Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors 20240703

Mission district today. Im joined by the Library Commission. Yes, thank you. [ applause ] lets move a little closer over here. You will be able to hear better and participate better in the program. We have seats over here available. All right, good morning, welcome. Im Micheal Lambert. Im proud to serve as your city librarian. Its wonderful to see all of you here and be in community with all of you in the Mission District today. Im joined by the Library Commission. Oh, yes. [ applause ] thank you. Im joined by the Library Commissioner dr. Lopez. Come on up here dr. Lopez. [ applause ] on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library wed like to welcome you to the Historic Mission branch for the kickoff of this construction project. Id like to begin with our land acknowledgment. Ill pause for the translator. Moving too fast. [translator speaking] thank you. The area known as the unseated ancestral homeland. The people of the land have never seated, lost, or forgotten that responsibility as the caretakers of the place. Okay. We recognize that we benefit from living and working. The sovereign rights for people and. Elders and relatives of the people. Thank you so much. Before i welcome the supervisor to the microphone it would be fun to share fast facts with you about the library. The Mission Branch library is the very first Neighborhood Branch of the San Francisco Public Library system. The first location was just a few blocks from here at 1109 olympia street. The construction of the current building was funded by the industrialist and from donor. He donated 50,000 to construct the library. The location opened in december of 1915. This is one of the business i librairies. So, this major renovation kicking off today, its going to restore the historic firsthand door of the Majestic Library and upgrade the aminities to be worthy of expectations in 21st 21st century standards and service to the community. Im excited we will restore the original entrance on 24th street. We will push out on the orange ally side for a new dedicated space. Well have a new Community Room and more restrooms. The renovated Mission Branch library is a model. This will be including solar panels, battery storage, also an upgraded heated and hvac system. With this once in a generation well continue to be a neighborhood hub for another century and beyond. Its the pleasure to introduce our supervisor hillary a supporter of the library and loyal patron as well. [ applause ] hello. Thank you for being here on this exciting day. I just want to acknowledge how has been and lucky we are for district nine. It amazing. This is really a dream come true. To have a Community Room and space to have a fully resilient building for the days that are hotter and hotter for people. We have extra bathrooms for people in the neighborhood that need them. This is the type of project thats exactly right for the neighborhood and such a beautiful and Historic Building its perfect. So, i just wanted to give a few things. I wanted to start by recognizing and thanking suzanne. The executive director of the latino cultural district. [ applause ] representing the voice of the community and helping to design you know, and make sure the priorities are respected and included in the project. Also id like to recognize they will come up shortly. We are so lucky to have this world Famous Artist who is going to make an original piece for the building and it will capture the Latino History and nativeamerican history that makes it the special place it is. Thank you for doing that. Id like to thank all of the folks in the city that prioritize the project. There is one finally after this. From the dpw. Architect which will and engineering and Incredible Library staff. Who consistency the only apartment the Library Commission and the friends of the library. This was a team effort and one project we can feel proud of as san franciscans. Finally finally, truly finally. Id like to thank you for voting for the Library Preservation funds. [ applause ] that vote is what made this project possibility. That vote is what make our librairies the jewel institutions they are in the city. Thank you san franciscans. Thank you. Proximate cause. And now, its my great pleasure to introduce carla short. Thank you. Good morning everyone. Thank you supervisor and also thank our supervisor librarian for hosting us today. Its a pleasure to be part of the gathering. The Branch Library is a true gem. We are excited to partner in the renovations. In collaboration with Library Staff and Community Public works architect will reassert the his historical significance of the building more than a century years old and meet the modern day San Francisco. In addition to architects they created Landscape Design and project and Construction Management services. Id like to thank andrew who is here today leading the Branch Project team. We are also pleased to work with sc as the contractor for the project. Sc was a proven partner with the city and delivered successful project including the ambulance deployment facility for the San Francisco fire department. Id like to give a big shout out to Micheal Lambert and his team. San franciscos Public Library system is a model for the rest of the nation with amazing resources at the main and Neighborhood Branches. Ensuring access to information is the bed rook of our neighborhood. This is a big part of our mission. The Mission Branch renovation project is an example of the commitment to not only maintaining and improving San Franciscos vital and beloved Public Library system. Thank you for hosting this public event. And now, id like to introduce rebecca, the library chief of branches. Good morning, everyone. My name is rebecca. Im the chief of branches at the Public