acknowledged her years, decades of work but acknowledge her new leadership position at the chinatownampus. next is the former dean, joanne lo. not only a champion of esl, or english as a second language, many efforts at curriculum development and teaching students, she has been a tremendous administrator at the city college level. she is the vice chancellor of academic affairs overseeing not only john adams but many different departments. she has dedicated her servants -- service as the vice chancellor of city college and she was the administrator of the esl different. she has been on the board of the richmond district center and she is also a leader in our richmond district community as well. i ask you to join me in commending them for their years of work as we open and celebrate the new chinatown campus and the movement of students and community people from the educational opportunities for chinatown and different coalitions of faculty and students that fought for many years. thank you for your leadership and if you would like to see a few words, both of you. -- say a few words, bo

people from the chinatown area and other parts. i want to say that the chinese progressive association really brings people together. they have contributed to a broader fight for social, political, and environmental justice, a tremendous campaign that they have been involved in. i also wanted to say that they are building other alliances, not just the progress of workers or alliance. there are other efforts to fight for minimum wage or the paid sick leave law. up until the recent victories with the wage and task force, cpa has led in the fight for workers' rights and immigrant rights and equality in health care, education, and housing. i am pleased to present the executive director of cpa. thank you. [applause] >> oh, thank you, eric. you said most of what i wanted to talk about. first of all, it is an honor to be here. it is not just me. we are having a war party at the office that i am supposed to be at. a lot of times, we come to the podium here so much being oppositional or passionately defending our position, and it is just nic

for the residents of chinatown, the opening was especially significant, considering the population andmount of open space in the area. i want to thank my planning director and project manager and everyone who had a hand in making that opening such a big success. some good recognition. next friday, july 27, san francisco beautiful hosts its annual event in which they recognize individuals and programs and activities that have contributed to the beautification of san francisco. happy to report that our department is receiving 3 awards at the event. the new is for the -- the first one is for the new helen diller playground which opened up this spring. and then we are honoring george wong, who has made sure that our parks are beautiful. the third thing which we are a part of it is the ocean beach planning process. we participated with spur and the national parks service, puc, and numerous other stakeholders and community organizations, to create a long-term vision and plan for ocean beach. helen miller played run was also featured in this month's issue of "sunset magazine." some additional

the first one is our chinatown beat man. he has been in the police department for 35 years and he is going to retire in february. he spent 33 years at a central station and i remember walking to junior high, used to see him because his family had a grocery store and he would coach baseball. the second guy on the chinatown beat -- everyone in chinatown knows him as the tall one. he has been in the police department 40 years and will be retiring soon. he is more chinese than i am because he teaches asian studies at the police academy and the only eat chinese food. he grew up with a bunch of chinese kids and he is much more chinese than i am. our next beat man is a true ambassador of san francisco, he was a cable car driver for 25 years. he was the cable car bell ringing champion for 30 years and he finally saw a light and wanted to join the san francisco police department. he has been in it are city serving for 50 years. he used to climb halfway to the stars in that cable cars and now he's doing it in black and white. he is ful

because it is part of the history of a hero coming from chinatown, san francisco. and i n you -- 9/11 is right around the corner. while, as tragic as that event was for the whole country, we do have our heroes. we have people who stepped up and saved thousands of more lives. these are heroes to the country. so i began this really with a very personal thanks to harry and the whole ong family. kathy and mrs. ong are here as well. thank you for letting us celebrate a wonderful life in contribution to our own american history. the name here is not only embedded on the walls here, but we have that time capsule that we did in september so that in future generations, many people will hear about this name, hear about why it is important to remember the ong family and betty and her heroic efforts to save lives. but we also have generations of children of a family that will be here that will know the reason why we need this important institution in our community after someone who sacrificed her life and was a hero to all of us. with that, if i may present to the ong family --

[applause] a big thank you to the community for better parks and recreation in chinatown for your help and assistance with the facility. let's go, keep it up. [applause] last but certainly not least, and i know you saved your biggest, strongest round of applause for this special group of people, the hardest working staffers in city government, the recreation and park department. i want to start with our capital division. planning director don and our project manager who built this thing. [applause] i want to thank jimmy, our former facility coordinator here. he has got a great jump shot. [applause] our rec staff, harry, serene, jennifer, the new facility coordinator here. [applause] michelle, richard, kerry, recreation supervisor. jerry, our parks services manager. marianne. and our custodian supervisor, cliff, who is going to help us keep this place clean. a big round of applause for them. [applause] and last but not least, a really warm round of applause. you all know her, the former area supervisor here and longtime advocate of this facility, elaine tom. where are you? [applause] fa

