only turn off if you hear gas or hear hissing and coordinator nathan will demonstrate how to turn that off. >> with a whenever i'm going to turn it over one quarter turn. so in on holler orientation in turn off our gays meter don't turn it back on get a service call from.

>> all right. good morning everybody and welcome to the february 3rd, 2025 rules committee meeting. >> i am supervisor walton, chair of this committee. i'm joined by committee members vice chair supervisor cheryl as well as president mandolin. our clerk today is victor young and i would like to thank susan enos from s.f. gov tv for broadcasting this meeting and making sure the public has the opportunity to see the work happen. >> mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? ah yes. public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda when new item of interest comes up and public comment is called please line up to speak on your right. alternatively you may submit public comment in writing in each of the following ways e-mail them to myself the rules committee clerk at vicki taught

y o u n at s.f. court or if you submit public comment by email it would be included as part of the file. you may also send your written comments via us to our office at city hall one dr. crouch and be good place room two for four san francisco, california nine for 1 or 2. please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices documents to be included as part of the five should be submitted to the clerk items at that point they will are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of february 11th 2025 unless otherwise stated. >> that completes my initial announcement. thank you so much mr. clerk. would you please call item number one? item number one is a resolution accepting to san francisco sheriff's military equipment use policy 2024 annual report and inventory and approving the request for purchase and use of additional equipment consistent with the cartier set forth in state law.

>> thank you so much. we do have sheriff miyamoto here. i'm not sure if he wishes to speak on this item. i don't i don't see my colleagues on the roster. so with that we can go to public comment. >> yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this item should line up to speak at this time each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any speakers on this matter? i do not see any speakers for this matter. >> thank you. seeing no speakers public comment for this item is closed. >> i do just want to say i really truly have an issue with trying to approve a chemical weapon when we still have an ongoing investigation of what happened during a training practice in san mateo county where children at a nearby school were affected by the training usage of the weapons. i did have a conversation briefly with a team from the

sheriff's department and the timeline on the investigation is really not 100% clear at this point. and also just wanting to know and understand whether or not we can remove this item from the request from my standpoint, we we should continue this item until we have more information or more detail or separate the chemical weapons from this request. but i don't know what kind of support i do have for that. >> so i would move this forward without recommendation to the full board president amendment thank you chair walton i think that makes sense. >> thank you. on that motion, mr. clerk yes. and a motion to refer the matter without recommendation. vice chair cheryl cheryl i remember i'm in, man i i chair walton i will deny that motion passes without objection.

>> thank you. motion to move this for without recommendation passes mr. clerk would you please call item number two? item number two is the ordinance amending the campaign and governmental conduct code to update the conflict of interest code form 700 statement of economic interests filing requirements by adding, deleting and changing titles of certain designated officials and employees to reflect organizational and staffing changes and be refining disclosure requirements for certain designate officials and employees. >> thank you president amendment thank you chair walton. so this is a little bit of housekeeping every two years the political reform act requires that san francisco review and update its conflict of interest code. sometimes we have new positions that have been created in that time. sometimes positions have gone away and so all of the departments take a look at their various folks who have to report under the political reform act and and provide

updates to our clerk and our city attorney who then coordinate that legislation. this was being carried by president peskin and then i inherited it after he left the board. we did circulate some late breaking amendments which are pretty minor but proud bressie can explain those. i want to thank kathleen reilly's and and brad and then of course of course our clerk for all their work on this. and with that i would turn it over to to our city attorney to better explain this than i have. deputy city attorney brad russ the president made and you explain what this is all about. very well. it's basically something we're required to do departments need to update this based on different duties that have changed in the intermediate in the two years that have passed.

and so we engage in a process reaching out to all of them to take a look at their code sections as president mandolin mentioned, there are some minor amendments on page two we're adding the commission streamlining task force which was approved in prop e at the november election on page nine there's an addition and a deletion from the assessor recorder's filers and on page 39 there's an addition for the san francisco unified school district. these amendments are substantive so once you make them you'll have to continue to the next week's meeting. >> thank you so much. deputy city attorney rusty, i don't see any other colleagues on the roster. >> would you please call for public comment, mr. clerk? yes. members of the public who wish to speak on this matter should line up to speak at this time each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are any speakers on this

matter? >> there are no speakers. >> thank you senior speakers public comment on item number two is close. >> president amendment would you like to make a motion? yes i'll move the amendments that have been circulated and described by by our deputy city attorney on a motion to adopt the amendments. vice chair cheryl shaw i remember man woman and a miniature walton high walton i. the motion passes without objection. >> thank you. amendments are passed without objection and present amendment and then i'll move that we continue this one week till our or till our next meeting. >> yeah. >> yes. and the motion to continue the matter as amended to february the 10th on that motion vice chair cheryl cheryl i. the momentum and not a miniature walton i want to know that motion passes without objection a motion to continue a minute item passes without objection mr. clerk, please

call item number three. item number three is the ordinance approving and. the amended airport surveillance technology policy governing the use of automated license plate readers ground transportation management system and parking assist park parking guidance system. >> thank you, mr. clerk. and i believe we have diana bullock and guy clark guy clark here from the airport. >> good morning chair walton, vice chair cheryl and committee member of gentleman i'm guy clark. i'm the i.t. cyber appliance manager for the airport and i'm here to present the amended surveillance technology policy just to provide a little background. >> the airport automated license plate reader ground transportation management system surveillance technology policy was reviewed and approved by the board back in 2021 and at the time there was no discussion about combining

these two technologies. but when? when the park assist parking guidance system technology came up in our inventory in working with kuwait we discussed and reviewed and felt that it would be best to combine these into one policy. so we amended the existing policy with the parking guidance system specifically the technology description. authorize use cases two new ones were added as a justification was updated for the new part for the new technology the benefits to residents and to the department were updated. the data sharing and retention were updated. the key note there is that the parking system does not retain the license plate data. from that perspective and then compliance was updated with members of the parking management group being added to that as compliance over this particular technology and then as you mentioned the technology scription was updated.

>> the two items in red were the two areas that were updated. there the use of the parking guidance system still reduces the time spent searching for parking which leads to more revenue generating opportunities in the terminals and then additionally streamline the process. reducing drive time and emissions parking efficiency minimizes traffic on the roadways and helps individuals find parking spaces as well as. locate their car if for instance they don't remember erhey can

actually put in their license plate number and it'll virtually in that moment find where they're parked via the cameras. but that information is not saved or maintained and then as you can see the two items in the two use cases in black are the existing use cases from the. automated license plate reader system that we.

previously had gotten approved and then as mentioned to new use cases were added due to the park assist being added as well help guide customers to vehicle parking spaces and to help customers locate their vehicles if they forgot where they parked and those are the kind of the highlights of it. >> i do have additional slides if you need additional information about that but. >> thank you mr. clerk. >> i don't see anyone with any questions so we will call for public comment on item number three. >> yes, members of the public who wish to speak on this item just line up to speak at this time each speaker will be allowed two minutes. are there any members of the public who like to provide public comment? i do not see any members of the public for public comment at this time. thank you. >> seeing no speakers public comment is now closed and i would like to make a motion to move this item forward to the

full board with recommendation on the motion to recommend this item to the full board. >> vice chair cheryl cheryl i member mcmanaman management i chair walton i tonight the motion passes without objection thank you motion to move forward to the full board with recommendation passes unanimously thank you thank you for your time. >> thank you so much. >> so the good news here is we have appointments supervisory or supervisory appointments for items 4 or 5, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and 11 and we can call these all at once and then we'll have public comment for all the items together. so mr. clerk, would you please call the items are yes. >> item number four is a motion appointing supervisor mahmud to the bay area quality management district board of directors

term ending february 1st, 2029. or the conclusion of his term as a member of the board of supervisors. item number five as motion appointing supervisor conny chan to the san francisco bay conservation and development commission for an indefinite term or at the conclusion of her term as a member of the board of supervisors. item number five is motion appointing supervisor matt dorsey as an alternate member to the san francisco bay conservation and development commission for an indefinite term or the conclusion of his term as a member of the board the supervisors item number seven is a motion appointing supervisor danny sorenson to the golden gate bridge highway and transportation district board of directors. term ending january 31st, 2027 or the conclusion of his term as a member of the board of supervisors. item number eight is motion appointing supervisor carney chan to the free city college oversight committee for an indefinite term or the conclusion of her term as a member of the board of supervisors. item nine is a motion appointing supervisor myrna melgar to the metropolitan transportation commission term ending february 10th, 2027 or

the conclusion of her term as a member of the board of supervisor i item number ten is a motion appointing supervisor matt dorsey to the reentry council term ending june 1st, 2026 or the inclusion of his term as a member of the board of supervisor. item number 11 is motion appointing supervisor matt dorsey as a member of the association to be or your executive board term ending june 30th 2025 or the inclusion of his term as a member of the board of supervisors. >> thank you so much mr. clerk. seeing no comments or questions from colleagues, we will now call for public comment on the items. >> yes, members of the public who wish to speak may line up to speak at this time you will have two minutes. >> hi, my name's liam mckeever. i live in d six which is the supervisor for number ten. >> i don't know if i can say names anymore for the reentry council. >> the reentry council coordinator. it's local efforts to support justice involved in formerly incarcerated people.

