Transcripts For SFGTV Juneteenth 20240705

For today. Mr. Shawn william. We are not doing that. Some of yall is acting like you dont have hot burns on the back of your neck right now. Acting real upty, this is our celebration and you guys are acting real real real upty right now. Happy juneteenth. [applause] stop playing with me. This mic moves, i can go everywhere. I see you. We are going to be celebrating us, black music. Really just music because music is black music. We create when we have nothingwe create everything, not something, everything. So, we are going to be celebrating ourselves, our music, our culture, our heritage and there are two rules. Rules on a celebration . Yes. Rules on a celebration. Rule number one, there are a lot of influential people, inspirational people and young people who are inspirational in here. Look to your, front, back, right. We are family in here. Get all this golf clap out of your system now. We are not doing that today. Introduce yourselves. Get to know each other. Yes. Alright. I like that. I like that. We will be passing around the offerings in a minute, because we still have Building Fund to make sure we get that building. Rule number two, and this is very important, i am mc for the evening. That means my job is to move this crowd. I receive my check early. It cleared. I would like to be the mc this year and year after that. You guys, rule two, enjoy yourselves. There will be a lot of great music up here. We are not people of trouble, we are people of bass and drum so when the music hits your soul you better not give me that piedmont golf clap stuff. I know some have good iras and credit scores, but leave the 9 to 5 on the shelf and enjoy yourselves. We are going to enjoy ourselves. We are going to act like there is a wood en spoon and fork on the wall. We are going to act like there is a freezer behind me with a crisco can and chicken grease and you cannot mix those. We will be black like you got to go to the kitchen, go out to the garage, to the third freezer and get that meat. Get the neck bones and ham hocs and thaw it in the sink. We are going to enjoy our blackness. I like to come back next year. There are a lot coming up and move you. A lot of great speakers coming up. This is Second Annual. Enjoy your is lf. Celebrate yourself, embrace your blackness and learn how far our music has come. With that being said, i will bring up the first speaker, coming up. It is a honor and pleasure to bring up this woman. Please make sure your respect every personnot yet . We are go toog ing to get in the African Dance. Hold on. We are going to get in the African Dance. indiscernible they are not asking me to come back just for that. Shoot. Amira. I got help. My family helped me out because i like to come back. Give it up for the African Dance act. No, no. That is golf clap. I messed it up. Lets make the noise and start clapping. Lets start clapping. Thank you very much. [music in the background] [unable to hear speaker] [singing] [singing and clapping] [singing and clapping] we are free [singing] [applause] [singing] give it up one more time. Give it up one more time [singing and drums] everyone please give it up one more time clap it. Clap it up. Clap it up for them. Also, we are asking if you are in the back to please minimize your conversation, because we can hear it up here in the front. I want to make sure we give the performers the respect they deserve. Sarah can you hear me . I can hear you can you hear me clear . Loud and clear. That means if you can hear me back here you can hear me talking back here so we want to respect everyone who comes up to the microphone. I know you are talking about the show is so great and look at the costumes, but if we can keep it to a Church Whisper we greatly appreciate it for all the artists who comes up here and speakers. It is very important we listen to everyone as they come up. Also, you dont have to stand. You guys do to protect us. You dont have to be on the wall. There are all kinds of seats where you can sit. There are seats over there, so please, you will be here a little while, so please, keep it going. So, with that being said, im going to bring up the next speaker, the correct speaker, thank you very much for the assistance. We are going to bring up an very important person, start clapping now, not the golf clap for ms. Felicia jones. Keep it going. [applause] thank you so much. Thank you so much. What i want you to do is everybody stand up. Put your hands up in the air and wave them flags like you just dont care. It is juneteenth. Freedom day, jubilee day, emancipation day. Wave them line you just dont care like you are enjoying what we are doing for you. Thank you so much. I see you in the back. Thank you so much. We are happy to have you. Thank you and look you guys are in here honey. Our Second Annual mayor london breed juneteenth kickoff. Yes. And we want to say thank you to our mayor and often times i call her my mayor, my boo, and anyone who knows me knows how much i love me some mayor breed, so we want to say thank you for all that you do. I understand that you have been on the news a lot, but everybody want to look at what shes not doing, but honey, you need to start reading those press releases so you can learn about what she is doing. [applause] alright. Clap it up. What she is doing clap it up. Come on people. Clap it up. All you dki recipients up in here, getting money because of mayor breed and shamann walton, show your appreciation for these two on juneteenth day. Aint nobody else did anything for black folks in San