wrote him to express our pride as an african-american, and as a southerner. >> alice walker to present a left barack obama, number fifth, 2008. dear brother president, you have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. us being the black people of the southern united states. you think you know because you are thoughtful and you have studied our history, but seeing you deliver the porch so many others -- the torch so many others carried decade after decade, century after century, only to be wrought down before igniting the flames of justice and law is almost more than the heart can bear. and yet this observation is not intended to burden you, for your of a different time. and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, north america is a different place. it is really only to say well done. we knew through all the generations that you were with us, the best of africa and of the americas. knowing this, that you would actually appear someday, that was part of our strength. seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character is a b

commissioner walker: have you all worked with dpw? i see all the time mattresses in alice in front of buildings full of bedbugs with no plastic are rounded -- around it, and that seems to be a problem to me because people pick stuff up and carry it in. >> it is a huge problem. that is one of our challenges, and i think an area that we need to focus on this coming year. but unfortunately, if you look at the workload of our inspectors -- for example, dph has almost 800 hotels that only two inspectors are responsible for, it is difficult to police with the hotel operators do. but when we receive complaints, we do respond. it is unfortunate that some of the hotel operators are not paying enough attention to this issue because we have found issues in some hotels when they knowingly remove items from and infested room that they are treating, and they just dump it inside the dumpster on the sidewalk, and they know very well that people will try to salvage whatever they can, and i think it is inappropriate. thank you. she is reminding me that we also have a new piece of legislatio