Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Im al williams, president of the board of directors of San Francisco africanamerican historical and cultural society. On behalf of the society and our copresenters, the San Francisco africanamerican chamber of commerce, the bayview ymca, senator mark lenos office, the San Francisco public library, and the Mayors Office of neighborhood services, welcome to the 2013 black History Month program. The 2013 black History Month theme is at the crossroads of freedom and equality, the emancipation proclamation and the march on washington. The society is the lineal descendant of the San Francisco atheneum. It has been the only San Francisco institution that is dedicated to documenting, preservinging and presenting true accounts of the history of people of african descent in San Francisco. The society is a membershipbased organization. Without the hard work of our members and friends, the society wouldnt be able to p
Good afternoon, everyone. All right. Welcome to city hall and happy black History Month here in San Francisco. Nobody got it better than San Francisco. applause thank you, naomi. I want to thank you for that introduction and just a recall of what i said earlier this week. But i also said something else, too, that i want you to continuously know the way i have attempted to manage this great city of ours for everybody. That is, im not shy about asking for help. And when it comes to the challenges we have in the africanamerican community, we need help. And i have been deliberately assembling a very Important Group of people who are going to help me get the job done. And youve seen some of these people already. They are malia cohen, london breed at the board. They have to face all the different politics. But i know theyre going to be great partners with me because weve got the right objectives to happen. We want everybody included in the city. We have naomi kelly, harlan kelly, mohammed nu
With these people in these important positions or some tremendous progress, i dont know where else to look because this is a great start. Yes. applause but we also have tremendous help from people who are helping us create the policies and the accountability in all the different departments. Melva davis, kim brandon, willie adams at the port, chuck collins, [speaker not understood], the reverend amos brown, denise tyson, linda richardson, sonya harris, patricia thomas, veronica honeycut, these are just the names of a few of our commissioners who are heading up those very important divisions of our city. And they are joining with me and with the supervisors and with the Department Heads to do what mrs. Obama asked us to do. Whenever we occupy these public positions throughout the city or throughout the state or throughout the nation, we do the right thing, we keep the doors of opportunity open and enriched for everybody else. And were already seeing it happen. Yesterday i was at the lun
We have a major, major problem in d10. And we need it start addressing it. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, some of you in the audience probably know who i am. I have been in the Construction Business for about 40 years. I raised a family in bayview. And when i went into the Construction Business there were 150 black contractor and today there are three. Let me tell you how that happened, the white people in this city has gone on a journey to run every black person out of San Francisco. When the population was 28 black, and today its less than 6 . I know that a lot of black people have good jobs. And you think that everything will be all right as long as you beg these white people for money. But they are not interested in us as black people and they are not going to do much for you if anything. They have taken all the money out of the programs. They have run every black contractor out of San Francisco. And the biggest insult i had today, that i come in here and they have signs in t
I apologize. This cheap has made it clear. He has gone and told the officers. The message is clear. If you have made a mistake and are having a tough time, this commission will work with you, but if you lie, you will be gone, and that is pretty clear. Commissioner chan i wanted to ask about language access. I thought we had scheduled it for another week, but i cannot find it. I know the occ has been involved, so if the occ would like to copresent, i would welcome that. We had asked for an update on where they are, what they have implemented. President mazzucco commissioner slaughter . Commissioner slaughter thank you, president mazzucco. This goes into your priorities matrix, to speak. The idea that we as a commission ought to consider how often we need to meet, a big part of why we regularly meet is to handle what had been a very serious disciplinary caseload. They could be meeting rather than four times a month. I think it is something we ought to consider as a group. I think there w