But understood. Right. So and this is probably where the discretion is opposed to so much of our criteria. If you have a judgment, so you dont have a statute, you are not on a short statute of limitations, as you just said, it can sit fairly dormant and every once in a while somebody picks it up and runs it through the system to see if that person has made their presence known or an asset made available. Right. So its not like somebody is spending 15 minutes every week trying to find this person for seven years, right . No, no, no. It will be typically we look for judgment cases, specific for small volumes, well have like nine active account. Once a month theyll touch it. And it depends if they are able to identify any leads to an asset. But the judgments we are good for ten years, and we renew them up to the full 30 years. So actually on that note for Chris Jackson whose referral date was six and a half years ago, i did spend not 15 minutes but ten minutes to make sure that thats actually on the agenda, though, his specific case. Can we anybody feel comfortable i would refrain from referring to specific cases. Somebody might want to talk with him about it after the meeting. Thats fine. Well, linkedin is a wonderful place, as is google search. I would encourage that your team do that, because it can be very fruitful. I appreciate that. Thank you. Anyway, im sorry. No, its just, the reason this came about was and thank you for coming and talking about and sharing more about what d. B. R. Does. It concerns to me and us as a commission that this was referred six and a half years ago already and its just not much still trying to locate people and track down assets and things and just want to better understand what efforts are being undertaken, what can be done differently in order to get to the outcome that we all want to see here. I mean, we should add notwithstanding, there are some that have been carried, we do appreciate the good work you do there. Im sure our staff in particular appreciates that you are doing it. And they are not doing it, right . [laughter] so but there are these kind of, whatever, some holdouts, as it were that we want to make sure we are doing what we need to do to get i appreciate that. And if the staff ever run into anything that may be of benefit to d. B. R. , well have to collaborate to help push things forward. Great. Thank you. Any other questions . You guys have a good rest of the weekend and a good weekend. Any Public Comment on agenda item number 9 . No. Okay. Agenda item 10, discussion of existing Ethics Commission regular meeting skebbling and possible action to provide direction to staff regarding notice of potential bylaws amendment to revise regular meeting schedule for 2020. Thank you. I wanted to highlight on agenda item 10, we wanted to provide information to you at the request of chair chiu. It is a time of year when the commission typically looks at its regular meeting schedule to identify for the coming year if the regular meeting schedule still makes sense, if you would like to make changes. The Commission Wants to make changes or consider changes, there are a series of stars that need to align. One is there needs to be a space available. So we have spent time looking to identify space that could accommodate the commissions meetings at different types if you wanted to consider that, because our meetings are televised on sf gov tv. So we have proposed a series the second thing that needs to align is time to allow for a notice of a bylaws change if the commission does want to meet at a different time, because the bylaws do require the commission establish whats called a regular meeting schedule. And so that those dates would be approved after a period of notice. It can be agendized for the commission if the commission wanted to make changes and direct us to do a notice of the bylaws change, we could do that in if in time for the january meeting. But we wanted to provide this calendar for you so you could see what the options were at this point. And we were able to identify the three options shown on the second page. First that the commission retain its current regular meeting schedule of starting at 2 00 p. M. On the third friday of each month. We also did identify there could be a meeting change to the first friday of each month starting at 9 30 a. M. And thirdly, another option is to change the regular meeting date to the second fridaying of each month and change the start time to 9 30 a. M. It is also the case that as youve seen over the years, there may be some months that commissioners cannot make a particular meeting date. When the Commission Approves this schedule, through a bylaw change, that could be noted in the schedule. So if one month needed to be off of what was adopted as the regular meeting date, we could put that as well. So the regular meeting date can stay as is, and we can note if there are any exceptions to that over the years, if need be. So i wanted to provide that to you to make looking at the calendar year slightly easier. We did provide a graphic of those dates just so you can look at it and see if you are interested in considering a date change, how that might play out with your schedules. Im happy to answer any questions and turn it over to each of you to give us your sense in direction, how you might want to proceed. I have a question. And as you know, im fairly new to the commission. So i was wondering why on earth we meet friday afternoons. It just inherently seems to me like the worst possible time for this type of meeting, since we often do go until 5. And there was one time we went to 6. So just from a personal standpoint, i would be interested in why we dont have morning meetings. And i understand there are space considerations and all of that. And that just may be the way it is. So id be happy to hear the bace background. That was the beginning for my request because we were limited by the room requirements. This was the only time slot where we could get friday. It used