>> and just judging off of all the legislation and what my or the supervisor is enthused to impose on us via criminalization and incarceration and especially of homeless and people addicted to drugs, i question if he's a good fit for everyone who needs services from the reentry council or just seems pretty narrow minded and seems committed to recovery only via . abstinence of any sort of drug consumption and incarceration seems to be his solution which seems kind of at odds with this reentry council but that's just me. >> thanks. are there any other speakers to comment on these items?

>> there are no additional speakers. thank you. seeing no other speakers public comment is now closed and i would like to make a motion to move items four through 11 to the full board with recommendation. >> on a motion to recommend items four through 11 vice chair cheryl i cheryl i remember momentum and management i chair walton i want tonight that motion passes without objection thank you motion carries mr. clerk do we have any other business before us this morning? >> there are no additional items on today's agenda. >> thank you. we're adjourned

television. >> 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 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. >> 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 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 [music] >> san francisco is known as yerba buena, good herb after a mint that used to grow here. at this time there were 3 settlements one was mission delores. one the presidio and one was yerba buena which was urban center. there were 800 people in 1848 it was small. a lot of historic buildings were

here including pony express headquarters. wells fargo. hudson bay trading company and famous early settlers one of whom william leaderdorph who lived blocks from here a successful business person. african-american decent and the first million airin california. >> wilwoman was the founders of san francisco. here during the gold rush came in the early 1840s. he spent time stake himself as a merchant seaman and a business person. his father and brother in new orleans. we know him for san francisco's history. establishing himself here arnold 18 twoochl he did one of many things the first to do in yerba buena. was not california yet and was

not fully san francisco yet. >> because he was an american citizen but spoke spanish he was able to during the time when america was taking over california from mexico, there was annexations that happened and conflict emerging and war, of course. he was part of the peek deliberations and am bas doorship to create the state of california a vice council to mexico. mexico granted him citizenship. he loaned the government of san francisco money. to funds some of the war efforts to establish the city itself and the state, of course. he established the first hotel here the person people turned to often to receive dignitaries or hold large gatherings established the first public school here and helped start the public school system. he piloted the first steam ship

on the bay. a big event for san francisco and depict instead state seal the ship was the sitk a. there is a small 4 block long length of street, owned much of that runs essentially where the transamerica building is to it ends at california. i walk today before am a cute side street. at this point t is the center what was all his property. he was the person entrusted to be the city's first treasurer. that is i big deal of itself to have that legacy part of an african-american the city's first banker. he was not only a forefather of the establishment of san francisco and california as a state but a leader in industry. he had a direct hahn in so many things that we look at in san

francisco. part of our dna. you know you don't hear his anymore in the context of those. representation matters. you need to uplift this so people know him but people like him like me. like you. like anyone who looks like him to be, i can do this, too. to have the city's first banker and a street in the middle of financial district. that alone is powerful. [music] >> i'm san francisco's first drag laureate and the first one in the world. the drag laureate program and the position is one this celebrates an artist for being

the best in their craft and i'm proud to have received that xroel it it is afternoon ambassador role. a role that represents the lbgtq+ community in san francisco the focus on the drag performers and trans-activists and performers in san francisco as well. when i heard the city was creating the drag laureate role i was so excited because it did foal like they were paying attention to us. and cared about when we gave culturally and economically to the city >> here is your new drag laureate for the city and county of san francisco! i'm getting the call from the mayor i was chosen was fantastic day. i will always remember. i thought that it would just be about the bay area.

because of what happening in the world it became a national story. i hope it can shine a light on san francisco and how they take care of the drag community and the lbgtq+ community. i hope that i can help carve out this position and create a role with programs and events this can be passed down to future drag laureate this is come after me and can set a stage and standard for what this program is in san francisco and national low and inner nationally. there is a rich history in san francisco. that the drag community has been part of. i'm very proud to follow in their footsteps and able to maintain what the drag community has done in the past and move forward with creating a bright future. my job is to elevate and

celebrate [♪music♪] i'm jennifer and i am a producer and media production specialist with the city of san francisco. sfgovt v i have been here for almost 25 years. ended up in production at sf state. before this i attended junior college in sacramento. and i had a teacher there who was a pioneer in her field. a woman who started in the 60s. i saw it, wow thshg is a woman in the field creating and making stories and i wanted do this. >> being a woman in the broadcast industry has challenges. gave me the motivation to work harder. to save myself and gave me purpose and made me want to

learn more. not take things for granted. i would seek out people who had certain skills like hey. i don't know editting can you teach me. i don't know this cam are well, can you teach me? and then i would learn and i would become good and i would pass this o. and so, i think that they have it that way and it is something i enjoy. >> i feel like i'm part of a community here at sfgov being here for almost 25 years it is a family. support each other and want to see each other succeed and grow. that makes it fun to come to work every day and to tell stories about san fan. shine a light on people or departments. that feels good. i enjoy doing that work with my colleagues. and yea, i love my job. clear clear

welcome to sfgovtv in person i am jeremiah estep. your host today. and we are here at the united players clubhouse. and we are celebrating their 30th year anniversary of serving the community, specifically the south of market here in san francisco. and united players is

a san francisco based youth development and violence prevention organization and i'm very happy to be here to talk to rudy and the rest of his staff. so let's introduce ourselves. hi. my name is vanessa. i'm one of the program managers here at united players. hi. my name is brandon jackson. i'm a program coordinator for middle school. hi. my name is maria fabia. i'm a k-2 coordinator and i'm rudy corpus, better known as the gorilla pino, aka rudy valentin. i'm the edd of up. cool, cool. so can you tell us your journey and mission, how you got involved with united players? so originally when i started united players, it wasn't even something that i thought about doing. it was it just all kind of happened organically. i was hired at a nonprofit organization in san francisco

called bernal heights neighborhood center, which is in district 11. i got hired as a filipino gang prevention counselor, and so my mission was to go find the filipino gang members, right? in that district 11. there's 11 districts in san francisco. and so i knew who they was all at. i'm born and raised in san francisco. i was appointed at lifestyle, so i knew they was all that went to balboa high school, which is in district 11. in 1994, it was off the hook. and so upon being up at balboa, sure enough, they're all there. big fight ensued, right between different ethnicities. and from there, nobody was able to learn because of the violence that was going on. between the big fight between filipinos, blacks, samoans and latinos. so myself and several other people, andre alexander, right, shouts out to andre alexander. he was the coach of the football team at bao. there was a brother named late. you remember late big samoan. excuse my language.

around six four. you know what i mean? from frisco, north beach, one of my partners. he was a hall guard. and he had, you know, a lot of good credibility with the youngsters that was up there at bao. and so at the time there was a filipino principal, their name was mr. montevergine. she was looking for solutions and the police couldn't stop it. nobody could stop it. so i got what all those dudes, they was able to come in the room they wanted to meet. and from there they wanted to make a club because they came up with all the solutions and the answers to stop the violence. the kids did. the youth. and so they said, hey, we should name this a club. this is our this is in october of 94. and i gave the power to the people. i said, what do you guys want to name the club that we got right here? because everybody was getting along in the room, you know what i mean? and so united players up october

1994 was born. and that's how the name came. and so boom, fast forward. we're here in 2024 in october. so they're celebrating 30 years 30 years. yeah yeah. worldwide baby. yeah it is worldwide. you have so many people supporting you like kaepernick and yeah steph curry everybody right. they they they yeah they they they all seen i believe the spirit of what we do and what we're about you know which is based on love. everything that we've been doing from day one way back then. way back then we was at balboa high school. right. so i met that guy at balboa. right. these two sisters right here from the neighborhood that i'm from, you know, i ain't from district 11. i'm from district six. born and raised south of market tenderloin. and so all over the world. and people saw that the love that the youth. right. yeah. who were involved in it, spread it. and you know who don't want to get no love. yeah. so they all part of it i'm thankful. yeah. that's dope. so

how did you get involved? well, so i'm born and raised here in south of market area. so, you know they had the rec center over there. and so that's where all the youth would come and just gather. just everyone from the hood, you know, would just play basketball, you know, meet up, hang out after school. so i was in the third grade and i joined basketball for the first time. i was garbage, like totally garbage. didn't like i was not the best, but i had this mentor named tim and he. really. yes. and he really motivated me and kept me focused and really kept me in the game and say, like, you know, keep going, keep practicing. you could do this. so by the time i got to fourth or fifth grade, you know, i was balling. yeah. you know, and so without his guidance i wouldn't have made it you know that far in playing basketball. but you know rudy he's like the neighborhood hero. he's at the rec at the rec. you know he chopping it up with everybody.