Library. Im the head of Neighborhood Branches. Before i introduce the next esteemed guest id like to acknowledge my Incredible Team at the Mission Branch. You know and love them. They are our best resource in the library. Today, wave your hand. Please go to 1234 valencia to hire them. We are so lucky to be in a city that believes that all residents deserve to live in a beautiful city and have access to world class art. And librairies. The work will be featured on the second floor of the reading room. Thats the focal point to the space. Id like togy the Arts Commission a thank you for this project. Im happy to have you with us today. Lets give her a warm welcome. [ applause ] hello, its a great honor to be with you this morning. Id like to thank the Arts Commission and Library Commission. Only the staff. My sister would take me to the library in downtown detroit where i grew up. It was a place of refuge for us as little latinas growing up with the heritage of so much black progressive leadership and the cultural explosion at the moment. Right now, we find ourselves in celebration and resistance. So, right now we find ourselves in the moment of celebration right as the country tries to continue the legacy of burning books. This library is a testimony we are resisting that. Its the Beautiful Center of cultural resistance. So my role here is to create. Its not a stained glassed but a fused glass window. It will be at the top of the grand stairway to the second floor. It will be part of our cultures in many places in the world and beauty and resistance and survival in a hostile environment. Id like to share with you today a little piece of it. I have to warn you. My granddaughter shes a tremendous artist. Shes 7 years old and told me, this isnt as good as your paintings. This is just a little sample of a 12inch by 12inch section of the stained glass window. [ applause ] ill be working all weekend fabricating the window. We paint both sides of the glass and the leaves, flowers, and fruit. Each one will be standing off the surface. Im excited for this opportunity id like to give my love to the mission. Thank you so much to everybody. Thank you so much. Your remarks are so timely and spot on. You know, all of you because of your library supportallers we are all intellectual Freedom Fighters here in San Francisco. Thank you for being here. Alisia your time is what we will all get to enjoy with the Mission Branch library. Thank you. In closing id like to echo our chief of branches. Id like to echo her gratitude for the staff, Mission Branch Library Staff thats maintaining continuity of service at our temporary location. Id also like to recognize the heart work of the capitol projects team. They are not all here but represented by the chief operating officer and capitol project manager lisa where is lisa at. Also roberto lumbardie back this there. [ applause ] our partners at work and Public Design andrew and, julia, thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your leadership. I odes like to thank you for all of the generous support of the capitol project. We are honored by the executive director. The chair of the board daphne lee. Other Board Members and staff. Thank you so much for your partnership and support on the project. Id like to thank again suzanne na for being here today. Thank you for your support and partnership. So, following the ceremony. Take advantage of the table with the staff are. Id like you to tell us what you are excited for. Id like to hear your hopes and aspirations. We would like to display them on the dream wall in the new space. Rebecca will conclude the program while restoring the blessing on the project. [ applause ] wed ask that everybody move back a little bit. Good morning to all. Good after afternoon. We are here to offer prayers. This is a place of learning and culture and we are happy to have our blessings. I mope you can hear the way we offer dancers. With that, well offer them. We will have the person that carries the smoke bless the place and all of you. We are thankful that you ask us to be part of this very important event. Thank you very much. My name is rebecca flores. If you are interested in having your children come and dance. I offer dance classes for free for the culture, for our people. Thank you. We are one with the creator. Whatever that is if the all of you. When we say that, we are one with the universe. [ music ] 5 oclock. music . Cofounder. We started in 2008 and with the intent of making the ice cream with grown up flavors and with like and with tons of accessible freshens and so we this is many people will like it and other people will like you my name is alice my husband were the owners of you wont see ice cream in San Francisco and really makes fishing that we are always going together and we we provide the job opportunity for High School Students and i hired them every year and. Fun community hubble in San Francisco is my district i hope we can keep that going for many years. And im alexander the owner of ice cream and in San Francisco and in the outer sunset in since 1955 we have a vast of flavors liar choke oclock but the flavors more than three hundred flavors available and i am the owner of the ice cream. And my aunt used to take us out to eat ice cream all the time and what can i do why not bring this ice cream shop and unintelligible joy a banana split or a great environment for people to come and enjoy. Were the ordinances of the hometown and our new locations in pink valley when i finished law school we should open up a store and, and, and made everybody from scrap the first ice cream shop any ice cream we do our own culture background and a lot of interaction and were fortunate we can get feedback and serve to the king of ending and also bayview. A lot discussion how residents in San Francisco are