellite electricity is greenhouse gas free, so we see a

tremendous benefit from that. we really are proud of the fact that, we've put our water to work. >> even with the system as well coon received as hetch hetchy, climate change has made the supply of water from the sierra vulnerable. and requires new thinking about where and how we use water. >> we have five hundred million gallons a day of wastewater being dumped out into san francisco bay and the ocean from the bay area alone. and that water could be recycled and should be recycled for reuse through out the bay area. >> we're looking at taking wastewater and reading it to drink watering standards. we're also looking at our generation and looking at onsite water reuse looking at the technology and strategies we have available to us today. >> the very first recycling plant in the state of california for landscape irrigation was built in san francisco. we've just developed a new recycled

water plant in the ocean side wastewater facility for irrigation purposes in golden gate park, lincoln park and the panhandle. >> a century ago, san francisco built a dam to create bunched znswer of fresh water to ensure the future and ensure the taps will flow for future generations, it will take as much vision when it reflects a fundamental change about how we think about water. >> i think we recognize there's going to be change in the future. so we're going to have to have the flexibility and the creativity to deal with that future as it's presented to us, it's a matter of how to see it and say, okay, let's make wise use of everything we have. >> this o'shaughnessy centennial moment is made possib >> you are watching san francisco rising with chris

manner. today's special guest is carla short. >> hi, i'm chris manner and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting rebuilding and reimagining the city. our guest is carla short the intric director of public works and here to talk about the storms we had and much more. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. >> great to have you. let's start by talking about the storms that started beginning of the year. there fsh a lot of clean up recovery and remediation. can you talk about what your team did? >> sure. the 17 inches of rain we got starting on new year's eve through the first 2 and a half weeks of january made it one of the wettest periods in recorded history for san francisco, so as you imagine we had a lot of work to do. we gave out more then 31 thousand sand bags, we were operating all most non stop from new year's eve to san

francisco residents and businesses out of our operation yard and frequently working thin rain so it was a beautiful dance to watch. we had a corio graphed where people drive in the stop and load with san dags and get on it way so thats was the most visible thij weez had to do. responded to all most a thousand calls for localized flooding for the corner of the street with catch basin. our team trying to address that. we clear and pick up anything to block and it hopefully get the flooding to go down. if we are able to respond we call in the san francisco pub utility system and are responsible for the sewer system under so they bring ing vack trucks that vacuum out debris inside the catch basin. we also dealt with lots and lots of calls about trees and tree limbs down. i think we

actually faired better then some other places in terms of loss of full trees. we did have whole tree failures and that is not that uncumin with super satch waited soil conditions. we had over 950 calls about trees or tree limbs down. a lot of calls were about loss of a limb and we could save the tree. we are still assessing the data to figure how many were full tree failures versus limb failure. >> also had land movement too. the great highway comes to mind. what is your approach to managing rock mud and land slides? >> that is a great question. we had 28 different slides over the course of that period. it is kind of a interesting process, so the first step is we have our geotechnical or structural engineers take a look to see is the hillside safe, do we need to stabilize it in some way or just need to do some cleanup? once they made their assessment

they will recommend the next steps. often times to protect public safety we will place k rails the giant concrete rails at the base omthe slide area to make sure that any debris doesn't get on the edroway and bring ing the heavy equipment to scoop up on the ground and move off the roadway and try to open the roadway. some cases, we will actually inject some rocks or other stabilizing forces either into the slide area or sometimes below the roadway. right now there is nothing that's unstable out there but be are keeping a close eye on the areas including the gray highway area. >> right, right. well, so talking about the storms in the city response, brings us to southeast community scepter when there is rain remediation projects going on. can you talk about the inconstruction

project kblrks that is a favorite project. a beautiful new community facility. we were involved in pretty much every aspect of developing that project for the public utility commission. they were a client. we design project management and construction management and the landscape design for that project. and one thing that we included was storm water management throughout the entire project site. so, that project encapturealize the rain water that lands on the roof and flows into the landscape where we have rain gardens so intent is slow the water down to and give areas to collect to percolate into the ground rather then the sewer system. when we have sewers that are overloaded, because our rain water mixes with the sewer treatment storm sewer system, we actually can end up dist charging into the bay which we dont want to do. anything we can do to just prevent

those combined sewers from overpm loaded is a good thing and in this case allows the water to collect onsite and percolate to the ground which is the best way to manage the storm water and it is beautiful and provides habitat. i encourage everybody to see it. it is special place. >> that's great. there was recently news about how city (indiscernible) powered by steam, which is super unusual i think. i understand public works ablgtually does the maintenance on the system. can you just talk about that a bit? >> sure. that is a unusual situation. that steam loop was actually built when the city was recovering from the 1906 earthquake. it only provides to steam about 4 buildings in civic center but that is how we keep buildings like

city hall warm. the steam goes into the radiators and provides the heat. it is a old system and if you see steam billowing out of the man holes or other spaces, that is indication of a leak actually. we spend a lot of time trying to fix the leaks because it's a old system. it is managed by the real estate department and at one point they were looking trying to replace the whole thing but think that is a massive undertaking so now they focus on making as needed repair said. we did a big repair on growth street where we spent a month and a half working on the known leaks s in the area. it is a very tight spot and have to use blow torches to seal up the leak so a intense operation and seeing more leaks on polk street so we will be out there once it warms up to fix the leaks. >> excellent. let's

discuss what is the reunifiquation of public works. there fsh a proposal or plan to split off the division, called the street and sanitation. now that has been shelved and public works is going to just retain being a single entity. can you talk through the process? >> sure. yeah. the original proposal was a ballot measure voted on to split the department into 2. it basically create the department of sanitation and streets that was really going to incompass all our operation divisions so it was a street cleaning department but encompass everything we refer to as operations. when we worked preparing for that split with the city administrator office, we found there were actually 91 what we call touch points between the operations work and our engineering and architecture side, so we really felt like it could be very difficult to split into two

departments. we have so many areas of overlap. there was a new ballot measure last november to reunit the department. technically we split october one and did split in some ways. we did put on hold some of the behind the scenes things like rebranding all the vehicle jz giving everyone a new e-mail address in the sanitation and streets department, but on january 1 of 2023 we came back together so we are reunited i want sing the peaches and purb song and think it is a good thing for the 91 areas of overlap. we making #2c3w50d use of the research. preparing for the split. looking at all the touch points and trying to strengthen the department so we are more streamlined and efficient. one of the most important component from the original ballot measure is commission

oversight. we retained two commissions, the public works commission which oversee the over-all department and approve the budget and contracts. and sanitation and street commission and their mandate focus on policy and deliverable for street cleaning and basically the operation division. reporting to them regularly how we are doing, we think will help make sure we are as efficient and effective as we can be as a department. >> that sounds great. thank you so much for coming and talking to me today and appreciate the time you have given. >> thank you so much for having me. it was a pleasure. >> that is it for this episode. you are watching san francisco rising. please stand b

the san francisco budget and finance committee meeting of november 29, 2023. good morning. the meeting will come to order. welcome to november 29, 2023 meeting of budget finance committee. i'm supervisor chan, chair of the committee. i'm joined by supervisor ahsha safai, our clerk is brent julipa. i like to thank sfgovtv for broadcasting the meeting. >> frundly reminder to make sure silence cell phones and electronic devices not to interrupt the meetings. should you have documents to be included as part of the file, it should be submitted to myself the clerk. public comment is taken on each item. when you item comes up