and you know he just made everyone feel welcome. and that that was even before there was like a headquarters to even be at, you know. so it was just the rec. that's a public place to be. and so, you know, he just built community there. and, you know, i just felt at home and you've been there ever since, and i've been here ever since. and she's still balling. she's still balling. and yeah, we got to play ball then. so and you started when did you start? i started in sixth grade. i started going to bessie carmichael for the first time. i didn't know anybody except for like my neighbor. and then i got introduced to united players by bqe. he was my mentor. may he rest in peace as well. he really introduced me to this. he pushed me out of my comfort zone because i was very much like a loner. didn't know anybody, i didn't i wasn't very open to being social with other people. but when i came here, he was like, go introduce yourself to

everybody. like left me alone to go introduce myself and i did exactly that. and i mean the rest is history. it's like super fun. everything's cool. so i love it. and you've been with him since how many years now? i don't know, i think maybe 2009. that's amazing because that's when i went to sixth grade. yeah, she was a participant and now she's a staff. yeah. but just just real quick, thank you for bringing up e. so eric, eric also is one of our staff who worked with us, who passed away, and tim was a mentor of mine. these are all filipino cats that we're talking about, the south of market. we're in here has over 120 year history of filipinos. so as you can see, right, it's filipino too, right there by heart. it's black, filipino, black filipino. you know it's filipino. we was black before we came right. but but but everybody they mentioned is actually been a part of the fabric with the love. tim was

love, eric was love. and that's all they did was give out love. and look what we got here now. love, love. all right brother, when did you get involved with. i was at bell back in. oh four, and rudy wanted me to be a part of up. but unfortunately, due to, like, the gang culture i was a part of, i couldn't. because basically the people that i really didn't get along with was already in u.p. so it was kind of like i couldn't be a part of up even though i wanted to. but due to stuff that transpired, i was just like, i can't do it, i can't do it. you know? and then how did i end up getting the job here? shout out to my mentor, mike brown. may he rest in peace. i got a call from mike brown. he asked me, was i open to working with kids still? because i was working with kids over there in my neighborhood and i said, yeah. and then he was like, call this man named rudy. and i was like, rudy. i'm like, i only know one. you know, one rudy in the city. so i happened to call rudy and then did an interview, and then i got

hired down here, and i've been here for 12 years, and it's a blessing. it's a blessing to work with kids. you know? you a blessing, bro. to be a part, to just be a part of a positive environment. yeah. coming from a negative environment, to be a part of a positive environment is a blessing. yeah. you want to talk about that negative environment. negative environment was just growing up being a part of a neighborhood, you know, doing things to feel accepted. you know, not getting the right nurturing love at hom. so you step out your comfort zone to go get it from friends or you know, to when you just want to be loved, bro. it don't matter what environment you're in. it don't matter if it's positive or negative because love can come from either environment. it's about what environment you choose that you feel like you can succeed in. and at the time, me being a negative thinker at the time due to my way of living, due to my environment inside my household, i chose a negative environment. yeah. so how did you what attracted you to want to come to wanted to get with our up at that age? because it's organization. when he was at bal, i used to try to get at him, but he was hardheaded, you hard for teenagers at times. it just seemed like a fun thing to know what i mean? he'd be in the gym shooting three pointers for do. like if i could, if i could money, you know what i mean? he was gambling and that's how i go back in time, i think i would get with him. i'll stand probably would have been a part over there with him and chop it of up. but it was just like, you up because i come from the same cloth. yeah, but he was one of

know, when you have to go there and then you still have to go them youngsters, man. if he back to your neighborhood and would not get involved in they're like, oh, you was over something, he'd have been dead or in prison. yeah, with that there with them. like, what are you doing hanging with them? elbow. yeah. and look at him like, you know, that type of now. yeah. look what you mean. stuff. so it was just more like chose a side as a kid. as a kid, helping out the kids from i chose a side. and it was like neighborhoods that he had rivals to where i was from. but when from? yeah, on my mama and she you, if i can take it all back in heaven. so, you know his his again, be honest with you. my message to the kids, it's okay his mindset has changed. and, to be the kid that get along you know, i'm really proud of with everybody. yeah. that's right. like, you know, it's okay all three of them. what they to be that kid to be different stand for and what they do for and you can get along with everybody without choosing a side that's real. yeah. hey, i the people. yeah. is it because just want to add this right. and it's based on a true story. up is very relatable like rudy brandon, when i first met him, as opposed to other teen groups? didn't really want to be a part you want to explain? yes. you of anything but what he was doing. and he was caught up in know, you don't see too many people who look like you, who that negative cycle right of the you know, talk like you, maybe turf life, that death life, that money back and murder life. it dressed like you that are like was arrested development. but walking a positive path. right? growing up now, you know his sometimes a lot of people are mindset has changed. he really just like, you know, like, who can i look up to? right? and you know, kids, we embrace, encourage kids to take pride in their individuality. right. and sometimes kids are just lost and they don't know. they don't have

any guidance. they don't have that guidance at home. i was fortunate enough to have two parents, you know what i mean? but not a lot of kids, you know, in this world have that, you know, or they do have two parents. one is just don't have the time or attention to give their kids and so i feel like we fill that void for them. you know what i mean? is it because the community is i mean, it's the parents are too busy workin, so sometimes they kind of not around their children sometimes. so they don't have like, that kind of loving upbringing at times because they're so on that grind and hustle. yeah. my parents were on that grind and hustle. i felt like there was some gaps that i felt like they didn't feel for me. but then growing up, i also understood what they were like hustling for. that's right. and so and so like i've accepted that as i've grown older, but with some kids, you know, some kids, they have parents who, you know, who are like, you know, who are on drugs. you know what i mean? who are absent, who are not there.

you know, some people are raised off love and some people are raised off survival. right? and so really, they're, you know, it's just kids trying to navigate their own lives. and sometimes they don't have that with their parents or their guardians or, you know. yeah. and that's where you, sharp girl stay sharp. big facts. yeah. and that's where up comes in. you guys bring it out. you guys are the bridge that brings the families together. and you guys are kind of. well, you look at the name we're uniting players, right? and all players is people who are coming together who are doing something positive, productive for their people in the hood. right. you got united players and you got united haters. some people don't want to connect and get together and that's cool too. that's a part of life. yeah. but we choose man to live. we'd rather live than die. see, our whole thing is based on making it fashionable, making peace fashionable. right. and as vanessa was speaking, you know, most of us filipinos, we grow up right. i'm first generation, our parents, the way they show us, they love us is

they out there grinding? most of them don't tell us they love us. they just do it. and you don't understand that. you know what i mean? till, like you said, you get older, then you realize why they was doing what they was doing. because my mom and dad, you know, they grow up. they ain't never told me to this day. and they both of them, you know, passed away. they didn't say it out loud. right. and so you won't love if you ain't hearing it. you going to find it somewhere. yeah. so i was not i was even on the sidewalk on the porch. i was on the street at an early age. but all that time they was showing it by their actions. and now that they're gone, i understood. and now i know what they love was the way they was giving it to me. that's all filipino people was raised. that's true. my parents, my parents were like that too. but you said it very well, though, and that's why i felt you. that's real talk. thank you. yeah. with that said, how has this program evolved over the years since you started? i'm going to let them answer that. sure. so how has it evolved since you were evolved since you

were a student and now you're a teacher? it's evolved a lot. like when i was younger, i wasn't, like emotionally, like prepared or like, knew what to do in situations where like, i was like lost or going through some things. i feel like now in the program, like we have us having training with the trauma based intervention or trauma based relational intervention. yes. and a lot of letters on yeah, it's tbri basically in other words, what is that? can you explain like it's like a trauma based where like you, you're like repairing the bond that you have and like learning to like navigate through those emotions instead of like suppressing them or acting out against them. and i just feel like that is very helpful in today's like, age with the kids that we do have. and it's like a life skill that we're teaching

them to take along the way. so they're not like acting up, acting out anywhere in the world. they can at least do it here with us in a safe space where we know how to, like, help them and give them like resources. and i think that's like the major change that i've seen so far. and, and the community outreach that we do, we i mean, we did community outreach when i was in middle school, but i feel like we've, we've do we've done more now. yeah. and like even during like the pandemic, we were serving like the seniors. we were serving like the senior graduates, like when they couldn't walk the stage. we did a drive by. i think it's changed a lot in like a positive way. yeah. do you want to talk about the mental health part of it? to me, the key of our mission is to help them identify emotions and feelings, because if you can't identify emotions and feelings,