to be mondays at 5 00 p. M. And we would go until 11 00 or midnight some days. And then the friday after 2 00 i think is a difficult time for people to make, and i think mornings would be better, and thats why i announced the executive director and her team to look at what room availability there may be for the 2020 calendar year. Its still friday, but 9 30 on friday is better than 2 00 p. M. On friday. Almost anything is better than 2 00 p. M. On friday. The third fridays had us on the friday of a long weekend where it would discourage participation by the public, because it was Martin Luther king and then president s day weekend, and today is the last day for the holidays, i think a lot of people have already left town. So hence we are having this discussion about the fridays. Still friday but 9 30 a. M. On either the first or second day of the month. I think that for my own personal view, i would be in favor of moving to the second friday of each month, but beginning due to calendar conflicts already that we have beginning in april of 2020, so beginning april 10, we would have the regular meetings. I think for january we would need to stick with our regularlyscheduled meeting on the 17th. And then keep the third friday at 2 00 until april of 2020, and we could move to, if we pick the second friday, april 10th. I like that idea, myself. Would the second fridays work for i dont really care whether its the second, third, fourth. If its going to be at 2 00, it doesnt matter to me. We are saying keep the regular dates for january, february and march, and then april we go to the second friday. At 9 30 . Thats fine. I guess well put this on the agenda for january. So commissioner lee would have an opportunity to weigh in. All right. Yeah, i would certainly appreciate being able to consider that. And we can also get some feedback from the public who are watching. I dont think a motion is required to do this since you are directing us to issue the notice, and the action would be placed on the january agenda. So well provide information for the public and make sure its circulating to provide you the opportunity to act at that point. I would like to know how the staff feels about it. This obviously affects you. And maybe if moving it changes things or makes it more difficult for you, then i would like to consider that. Thank you for that point. I think staff would be in favor of moving it to an earlier time in the day as well. It does give more time for more meeting to play out in the normal course. I think friday afternoons are difficult for the public to be here. So morning meetings, im hopeful that well see more people. But certainly we will work with the commissions desire based on your schedules and the Public Comment at the january meeting. We are flexible, but we are happy to start earlier in the day. We would have the room for the sufficient number of hours . I know these rooms are booked pretty solid. So you would have it until noon or something. I think we would have it beyond noon. No one meets on friday afternoons. Okay. Great. Thank you. Any Public Comment on agenda item number 10 . Okay. Seeing none. Agenda item number 11, discussion of executive directors report. Thank you. On this item, a brief look forward, recapping some of the Program Implementation updates you heard from pat ford in his report. I did want to follow up with more specific information. At the last Commission Meeting i relayed we had sworn that supervisors president requested an audit of the commission. That is a motion that was directing the budget and legislative analyst to conduct a performance audit of the commission as a priority of part of its work toward this coming for this fiscal year that we are in. And we followed up directly with the l. A. Office and also supervisoree, and we understand theres a motion to approve that would be considered at a meeting in the early part of january. So we will keep you posted on that. We will be available to answer any questions the board might have. I reached out to mr. Rose and his team to let them know if this does pass we are happy to provide whatever assistance we can to enable it to be a smooth audit. So well keep you posted. But that is something that will require legislative adoption if i understand it. I wanted to highlight one of the items on the staffing news. We do have the investigative analyst position posted. We did extend it for two weeks through december 31 on sf jobs because we realize with the holidays it might make it difficult for people to focus but we want to extend that. We look forward to having that process moving in ernest at the first of the new year. We will be posting and dusting off two other positions to get them through the pipeline as soon as we can. And lastly, i would just add to pat fords comments about the annual conference, we were pleased to be able to send a group to the conversation. Pat participated in the panel. I saw staff at Early Morning meeting table topic starting at 7 30 in the morning to take advantage of informal conversation with colleagues around the country on issues where we have a lot of shared interest and experience. And the conference went until 5 30 every day. We had a chance to meet with our California Agency colleagues, which was a great experience to get to know each other more informally, but it also sparked a lot of good ideas about how we might connect over the course of the year so we dont have to wait until cogel to sit down and compare notes. I participated on the panel wednesday morning with my counterpart in seattle, the grassroots lobbyist for public citizen, and a woman who heads the state and local government work for common cause in washington, focusing on revolving door issues for Campaign Consultants as lobbyists. What was surprising to me is the conference on a wednesday morning on a day where there were other major events happening related to government ethics, we still had a room of close to 60 people wanting to talk about issues that were involved