Francisco like the dki initiative. And so we say thank you. We say thank you. I want to say hello to all our esteemed guests. Chief. Hi chief nicholson, hi deputy chief, hi okay. Hi kimberley, hi shamann, hi i i dont know you. Im new. Im engardio. Thank you. Da brooks. And then too from my other employer, chief adams. Assistant chief carter. Chief fisher in the back. Anybody else from San Francisco Sheriff Department . Anyone else . Did i miss any other electeds . Who . You are pointing, i dont know who you are pointing to. Oh, preston. Hi, dean preston. Supervisor preston, welcome. Yes. Of course. Where is dr. Davis . Director dr. Cheryl davis. Yes, we love her. We love her. And so with that, you know, im going to let you sit down while we bring up shamann. Throw the flags in the air and wave them like you just dont care it is juneteenth. It is juneteenth and heres shamann walton, board of superriser. Thank you so much felicia. Real quick before i say a few words. I you want to stand up if you black. Stand up if you black. So, i did that because i just wanted to see who claim us. So, i know when i walk outside. Thank you everybody. You can sit down. So, first of all, as you know, juneteenth is a celebration, and it is celebration of a time period where slaves in texas did not realize and understand they were free and this was in 1865. And it took us all the way till 2022 to be recognized as a national holiday, but i want to thank everyone in this room. I want to thank all the leaders in the city. I want to thank everyone across the state and country to come together to make sure juneteenth is recognized as a national holiday. You did that. Give yourselves a hand. [applause] and we should not just be celebrating juneteenth and celebrating freedom when we get to this certain time period in june. We should be celebrating freedom, juneteenth, the accomplishments of black people, 24 7. Not just in june and not just in february. [applause] now, there is another thing that happened in 1865, which makes the work we have been doing here in San Francisco so prevalent today. We were promised 40 acres and a mule in 1865. Raise your hand if your ancestors got that 40 acres and a mule. Okay, just checking. Just seeing who is here with me. So, as we continue to make sure that we do everything we can in black leadership here in San Francisco with the dream keeper initiative, with the folks who are working down at community making sure our people are connected to services, connected to resources, receiving or just doing San Francisco, it is also very prevalent that we remember the reparations we were promised that we never received. So well keep fighting here in the city to make sure that black people receive their just due. We will make sure we right the wrongs of the past and we will make sure that we achieve equity here as a black community. I just want to say, thank you all for coming to celebrate with us on this Second Annual Juneteenth Celebration right here in city hall. As you know, we have a black mayor. As you know, we have a lot of black leadership here in San Francisco and we cannot let this be the end of black leadership as we go into the future. [applause] so, with that said, remember we have a gala tonight, remember we have a celebration in fillmore tomorrow, celebration in bayview sunday. Celebrate juneteenth, enjoy yourself, have a good time and make sure you understand the meaning and why we celebrate this now, national holiday. Thank you. [applause] give give it up one more time for shamann walton. About to get into the music portion. You ready for some music . That was weak. You ready for some music . Alright. We are about to get into right now. It is a spiritual with director cheryl evan davis. Father daughter dance. Our Journey Continues with jazz with sara and blues are teri. Make noise now for the artists who are about to rock the stage right now. Lets go. I often blame the mayor for people thinking i can sing. I will ask you all to do me a favor. First and foremost is recognize and understand the role of spiritual in the black experience and so i would say it is a dual purpose in the song and in the singing so ill ask you to do your best as im singing to listen to the words, and think about them with that dual message. On one front, it is about hope, and the belief that things will get better. That it is about whether it happens on this earth or in heaven or in the by and by, and on the other hand it is hidden message. It is call to freedom, it is call to the underground railroad, it is call to escape, so im just going to ask you to be thinking about that as we go through that. Ill ask you all that do believe to be praying. [piano playing and singing] give it up one more time, one more time for your director cheryl evan davis, lord [music and singing] [applause] please give it up one more time for rico and mazia. [applause] [piano playing] [singing] [applause] thank you. So, i think a lot of you might know this, so go ahead and sing it with me. [piano and singing] [singing summertime and the living is easy] please give it up for marcus, dante and george. [singing] give it one more time for sanging. That wasnt singing, that was sanging. Everybody alright . We good . Alright. You good in the back . I know you are, because we hear you. Take a moment to shake that off. That was good. Sara. Sit in it for a minute. Im a blues singer. All this music you hear today, it came from the blues. We are the root. Im going to do a song by one of my favorite blues singers, gospel singer ms. indiscernible can you put your hands