if you can't identify it, it's like, how could you control something you can't identify? yeah. you know, and the key is that if you can get the kids to identify it, the younger they are, the better off they will be in the future. you know, it's kind of hard when you get when you get a high schooler and try to restore morals, identity, self-respect and stuff of that nature. you know, like it's kind of harder. so to me, what i identify doing this work is if we can get installed in them at an early age, the better off they will be when they become adults. say that, then say that then. and can you explain, like the changes you've seen in the kids you got in the beginning to how they became later adults? yeah. so i just want to go off on what rhia was saying about trust based relational intervention. so that is a trauma informed approach to vulnerable youth that we serve who experience adversity and trauma in their lives. right. and so that consists of three

main principles. that's empowering. connecting and connecting. so with that, that's our investment into our youth is taking delving in deeper into their lives. right. trying to trying to identify like why they moved, the way they move, why they talk, the way they talk, why, you know, learning about their upbringing. right. and then identifying those factors, like brandon was saying and then being able to nurture those, nurture them where it's needed, you know, meeting them where they're at. and then you know, being able to transform their lives to where they can be better people, you know, into the world. and so i feel like when we instill those factors like risk, respect, you know, integrity and all that, when we see that translate into our kids and they're showing that and they're ending up teaching their siblings and, and showing you

know, you see, you see something that you teach someone and they're actually, you know, putting it into action that's that's rewarding. like, you know, that you're doing the right thing and you know that you're staring them in the right path like beautiful. and man, i love my staff. i love y'all, you know what i mean? they are frontline soldiers, boots to the ground. and they deal with this every day. yeah, right. you guys articulated it so well. and what y'all just said. you imagine us when we all grow up. we was taught not to cry. we was taught not to express how we feel. right. and when you grow up, you got to express what you feel. and you say, right. and if you do right, you get your ass whooped. you better not cry right. and so if you really think about it, man, our people, our black people, our brown people, way back in the days, we was the ones who cultivated all this, but it was kidnaped from us. and now, you know, you have people who are putting it into

letters. but this is something our people always been doing from day one. it just got kidnaped. and so this is really natural for us to give out love and to give it back. yeah. and love ain't no soft word, you know what i mean? it's really spelled no. right. and so the things that we're that that we're learning, i'm still learning it and that they're learning, we're learning from getting trained to teach these young kids who are growing up in a world full of hate. yeah. we winning. and you. right. that is what we have to do. install those values again because we ain't got them. and this is raising our kids. that's true. you dig what i'm saying? and whatever they scrolling through and they seeing. right. it's the soundbites. yeah. right. what do they call that when you go through there and it keeps coming back. the ads the algorithm. algorithm. no, the algorithm algorithm. right. if you're watching fights all the time and i like fights, but i know it's entertaining to me. i'm asking the little kid who's getting and he's seen it. that's all he's thinking, right? and as in brandon in your head, it's

true. it's true. and so it's important that these letters that were taught that's already in our dna from way back in the days in the philippines or in africa, right, or whatever country you come from, or people been having this installed in them. that's why we're receptive to it, you know what i mean? and so when we're learning, we teach this. it's our duty. it takes the hood to say the hood. it takes us to teach our people the truth, right? with the spirit of everything that our people, where we come from, for us to get by. because this world, man is toe up every day. it gets worse and worse. turn on the news. you see it. you know it's full of hate. and so man, i love what y'all do. y'all frontline soldiers. hearing them speak like this, i ain't used to seeing them speak like this. you know what i mean? yeah. now spitting game like that. that's why i talk about making peace fashionable. right? yeah. we making. we really making it happen in real life. and so man. and that's what makes us so, like, genuine and pure. because even us, we're still dealing with our own trauma, still

trying to heal from it. and, you know, but at the same time, you know, we're helping others. we'll help. we're helping you deal with their own traumas and also helping them heal. and so i feel like that that feeds off of each other. and so, like, you know, heal people, heal people who say that, then what? heal people, heal people, man. healers need healing. man. my brand is coming out soon, y'all. y'all go cop that i ain't lying. you know the crazy part is, yeah, the kids feel like they need us, but they don't know we need them more than they need us. ooh, beautiful. yeah. that's fire right there. true. i'm gonna explain. it's just like we can be having a bad day. but when we come to work, the kids uplift us. the kids, like, you know, take us out of a certain mode and put us in a higher spirit. yeah, spiritually, it don't matter if we play with them, if we laugh with them. play a pick up game of basketball or just crack jokes with them. it's just the interaction you feel me can take our mind off something we have going on outside of work, you know? and then it just put us at a peaceful place. yeah, yeah. kids is medicine true? true. we

got we got cats who are coming home out of these penitentiaries who've been going 25, 35, even 45 years straight. right. and they're coming back and giving to our community. but what they fail to realize is what brandon just said. the kids is actually bringing life to them. their medicines to these cats. right. and so, yeah, man, you know, shouts out to all them young kids out there, do you want to talk about big kid? do you want to talk about that program you do with visiting the juvie juvenile juvie? and you can speak on that. oh, so, so what's big for us is we have a reentry program, right? and right now we have we connected with the justice department at at juvenile, and we got two we got two caseworkers and both the caseworkers are lifers that came home from doing a lot of time in jail based off of making a rational decision, not being able to control their emotions and their feelings. so i think it's kind of big. when we got lifers coming home to connect with the kids in juvenile, and they don't just connect with the

kids in juvenile, they come to the they show up at the middle school, they show up at the elementary school. they go to high schools and talk. they go to city college and talk. and it's just like, you got to kill the pipeline, man. the elementary to the penitentiary pipeline has to be killed. and the only way to kill it is people that actually been through it. because the people that been through it know how to kill it, know how to attack it. it's like a tree. you look at the branches and you think, those are the problems? no, it's the root. what is the root of the problem? and that goes back to tbri being able to help people identify and control their feelings and emotions. yeah. so how did you guys start that program where you go this partnership with like the different jails to be able to talk to the inmates and change their lives and stuff like that. how do we start that? yeah. how do you start that was locked up in there with them. right. and so you know, that's our people. you know what i mean. and accountability is very important. you cross that line. and like beretta said back in the days you do the crime, you do the time. i come from that school. and so a lot of guys who

are stand up cats who come home that we know who we've been incarcerated with, right, or we go back in there and we talk to them. they know about what we do because, you know, the streets is really inside them penitentiaries. so they know what's happening out here on the ground and they see all their people. right. who's out here putting in work? that's why i always take pictures, you know what i mean? with all the homies, when they come together and we're talking about cats. when brandon was mentioning the two dudes, you're talking about a adamu and a kiwi. them dudes, man. when enemies. wow, right. and they're not even from out here. they're from southern california. and so we get all these guys together, north and the southerners, others, right. blacks, whites come together and they take pictures and it spreads everywhere. and so people want to be a part of something that's working. that's winning. yeah. they want to be a part of this player stuff. you know, it's that medicine man. yeah. yep. it's free to shoot. you pay for that. no it's free. come on man, how it's going to be on a shelf in a minute.

diversify your portfolio man. that's what 40 taught me. how big is up at this point. shoot. tell them about it. how big is up at this point. how big is you p0i mean we have a headquarters here. i mean what do you mean how big. like it's worldwide, right. like you have philippines. you have other places. yeah. one in new york, one in the philippines. am i missing any we in africa? yeah. you know what i mean. hawaii, baltimore. south. south bronx. yeah, yeah. how does that make you? good? god is good. god is good. how does that make you feel to see it? like, start from balboa to 30 years later? yeah, man, it feels really good to know that, you know, what started from the people, from the youth has blossomed and blew up, man, to go everywhere around this world and to touch people. yeah, yeah, it's amazing. that is amazing. and you're doing god's work and like. but why do you or why do youth join gangs

anyways. i mean it's different now than it was back then, but it's almost the same. like, why do they join like, gangs? i mean, to be accepted. yeah. to be loved. it's more about acceptance and love. i mean, i can't speak for like as a whole. i can ask you, i can tell you why i did it. it was because i didn't feel loved at home. yeah, my daddy did. 16 in the state. my mama raised four kids by herself, and i had the type of mom that go to work, bust her butt, come home, pay the bills, and it's like, have my house clean. but it wasn't like helping me go over my homework. it wasn't like the nurturing, the nurturing part didn't didn't come. you know, i love her to death, but the nurturing part didn't come. you know? so i ran to the streets and didn't get it there either. yeah, truth be told, didn't get it there. but that's what i was looking for. yeah. acceptance and love. you feel me? yeah. and i think a lot of kids just. it comes from making rational decisions. like, it's like, man, i don't feel the love inside the home. so let me go try to get it out here. and

the whole time when you're out there, you're getting manipulated. you know, it's like manipulation is heartache. it's losing friends. it's bullet holes. it's doing stupid stuff. it's jail. it's like, you know. yeah. but to piggyback off what you said, i think it's just acceptance and love. when it comes down to it, you want to be a part of something? yeah. no matter if it's positive or negative. just wanting to be a part of something. yeah, yeah, yeah, they definitely just want to have, like a sense of belonging and like feeling like they have some purpose. like if yo ask the kids right now, like, you know, where do you see yourself or you know, what's your future like? all of them just want to, like, get money and like, you know and have and like have a good life, good, stable life. they just want a good job, you know, have a house, whatever they had, have food on their table. really. that's all what they really wan. and so we try to strive to, you know, push them to their highest level. you know, some kids will say like, you know, i'm only going to make it to high school.

