First its always the hardest and when they look back they really wont see you, but its the path that youre paving forward for the next one behind you that counts. Hi, my name is jajaida durden and im the acting superintendent for the bureau of forestry and i work for public works operations. And im over the landscaping, the shop and also the arborist crew. And some tree inspectors as well. I have been with the city and county of San Francisco for 17 years. And i was a cement mason, that was my first job. When i got here i thought that it was too easy. So i said one day ill be a supervisor. And when i run this place it will be ran different. And i i didnt think that it wod happen as fast as it did, but it did. And i came in 2002 and became a supervisor in 2006. And six months later i became the permanent supervisor over the shop. With all of those responsibilities and the staff youre also dealing with different attitudes and you have to take off one hat and put on another hat and put on another hat. And shes able shes displayed that she can carry the weight with all of these different hats and still maintain the respect of the director, the Deputy Director and all of the other people that she has to come in contact with. Shes a natural leader. I mean with her staff, her staff thinks highly of her. And the most important thing is when we have things that happen, a lot of emergencies, shes right by me and helps me out every time that i have asked. My inspiration is when i was a young adult was to become a fire woman. Well, i made some wrong decisions and i ended up being incarcerated, starting young and all the way up to an adult. When i was in jail they had a Little Program called Suppers Program and i supers program, and i met strong women in there and they introduced me to construction. I thought that the Fire Department would turn me down because i had a criminal history. So i looked into options of what kind of construction i could do. While i was in jail. And the program that i was in, they retrained us on living and how to make the right decisions and i chose construction. And cement mason didnt require a High School Diploma at that time so i figured i could do that. When i got out of jail they had a program in the philmore area and i went there. My first day out i signed up and four days later i started to work and i never looked back. I was an apprentice pouring concrete. And my first job was mount zion Emergency Hospital which is now ucsf. And every day that i drive by ucsf and i look at the old mount zion emergency, i have a sense of pride knowing that i had a part of building that place. Yeah, i did. I graduated as an apprentice and worked on a retrofit for city hall. I loved looking at that building and i take big pride in knowing that i was a part of that retrofit. My first for formen job was a 40 Story Building from the ground up. And its a predominantly male industry and most of the times people underestimate women. Im used to it though, its a challenge for me. As a female youre working with a lot of guys. So when they see a woman, first they dont think that the woman is in charge and to know that shes a person that is in charge with operations, i think that its great, because its different. Its not something i mean, not only a female but the only female of color. I was the first female finisher in the cement shop and i was the first crew supervisor, in the shop as a woman. When i became a two, the supervisors would not help me. In the middle, theyd call me a rookie, an apprentice and a female trying to get somewhere that she dont belong. Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. I didnt have any support from the shop. The ones who said they supported me, they didnt, they talked about me behind my back. Sometimes i had some crying, a lot of crying behind doors, not in public. But i had a lot of mentors. My mentor i will call and would pick up the phone and just talk, talk, talk, please help me. What am a i going to do . Hang in there. It was frustrating and disheartening, it really was. But what they didnt understand is that because they didnt help me i had to learn it. And then probably about a year later, thats when i started to lay down the rules because i had studied them and i learned them and it made me a good supervisor and i started to run the ship the way that i wanted to. It was scary. But the more i saw women coming through the shop, i saw change coming. I knew that it was going to come, but i didnt know how long it would take. It was coming. In the beginning when i first came here and i was the first woman here as a finisher, to see the change as it progressed and for me to become a permanent assistant superintendent over the cement shop right now, thats my highlight. I can look down at my staff and see the diversity from the women to the different coaches in here and know that no one has to ever go through what i went through coming up. And i foster and help everyone instead of pushing them away. Ill talk to women and tell them they can make it and if they need any help, come talk to me. And they com knock on my door ad ask how i move up and how i get training. Im always encouraging to go to school and encourage them to take up some of the training with d. P. W. And i would tell them to hold strong and understand that things that we go through today that are tough makes you stronger for tomorrow. Although we dont like hearing it at the time that were going through all of this stuff, it helps you in the long run to become a better woman and a person we came to seven straight about 10 years ago. 7th street about 10 years ago. The environment is huge. It is stronger than willpower. Surrounding yourself with artists, being in a culture where artists are driving, and where a huge amount of them is a healthy environment. You are making it safer. Push, push. That is better. When i start thinking, i see it actually sometimes, i do not see it, but when i do, it is usually from the inside out. It is like watching something being