together . This is message i think Everyone Needs to hear. [guitar and singing] [applause] im going to do a song i wrote. You see, we have seen a lot of changes happen around here in the bay area, and this song was inspired when was on facebook, and the police were called on the church for worship ing too loud and there was a drum circle on the lake and they were calling the police on the drummers. This song is entitled, gentrification blues. [drums, guitar, singing] give it up one more time it is beautiful how we can take pain and make it into just pleasure. I see people using fans now like it is church. It is getting hot, yeah with that being said, we are about to take it to 1959. Take it to a place called detroit, aka the motor city, where there was this brother named berry gordy who started a company with only 800 and decided to call it motown, home of iconi was about to say legends but icon like stevie wonder, jackson 5, michael jackson, the supremes and my mamas favorite, marvin. Start clapping now for the San Francisco theater company. Nate the soul singer and ryan. How you doing . We got a couple temptation songs for you. You all ready for that . Alright, lets go. [singing] thank you thank you thank you. Im rodney earl jackson, jr. , artistic director of the theater company. Anthony jackson. Amen, amen, amen. We got one more for you because our wonderful may loves this song but dedicated to all the beautiful black ladies in here. Especially looking at dr. Cheryl davis and looking at my beautiful mother. Alright. Alright. Im going to take the glasses off for this. Get into the motown spirit. [singing i got sunshine by the temptations] you all know this next part. Come on london, i need ya. [singing continued] thank you so much. Happy juneteenth hello everyone. My name is nate the soul singer and im going to come to you about r b music. Im a r b artist myself. I had to do studying and get history. R b music was born in the 40. Lewis jordan is one of the first r b artist with is you is or is you isnt my baby. Since we had so much old school i decided to do more in my era which i think youll all enjoy. R b music has done a lot of things. Talks about love. Talks about heart break. Money. Having it, wanting it, needing it. My job is to get you all out of you seats today. So, we can party to this r b music. Come on and of course if you know any of these songs, please sing with me. [singing how will i know by whitney houston] thank yall. [applause] and there were groups by the fugees. [singing killing me softly by the fugees] thank you all. Thank you all. While you are on your feet i got one. You all ready . One, two, three one more time, you all ready . [singing outstanding by the gap band] i want to thank you all again. Happy juneteenth keep dancing. Keep loving and keep growing. [piano playing] how you all feeling out there San Francisco . Alright. Give it up for my name is ryan nicole representing hip hop for you all and before we get into it, i want to give history. Hiphop started as a protest. It didnt start as a party. We know hip hop music more blinging flashy and ratchet but that isnt how we are going to do it today. Is that okay with you all . We are going to start with the word because the word is where hip hop started. It started as spoken word first. Do you know we are the Center Black People are the center. Another word for the center is the nexus. Right . We make this whole thing go down. We make this whole thing happen, so juneteenth is about freedom and releashing the shackles but first freedom in your mind. We are the nexus, meaning the freshest, meaning the center of attention, the essence, the light source, indandescence, the shunshine, bright florescent, caept reject it. Better if you accept this. Elevating position indiscernible people stay connected, i am what i am, indiscernible [singing] lets get free. Come on. First time being free. We got to get free in the mind. [singing] [applause] thank you. So, hip hop. Protest music. Hip hop also talks about love. We going to do some things we dont normally hear on the radio. We are going to do love stuff. Ill do the last song and get out your ways because we have more performances coming up. My name is ryan nicole. This is love song. A little sweet. It aint but bumping and grinding, even though im not mad at that, but i feel youve been inundated with that. Can you two step with me now . Im grown yall. I cant be bumping and grinding and twurking and all that. My knews hurt. Got arthritis. [singing] erking and all that. My knees hurt. Got arthritis. [singing] [applause] lord have mercy. Give it one more time for ryan nicole give it up one more time for the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Company and one last time when a sister tears up a stage like that you have to get her name right, nate, the soul singer. We would like to also recognize mr. Reverend brown. Give it up. From the baptist church. You having a good time . You enjoying yourselves . Why not because it is evolution of our music so of course you having a good time. Im about to bring up a sister one more time to make sure she has announcements. Start clapping right now had, give it up for ms. Felicia jones one more time [applause] yes the evolution of our music. If you enjoyed yourself, one more time, stand up with your flags in your hand and raise them to the sky like you just dont care. I mean, im sitting over there and im just like, wow if director asked me next year to do this again, it is like wow, what am i going to do, because this has been fabulous. This has been