but with us being here, like, you can go to college. yeah. you know what i mean? like, you can be bigger than that, but but it's just the simple things that they want, really, is to just be able to, you know, have a good life. yeah. that's true. and how do you explain to the parents or tell them what the signs could be, if that these kids want to join gangs or anything? i've never been in a situation where a student would want to join a gang, but if it ever had to come down to that, it would just be a simple. it would be like a check in and like, show them like that. the actions that they're taking where it could possibly lead. and you know, and like the resolutions that we could do to prevent that type of stuff going down that road is very is very dangerous. you you never know what's at the end of that road. and, and your life could be cut short when you, when you do those type of things. and i definitely think it's just, just that extra support and the

extra, like love and showing that there's a positive side instead of having to join like a gang for just a sense of belonging or, you know, i think they also probably joined for like protection or like, like he said, like no love there. and they find it out there, but it's really not real love. it's just for that moment. yeah. and i think that's the best way we could do it. just set up a plan and maybe take them out and see a different world. other than, you know, the street life. yeah. what other effective strategies do you guys have for to help the youth stay out of trouble? like, maybe it's not gang. maybe it's not gang life. maybe it's like, yeah, go ahead. just helping them identify their self. a lot of kids like when you when you're in middle school, high school like you lost. like you're trying to find your own identity, you know, and to

interact with them. it's like it's more it's just having a conversation. it's one you being a mentor or you being older. you open up to them and get them to open up. it don't matter if it's like just a quick check in. if it's a i'm coming up to your school bringing you lunch, or if it's after school and we're running a boys group, or we run a boys group at at school during school hours, it's just as far as just checking in, helping them identify their self, you know, and letting them know like you're not alone and you're not the first person that's going to deal with this issue, nor will you be the last to deal with this issue. so when it come up, we help them deal with it. so when they come up and you become in high school and you see a peer dealing with it, you can help them and walk them through the process. yeah. is it and it's not like it's like kind of like a 24 hour job, right? oh yeah. we get calls at night too. when we're at home i get i get calls, i get like for therapy, like i'm gonna get real for therapy. a lot of kids, y'all gonna laugh, but they call me at nine, 10:00. tell me. jump on the game. let's play madden. let's play twok. like that's therapy. yeah, yeah. you know, like that's really therapy. that's the fact that they feel

comfortable even calling you after hours and telling you, come on, let's jump on a game. let's play. yeah. you know that. to me that's a form of therapy. you know, it's like. or if they just calling it can be calling like, man, i'm dealing with the issue. it's 10:00 and i'm dealing with an issue. or could you uber me here? i'm stuck. i'm stuck outside. could you uber me here or. i'm at home. i ain't got no food. could you. could you uber eats me some food, like all that is therapy, bro. and it's comfortability. i want the kids to be comfortable to call me because we're humans. we just don't deal with a 9 to 5. a 9 to 5, okay? it intensify after 9 to 5. i learned that from big dog because after 9 to 5, when the sun go down, that's what it's lights, camera action. yeah. real talk. that's community. big facts. community. right. 24 seven 365 baby. yeah. so speaking of community, like how have you worked with like, the city, were you working directly with the city to help keep up alive or working within that partnership with the city to help you guys with your program? so what i learned doing this

work is it's important in anything you build is relationships. yeah. right. and so having a city relationships is important. they can get you in places and doors where you can't get right. i used to hate the police and i had a reason why. but now some of the police, i hold them accountable. when we work together because they work for us. just like, you know, our whole thing is about safety and prevention. of course you're going to need them. it's diplomatic to have them at the table with you. right. and some of them dudes who i met now were officers became cool. you know, some of my best friends. the chief is my partner. yeah. yeah, you know what i mean? and so i learned about relationships and having to build in order for us to get what we need to get, especially in the neighborhood and area we're in. it's important to have those relationships. yeah. you know, i'm trying to build bridges, not walls. yeah. you know, and at the same time, if there's city departments or people who are funders who are not with the mission or our movement, they're

not going to miss them altogether. man. like the hiv virus, bro. yeah. you know what i mean? yeah. i'm for real about what we do. we are not no sellouts, you know what i mean? we are for real. we are here. our boots are on the ground. you know, we make sure. i make sure as an ed, no matter if it's the mayor, the supervisor, whoever everybody's being held accountable because we are the people we elect them to work for us. you understand what i'm saying? and so i want to make it real clear, you know what the city departments and all them who's in action, they're all part of that chess board that that's on the table that we all need each other to make things work. yeah, i mean, they collab with you. they do. they collab with you when you do the gun buyback program, you want to talk about the gun buyback program? sure. i mean, the gun buyback was started 2012, i believe, when sandy hook happened. right. and so y'all know sandy hook or anyway, from that point, there was people who wanted to figure oow to t rid of guns without having to go

into all the red tape. and so the first monday that i had was able to get didn't even come from the city. it came from dispensaries in the neighborhood and district six. we got the most dispensaries, and they was willing to put their money up. and so we got that. but when it started working, we had to build relationships with certain organizations to make it happen. i can't just get a gun. you pull up and give me a pistol and you know, i'm an ex-felon. i can't i can't even own a gun. and so i had to get the right, proper people to do that. who was there? it was the gun range people from sfpd. so they jumped on board. i got the mamas who lost their kids to gun violence. right? i got ex-felons who did life sentences. we got the youth. we got all the pieces on the table to make it work. and now we've been getting over thousands of guns off the streets and destroying them. yeah, the number one killer right now in america for 19 years and younger are gun violence, suicide. right. domestic violence, black on black crime. brown on brown

crime. a lot of people don't even know, man. how y'all was talking about the regulate their emotions and their feelings. right. first thing they do is go pick up a gun. they don't even know how to have a conversation with a woman when they argue and they just knock down, you know, and the number one rate of people growing, you know what culture is demographic is asians. is it. yeah. because, you know, a lot of asians are getting robbed. that's true. they getting beat up. so they going to buy guns to protect themselves. get a gun. get a gu. protect yourself. they get the gun. but no. nobody tell them man. you got to put it in a safe lock. or when you get mad how you regulate your emotion, your feelings and guess what? when they get mad, they go right over and get their pistol man, go kill their wife, or they go to work and kill everybody at their job. yeah. so the high rate man of asians then rose up from gun buying the gun to protect you and your family, you actually destroying your whole family and your community. wow. you know, so that's where the mental health comes in. like y'all doing the social emotional learning how to regulate everybody. we're all humans. we

going to feel something. but how you going to deal with your feelings and your emotions when somebody makes you mad? yeah. you know how to go man. you know girl get you mad. your wife get you mad or ur kid y mad. you mad. you didn't worked all day. you upset and you, man, i'm going to go get my pistol. look at road rage, man. people going crazy, man. they follow you all the way home. you know what i mean? and so? so it's a real high of mental health going on right now. that's true. do you want to talk about how how violence has evolved from. i feel like it was what was different because we're almost the same age, like physical and still physical, maybe. but now i feel like it's more mental. you want to talk about that? yeah. so yeah, i mean, you know, mental health is it's different because before you would just fight it out. so i don't think they do that no more. i feel like just it's like more mental. you make fun of each other, then everyone will gang up on that one person. it just messes up the bullying. the difference, the difference between the two is back in our day, right? like

