And increase Public Safety in chinatown. We work hard to continue to build on their successes and legacy. They built great relationships and friendships in the Chinatown Community and our city family. Chinatown has been known as an underserved community. I want to personally thank officials, the mayor, commissioner peskin for their continued support and dedication to Public Safety and resources to chinatown. Thanks to you, we have more officers dedicated to you can wassing we have more officers working in chinatown. We have improved Traffic Safety and safety on muni we will continue to work on. Thank you. applause thank you very much. Thank you. You have to protect the hair. Youre absolutely right. Hello everyone. Im the new executive director and happy to be back in San Francisco. Were looking forward to making it another celebration of a crimefree Lunar New Year. When the event was started 21 years ago it was a time when San Francisco was often fearful because of the extortion and pick pocketing that was common. Until recently extortion cases were in the hundreds and now down to very few. Were thrilled to say the reports of Lunar New Year related crimes directly related to our work and building connections with neighborhoods and businesses and folks like you in the community. I hope you join us as we walk the neighborhood to visit our neighbors and share more tips while we celebrate the Lunar New Year. Well hold another event like this tomorrow at mr. Bread. We hope to see you there. To help launch one of the San Francisco great celebration seasons, a native and someone i have known for a long time, i want to introduce acting mayor london breed. applause thank you. No job too big or too small. laughter thank you commander lazar for protecting my hair today. laughter he doesnt just protect people, he protects hair. Good afternoon everyone. I want to start by thanking sf safe executive director for being here and congratulations on your new role. This is another incredible event. We host it every year. I want to thank and acknowledge, i know many of my colleagues are here and will be speaking, thank you to chief scott for being here and carmen chew. This is a good moment to remind people to be aware. The Lunar New Year brings so many people to San Francisco, but specifically to our great chinatown. And the festivities, although we have a good time and love the excitement of it all, it sadly provides an opportunity for criminals. We need our residents to be vigilant and alert. And please remember, if you see something, say something. Shortly after mayor lees passing i met with a number of chi chinatown leaders and heard some of their concerns and sadly some of the examples going on, including the asian blessing scams that have targeted seniors. To help address the issues im announcing today were adding two foot patrol officers to join the chinatown Central Station from 11 00 a. M. To 9 00 p. M. So a total of seven officers walking the beats and in the area during that time. The two new officers will be joining the one sergeant and four officers of the Housing Units that are already a part of the shifts. And i want to stop and thank all of the Police Officers who are here today who continue to serve and protect our neighborhoods and i want to thank captain yip and the folks at Central Station for the work they put in specifically. By working closely, well make sure the neighborhood is a safe and secure place for all of its residents. I wish you have a safe and prosperous Lunar New Year. speaking chinese thank you. applause i want to introduce one of our most crucial partners for building connections between San Francisco and officers, welcome chief of police mr. Scott. applause thank you. Thank you mayor breed. Im going to be brief and get you guys out of the rain hopefully. Thank you to everybody who came here today and braved the rain to talk about safety for the Lunar New Year. Happy new year. This will be a prosperous year for our city. This is the 21st year that sf safe has given Safety Awareness tips for the Lunar New Year and i know our campaign on Public Safety is really about the people and keeping everybody safe and making sure people dont get victimized. First of all, i want to remind everybody to be aware, we have had some i believe targeting of some of our asian merchants. We need people to be aware of that issue. Im going to talk about a few tips to help people with that. Blessing scams have been an issue in the community and we dont want anybody to fall prey to that. Be aware of strangers, if anybody is asking for money or jewelry or anything like that, you might want to take caution and be aware. Dont follow strangers home and dont bring any to your home. Dont bring strangers to withdraw money or take out valuables in their presence. Before withdrawing large sums of money or valuables, have a discussion with people you trust in your family first. Often times people act on emotion and thats what the scam artists and people who prey on this type of person, thats what they do. They play on emotions. So often times when you talk to other people, you have a chance to collect your thoughts and think twice before you act. Please talk with someone you trust in your family or a good friend before withdrawing large sums of money. Our commitment to providing