rodriguez who the ceo of the union square alliance and who has it's been a rough few years for union square, but i'm optimistic about this neighborhood's future and i just want to thank marissa so much for your incredible work and perseverance. >> so mr. rodriguez. >> all right. union square, how are we feeling? i want to hear you. we just came off of an incredible weekend. that's what san francisco is about and that's what union square is about. the billboards are still up and what do they say? we don't play. >> we don't play san francisco. i'm so excited about this great opportunity that we are talking about today. why? because san francisco's lifeblood is right here where you are standing. >> the hospitality zone is where we put our best foot forward. it's where we greet our guests, where we welcome visitors not only locally our san franciscans, our bay area residents, our northern californians but internationally all over the world and nationally. this is us. this is what we represent. we can't move. the convention center west of twin peaks we can't move union square in 12,000 hot

this is another great time of year for union square we are kickoff the holiday celebrations. they bring out the animal window. we have ice skating. music is another great way to come and enjoy union scare. we are a recipient of the latest grant. this is bringing it into the public life. we are doing it here. this is in our park. it's really show this is great when it comes to music. >> we have been ignoring the fact for the districts it's a pretty common place across the country and opportunity to transform our spaces. >> yeah, i agree with you 100%. >> we have 13,000 hotel rooms. what if we had a school or soccer this is something we couldn't do before. our rates prior to the pandemic was under10%. we are higher now. >> we have businesses like cable car a lot of history and innovation here as well. we want to be ready for the opportunities. this is where some office spaces will come. we are seeing office leases in union square. the cable car comes through it. why not come to work in a vibrant space. >> a lot of the businesses have been remarkably resilient. can you share succ

tens of thousands of homes, many of which are located downtown in the financial district and in union squaresupervisor damning saw district who co-sponsor the revitalization bill, their order buildings there, maybe 8 to 12 stories. and he's based on every study are really the governor's that could be converted housing most most quickly and think no. >> a street light sansome and kearny and where maybe you don't have the office activity that you used to have. daughter says it's better to have housing now rather than wait on companies to come back 3 to 5 years down. the line gets a very visual reminder of all the work that needs to be our economic recovery and how it needs to speed up to get people. >> working downtown, get people shopping in our neighborhoods again. >> according to data from the city office space vacancy in san francisco has hit 34% this new legislation removes previous barrier such as placing a quota on affordable housing. >> well, reduced development costs for projects up to 7 million square feet and will also extend application deadlines. that doesn't mean that we're of ab

light laughter ] let's just say i have three kids, and based on what happened recently at the union squarep, there will be not be a fourth. [ light laughter ] [ barking ] oh, rusty, you're fine. you haven't had nuts in years. [ light laughter ] back in my day, drones weren't spying on people in w jersey. hackensacks. back in my day, if you wanted to observe someone from new jersey up close, you just went to the nearest macaroni grill, 'cause odds are at least one of them was having a wedding reception there. [ light laughter ] [ audience oohs ] and who even sends drones to spy on new jersey? oh, great. you caught a 15-year-old with a chinstrap beard doing doughnuts in a wawa parking lot. way to blow the lid off that one, china. [ light laughter ] back in my day we weren't worried about tiktok going dar because of a government ban. algorithms. back in my day, we were worried about tiktok going dark because we had time warner internet. [ light laughter ] which was so bad they had to go and change their name to spectrum. but we see you, time warner. [ light laughter ] we know what you did. an

shooting contests and we were also joined by b patisserie as you have read and know who came into union square as a pop up and did really well and their food is delicious and they were lovely and everybody was kind of just chipping in make things happen out there. so this was the little fun fact the first time in 20 years that the all-star game has has been in the bay area and we're very excited as commissioner weintraub, you know, because you have a family member who's deeply involved in this. this was also a warm up exercise for the super bowl next january in the world cup next summer and while i am a crazy sports fan and loved every second of the all-star game and will love every second of the philadelphia eagles repeat super bowl victory next january just wait till the world cup. that's when my real crazy comes out so but it was a lot of fun, a lot of coordination with city agencies. dana ketchum and her team in particular deserve a big shout out. commissioner anderson i'll talk about jackson in a little bit but we had a just a ton of amazing events lunar new year apparently we all were se

and privilege of representing chinatown in city hall and also the other incredible neighborhood union square where this parade wound through a few weeks ago and i'm really glad that we're here this morning to reflect on the success of this incredible event this is one of those things that we should never take for granted. it is a truly an only in san francisco event. and you know, i got to i got to say i had family visit my eight year old niece was in the parade with me and her mind was blown and we delivered that same experience for hundreds of thousands of people. and tony, i'm looking at you because it's your first year as a director but no one would know that because you delivered an incredible event i'm already looking forward to next year. i know you're going to do it bigger and better and it is our job all of us up here on stage in the city to make sure that the excitement, the vibrancy, the joy that we felt the other week that we continue to deliver that to the residents and visitors to san francisco and we're going to do that in small bits and pieces every single weekend throughout