in the work we do every day. And so we had over 500 people at this years conference which was a high for the organizations conferences. And thats a good sign of how much interest there still is around the country, how much resources, governments and citizens are willing to put into agencies doing this kind of work to get us to go to those conferences and understand and be on top of what the latest trends are. We are going to be debriefing with each other over the next couple days as everybody comes back to the office over the holidays so we can plan to do a more deep dive for the overview of the rest of the staff that couldnt be there. So we very much appreciate that we have the resources to do it, and we are looking forward to continuing to participate as we can when funding and Conference Location provides that to be permissible. But we did learn a lot from this year. We found it a shot in the arm. So we are happy to be there and provide you with further feedback once we debrief and settle back in. And again, just as a final note, through this calendar year, we do very much appreciate, as my report notes, a bit more formally, but we want to appreciate the work the commission has done, the heavy lifting and the 2 00 afternoon meetings. We know its not easy, and particularly going into the issues, going away for a month and coming back. The commission has always done a tremendous job being able to keep its foot on the gas pedal. We know thats the same with the public who comes and provides comment at interested persons meetings and Commission Meetings. From the staff, i want to say thank you for your effort and to the public for keeping us on our tows, and we do hope that we will continue to work collaboratively in the coming here to ensure that here in San Francisco our Public Service is worthy of the public trust. We appreciate your work. So thank you. We hope you have wonderful holidays. I wanted to extend our thanks to you and all the staff for the great work that you do day in and day out, because you make what we do up here possible. So without you, it wouldnt be possible. And i really appreciate the thought partnership and the long hours and the extreme patience that it takes to wrangle and herd cats on legislative matters across even multiple stakeholders and through city hall, and the fact that we got so much done this year i think is a real testament to your leadership and the leadership underneath you as well as the oldfashioned hard work. So thank you for all of it. I did have one question. Is the budget season kicking off . I dont know how i avoided touching on that. The budget season has kicked off. And while we were away at cogel, we did have a Department Head meeting with the mayor to issue budget instructions. I understand from that that departments this year, because of the strength of focus that the mayor would like to place on a critical pressing needs the city has, including homelessness and other needs, theres been a request that each department present budgets that consider cuts of 3 percent to about 7 percent. So those are deeper cuts that have been requested in prior years. So we again im hoping to have first discussions starting next week with folks from the Mayors Office and welcome the chance to just walk through and get up to speed on what those requests look like and also to reflect on the needs the commission continues to have for the work that we do. So we will be very much focused over the next several weeks in putting together a budget request. The budget will be due on february 21st, which is the date of our february Commission Meeting. So we will work to put together as much information as we can wherever we are in the budget process for the commissions january meeting so you and the public can be informed with what we know at that time. But it is likely, as you know from prior years, given the work that the budget takes, it can be sometimes hard to have a final picture of what those requests or exercises will look like until we actually submit the thing on february 21. We want to make sure theres information presented to you in january. Well do our best to be as full about that as we can. Im happy to answer any further questions. Thank you. Just a call for Public Comment . Agenda item 12, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. I just had a quick question. There was an email from someone about possible further amendment to the Public Financing regs concerning the counting of if i can remember, of campaign of Public Financing funds as part of the triggers for campaign independent expenditure cap. Did you see that email . I wasnt the only one. So i mean obviously im not putting a timeline on it, but i would like to understand better the problem that was identified and what your staff recommendation is about whether and how it should or could be addressed. I would be glad to talk with you about that. Okay. Great. Thanks. Public comment on agenda item number 12. Being none, additional opportunity for Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda, pursuant to Ethics Commission bylaws article vii, section 2. If theres no comment, i move to adjourn. Happy holidays, everyone. Good morning and welcome to lacasa. We are so honored to have so Many Community members here today. I am the Deputy Director here. This has been a very long journey to this moment today. I thank you all. We would not be here with each and every one of you. I have a lot of wonderful people speaking today and the amazing work that the organization does in the community. I would like to start by introducing our board president. Michelle is the board president of casa d casa de las madres. As a member of the board for over 10 years she has helped guide us through the unprecedented growth. As chair of finance committee she helped strengthen the position to creativity and passion for ending Domestic Violence in San Francisco. I will hand it over to michelle. [applause] thank you for that lovely introduction. We are just thrilled