displaced how businesses are displaced and theres not as much discussion how many nonprofits are displaced i think a general concern in the Arts Community is the testimony loss of performance spaces and venues no renderings for establishes when our lease is up you have to deal with what the market bears in terms of of rent. Nonprofits cant afford to operate here. My name is bill henry the executive director of aids passage l lp provides services for people with hispanics and aids and 9 advertising that fight for the clients in Housing Insurance and migration in the last two years we negotiated a lease that saw 0 rent more than doubled. My name is ross the executive directors of current pulls for the last 10 years at 9 and mission we were known for the projection of sfwrath with taking art and moving both a experiment art our lease expired our rent went from 5 thousand dollars to 10,000 a most. And chad of the arts project pursue. The evolution of the orientation the focus on Art Education between children and Patrol Officer artist we offer a full range of rhythms and dance and theatre music theatre about in the last few years it is more and more difficult to find space for the program that we run. Im the nonprofit manager for the Mayors Office of Economic Workforce Development one of the reasons why the mayor has invested in nonprofit displacement is because of the challenge and because nonprofits often commute Technical Assistance to understand the negotiate for a commercial lease. Snooechlz is rob the executive director and cofounder of at the crossroads we want to reach the disconnected young people not streets of San Francisco for young adults are kicked out of the services our building was sold no 2015 they let us know theyll not renew our lease the last years the city with the nonprofit displacement Litigation Program held over 75 nonprofits financial sanction and Technical Assistance. Fortunate the city hesitate set aside funds for businesses facing increased rent we believable to get some relief in the form of a grant that helped us to cover the increase in rent our rent had been around 40,000 a year now 87,000 taylors dollars a year we got a grant that covered 22 thousands of that but and came to the minnesota Street Project in two people that development in the better streets plan project they saved us space for a Nonprofit Organization National Anthem and turned out the Northern California fund they accepted us into the Real Estate Program to see if we could withstand the stress and after the program was in full swinging skinning they brought up the Litigation Fund and the grants were made we applied for that we received a one thousand dollars granted and that grant allowed us to move in to the space to finish the space as we needed it to furniture is for classes the building opened on schedule on march 18, 2016 and by july we were teaching classed here. Which we found out we were going to have to leave it was overwhelm didnt know anything about commercial real estate we suggested to a bunch of people to look at the nonprofits Displacement Mitigation Program you have access to commercial real estate either city owned or city leased and a city lease space become available there is a 946,000 grant that is provided through the Mayors Office of Economic Workforce Development and thats going to go towards boulder the space covers a little bit less than half the cost it is critical. The purpose of the Organization Trust to stabilize the arts in San Francisco working with local agency i go like the Northern California platoon fund that helped to establish documents of our long track record of stvent and working to find the right partner with the organization of our size and budget the opportunity with the purchase of property were sitting in the former disposal house theatre that expired 5 to 10 years ago we get to operate under the old lease and not receive a rent increase for the next 5 to 7 years well renting 10,000 square feet for the next 5 to seven years we pay off the balance of the purpose of this and the cost of the renovation. The loophole will that is unfortunate fortunate we have buy out a reserve our organization not reduce the services found a way to send some of the reserves to be able to continue the serves we know our clients need them we were able to get relief when was needed the most as we were fortunate to arrive that he location at the time, we did in that regard the city has been weve had tremendous support from the Mayors Office of Economic Workforce Development and apg and helped to roommate the facade of the building and complete the renovation inside of the building without the sport support. Our lease is for 5 years with a 5 year onyx by the city has an 86 year lease that made that clear as long as were doing the work weve been we should be able to stay there for decades and decades. The single most important thing we know that is that meaningful. It has been here 5 months and even better than that we could image. With the Economic Development have announced an initiative if ours is a nonprofit or know of a nonprofit looking for more resources they can go to the office of Economic Workforce Development oewd. Com slashing nonprofit and found out about the mayors nonprofit Mitigation Program and the Sustainability Initiative and find their information through Technical Assistance as much as how to get started with more fundraising or the real estate assistance and they can find my contact and reach out to me through the circles of the city through the we can sweep by in front of a house in a matter of seconds. The only people who dont like it are the people who get the tickets. This is a street sweeping sign. Dont let it get you. Pay attention. [ ] in the morning, when we first go out, we start at six in the morning or seven in the morning. We