today i'll be co-presenting with my colleague amy cohen and with our retail study consultant sarah graham strategic economics. our joint presentation will start with an overview of national retail trends and key findings from our recently completed can study by strategic economics and this information will them city department, policymakers and the public understand the restrictions that we're working within. the retail centre reviews current research and best practice which is will help inform and guide our policies and programmes so we may better support our store front businesses and neighbourhood shopping districts informed by the notable shifts in the national retail sector and local economy. amy and i will also share afterwards oewd's goals, strategies and considerations in support of vibrant, neighbourhood commercial districts and how we work to prevent and manage store front vacancies. aaron starr from the planning department will provide an overview of its tools as well that relate to store fronts. we'll close with considerations and next steps. so, thank you very much. >> hi. go

and i'm going to ask amy cohen to come up right now to talk about some of those factors that contribute to the vacancies. >> good afternoon. the bla report started to identify some of the causes of the vacancies in san francisco and we just wanted to try to describe it in a very colorful picture quickly. and in our experience, this office has done a lot of work filling vacancies and doing more comprehensive commercial corridor work. in particular in low income neighborhoods, but also in moderate and higher income neighborhoods around the city. and we wanted to just share our experience, which is at the very core of this picture that i'm calling an on dion is a building owner, and the building may have investors. anything you do to try to fill a building comes down to the owner and motivation. if they are not motivated or willing to lease the space, it's very challenging. a couple of other factors as you work out from there are brokers, who may or may not work for the owner, or round rents. if they think they could get a higher rent they could hold out if the owner is sort of aware of wh

the civic center ebd, i want to thank our city administrator, naomi kelley, and the very special amy cohen for all of our civic center comments where amy has been very much of a driver in getting numerous city agencies and nonprofit partners to work together to make this a happier and healthier place, and amy, i'd like to recognize you as one of us as well. also, my profound thanks to jorge arias and the whole team from bossman construction, and to the amazing andy cochran for such an inspired design. but our most important guest tonight, and she's so modest, and doesn't like taking credit, and she's sitting in the back. she's my hero, and my dear, dear, dear friend, jackie. this is for you; and now is the time for us to actually flip the switch. so why don't you and our three friends lead us in a count down. >> right on. >> all right. we're going to count down from ten. all right. here we go. ready, everybody! ten. nine. eight. seven, six. five. four. three. two. one. if everybody can turnaround and look in the square right here, and there's a tv camera. all right. the helen diller playgr

after reading the script, amy wanted abby cohen to jump on a google hangout to say she was in, but cohenn't figure out the technology. but they got it to work, and we can see the finished product. >> dj, hit it. that scene was so fun and really empowering to shoot for me. >> amy goes from insecure to confident after a bump on the head makes her see herself in a whole new way in "i feel pretty." >> i always wondered what it feels like to be just undeny bly pretty. >> you hit your head pretty hard. >> oh, my god. you see this? >> yes. >> i'm beautiful! >> you wish you could have your best friend be more confident. you wish you could just kind of have them see themselves the way you see them. >> i'm just, like, dealing with low self-s team -- >> i want to punch you right in your dumb face right now. >> shoer shared her insecurities about body image before, so, the comedy that also star s michel williams and busy phillipps fits right in the with amy's manifesto. >> this is the thing i wanted to communicate at the same time. all i want to do is make people laugh and feel better and i feel lik

. ♪ [music break] amy: "everybody knows" by leonard cohen. this is democracy now!e report. amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. is steve coll, author of "directorate s: the cia and america's secret wars in afghanistan and pakistan." break, thatt music because it is the epigraph of this book. why did you start with this? greatly, but the reason is because there's a character in the book, a scholar of afghanistan who try to advise the obama administration about negotiations with the taliban and region governments. i was interviewing him at one point and i said, what were you doing on the day that bin laden was killed in abbottabad? he said, i was in a meeting in kabul. i was listening to the briefers drone on. i was writing in my notebook and i just wrote down these leonard cohen lyrics. this was the day before may 1. that scene of this kind of bearded scholars writing down leonard cohen note in a meeting just seemed like a pretty good -- it stayed with me, so then i chose those lyrics. nermeen: that scholar was earning ruben -- was barney rubin. earlier you were talking about why

ami hahn, local 21. followed by sara greenwald. >> i will make it brief. >> thank you, supervisor cohen. i encourage you to speak and to act accordingly because water is life and to divest. and i'm hoping that other speakers that are here today can decline to speak because we need to have the vote to have happen. i'm making it brief. please vote yes. thank you. >> thank you. up next, we have mihan from local 21, followed by sara greenwald. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm staff at local 21. i have a letter that our retirement committee has drafted that i wanted to read to you guys. >> do you have a copy for us? >> i do. i only have two copies. >> we want to be sure that the board has one so it reflects in the record. >> local 21 represents a great many active employees and retirees of the city and county of san francisco that have a sincere interest in the responsible management of the pension fund. local 21 pension advisory committee is made up of active city employees and staff that are tasked with providing oversight on behalf of the workers. we've reviewed the staff recommendati