it's bullying, but it's only like 4 or 5 people. so if we fight only three, four people, this before the phones and stuff. yeah, yeah. only three, four people. then it's word of mouth. yeah. it intensified due to cyberbullying is i can be picking on vanessa, but now 50 to 100 people seen it. yeah. you feel me? then word of mouth spread and then a video. go viral, you know, and then it's like, okay, now back, just go back to the tbe trying to identify emotional feelings. so now, i mean i'm more embarrassed because now you post a video of me up, now everybody can see a post of just one high school seeing it, and it's spreading through one high school. now, all the high schools in the city can see it because it's a video posted. right? so then that intensified the hurt, the anger. and then it's more like, man, how could i go get even how could i, how could i go get my lick back, you know, opposed to back in our era? it was just hard. we fight, we squabble. word of mouth. who won? he can say he won. i can say i won, but it's no. and it's just. all right. it gets swept under the rug. and then. and then you got

a gun. you got access to guns where they're everywhere. you can make them off the computer. now. you got ghost guns, right? yeah. and you got war weapons. now you ain't got just regular the 38, you know what i mean? with the five bullets in them. you got something, man? with a clip in it and a switch, and you pop that thing, man. you gonna knock everybody down in this room with one squeeze of the trigger, right? but i want to be real clear, though, jeremy. i am not against the second amendment. you got the right man to bear your arms. if somebody man runs up in your crib or harms your family, you got the right to protect you and your family. by all means. i'm not trying to say i'm getting rid of all guns. if i had a wand around this world and could do it all at one time because america got more guns here twice or triple times than we got people, i'd do that. but the reality is there's guns everywhere. that's true. you might be sitting on one. yeah, i might be. yeah, i feel i feel something. so for y'all like how has the experience of working. like what will you take with you for the rest of your

lives working here and being a participant? would i take with me for the rest of my life, your life long lessons? i mean a lot a lot. you know, standing on your principles. you know, being true to yourself, you know, not selling your soul. you know, just being standing on your toes. you know, standing on your ten toes, spreading love. just moving with the spirit of love. always like not operating off your ego and your pride and, you know, just spreading awareness and just being mindful. yeah. how about you? you. i'm a firm. i'm a firm believer of you're a product of the environment you choose. so by me coming over here, it was more of the family environment. i enhanced. i embraced it because i didn't have it growing up. you know, to a certain extent, i didn't have it growing up. so it's more of like the family atmosphere of it. the, the, the it takes a

village to save it, to save a child like, you know, to raise a child like that's real. like, you know, because it's like when you're out there, you you can, like, get cold hearted because you're living in survival mode, not off love. you know, when i came here back in 2012, it was more like, damn, this is a nurturing environment. this is love. like this is love. this is where people going to hold you accountable. people going to call you on your stuff, people going, people want what's best for you and people going to push you to do what's best for you. the key to it is pushing you to do what's best for you as a staff. if y'all pushing each other to do what's best for you, it ain't no doubt in my brain that we're doing the same thing for these kids. yeah. you know, and at the end of the day, e who control the kids mind control the future. it ain't no doubt in that hell. it ain't no doubt in that those who can control the kids mind control the future. rap songs and stuff that they listen to at times they control the kids brains and you see what the kids do. gang culture, pick up guns, shoot

guns, ride around in groups, you know, and do that type of stuff. so i just feel like as far as here, what this has done to me, family atmosphere helped me stand on principles. morals helped me gain confidence in myself. not just in the kids, but confidence in myself and actually pushed me to actually want better for myself. my kids come to the program with me. it was beautiful, like, you know, like beautiful. my kids come here with me. of course, if i, i would, i would always want my kids to be a part of something positive. you know? and due to the fact i made the wrong decision by not in high school, by not choosing it ain't no way in hell i'm going to let my kids do the same thing and make the same mistake i made. fax. that's beautiful. big facts about yourself. i think they all had such amazing points and i agree with that. i, i definitely also want to say like empathy and compassion. i feel like like everyone goes through some things and like, and that's oka.

and just continuing to move with the spirit of love through everything. and, and that's, that's really it. and speaking of the spirit of love, how does religion play a part in if any? and you guys rule? i feel like that religion and believing in something within this kind of like community always is very strong. i feel like it don't matter if you pray to allah. it don't matter if you prays to god. it don't matter what god you prays to because to each his own. but it is a god. you feel me? it is a god. and god woke us up this morning. god put us all on the same page and god bring us together collectively every wednesday to have staff meeting here based off for the kids. it all comes down to for the kids, you know, and spiritually. spiritually, you can feel the vibe. you can tell when somebody's vibe off based off body language, based off being

able to read the room based off, oh, he acting different today. now let me go reach out to him. yeah. hey. how you doing today? you need help. you need a hug. you straight? how can i help you? i can tell your vibe off. and when you do a staff member like that, or even with the kids like that, that just let you know you're loved. yeah. feel me? so when you pay spiritually, it's just about being loved, you know? and that's going back to what we talked about before. everybody want to be loved. people make decisions based off of wanting to be accepted and who don't want to be accepted by love. yeah, i'll speak on that. like difficult times. and how does religion like it seems like people go through really difficult times become really closer to god. yeah. so to me, religion is a terminology and word that i feel is something i can't relate with because i've been through a lot of different religions, whether it was raised as a catholic or went to the

kingdom halls, or even studied with the noi. right? i believe it's about a relationship with a higher power. like you said, there is a god. jesus christ is my lord and savior, straight up 100 million. that's who i accep. and to each his own. like be said, you know what i mean. some people serve man, you know, the moon or the sun or the devil as my savior, jesus christ, i believe man that's. and i know for a fact that's what put me in a position where i'm at now with my purpose on this planet. and i'm very honored. i'm very honored that i'm very that i'm in a position i know where my purpose in my life is because you got to have direction. yeah. and it gave me life. it gave me direct. this is my life. saved my job no more. yeah. this is my life. all day, every day. you know what i mean? yeah. 365 24 seven. i live it, i breathe it, but i thank god every morning when i wake up and at night

before i go to sleep. and many times in the middle, you know what i'm saying? and thank him and honor him when it's good and when it's bad. yeah. and so from the beginning, when all this transpired, you'll be surprised what i have seen god done to evolve the evolution of what up is now, you know, i'm a cat from the south of market who come from the trenches, who now has an organization. i used to. i used to be the leader of my gang in this neighborhood. we had a little gang, man. we were colored like this burgundy with skulls on the back. little kids all coming up. but i was the leader and i always ran. i always led with passion, you know what i mean? and i always led man with that spirit. yeah. and to this day, even when we started back october in 2000, i mean, 1994, we always prayed with all the thugs. that's who jesus was with. he was with the thugs. he was with the killers, the robbers, the steelers, the prostitutes. that's what the whole bible, the story is. bible basic instructions before

leaving earth. that's the manual of life. and that's what he did, man. he gave the spirit to the thugs and all them. and they wrote that book the best selling book that's out that is free, that most people don't even open. see, we all guarantee one thing in life with two, pay your taxes. and guess what else to die? because while death, life has no meaning. and if you do not have that spiritual food because you got people walking all around there, you see it. they alive, right? but they're not living. you have to have some spiritual food in your life because man can't live on bread alone. man, y'all got me sound like a preacher up in this camp. you know what i mean? but all the way from the beginning, jeremy, we praying in. and to this day. what do we do when we have our wednesday meetings? we pray in and we pray out. come on, man, it's always been god, god, god, the biggest gangster on this planet. because what's his name? start with b jesus christ g. god. yeah. that's why

we're. that's why you're so blessed, rudy. and you're so blessed to have you. not a place i'm blessed, you know. and prayer really works. god is real. i've. you know, i've prayed. i don't go to church, but my relationship with god is what's important to me. my relationship with my ancestors is more important to me. but like i've seen my prayers manifest into real life, and so just having that faith in god just keeps me going and keeps me blessed. amen, amen. you ain't sitting on a gun. you sitting on a bible because this is actually what we have. our service in this room. yeah, i can feel it on my mama. she in heaven. and speaking of that, like so, uncle rudy, how much has uncle rudy made an impact in your lives? i ain't uncle hold up, man, i ain't that old yet. hold on. i still outrun everybody in this room. i hear people call you uncle rudy. so i'm. yeah, i

ain't gonna. i'm gonna say he touched more lives than you can imagine. more lives than you can imagine. and mine based off just being there for me, giving me opportunity. give me a second chance, you know, to work with kids, you know? and me working with kids helped me regrow my heart. so i don't even like adults. i'm a kid. i don't like adults. adults are manipulative. adults are conniving, and adults can can be very misleading. as far as kids, i feel like the kids can't do no harm for me. the kids can be corrected and i feel like it's a blessing. he gave me opportunity and i took it and ran with it, took it and ran with it. i'm forever blessed and, you know, just just having a positive person in your life, you know, you can be feeling down and you can go have a conversation with him. you're gonna leave out that room with high spirits. you feel me with high spirits? yeah. he's just based off the message he give you. yeah, he helped me a lot.