call that our business run. We sweep all the main arteries of the city. After 8 00, we go into the residential areas and take care of all the other customers. The idea with the Street Sweeping Program is to get the leaves and the debris off the ground. We for not only appearance and cleanliness but safety as well. We will get anywhere from 2 7,000 pounds per truck depending on the season and the route. The street sweeper and the choice of the use right now is an error sweeper. They have a motor in the back and it blows winds down one side and carried by air into the hopper. What will mess this up is new large pieces of cardboard or sticks or coat hangers. Anything that is more than 12 inches. The tube on the tracks is only 12inch diameter. People asked what they can do to help to keep the city clean. There are people that letter. Leaves are one thing. Any of the garbage you see is from people being careless. [ ] one cars parked in the way, we cant sweep under the congress. To deal with this, we have parking control officers that are provided by m. T. A. And they go in front of our sweepers and pass out citations to people that are parking the wrong way. Once the sweepers sweep past in San Francisco, you may park behind the street sweeper. We all know parking is a big issue. North beach hasnt been swept since the eighties because of opposition. But we are getting a lot of requests to sweep. Basically our trucks are 10 feet wide. We stick the brooms out and they are may be 12 feet wide. There are a lot of blind spots when driving a large truck pedestrians and bicyclists and cars. And navigates this 22,000pound truck through the city. We involve the public here to adhere to traffic laws. These routes were developed back in the eighties around the capability of the sweeper. Things have changed since then so we have to adapt. Luckily, public works is embracing technology and working on a system to alter our maps. This is literally cut and paste cut and paste. We will have a Computer Program soon that will be able to alter the maps and be updated instantly. We will have tablets in the checks for all of the maps. We will send a broom wherever it needs to go and he has the information he needs to complete the safety. What is needed about these tablets as they will have a g. P. S. On it so we know where theyre at. You do get confused driving along, especially the inner sunset. Recall that to the be made a triangle. Thanks for writing along with us today. I enjoyed showing you what we do and i urge you to Pay Attention to the signs and move your car and dont litter. With all San Francisco this is an exhibition across departments highlighting different artworks from our collection. Gender is an important part of the dialogue. In many ways, this exhibition is contemporary. All of this artwork is from the 9th century and spans all the way to the 21st century. The exhibition is organized into seven different groupings or themes such as activities, symbolism, transformation and others. Its not by culture or time period, but different affinities between the artwork. Activities, for example, looks at the role of gender and how certain activities are placed as feminine or masculine. We have a print by uharo that looks at different activities that derisionly performed by men. Its looking at the theme of music. We have three women playing traditional japanese instruments that would otherwise be played by men at that time. We have pairings so that is looking within the context of gender in relationships. Also with how people are questioning the whole idea of pairing in the first place. We have three from three different cultures, tibet, china and japan. This is sell vanity stot relevar has been fluid in different time periods in cultures. Sometimes being female in china but often male and evoking features associated with gender binaries and sometimes in between. Its a lovely way of tying all the themes together in this collection. Gender and sexuality, speaking from my culture specifically, is something at that hasnt been recently widely discussed. This exhibition shows that its gender and sexuality are actually have been considered and complicated by dialogue through the work of artists and thinking specifically, a sculpture we have of the hindu deities because its half pee male and half male. It turns into a different theme in a way and is a beautiful representation of how gender hasnt been seen as one thing or a binary. We see that it isnt a modest concept. In a way, i feel we have a lot of historical references and touch points throughout all the ages and in asian cultures. I believe San Francisco has close to 40 asian. Its a huge representation here in the bay area. Its important that we awk abouk about this and open up the discussion around gender. What weve learned from organizing this exhibition at the museum is that gender has been something that has come up in all of these cultures through all the time periods as something that is important and relevant. Especially here in the San Francisco bay area we feel that its relevant to the conversations that people are having today. We hope that people can carry that outside of the museum into their daily lives. [music] ily lives. San francisco is known as yerba buena, good herb after a mint that used to grow here. At this time there were 3 settlements one was mission delores. One the presidio and one was yerba buena which was urban center. There were 800 people in 1848 it was small. A lot of Historic Buildings were here including pony express headquarters. Wells fargo. Hudson Bay Trading Company and famous early settlers one of whom william leaderdorph who lived blocks from here a successful business person. Africanamerican decent and the first million airin california. Wilwoman was the founders of San Francisco. Here during the gold rush