education for the merchants is ongoing. Well have merchant walks, im going to rollout the calendar, i think over 2,000 of these got it upside down but i think theyll be given to the merchants and it has safety tips as well, those will be readily available to remind people what to do to stay safe. Also, Pedestrian Safety is really of the upmost importance. San francisco through the leadership and vision of mayor ed lee has engaged in vision zero and what that means, we want to cut traffic fatalities down to zero by 2024. We believe what was once a distant vision and dream, were well on our way to make it happen. We need your help. Pedestrian safety is very important, particularly in chinatown. Its a condensed area. Please dont drive distracted and if youre walking dont walk distracted. Those simple things can help reduce accidents and fatalities and be kind to neighbors and friends in terms of allowing the pedestrians to walk about the street freely without having to worry about distracted driving. One of our commitments is Language Access. We know we have a lot of non English Speaking residents and people who visit and live in the city. And sfpd is committeed to giving Language Access to those who dont speak english. So our officers are trained, we have translators and access is a huge thing in the community. We need people to report what they see. We need people to feel comfortable talking to us, the Police Officer and the District Attorneys Office and other people in the criminal justice sxm access is really, really important for us. Our training is ongoing and were working with a lot of stakeholders from the community to make sure the Language Access is not a problem for anybody. I can go on further but im going to stop there. I know we have a lot of people who want to speak today. I want to say thank you for your support and its a pleasure to work with you and lets have a safe chinese Lunar New Year. Thank you. applause throughout his time District Attorney has been a fantastic partner, including prosecuting the people who committed blessing scams. District attorney. Thank you. And happy year of the dog to everyone. Its wonderful to be here today, even with the rain. We were talking that weve had years here where we have to wear sunblock and today we wear as umbrellas. We continue to move forward for Public Safety in this community and other communities. Years ago we would be talking about blessing scams and the first jurisdiction in the country to prosecute the cases successfully and theyre not what they used to be. But nevertheless, we need to continue to be vigilant. Were still having people who are victimized and we depend on the media, specifically the Chinese Media because its a crime that impacts the Chinese Community mostly, our phone number is 4155519595. Its a 24 7 phone. We take cases and we work with our partners at sf safe who are great incredible partners and the police department. But at the end of the day, this is a collaboration and community plays an important role. Happy Lunar New Year and thank you for all you do. I look forward to the parade and the merchant walk today and i just want to take a moment and i know its in all of our hearts, maybe if we can take one moment of silence in memory of mayor lee. This is a community that obviously he had very, very deeply ties to it and we all should recognize that. So if you would take a moment of silence please. Thank you and happy Lunar New Year. applause now i would like to introduce a 30 year district three resident who faithfully represents the businesses and people at city hall, everyones supervisor peskin. Thank you. speaking chinese all right i want to first, i want to thank and welcome sf safe for doing this for over 20 years, what she said is right, we have seen the number of extortion cases drop year after year. Im delighted to continue to do this to stay vigilant. Thank you chief scott and captain yip and men and women of the San Francisco police department. You can see how important it is, from our acting mayor that every member of the board of supervisors, we take it seriously. Let me leave you with one thought to the media to say again and again, report, report, report. If people do not report extortion, we are only as good as the eyes and ears that we have in the community. We have Language Access as you heard, but please, send the message that people should feel comfortable contacting the police, contacting elected officials to keep our community safe. applause she is smart and Solutions Oriented representative for San Francisco, growing up in a family running a Small Business, please welcome miss carmen chew. Im pleased to be here with everybody as well. I think theres a phrase our supervisor didnt say in chinese. He said them all. He didnt say chinese which means have many children to everybody. Happy new year. Im glad to be here. I really think its important for all of us to get together to remind everybody about the importance of reporting crime. We talked about blessing scams, i think our District Attorney spoke about that earlier. I think people know the scammers are very smart. They figure out new ways to trick people and get access to your information and money. So whether it is pretending to be the Consulate Generals Office or blessing scam, be aware and make sure you