today. This is such an exciting and special moment. I started volunteering about 15 years ago and joined the board 10 years ago. In year i was honored to be made the board president when our previous president retired. During my time with lacasa i have seen the Organization Grow and some impressive milestones. One thing that made me proud is the unparalleled ability for our organization to partner with Service Providers in San Francisco. Today we stand together it is important to remember the work to end Domestic Violence is not done yet and not done alone. La casa spent many years to build relationships to ensure no survivor feels like that is nowhere to turn. Many Community Partners are here today. We are proud to stand next to other Amazing CommunityService Providers like the San FranciscoGeneral Hospital and u. C. S. F. , the San FranciscoPolice Department special victims unit, housing authority, Human Services authority, hamilton families th the count less other programs. Your work is live saving. Looking to the future on behalf of the board, we look forward to continuing to innovate and evolve the Expert Network of systems to ensure no woman or child is forced to choose between safety and their health or home. Now for the moment you are waiting for. I am introducing our mayor, mayor london breed. She is the first africanamerican woman mayor in the citys history. Her priorities include the homelessness crisis, new shelter beds, expanding mental health, more housing and keeping the city streets clean and safe. Please join me in welcoming the 45th mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, mayor london breed. [applause] mayor breed thank you. Thank you for your work and all members of the board and the staff and the people dedicated to this work. We appreciate everything that you do every day to provide a safety net for those who often times feeling hopeless in the midst of the trauma and everything that they are dealing with. We know that this organization supports and welcomes people with open arms. We are so grateful for the work that you do every single day. What an incredible day it is today. I want to take this opportunity to recognize our interim attorney who has been at the forefront of supporting women and children for decades, dealing with challenges around Domestic Violence. We know the city handles over 3,000 cases every single year. 3,000 families or people that are impacted by Domestic Violence. We know that we want to make sure that not only are people held accountable who are victimizing people but the survivors get support and resources they need. It is not just one department versus another. It is a partnership. Working with the victims unit and the San FranciscoPolice Department, the District Attorneys Office and so many amazing Nonprofit Organizations, including la casa is important. The work they do to help raise the money to support the organizations. I am proud of the work they have done to work with San Francisco to allocate more resources because we know that this is hard work. We also know that often times many of the survivors end up working in this arena themselves from their experiences. We know that it can be so helpful to helping to change peoples lives. You know, it is just i am looking at this building and just this is your permanents home, cathy. I know this organization has moved around quite a bit, but has never lost the essence of who they are, a hot line to provide support to people, a drop in center, place of comfort and care for so many years, and now a permanent home. It means so much because when people are dealing with a situation and in the middle of the night or any other case, working with San Francisco general and others, they will have this organization to depend on for years to come. We have this Incredible Program in San Francisco. Some of you know that i used to be the executive director of a Nonprofit Organization africanamerican art and culture complex, for someone who has run a nonprofit, they know how difficult it is to raise money and to make sure that you have a permanent home, to care of the home to buy the toilet paper and keep the lights on. There is a lot of work and resources that go to places like this, and the nonprofit sustainabilitynishsive is a resource that the city now provides to Nonprofit Organizations to help with support to purchase buildings like this so that some of our important nonprofits have a permanent home. They dont necessarily have to worry about the space that they are in and whether or not the lease is going to expire or the costs are going up for the space because there are so many other things that they are going to continue to need to raise money for. This nonprofit sustainabilities fund provided 1 million towards the purchase of the building. I couldnt think of a better way to use this kind of fund than to support lacasa. I am grateful to be here today. I know so many of you here are people who have been working in this arena for so long, and this although it is challenging and it can be sad and emotional to see what we have done here today and to see how this is going to help turn lives around and to change lives for the better, it is absolutely amazing. You should feel good about the work you do and the role you played to making this possible. I am here to just see the place, of course, and to thank all of you for the work you continue to do and to especially commend cathy black and your team for just cathy is standing over here to the side. Come up here. Today i want to do Something Special because of the work that you all do and you do it, you know, in such an amazing way every day without a desire to be recognized but you want the results, and i want the results. It makes for a better city for each and every one of us. It is casa d cass de la madres n San Francisco. I want to thank the folks at the office of economic and work force development. Thank you so much for your work in organizing and helping with the loan documents. We know how