came in the early 1840s. He spent time stake himself as a merchant seaman and a business person. His father and brother in new orleans. We know him for San Franciscos history. Establishing himself here arnold 18 twoochl he did one of many things the first to do in yerba buena. Was not california yet and was not fully San Francisco yet. Because he was an american citizen but spoke spanish he was able to during the time when america was taking over california from mexico, there was annexations that happened and conflict emerging and war, of course. He was part of the peek deliberations and am bas doorship to create the state of california a vice council to mexico. Mexico granted him citizenship. He loaned the government of San Francisco money. To funds some of the war efforts to establish the city itself and the state, of course. He established the first hotel here the person people turned to often to receive dignitaries or hold large gatherings established the First Public School here and helped start the Public School system. He piloted the first steam ship on the bay. A big event for San Francisco and depict instead state seal the ship was the sitk a. There is a small 4 block long length of street, owned much of that runs essentially where the transamerica building is to it ends at california. I walk today before am a cute side street. At this point t is the center what was all his property. He was the person entrusted to be the citys first treasurer. That is i big deal of itself to have that legacy part of an africanamerican the citys first banker. He was not only a forefather of the establishment of San Francisco and california as a state but a leader in industry. He had a direct hahn in so many things that we look at in San Francisco. Part of our dna. You know you dont hear his anymore in the context of those. Representation matters. You need to uplift this so people know him but people like him like me. Like you. Like anyone who looks like him to be, i can do this, too. To have the citys first banker and a street in the middle of financial district. That alone is powerful. [music] shop and dine on the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of San Francisco by supporting local Services Within neighborhood. We help San Francisco remain unique, successful and vibrant. Where will you shop and dine in the 49 . San francisco owes the charm to the unique character of the neighborhood comer hall district. Each corridor has its own personality. Our neighborhoods are the engine of the city. You are putting money and support back to the community you live in and you are helping Small Businesses grow. It is more environmentally friendly. Shopping local is very important. I have had relationships with my local growers for 30 years. By shopping here and supporting us locally, you are also supporting the growers of the flowers, they are fresh and they have a price point that is not imported. It is really good for everybody. Shopping locally is crucial. Without that support, Small Business cant survive, and if we lose Small Business, that diversity goes away, and, you know, it would be a shame to see that become a thing of the past. It is important to dine and shop locally. It allows us to maintain traditions. It makes the neighborhood. I think San Francisco should shop local as much as they can. The retail marketplace is changes. We are trying to have people on the floor who can talk to you and help you with products you are interested in buying, and help you with exploration to try things you have never had before. The fish business, you think it is a piece of fish and fisherman. There are a lot of people working in the fish business, between wholesalers and fishermen and bait and tackle. At the retail end, we about a lot of people and it is good for everybody. Shopping and dining locally is so important to the community because it brings a tighter fabric to the community and allows the Business Owners to thrive in the community. We see more Small Businesses going away. We need to shop locally to keep the Small Business alive in San Francisco. Shop and dine in the 49 is a cool initiative. You can see the banners in the streets around town. It is great. Anything that can showcase and legitimize Small Businesses is a wonderful thing. Youre watchin francisco rising with chris hin manner todays special guests im chris youre watching San Francisco rising the rebuilding and reimaging and our guests the executive director of the Homeland Security and today to talk about the city and solutions and welcome to the show. Thank you an honor to be here. Lets a start by talking about people traeld dont consider that much the business programs what does the city need to have that. Most people think of homeless they think of people they see on the street in the tenderloin and many people experiencing homeless have not visible to the average person and a lot of those people are children or older adults and families that is what we see at the department of homeless on top of homeless among the black community we dont realize there. 