he helped me a lot. and i'm very grateful. it's beautiful. far from appreciative. far from unappreciative. yeah. it's beautiful. yeah. yeah. uncle rudy, he's always be speaking life into me, into everybody. and i feel like, you know that that really does take me to a higher place when i feel really down and stuff. and i feel like, you know, you give everybody an opportunity to, like, reinvent themselves and to be able to, you know, be a brand new person every day. and that, like you, you don't even like, look at the past of, like, who you used to be or who they used to be. you just see the greater good into people. and i feel like, you know, everybody's here for a reason. and you see exactly why. and like, yeah, like you've just

been there. you be there when i'm down and out when i'm up and happy. even my mama call you sometimes, you know, you know it's all love all the time. you got the flip phone flip i want that call. yeah, yeah, i like that. thank you. thank you for your kind words. awesome. beautiful. so, i mean, what would that said? like seeing how many lives you change. what are your what is your hopes for the future of united players? and do you have any other upcoming like works coming in like more partnerships with like what do you what's your hopes for the for up 30 more years to eternity for life by more buildings, by more buildings, maybe have our own recreational center one day so we can have our own creator up high school. oh yeah. you know how to play high, higher. that'd be cool. take a more global. that's right. yeah. wherever god takes us, that's

where we're going and keep leading. so what i've learned from this, this conversation is that there is a definitely there's a definite future for the youth with you guys as the leaders and the of our community, especially soma. and you're in good hands with rudy. i wish they had this when i was young. they didn't have that when i was growing up in in the east bay, like near richmond, vallejo, hercules. i mean, we had a lot of gang violence, and i had a lot of friends that were also, like affected by gangs and didn't make it out of their their teenage years. so it would have been beautiful to have that. so i'm so thankful that just for our community and for just for life, that we have something like up, because we didn't have that growing up. and to know that there's an organization like this that's going global, it's being recognized by everybody. yeah. and you're saving lives. i mean, there's still people that are going to fall through the cracks, but you guys are doing your very best to catch them. and so i'm very thankful to have learned from each of your

stories here from everybody. definitely feel the love and just thankful. next time we do this, we'll have like a lechon and lumpia. we'll do a dinuguan. thank you for having us. yeah. thank you, thank you, thank you for letting our voice be heard. yes. let me phrase it that way. yeah, well, thank you for being a voice for the community. it's beautiful. so. yeah. thanks again. for.

welcome to san francisco's new revitalized qatar valline this is not just an upgrade is a community transformation. taraval street under a complete make over from 10 feet below the street to 30 feet above. >> it is part of the taraval improve am project to impprove transit performance and make the streets safer for all who use them. completed on time and on budget,

this multiagency construction project is a once in a generation investment to bring safer, more reliable train service, increased accessibility. beautiful corridor, refresh roadway and reliable water and sewer systems for decades to come. >> safety is at the forefront of this transformation. new train boarding platforms are a game changer for safety am before the project 5 people per year were hit by vehicles gettinga or off trains we add 22 new or extended boarding plat forms on the route. riders no long are exit on the street along side traffic. when my kids were young it was heard they want to plunge off the train straight in the street. up on the h stop now we have the platform that is broader when they are excited get off the trin and get home i feel better

about them jumping off the train. >> having island where hay step on to is a giant improvement. >> these disability crosswalks look good and improve safety by making it noticeable to drivers. >> sidewalk extensions at intersection corners shorten the distance needed to cross the street and slow downturning vehicles. these and other safety treatments are proven tools to reduce the risk of collisions make the taraval corridor safer and inviting for people walking and driving. another key part was replace being two miles of train track for thes first time in almost 50 years. the old tie and balist track was built for muni oldt cc streetcars and old are light trail trains not today's modern

vehicles and it was noise and he prone to vibration. >> these new rails will make for a smoother, quieter ride and require less maintenance. it is much quieter with the new impresumes i livid here the entire time and plays earthquake or municipal when he it came by now we don't have to play anymore >> before when the streetcar went by i would stop talk the street cars would rumble past now i share that confirmation. i like the fact well is not a 3.4 quake every time they go by now. it is quiet temperature feels like sliding on glass. >> this project is more than rails and concrete it is people earngaging with their community. >> local residents and merchants have told us when their community need and had than i want in their neighborhood. a quieter reliable train roadway

and safer streets for people walk. gi think it is essential. i'm excited and wonderful to have a safe way it get to work i work on embarcadero i take it to the end of the line every day >> through open house, public meetings and surveys members helped shape where the stops should go to the curb plan and selecting trees and art work for the corridor. >> we relied on community feedback during construction of the project. with voting held to choose where to stow construction materials and how to sekwenls the construction. >> as a result the project was split in two segments to reduce impacts to the community. access ability is at the forefront of the design. new features ensure people all abilities enjoy seamless travel on the taraval. these platforms and key locations have a raised boarding

area level with the train to help people with walking aids or strollers board more easily. >> warning lights are flashing. >> pedestrian signal announcements assist with visual impairment its cross the street. new curb ramps are essential in providing accessible path of travel on to and off of sidewalks. the sunset district has long been shaped by transand i the qatar valcontinues linking past to present. on the heels of a new tunnelful muni tear van line opened as a shuttle from westportal to 33rd avenue in 1919. it was not until a few years later the trains used the tunnel sparking a population boom. previously, riders transfer to the circumstance line to go east

of what is today known the westportal neighborhood. by 1923, passengers could catch a one seat read on the taraval between downtown and 48th avenue. for the first time, san franciscans had a connection from the bay to the ocean tide. the taraval street cars brought development people could access the south western neighborhoods. homes and buildings sprung up from the once empty dunes. this vielth east/west corridor is the spine the neighborhood carrying over 30,000 daily riders when service last ran the route in 2019. today, it is a bustling local business that give this area its flavor fr. cafes to quirky but

teaks the taraval connects tout best of san francisco's small business scene. >> i lost fact it is not a money on cultural it is multicult rar. korean, chinese. vietnamese. french. italian. we got irish. we got a lot of good mix on this street of restaurants and businesses in those cultural veins and good ole american. helping local line help our small businesses because this is again a small community. and the traffic here is not if you have to generate big revenue. with the l train from other parts of the city to this area has help us the small merchants as well to generate more business. >> taraval street is a reflection of the outer sunset's unique character. >> this two mile stretch of

transit is not just getting from a to b it is reimagining how we move through our city to shop, dine and experience more in the places we live. >> i live in the suburbs i have to take a car or a bus that was an experience i never did again as a teen. now my kids can visit their friends cross the establishment it is a huge increase in their freedom and independent. one of the reasons we chose to raise a family in san francisco. >> it is wonderful to have a safe, clean reliable way to get to work for the neighborhood i'm excite body what it means to bring others back to our neighborhood. we have, let of interesting shops and restaurants and i'm excited to see how things become when it is easier to get here. >> a lot know each actively it is a close knit community. in my shop i know customers by name i know what they'll order and i have it ready for them.

>> what i'm most excite body the street is now unified, we have new paved roads and new rails. and new lighting. new boarding island. >> today, your new street features newrism upgrade water and sewer pipes. 5 new priority signals that hold green lights when trains approach. sidewalk extensions to make pedestrian crossing safer. high visibility crosswalks and ramps. safe boarding islands and platforms. new trees, landscaping and art. is it time you responsiblesed this corridor to the end of the line? with great food, walks on the beach and san francisco's new add upon ventures a ride away now the sunset district is more accessible than ever.

[♪musi chinatown. >> (music).

>> welcome to san francisco historic chinatown a place with a past, present, and future merge with the street culture and cuisine join us as was take you on a journey. san francisco chinatown is a feeling testament of china's immigrants and arrived in 1950 during the gold rush but hardship built a 35 community that served for generations. today san francisco chinatown is a burtonsville neighborhood brimming with history and culture. one of the highlights of this vibrant is worldwide can i intervene aim first and the oldest. we are

known for handmade our claim to fame is our unique food and few places in the world. >> (speaking foreign language.) >> chinatown is a food louvers paradise with a rich engrave and cuisine. >> back requires and moon contacts and every fine dining. >> welcome to (unintelligible). >> sandy spring /*.