i was asking director kirschbaum earlier today about why the union square garage wasn't listed in our revenue and the answer came that that i that probably that's because it's a rare compaq facility that we operate for them so these you know collaborations if you will you know that is you know where everybody's suffering you know including the school board we just need to i think understand those those nuances maybe a little bit better shared maintenance with bart who is also suffering at our our downtown stations these are these are things to look at but i'm also mindful of the time if there are going to be any service cuts they need to be planned for in as quickly as possible. there's hiring of operators, there's planning of schedules which is not a magic wand activity. so i really appreciate my colleagues really thoughtful approach to this but i also just want to remark amber as a as a board that there's only so much that the staff can do to make make impossible things happen. i am curious about i know that many of these options have been reviewed by the muni funding working group

i'm jim and he how i got enters old union square soldiers and joes ping. this is neat.ay man this is cool. next year i'm at the national guard unit signing up and taking my oath. when i got to the fortmy first night i said what have i gotten myself in. i joined because i love my country and i will serve and survived i'm proud of being a vet republican serving my counsel row. how long du serve. >> national guard 83-89. quarter master and i took a leave in 83 due to illness. >> chris how about yourself. >> my father was in the korean war, had a bronze star and purple heart. my uncle in vietnam. he was aef missile maintenance worked on the hawk missiles. and so, i decided to follow the tradition and i went in the u.s. army. from 1982 to 2002. spent 20 years. and my time was over in bosnia. that was an eye opener for mow. i seen children wound in the combat from the mines and all that stuff placed is there. it is it affected me. in a way of what are we dog in this world. and but i enjoyed serving my counsel row like my father and uncle and -- and -- it was a good tour. >> n

did we've used it for jean friend and victoria manila drives and we've used it multiple times union square we have a we've been using it since it was created which i'm not sure when but it's been decades. do we know what is the balance on the downtown park fund? >> i'm no it's not very robust at the moment. yeah yeah we don't have a lot of development at the moment. >> indeed i look forward to seeing that i think supervises our and supervisor dorsey have a series of legislations coming forward to create some developments but i'm not too sure how that's going to pan out altogether but i hope that it will really boost some developments and allow us to collect those downtown park fund again with that i don't see any other questions and is that okay? >> we go to public comment on this item then let's go to public comment on this item. yes, we are now opening public comment for this item number 12 if we have any members of the public or should this committee . >> good morning. members of the committee. chair chan thank you for having me. my name is aaron fenton. >> i work for bcp where the the

the european union was formed in order to square the states. that's the purpose of it. and they've done a good job of it, but now i'm president. and i want to understand this moment with the present the united states is talking about european union, which has been a sort of center piece of success of us foreign policy for decades. and saying that your opinion was formed to screw with the united states. what are your thoughts about this moment, miss alice in wonderland? so real, i mean, your opinion was from tracy of room 1957 at the project of the united states successive democratic republican friedman, eisenhower administrations the marshall plan, you know, the greatest set of active aid in history to rebuild post for europe, america very, very wisely and skilfully conditioned age to european countries on the degree to which they cooperated and hold that results is in other words, america helped create the european union for a very good reason that it would make war again on the continent impossible opening for at least very unlikely and then it would produce the kind

our ability to bring people to downtown san francisco that is shoppers that you know shopping in union square that students that go to state or city college that san franciscans in the mission that go downtown to work this is essential service and we are deeply thankful for your partnership as we work to look both regionally and at a state level to solve these crises. if we don't find those funding we will see thousands of bay area residents move towards vehicles that pour onto san francisco streets and jeopardize our climate action and vision zero goals and we're looking forward to working with you to find solutions to these problems. >> thank you so much. thank you for your comments. next speaker i apologize. >> i'm getting over the flu. my name is matthew sutter. some of you know me well. i've been in these rooms over and over and for the new mordor supervisors i welcome you to our misery. i only see one of all the new board of supervisors paid attention and i want to thank you for that. >> the mta took a poll and asked all the purchasers to vote to see who to represent. we have ten repres

ready busy square within a few months, well, 3 years after, uh, it's something that is happening again. in fact we have the same people via my cx, some of the european union that are coming in and u. k. of course that i getting in the step again. and i'm trying to break a piece, but it just, i don't know how to describe this because this is way beyond understanding. we have really the, the feeling that the only thing that there wants. ready is just the just the body war between the europe in. ready restaurants and what exactly the united states kind of way is to the just said ok, we cannot negotiate with zalinski is just a couple of pounds. uh there is nothing to do with that deal with it. we are out of the business on the united states. they will try to do what they have to do with uh, with restaurant and i still don't believe, but trump the front a brush up trump isn't working just as a business man. now the rest of the assembly of everything that's going to happen has been transferred to the european union. and the problem is that now. ready dealing. ready to credit is the guys my credit is thomas and my crime said again yesterday that he was ready to

square meals a day. there's a big difference. my great-great-grandfather was born in louisiana. he had to join the unionolorguard to gain his freedom. by morphing the citizenship clause into something it was not meant to be. it is demeaning. >> my father is a retired colonel. a direct descendent of a slave geared they earned the right to be the country and pass down to his ancestries. the purpose of the 14th amendment for the executive order affects citizenship at the clause to the amendment for children of illegal or illegal aliens. allowing birthright citizenship to stay up not just black americans, but every single american citizen that have to earn it the right way. >> you are a u.s. citizen or you are not. >> cheapening what it means to be an american citizen. >> chipping away at the basic value. they intend to be the truth. it said on the view that we have to wrap illegal immigrants in this country because who else will claim did we hear it all the time. we know that american citizens are the majority of those picking our cross, we know what you are insinuating. all of this must end now. mr. o'bri