40 percent of our homeless populationist with the africanamericans and only 5 percent of the population today the with the africanamerican and the same thing about the communities that over represent and we we try to make sure there is equity in the system and reaching the goals not seeing by the public as much we know that housing is essentially what Everyone Needs to thrive in the community. Quite correct some of the solutions often vulnerable or smaller scale how do we expand those solutions as we go about. A attended in the homeless he roman numerals seeing none, three interventions need presentation for the people experiencing homes in the first place and pouting are ways for people to get to permanent housing on their own and need shelter so really need all three of the intefrjz for people to assess one the things we often dont understand meet people where they are and sometimes did have the documents or other things to move into housing. They maybe waiting on Disability Income or themes so we have to be prepared to have things ready to use the sheltered are reality important. We know that ultimately preservation ask one of the most important toltz we can put into our systems if people dont have that mri better off for many reasons but way cheaper to have someone out of homeless in the first place and the permanent housing is a wonderful tool for many people cant get housing on their own and needed Case Management or other services to be able to assess the other part of their life employment and things. So the home by the bay plan can you explain the basics and how to address the needs . Sure the home by the bay the Strategic Plan the 5year plan to prevent homelessness i want to do what at mayors said homeless is not just owned by the department of 40e789s but the responded didnt has to include a number of stakeholders what that requires is really a collaborative approach were really continuing to work very close with the 0 department of Public Health and Law Enforcement or the department of aye. By linking to the voices of people exercising homelessness need to create programs without listening to the people experiencing and finding what is like for them to go through the system were not going to make that better and ultimately will not be successful. Your first goal really to produce inexacerbated in our system remarkably equity and also want to reduce the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in 5 years and over all address homelessness by 15 percent your offer arching goals for us and some people said that didnt seem like enough or didnt seem bold enough to given where we are not just a a city but country wiring proud of that goal and look forward to implementing the work that it takes to get there and hoping will be can he have in 5 years. We are here the property interrupt trip to the lovely agreement can you talk about that and then maybe talk about how Public Housing will be a solution . One of the very exciting things about that building it accommodates names families in a neighborhood with Grocery Stores and transportation a little bit out of the tenderloin when we think of families with children finding places in the area that are enacted by homeless. So very again Community Space and actually have a partnership with the Housing Authority the Housing Authority has different kinds of vouches they have available and in case with the vouches we use those vouchers with the unit and help to cut the cost we have homekey dollars that provide money to the counties our acquisitions and able to leverage that. Can you you, you talk about the voucher programs how they help Public Housing and help landowners into the whole thing. Sure we have a few voucher emergency vouchers from the federal government during covid and dispersing those with the Housing Authority and the programs one they can help prevent people from 0 becoming homeless and people are in danger of becoming homeless with a necessity they can stay in the place they have and people are experienced homeless and in a shelter and kwobtd with the system the best way for them to find it themselves with the help of a case manager or a housing locate our that makes sense in San Francisco we will have a number of buildings in certain neighborhoods in San Francisco and a number of places in San Francisco we find people experiencing homeless across the decide but dont have an easy option with a number of neighborhoods so Emergency Housing Voucher Program we partnered in bay view and been successful in making sure that people from that neighborhood and that neighborhood kind of a proximity for people who have experienced homelessness with born and raised in bay view and, you know. Instead of putting them in a place across town a unit available able to work with them to find their units in the neighborhood eventually and we hope when lvrndz will see the value got a number of landowners buildings with a lot of vacancies we think that it is really um, helpful for them and hopeful for us we can Work Together and see the number of units in partnerships we can get people housed with a steady income from the rent. Thank you i appreciate you coming into here today. You know. This is great. Thank you chris appreciate that. Thats it for in episode and for sfgovtv im chris thanks for growing up in San Francisco has been way safer than growing up other places we we have that bubble, and its still that bubble that its okay to be whatever you want to. You can let your free flag fry fly here. As an adult with autism, im here to challenge peoples idea of what autism is. My journey is not everyones journey because every autistic child is different, but theres hope. My background has heavy roots in the bay area. I was born in san diego and adopted out to San Francisco when i was about 17 years old. I bounced around a little bit here in high school, but ive always been here in the bay. We are an inclusive preschool, which means that we cater to emp. We dont turn anyone away. We take every child regardless of race, creed, religious or ability. The most common thing i hear in my adult life is oh, you dont seem like you have autism. You seem so normal. Yeah. Thats 26 years of really, really, really hard work and i think thises that i still do. I was one of the first open adoptions for an lgbt couple. They split up when i was about four. One of them is partnered, and one of them is not, and then my biological mother, who is also a lesbian. Very queer family. Growing up in the 90s with a queer family was odd, i had the bubble to protect me, and here, i felt safe. I was bullied