fabulous and can im so glad you enjoyed yourselves. We are going to close out with the caribbean vibration. The caribbean vibrations are in the house. Uhhuh they going to show you what they working with. Yes i love them, because my cousin, my first cousin, my second cousin have all danced with this group for over 30 years, and so, she has been asking to come into city hall and i was like, okay. Evolution of music, i got to close this out with a bang. I got to close it out, girl. Here we are. Shawn, you going to introduce them . Thank you all so much for coming and again, im so happy you guys enjoyed yourselves and our house and our house and our house and we have to be comfortable and coming into our house by the name of city hall. [applause] give it up one more time for ms. Felicia jones. Im go to read this off the bio so wasnt like i wasnt doing my homework but we want to bring them up correct. So, caribbean vibrations launched in 2010. You can start clapping right now. By founder, designer, dance choreographer trisha bell fast williams a native ofnot only know for the vibrations and vibrant and beautiful costumes but the ultimate and authentic carnival experience in Northern California representing all caribbean islands. Steadily growing and evolving into a powerhouse mass band and focused on our masqueraders. Establish a new standard and serving becoming the first all inclusive Caribbean Carnival Group. I dont think you heard me, established as a new standard. Becoming the first all inclusive Caribbean Carnival Group in california. Caribbean vibration mission is deliver the masquerade with amazing costume, Exceptional Service and teaching of cultural caribbean dance. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for caribbean vibrations [applause] caribbean vibrations caribbean vibrations [music] hello everyone. Welcome to the bayview bistro. It is just time to bring the Community Together by deliciousness. I am excited to be here today because nothing brings the Community Together like food. Having amazing food options for and by the people of this community is critical to the success, the longterm success and stability of the bayviewhunters point community. I am nima romney. This is a mobile cafe. We do soul food with a latin twist. I wanted to open a truck to son nor the soul food, my African Heritage as well as mylas as my latindescent. I have been at this for 15 years. I have been cooking all my life pretty much, you know. I like cooking ribs, chicken, links. My favorite is oysters on the grill. I am the owner. It all started with banana pudding, the mother of them all. Now what i do is take on traditional desserts and pair them with pudding so that is my ultimate goal of the business. Our goal with the bayview bristow is to bring in businesses so they can really use this as a launching off point to grow as a single business. We want to use this as the opportunity to support Business Owners of color and those who have contributed a lot to the community and are looking for opportunities to grow their business. These are the things that the San Francisco Public Utilities commission is doing. They are doing it because they feel they have a responsibility to san franciscans and to people in this community. I had a grandmother who lived in bayview. She never moved, never wavered. It was a house of security answer entity where we went for holidays. I was a part of bayview most of my life. I cant remember not being a part of bayview. I have been here for several years. This space used to be unoccupied. It was used as a dump. To repurpose it for Something Like this with the bistro to give an opportunity for the local vendors and food people to come out and showcase their work. That is a great way to give back to the community. This is a great example of a publicprivate community partnership. They have been supporting this including the San Francisco Public Utilities commission and Mayors Office of workforce department. Working with the joint Venture Partners we got resources for the space, that the businesses were able to thrive because of all of the opportunities on the way to this community. Bayview has changed. It is growing. A lot of things is different from when i was a kid. You have the t train. You have a lot of new business. I am looking forward to being a Business Owner in my neighborhood. I love my city. You know, i went to city college and fourth and mission in San Francisco under the chefs ria, marlene and betsy. They are proud of me. I dont want to leave them out of the journey. Everyone works hard. They are very supportive and passionate about what they do, and they all have one goal in mind for the bayview to survive. All right. It is time to eat, people. My name is tiffany cobb and i work for the San Francisco fire department. I was raised by a single parent. I grew up with a very strong work ethic mental ity. I would like to compare it to a bar back and anticipated the needs and the call. You will provide the needs and complete the call. The favorite part of the job is when i can actually connect with a patient and utilize your people skills as a human being. Sometimes its not a medical need. They just want someone to talk to, someone to listen to and want to be seen as a person and want to be recognized and see them as they are. Those are my important calls. I remember being a seven or nine Year Old Girl and never seen anyone like me in a fire engine and that gave me hope that i can do that. There are people like me that can do that job. Sometimes people need to feel nurtured and feel safe. I