challenging it is to get the city to move quickly and the people that we have in this offers really care about this work and they worked hand and hand to make this happen as quickly as we could. I am grateful to be here. Ladies and gentlemen, the executive director of la casa, cathy black. Next up we have our District Attorney here to speak with us. She is a leading authority on crime prevention, experienced executive and led the Police Commission and served add general counsel of the California Department of justice, also served as prosecutor and advocate for survivors of Domestic Violence. We are honored to have her here today. She is a Community Advocate coo of center of youth wellness and in 2014 honored for her work to found and center, the nonprofit to heal children suffering from impact of violence. She served as president of Police Department from 2012 to 2017. The Police Commission provides the use of force policy and instituted body cameras to increase transparent and incommunity relations. She has improved Police Response to violence against women and children to make the streets safe. Our work isnt possible without the work of people like susie loftus. Thank you. That was very kind. Thank you, mayor breed for being here. What i want to offer to you is a story from my time as a courtroom prosecutor when i was prosecuting Domestic Violence because i think when we talk about what la casa means. I want to ground it in what this looks like. To Law Enforcement i can speak to today, it occurred to me when i got my first Domestic Violence cases they were not like other crimes i had prosecuted. What i was asking someone to do was picking up the phone and i was asking them to come in and testify against someone who they either loved at that moment or at one point loved or thought they loved, and my job was to encourage them to come and testify against that person, to encourage them to come in and be crossexamined. We know what that looks like, right . What i needed most was to have someone who could addvo indicate for that survivor through advocate for the survivor. That is cathy black. That is all of you. It is not always the answer to Domestic Violence there is a prosecution. Sometimes it is the answer. Sometimes it leads to the stay away order to save a life, sometimes it leads to a program that an offender does that can change his life or future, let him reclaim his life and future. The partnership Law Enforcement has with lacasa is i often say safety is a team sport. We have learned lessons in San Francisco about how we actually build safety. It is in partnership and in service of shush fivesors and their strengths and resilience and we serve them. Everything i know about Domestic Violence i learned from someone probably in this rumor cathy black. Let us continue to learn from each other in service of this idea. There is an irish proverb that says it is in the shelter of each other that the people live. This is a shelter, this building, it is also a reminder that we are the shelter for survivors and people escaping violence and that when we lean into each other and solve problems in the way lacasa has modeled we build safety for the people that need it the most. I couldnt be more delighted to be here today and to congratulate the city and City Partners for coming together. This is a reminder of the best of who we are and the work that we have to do. Congratulations to lacasa. [applause] we often say that we are only as strong as the community that supports us. We talk about bringing community into our work. Often times our work is in confidential spaces. Comemestic violence is challenge domestic challenge is scary and bat. We only solve this when we bring it out to the light. The next speaker is cassandra pogie. Show brings this to the light every day. She is an employee at black rock and one of the strongest allies in the community. She addvo indicates for survivors advocates for survivors. We are lucky to have her with us today. [applause] thank you. I am cassandra pogie. I am a survivor of Domestic Violence. I was in a relationship for two years. She was charming and created the illusion and he was good to me and i started to fall for him. As things became more serious he was jealous. He introduced intimidation and isolation. I was trapped with someone who used manipulation and violence to control my life every day. I became a shell of myself. I was his captive. The abuse was constant happening all hours. I lost count of the slaps and the punches. There are nights that he would abuse me sexually. Those were the darkest and loneliest days of my life. I was able to leave after one extremely bad beating. I dont remember how many times he punched me because i started to blackout. When he finally stopped, i was able to stagger to my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror and i knew if i did not leave he would kill me. So i ran out the door. As i was running down the street i didnt be know where i could be safe, but the la casa image popped in my head. A few weeks earlier a colleague was doing a presentation. I looked for a second. I was running down the street. I stopped and hid in a dark corner of a garage and googled them. I found the emergency hot line number and gave them a call. Not knowing what to say, all i was able to tell the woman on the other line was that i was just beat up, feared for my life and i needed somewhere safe to stay. She gave me instructions to an indisclosed shel shelter where e would not be able to find me for the night. The comfort and security that night is invaluable i will nerve be able to put it in word. I will never forget the feeling i had laying in a bed that night. A feeling that i havent had in over the past year. The feeling of safety. But what they did for me did not end that night. They provided Legal Council to file for a civil restraining order, made sure to keep in contact with me as i got on my feet. One of the advo cats attended every court date to make sure i was not alone. I