relatively infrequently. But i never really felt isolated or alone. I have known for virtually my entire life i was not suspended, but kindly asked to not ever bring it up again in first grade, my desire to have a sex change. The school that i went to really had no idea how to handle one. One of my parents is a little bit gender nonconforming, so they know what its about, but my parents wanted my life to be safe. When i have all the neurological issues to manage, that was just one more to add to it. I was a weird kid. I had my core group of, like, very tight, like, three friends. When we look at autism, we characterize it by, like, lack of eye contact, what i do now is when im looking away from the camera, its for my own comfort. Faces are confusing. Its a lack of mirror neurons in your brain working properly to allow you to experience empathy, to realize where somebody is coming from, or to realize that body language means that. At its core, autism is a social disorder, its a neurological disorder that people are born with, and its a big, big spectrum. It wasnt until i was a teenager that i heard autism in relation to myself, and i rejected it. I was very loud, i took up a lot of space, and it was because mostly taking up space let everybody else know where i existed in the world. I didnt like to talk to people really, and then, when i did, i overshared. I was very difficult to be around. But the friends that i have are very close. I click with our atypical kiddos than other people do. In experience, i remember when i was five years old and not wanting people to touch me because it hurt. I remember throwing chairs because i could not regulate my own emotions, and it did not mean that i was a bad kid, it meant that i couldnt cope. I grew up in a family of behavioral psychologists, and i got development cal developmental psychology from all sides. I recognize that my experience is just a very small picture of that, and not everybodys in a position to have a family thats as supportive, but theres also a community thats incredible helpful and wonderful and open and there for you in your moments of need. It was like two or three years of conversations before i was like you know what . Im just going to do this, and i went out and got my prescription for hormones and started transitioning medically, even though i had already been living as a male. I have a twoyearold. The person who im now married to is my husband for about two years, and then started gaining weight and wasnt sure, so i went and talked with the doctor at my clinic, and he said well, testosterone is basically birth control, so theres no way you can be pregnant. I found out i was pregnant at 6. 5 months. My whole mission is to kind of normalize adults like me. I think ive finally found my calling in early intervention, which is here, kind of what we do. I think the access to care for parents is intentionally confusing. When i did the prospective search for autism for my own child, it was confusing. We have a place where children can be children, but its very confusing. I always out myself as an adult with autism. I think its helpful when you know where can your child go. How im choosing to help is to give children that would normally not be allowed to have children in the same respect, kids that have three times as much work to do as their peers or kids who do odd things, like, beach therapy. How do speech therapy. How do you explain that to the rest of their class . I want that to be a normal experience. I was working on a certificate and kind of getting think Early Childhood credits before i started working here, and we did a section on transgender inclusion, inclusion, which is a big issue here in San Francisco because we attract lots of queer families, and the teacher approached me and said i dont really feel comfortable or qualified to talk about this from, like, a cisgendered straight persons perspective, would you mind talking a little bit with your own experience, and im like absolutely. So im now one of the guest speakers in that particular class at city college. I love growing up here. I love what San Francisco represents. The idea of leaving has never occurred to me. But its a place that i need to fight for to bring it back to what it used to be, to allow all of those little kids that come from really unsafe environments to move somewhere safe. What ive done with my life is work to make all of those situations better, to bring a little bit of light to all those kind of issues that were still having, hoping to expand into a little bit more of a Resource Center, and this Resource Center would be more those new parents who have gotten that diagnosis, and we want to be this one centralized place that allows parents to breathe for a second. I would love to empower from the bottom up, from the kid level, and from the top down, from the teacher level. So many things that i would love to do that are all about changing peoples minds about certain chunts, like the Transgender Community or the autistic community. I would like my daughter to know theres no wrong way to go through life. Everybody experiences pain and grief and sadness, and that all of those things are temporary. Theres a new Holiday Shopping tradition, and shop and dine in the 49 is inviting everyone to join and buy black friday. Now more than ever, ever dollar that you spend locally supports Small Businesses and helps entrepreneurs and the community to thrive. This Holiday Season and yearround, make your dollar matter and buy black. The meeting is called to order at 211 p. M. On behalf of the Sheriff Department Oversight Board we like to thank sfgtv to broadcast and moderate the meetingism you may view the broadcast on cable channel 26. Please stand to recite the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Would you please call the roll