feel like i can bring that to my patients. You maybe feel afraid. Just try it out. Thats what i did. Just never give up. I was told no. I failed the fire academy. Im still here and i never quit. Just learn from your mistakes and never give up on yourself. Im in station 49. Eventually i would like to utilize my skills as a fire paramedic and hopefully become an officer some day. For San Francisco, i said this in my interview, its like the new york of the west coast. It has everything i wanted to be a part of. It has ems and has a rich history and blue collar history which i absolutely love. I want to be a part of that. [music] 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] San Francisco is a positive impact on my chinese business. Im the founder of joejoe. Im a San Francisco based chinese artist. I grew up in the bayview district. I am from china i started at an early age i started at age of 10 my grandfather my biggest inspiration. And i have followed with my traditional art teacher in china i host educational workshops at the museum and local library. And i also provide chinese writing in Public Middle School and that way i hold more people fall in love with the beautiful of our chinese calligraphy. It is a part of our heritage. And so we need to keep this culture alive. Hand writing is necessary field that needs to be preserved generation toieneration. This art form is fading away. But since covid i have been very dedicated to this art and i hope that my passions and serving this art form. There are many stores and Shopping Centers and companies that are interested in chinese cal iing ravi. I feel motivated to my passion for chinese calligraphy in todays world. So people can always enjoy the beauty of chinese calligraphy, from time to time i have a choice to traditional chinese calligraphy to make it more interesting. We do calligraphy on paper. I can do calligraphy different low. My inspiration is from nature and provide calligraphy that was popular style of persons time. I will invite to you check out my website or instagram. And there is some events and updated Upcoming Events that you can participate. [music] Digital Literacy is something severely lacking in our world today and it takes a lot to understand that. Food water and shelter have basic necessities so long we forget about wifi and connection to the interenet and when you go into communities and realize peep ople are not able to load homework and talk to teachers and out of touch with the world. By providing the network and system we are able to allow them to keep up in the modern age. Folks still were not served by internet throughout the city and tended to be low income people, people in affordable housing. People of color and limited english and seniors, all those are high concentrations in affordable housing, so we thought given that we had a Fiber Network that stretched throughout the city reaching deep into neighborhoods that would be a perfect opportunity to address it in San Francisco. The infrastructure the city and star help us run are dejtle programs. It played a Critical Role from the time we opened during covid till now so we were able to collaborate with Online Services that offer tutoring and school support. It also helped us be able to log the kids on for Online School during covid, in addition to like, now that everybody has switched most of their curriculum online we can log kids on to the online homework, check grades in addition to helping parent learn how to use the School System portm the office of Digital Equity our goal fiber to housing is insure we have all three legs of the 3 legged stool. The first leg is high quality Internet Connection. We liken the high quality Internet Connection to the highway. The second leg is high quality devices. This is the car. You want to make sure the specks on the car is up to speed and lastly, it is important to get kind of that drivers education to learn how to navigate the road, to know the signs to watch out for in terms of making sure you are school while you are surfing the internet it is private so that is the Digital Literacy piece. My daily life i need the internet just to do pretty much everything. The internet has taken so much control over peoples daily lives including myself that i just need it to get certain jobs done, i need it for my life. I need it. The program really seeks to where ever possible provide a service thats equivalent or higher speed and quality as the best commercial service. We serve all of San Francisco, but we definitely have to be equitable in our distribution of services. That means everybody gets what they need to be successful. Actually one of the most gratifying part of my work here at department of technology, it is really bringing city resources to address problems faced with our communities with the highest need. I think it is important because i grew up in a low Income Community without Internet Access and it is hard. I think it is important for everyone to have Internet Access no matter their income and maybe one day their kid will have Internet Access for us and help the school and with their skills. Okay welcome, everyone, good afternoon this meeting will come to order. Welcome to the june 12, 2023 regular meeting of land use and Transportation Committee of the San Francisco board of supervisors im supervisor melgar chair. Joined by supervisor preston and board of supervisor president aaron supervisor peskin. The Committee Clerk is stefani cabrera. Ir would like on acknowledge sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. Do you have