faced my abusers. In each trial the following year. I cannot change my past. I can only learn and share my experiences and hope to just save one other person from a similar story. Abuse thrives in silence. I could not be more proud that we are here today to bring a voice to the social injustice that holds so many in darkness. Fortunately for us in San Francisco bay area, lacasa is a bright light in the darkness. This beautiful new home is a bright light. Thank you la casa for saving lives and thank you for saving my life. [applause] next up we have a woman who needs no introduction. Here we go. Cathy is the executive director and she joined la casa in i is. She has met the needs as they have evolved and globe. Grown. Three increased number of services by 300 . She is on oversight panels and worked to bring the gaps and service and champion Domestic Violence with policymaking bodies throughout the city. She brings a wealth of program and strategic experience to la casa. Each day hundreds are made safer because of her leadership. As someone who has been here through the process of the moving into this building, we really cathy did it almost entirely herself. It was amazing to watch and wish i could be more helpful. We are lucky to have your leadership at this organization. I think you touched the lives not only the survivors in the city but the people in the room individually. Without further ado, kathy black. [applause] thanthank you, mayor breed, d welcome everybody here with us today. I was telling somebody earlier that i was nervous and fearful. Then i listened to cas cassandrd realized the real fear. It puts it in perspective. It is easy to stand in front of you now. I get the best part of this event today. Everybody said such wonderful things about la casa and how it has touched so many people. I get to say thank you. Almost without well maybe not media but some of the media people have played a role in bringing la casa to where we are today. When i joined la casa in i in 1e are omission street. On the mission street. We werent offered the opportunity to stay. We moved to a loading dock that was in the back of the old electrical workers apprenticeship building. We were hidden in the back on the loading dock. We fixed it up and were there for a period of time until they moved in next door. They werent the ideal neighbor. They thought they were. We definitely sudden lie a light was shown in a way that made it scary for the employees and the victims and survivors to get help. We moved to the old ben davis factory at 1663 mission street. Our lease was coming up and they didnt want to renew the lease. We knew we needed more space because we were providing more and more services, and there seemed to be an unending demand for what we had to offer. You know, there was a crazy journey to end up with this building. We ended up getting the second time i applied to the nonprofit sustainability fund. First time i couldnt get the owner to sign the purchase agreement, but i submitted the application in hopes i could convince him before the decision was made. Luckily, after a little bit of time he came around and he was offering it for lease. A payment we would not be able to afford. 14,000 more than our Mortgage Loan for this. Keeping good financial, being frugal, i said, no, buys is better. We were able to convince the owner to sell it to us, and we applied to the nonprofit sustainability fund. It is an awesome opportunity, and i tell other nonprofits when they say we dont have any office space, i tell them, you have to check out this program because it is a great deal. You know, it keeps nonprofits like la casa from moving further out of the hub of where we are needed most, right . We are in a neighborhood where we are accessible, people can come here, get services in a safe way, and we are able to we call it hub and spoke model in the center of the partnership with the Police Department, with the General Hospital and the rise program, rally family visitation program, one of our founders, we are close to hsa for the program, the Mary Elizabeth inn which provides 157 housing units. We do Case Management there. It is unending amount of work that we are able to provide. This is the most amazing spot to do it. I didnt write any of these words down. This is me talking. There are some, you know, one of the things that happen is we rallied a community of al lies, and a lot of them are here today, including the Mayors Office, oewd. And every time i see them at something it makes me smile. I feel good about it. They were supportive of me. I sent many times weeping thinking this would not happen and the lease was coming up. The department on status of women, emily and carol and Staff Members are here. Without support we wouldnt be doing what we are doing. The Giants Community fund, 49ers foundation, georgia sandy and cameron foundations, businesses like back rock are just awesome. Cb os, prc across the street is collaborating and helping us move in and get situated. Then the individuals that have shown up and supported our work is amazing. It is because you are with us on the mission. Receiving this 1 million grant gave us a boost that we needed and inspired other people in a way that has just been such a surprise. I mean people just call up and say can i come over . We want to make a donation. Not that we i mean it is hard to raise money for programs like this. This year has been a change. I think people see us as a force to be reckoned with. I am not going to read this gigantic printed words but i feel my message today is that we are here and we are available and if you know anybody who needs our help, please send them to us or collaborate with us. We want to be good partners. I owe everyone here a debt of gratitude, board members, employees, volunteers, and it all comes together to make this happen. With that we are looking forward to 2020 and thank you all very much. applause . I am going to invite everybody up for the ribboncutting. This is most excite being. They