been since 1925, it has provided quality health care to the residents of chinatown. this is a hospital bed as a community-owned non-profit. -- this is a hospital that is a community owned non-profit. given the needed to mature at the health care of our future patients, the chinese hospital is planning to build an eight- story hospital that would help the quality and safety for patience while creating a safe and accessible work environment for staff. this effort will help ensure the continued contributions and viability of the system. there is the addition of a 22- bed skilled nursing facility to transfer patients from acute- care settings to their home. improved medical care services. and of course, future employment opportunities. with that, i would like to invite the planning department to make a brief presentation and move forward from there. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i would like to thank supervisor chiu for his introduction. the proposed general plan amendment will amend the general -- the china hospital plan regarding the height and bulk of the new hospita

we call the richmond district the new chinatown in the 1980's at that time. just being around the tremendous unique neighborhood, and discovering san francisco in the 1980's as i grew up, but i also have been very active as a community organizer. i worked in chinatown, and some first jobs also at the mental health center in the richmond area multi services in the 1980's, and i was also a staff are at the chinatown youth center -- i was also a staffer. a lot of my work has been supporting community empowerment, especially in an immigrant and people of color communities. most recently, i have been teaching at san francisco state. i ran the immigrant rights coalition in the city in the 1990's for several years. i'm also an immigration attorney, and a lot of my passion is supporting in power met for immigrant communities in the city as well. >> why did you choose to live in san francisco? supervisor mar: a lot of people bring this up, but is one of the most exciting, culturally diverse places in the world. learning about new cultures and people from different par

the community. we have beets in north beach, chinatown, union square and fisherman's wharf. the embarcadero wants it so bad, they pay for it. no taxpayer money there. also at central, we speak 40 languages. russian, spanish, swedish and of course english. not only do we practice community policing, but we practice global policing at central station. recently, a cultural exchange with the beijing university public security university. this is a university in china that trains its best police administrators. they offer bachelor's, master's and law degrees in china. so they can be a police commissioner. but we have information sharing regionally. that asians them, we were in constant contact with police departments along the peninsula. not only regionally, but we were in contact with police departments in boston, new york, wherever there is a high asian population and even internationally, we were in contact with the hong kong police and china police. i would like to say we celebrate a community at central station. thank you, commissioners for listening to my overview. are there

[applause] a big thank you to the community for better parks and recreation in chinatown for your help and assistance with the facility. let's go, keep it up. [applause] last but certainly not least, and i know you saved your biggest, strongest round of applause for this special group of people, the hardest working staffers in city government, the recreation and park department. i want to start with our capital division. planning director don and our project manager who built this thing. [applause]

there is the fact that they over expanded by building buildings in chinatown. buildings in the mission that and no longer functional. been no longer produce anything. there is excess capacity. i thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> i am going to use the overhead. good afternoon. i'm the executive director of library users association. i would like to give you an update on the library morel. it is a multi-cultural mural painted on the right, with words in spanish and english. in the middle, a figure. on the left, words in spanish and english. it was created by a game muralist who worked with the committee for input and painting. first of all, the mural is in grave danger. they have set a date of october for replacing it with a bland product. it is also under threat because the scaffolding went up early prior to the library doing a legal procedure. only then, when they were told by the library users association and by the sister of the regional beer list. the requirement is to give 90 days' notice to the artist. the mural is standing with scaffo

they are victims from the chinatown attacks. they did not speak english. i am speaking on behalf of them. as most of you know what happened in chinatown. i am not going to repeat the whole story of the nine attacks that happened in the last eight months. the last attacks happened on june 10 and june 16. it has been 50 days. i know things are moving forward but slowly. we have the feeling there are behind the scene forces. people want to make the case smaller and smaller. they want to make it disappear. it is a crime. none of the assailants know the practitioners. they do not know the names, what they are doing. they attacked them because they are practitioners. you see that. as far as i know, there are at least 5000 practitioners in san francisco. we have families here. we have friends here. we all worry about our own safety and the safety of our neighborhood and our city. recently, for the past three days, we got almost one dozen signatures. lots of people are very supportive. sorry. >> thank you very much. that is your time. the way this works is each in

accomplished together, including san francisco voters who approved the 2008 clean and safe neighborhood parks bond, our elected officials, our chinatown community leaders, residents, city staff, and everyone who has a deep connection and history here at the chinese rec center. we like to say at the recreation and park department that we cannot do it alone. so we want to thank everyone who has had a hand in building this incredible facility. [applause] we have got a few acknowledgements. it is only going to take two and a half to three hours to get through them. [laughter] so bear with me. obviously, want to thank our incredible mayor who you're going to hear from later on, mayor edwin lee. [applause] i want to thank board of supervisors president david chiu. [applause] i also want to sing of board members eric mar and scott wiener who are behind me joining us today -- want to single out these board members. [applause] but let's give a big round of applause to the entire board of supervisors who have proven to be incredible park champions and really understand the importance of parks and recreation to the quality of life to san francis