>> (speaking foreign language.) whether you're an ad veteran urban forester chinatown has something for everyone. >> chinatown is not just again food also a hub of creativity and take a stroll down the street with murals as culture exhibitions to celebrate the heritage of this city. >> what the sun sets schoun truly come alive. >> it's night life is old and new a myriad of bars and you can distance the night away with friends. the museums and culture nonprofits play an important role in chinatown to teacher us about the past, present, and future and providing a platform for artist to engage in conversations and welcome to the

china's holistic the mission so collect and preserve common council in america any person of my background can see themselves in chinatown for all people. and our founders help to create the studies. and usa with a was an amazing collector. chinatown center was founded no 1965 an art center for infer served for people for education and the center is an exciting place for dialogue and engage with the actor right now have a exhibition present tense playground that looks the development of chinatown and also with the vast asian with

taiwan and honk con. >> welcome to the square a new culture hub celebrating chinatown a gateway tell stories of chinatown the people here the culture and the history and past, present, and future all through arts and culture. that is a 35 community there is so many to see shopping and buy food and suv inferiors and we welcome, everyone to come in and see what is going on here. >> so whether or not you're a history buff foodie an art person or simply looking for a night of excitement san francisco chinatown has something for you come and explore and experience the heart and the i soil of the private

>> # >> >> >> >> you are watching san francisco rising. >> hi, you are watching san francisco rising. reimagining our city. he's with us to talk about how our library's economic recover. mr. lambert, welcome to the

show. >> thank you. i'm glad to be here. >> i know it's been difficult to have books going virtual. have we recovered? >> yes, we are on our way. our staff stepped up big time during the pandemic to respond to the health emergency. since last may, we have been able to steadily increase in person access to library facilities. currently we are at 95% of our precovid hours of operation. in the coming weeks we are going to fully restore all of our hours. we have four branches that we are going to bring back to seven day service. they are currently operating at 5 days a week and we are going to go to every tag line and i know all the foot traffic has not returned to san francisco, but our library is seeing a

resurgence coming back. >> can we talk about programs after covid? >> absolutely, that is part and parcel of our mission. we were doing that work precovid and certainly the library stepped up during the pandemic. we doubled our level of programming for personal finance, small business help, jobs and careers. we have a dedicated small business center here at the library. there is a wide suite of programs that our librarian led. we have a financial planning day coming up in october and we have financial coaches that members of the community can come to the main library and take advantage of their expertise. >> i understand the mission is in the middle of a renovation. how is that going and are there other construction projects in

the horizon? >> yes, we have major projects in the pipeline. the historic mission branch library, carnegie library over 100 years old and we are investing $25 million to restore that facility. we are going to restore the original entrance on 24th street, the staircase from the lower level up to the grand reading room. we are going to push out on the orange alley side of the library and expand space for teens and children, we are going to create a robust community room, a multipurpose space. we are also investing $30 million in the chinatown branch, we are going to upgrade the mechanical systems to the highest level of filtration as we increasingly respond as cooling centers and air respite centers and open access to the

roof. it has some unique views of chinatown to create the inspiring space it is. >> i believe you have programs for families that have free and low cost entries for museum and zoos, is that correct? >> yes. it's a fabulous resource. go to our website. with your library cart, patrons, our residents can go to the public library and get passes to the museums, all of the incredible cultural institutions that we have in san francisco all for free with your library card. >> how are these great free services paid for? how is the library system funded? >> we are so fortunate in san francisco. we are funded for by the library fund and those that

taxed themselves just for library services. we also get a dedicated portion of the general fund. that together allows us to be one of the most well supported libraries in the nation. we have the third most library outlets per square mile of any municipality. all of our branch libraries have professionally trained librarians on-site. service that we are able to provide, the collection, we are a leading library in our country. >> that lead know ask about your biggest annual event in the city. how does the event work and what's happening this year? >> we are excited for this year's one city one book. this is our signature annual literature event. we have

everybody in the community reading the same book. this year's title is "this is your hustle" named after the pulitzer prize nominated and pod taste. this is about the population. one nice thing about this selection is that they are both local. we are going to have several weeks of programming, kicking off next month. it will culminate here in the auditorium november 3rd. so our library patrons will get to meet the authors, hear from them directly, and one other important aspect about this year's selection, we have our own jail and reentry services department. recently the foundation awarded the san francisco public library $2 million to work with the

american library association to shine a light on our best practices here in san francisco, and really help our peers in the industry learn how they can replicate the service model that we are doing here in san francisco. >> that's great. well, thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show, mr. lambert. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you, chris. that's it for this episode, we will be back shortly. you are watching san francisco rising. thanks for watching. [music] digital literacy is something severely lacking in our world today and it takes a lot to understand that. food water and shelter have basic necessities so long we forget about wifi and connection to the interenet and when you go into communities and realize peep ople are not able

to load homework and talk to teachers and out of touch with the world. by providing the network and system we are able to allow them to keep up in the modern age. >> folks still were not served by internet throughout the city and tended to be low income people, people in affordable housing. people of color and limited english and seniors, all those are high concentrations in affordable housing, so we thought given that we had a fiber network that stretched throughout the city reaching deep into neighborhoods that would be a perfect opportunity to address it in san francisco. >> the infrastructure the city and star help us run are dejtle programs. it played a critical role from the time we opened during covid till now so we were able to collaborate with online services that offer tutoring and school

support. it also helped us be able to log the kids on for online school during covid, in addition to like, now that everybody has switched most of their curriculum online we can log kids on to the online homework, check grades in addition to helping parent learn how to use the school system portm >> the office of digital equity our goal fiber to housing is insure we have all three legs of the 3 legged stool. the first leg is high quality internet connection. we liken the high quality internet connection to the highway. the second leg is high quality devices. this is the car. you want to make sure the specks on the car is up to speed and lastly, it is important to get kind of that driver's education to learn how to

navigate the road, to know the signs to watch out for in terms of making sure you are school while you are surfing the internet it is private so that is the digital literacy piece. >> my daily life i need the internet just to do pretty much everything. the internet has taken so much control over people's daily lives including myself that i just need it to get certain jobs done, i need it for my life. i need it. >> the program really seeks to where ever possible provide a service that's equivalent or higher speed and quality as the best commercial service . >> we serve all of san francisco, but we definitely have to be equitable in our distribution of services. that means everybody gets what they need to be successful. >> actually one of the most gratifying part of my work here at department of technology, it is really bringing city resources to address

problems faced with our communities with the highest need. >> i think it is important because i grew up in a low income community without internet access and it is hard. i think it is important for everyone to have internet access no matter their income and maybe one day their kid will have internet access for us and help the school and with their skills. sense >> my name is kelly ma cord i'm

the owner and manager with my husband tom of mission brooks. >> blue we're neighbors first when we first came in into the neighborhood got involved and an opportunity to get plugged into the merchants cord we see mission blue come together around the pastry. so when we looked at the neighborhood we say the garden here with the greenway and so many butterflies what is the the butler friday of this area and said mission blue we're going to call this because i was in a - and because of neighborhood was so beautiful we wanted to be part of this coming along with the neighborhood and

valve that. >> one of the great, great secretaries of valley we're aware of the crosstown trail for those of you who don't know it is 17 mile trail and it cuts introduce not only our cord but the greenway and the telling her there are 6 gardens were built by the neighborhood for the neighborhood and been here over 2 decades an incredible place. the rolling arrived in a truck every saturday morning in the plaza. and they take that is assessable to every one of our neighborhoods we have a full neighborhood in case no. 6934 greenway for fruits and vegetables we love to ask missions to come it is like a eco system over there on saturday morning one of our goals. >> your greatest reward in the

community it included within our retail so those one hundred and 10 artist for the thing i'm passionate about is the future from loco loco deep-rooted friends. >> look at that beautiful jellyfish. the way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel

powerful with simple actions to take every day. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ >> i was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. my dad was the rabbi in the community there. what i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. and learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your words. when i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. and then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to

get into advertising and do graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. by the time i was in college, i decided i wanted to be a decorator. but as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. i only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. i found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. i went, volunteered and my life changed. suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. i eventually moved up to san francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of assembly through los angeles county and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about

rainforest. one of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, i'm teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. it was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. the san francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. we realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. the city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of the city feel and i love the symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix

provides, we all have the power to transform our world for the better. we have to provide teachers with curriculum online, our curriculum is in two different languages and whether it's lesson plans or student fact sheets, teachers can use them and we've had great feedback. we have helped public and private schools in san francisco increase their waste use and students are working hard to sort waste at the end of the lunch and understand the power of reusing, reducing, recycling and composting. >> great job. >> i've been with the department for 15 years and an environmental educator for more than 23 years and i'm grateful for the work that i get to do,

especially on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. i try to use my voice as intentionally as possible to support, i think of my grandmother who had a positive attitude and looked at things positively. try to do that as well in my work and with my words to be an uplifting force for myself and others. think of entering the job force as a treasure hunt. you can only go to your next clue and more will be revealed. follow your instincts, listen to your gut, follow your heart, do what makes you happy and pragmatic and see where it takes you and get to the next place. trust if you want to do good in this world, thattttttttttttttttt