have these awesome scisso scissors. laughter . Five, four, three, two, one. There we go. [applause] working with kids, they keep you young. They keep you on your tones on your toes. Teaching them, at the same time, us learning from them, everything is fulfilling. Ready . Go. [ ] we really wanted to find a way to support Women Entrepreneurs in particular in San Francisco. It was very important for the mayor, as well as the Safety Support the dreams that people want to realize, and provide them with an opportunity to receive funding to support improvements for their business so they could grow and thrive in their neighborhoods and in their industry. Three, two, one because i am one of the consultants for two nonprofits here for entrepreneurship, i knew about the grand through the renaissance entrepreneur center, and through the Small Business development center. I thought they were going to be perfect candidate because of their strong values in the community. They really give back to the neighborhood. They are from this neighborhood, and they care about the kids in the community here. When molly molly first told us about the grant because she works with Small Businesses. She has been a tremendous help for us here. She brought us to the attention of the grand just because a lot of things here were outdated, and need to be uptodate and redone totally. Hands in front. Recite the creed. My oldest is jt, he is seven, and my youngest is ryan, he is almost six. It instills discipline and the boys, but they show a lot of care. We think it is great. The moves are fantastic. The women both are great teachers. What is the next one . My son goes to fd k. He has been attending for about two years now. They also have a summer program, and last summer was our first year participating in it. They took the kids everywhere around San Francisco. This year, owner talking about placing them in summer camps, all he wanted to do was spend the entire summer with them. He has strong women in his life, so he really appreciates it. I think that carries through and i appreciate the fact that there are more strong women in the world like that. I met dandrea 25 years ago, and we met through our interest in karate. Our professor started on cortland years ago, so we grew up here at this location, we out he outgrew the space and he moved ten years later. He decided to reopen this location after he moved. Initially, i came back to say, hey, because it might have been 15 years since i even put on a uniform. My Business Partner was here basically by herself, and the person she was supposed to run the studio with said great, you are here, i started new Nursing School so you can take over. And she said wait, that is not what i am here for i was by myself before for a month before she came through. She was technically here as a secretary, but we insisted, just put on the uniform, and help her teach. I was struggling a little bit. And she has been here. One thing led to another and now we are coowners. You think a lot more about safety after having children and i wanted to not live in fear so much, and so i just took advantage of the opportunity, and i found it very powerful to hit something, to get some relief, but also having the knowledge one you might be in a situation of how to take care of yourself. The selfdefence class is a new thing that we are doing. We started with a group of women last year as a trial run to see how it felt. Theres a difference between selfdefence and doing a karate class. We didnt want them to do an actual karate class. We wanted to learn the fundamentals of how to defend yourself versus, you know, going through all the forms and techniques that we teaching a karate class and how to break that down. Then i was approached by my old high school. One once a semester, the kids get to pick an extra curricular activity to take outside of the school walls. My old biology teacher is now the principle. She approached us into doing a selfdefence class. The girls have been really proactive and really sweet. They step out of of the comfort zone, but they have been willing to step out and that hasnt been any pushback. It is really great. It is respect. You have to learn it. When we first came in, they knew us as those girls. They didnt know who we were. Finally, we came enough for them to realize, okay, they are in the business now. It took a while for us to gain that respect from our peers, our male peers. Since receiving the grant, it has ignited us even more, and put a fire underneath our butts even more. We were doing our summer camp and we are in a movie theatre, and we just finished watching a film and she stepped out to receive a phone call. She came in and she screamed, hey, we got the grant. And i said what . Martial arts is a passion for us. It is passion driven. There are days where we are dead tired and the kids come and they have the biggest smiles on their faces and it is contagious. We have been operating this program for a little over a year all Women Entrepreneurs. It is an extraordinary benefit for us. We have had the Mayors Office investing in our program so we can continue doing this work. It has been so impactful across a diversity of communities throughout the city. We hope that we are making some type of impact in these kids lives outside of just learning karate. Having selfconfidence, having discipline, learning to know when its okay to stand up for yourself versus you just being a bully in school. These are the values we want the kids to take away from this. Not just, i learned how to kick and i learned how to punch. We want the kids to have more values when they walk outside of these doors. [ ] this is the regular meeting of the commission on Community Investment and infrastructure act Successor Agency for the San FranciscoRedevelopment Agency for tuesday, december 17th, 2019. Welcome to members of the public please call the first item. The first order of business is item one, roll call. Please respond when i call your name. [roll call] the