dont provide personal information to people. chinese applause someone who has worked closely on the issue and long time advocate for chinatown merchants, eddie owl. Hi everyone. Good afternoon. On behalf of the Chinese Chamber of commerce, i want to thank San FranciscoSafe Organization for working to create a safe environment in which our Small Business can thrive. The fight against extortion is extremely important. Especially as Lunar New Year approaches. For over 20 years, will continue support this effort and educate and encourage merchants to report any attempted extortion preparing for the upcoming new year festivities. We must remain aware and work with our local police to ensure the safety of our community. Thank you. speaking chinese speaking chinese come february 16th and join with us new year day. Thank you. Next, another ally in building strong connections across San Francisco cultures. Someone i have been grateful to collaborate with in my career in San Francisco. I want to welcome chinese Newcomer Service director george chan. Hello everyone. Im george chan, the executive director of Newcomer Service center. Thank you for letting us join this event. speaking chinese applause okay. Our next speaker is someone i have had the pleasure of working with, we have worked together on crosscultur crosscultural collaborations, please welcome sarah wong. I want to shout out to all the Community Based organizations, helping out and walking along in chinatown to talk to merchants about safety during new year. I want to shout out to all the special volunteers. Thank you for their work. I wish everyone well, health and happiness in the year of the dog. Thank you. applause now i want to Welcome Assembly member choy, representing chinatown. Good afternoon everyone. Good to see everyone on a classically sunny day in San Francisco. I apologize for being late, i just got here from a floor session in the assembly. But thank you for being part of the important safety announcement. This is a press conference i have taken part in virtually every year ive been in office. Its so important to not just wish everyone a happy Lunar New Year but make sure were safe. I know there have been speakers who have talked about fraud and blessing scams but its so important to get the word out. I want to take a moment to mention another safety issue that has been threatened to our immigrant communities and that is the recent suggestion and announcement by president trumps immigration authorities that they may be coming down into Northern California in the coming weeks and months to do widespread raids of our communities. Just this past hour, in sacramento, our attorney general announced we will be certainly enforcing a law that i authored this past year, that is the immigrant Worker Protection act to ensure that if ice agents come knocking on the doors of work places like restaurants, that employ many immigrant workers, employers are required to ask for subpoenas or judicial warrants before allowing the ice agents to do raids on their work places. I want to help educate the public about this because we are expecting raids imminently and its important we are prepared as a community that knows how important our immigrant families and workers are in San Francisco and in california. But with that, i want to wish everybody a happy Lunar New Year and thank you to the organizers and safe for keeping us safe. Hello. I think were all going to come together on the board of supervisors. We want to wish you all a happy new year. speaking chinese happy new year to everyone. Im a proud representative, im Hillary Ronen and i want to wish everyone a safe and happy Lunar New Year. speaking chinese i want to thank project safe for doing this and well be walking in the second chinatown San Francisco doing the same thing with our merchants. Happy Lunar New Year to everyone. speaking chinese good afternoon everyone. Im commissioner safai. I want to thank the District Attorney and police chief from being here today, i am a true believer on deterring crime and what cameras can do and we saw that firsthand in our community. Weve had a wave of home breakins and one of the things that is very helpful in determining the crime are the Home Security cameras. I want to encourage people to think about deterring crime. Happy Lunar New Year and year of the dog. Have much luck and fortune in the new year. Im jane kim and im proud to represent the downtown area, including the market and tenderloin and treasure island. I want to as everyone else had remind everybody to be safe in one of the most important events here in San Francisco, celebrating our new year. I want to recognize sf safe and sfpd for their partnership. This is my eighth year participating in this press conference and helping hundreds of people remain safe during if festivities. Good luck to all of our residents. I want to thank and recognize paul yip but our captains working the parades and festivities, darrell fong who is here today, i know will be working closely and from the tenderloin station, well be working in concert together to make sure residents and workers are safe as we celebrate the year of the dog. And finally in regards to making sure that were all aware of whats going on with the blessing scams, i want to appreciate San Francisco police chie