spawned. You go in, and you begin to work, excavate, play with the dancers, and then things began to emerge. You may have a plan that this is what i want to create. Here are the ideas i want to play with, but then, you go into the room, and there maybe some fertile ideas that are becoming manifest that are more interesting than the idea you had initially set out to plan. So there has to be this openness for spontaneity. Also, a sense that regardless of the deadline, that you have tons of time so the you can keep your creativity alive and not cut it off and just go into old habits. It is a lot like listening. Really listening to watch what is going to emerge. I like this thing where you put your foot on his back. Lets keep it. Were your mind is is how you build your life. If you put it in steel or in failure, it works. That works. It is a commitment. For most artists, it is a vacation and a life that they have committed themselves to. There is this notion that artists continue to do their work because of some kind of the external financial support. If that was taken away, artists would still do their art. It is not like there is a prerequisite for these things to happen or i will not do it. How could that be . It is the relationship that you have committed to. It is the vocation. No matter how difficult it gets, you are going to need to produce your art. Whether it is a large scale or very small scale. The need to create is going to happen, and you are going to have to fulfill it because that is your life. It is so key here. We have a window to do better. Next slide. And again, another very concerning situation. This related to the reproductive rate of 1. 25, so this means that we will have more people die, and if you follow that blue line, this means we would average, excuse me, 890 deaths from covid19 in 2020. Were at 50 right now, and by the end of the year, we could be at 890 with a reproductive rate of 1. 25, and again, unfortunately, those white shaded blue lines show we could get much higher scenarios, approaching 2,000, and even 3,000. So this is this is serious. This is a we are in a very concerning time right now with this reproductive rate of 1. 25, and we need to drive down below 1 as soon as possible. Next slide. But there is hope, and this is looking as of july 4, because we were looking at the july 4 weekend and asking everyone to do their part. If we could reduce that rate by half, we could dramatically reduce our hospitalizations and our death. We could go from the hundreds that we talked about to as few as 50 and 70. And even the scenarios that i showed you with those light blue shaded areas, we could see more deaths through 2020. So if we do our part, we could save lives and keep people out of the hospital. Again, even in the next two weeks, if we could all do our part, we could really make a difference. You see in the next two weeks, we wait for the reproductive number to reduce by 50 , we still have peak hospitalization at 340 and an estimated 220 deaths in 2020, so time really makes a difference. Next slide. So key introduction to reducing r. P. E. This the reproductive rate. This has real socioeconomic and other consequences, as well. Discouraging gatherings, especially inside, and i just want to emphasize right now that, really, please do not gather with people outside of your immediate household, and especially do not gather indoors, it is very dangerous to do that. Please, it is literally saving lives. And then, continuing to offer testing, expanding our testing, and contact tracing. Such key tools to our efforts Going Forward. Next slide. So i alluded to this, but really, riskiness of the activity, we know that outdoors is safer than indoors. Its at this point that, based on the latest data, its 10 to 20 times safer than being indoors. Its risking out to be involved in gatherings with people outside of your immediate household. Half of the people who transmit covid19 are asymptomatic. And you can get covid19 right after you test. So dont think that just because you test negative, you can get it from people that you hangout with or you can transmit it back to older people in your household. We continue to emphasize wearing face coverings, 6 feet of social distancing, and washing your hands. The frequency, the more people go out, the more they are putting themselves and their loved ones at risk. The duration, the longer people spend time together, the more risk it is for transmission, and then, the distance. This is why we are focused on the social distancing and the importance of that Going Forward. Next slide. And then, i did want to talk a little bit about hope Going Forward, and talk about vaccines are being looked at and developed, and unfortunately, theres not likely to be any vaccines soon. Key experts estimate it could be 12 to 18 months before a vaccine is widely available. Thats very different from saying a vaccine is going to be available in six months to a year. But im hopeful, according to mayor breed, that we will be testing extensively across the city and also at zuckerberg San FranciscoGeneral Hospital, and we will be focusing on engaging communities most at risk for covid19 to support them in participating in vaccine trials as soon as august. Thank you, mayor, and thats my completed presentation. The hon. London breed well, thank you, dr. Colfax. I know were at the end of our time here, but i do want to take this opportunity to just speak to the people in San Francisco who are struggling. There are some people who are struggling, who have no paychecks coming in, and its really hard. And what happens, in addition to the loss of your financial ability to take care of yourself and even your family, Mental Health becomes a whole other issue. And it seems as without our churches, our religious services, our ability to congregate and come together with one another, our spirituality as well as our coming together in the world, and our ability to socialize as we do on a regular basis, its almost as if were trading one Public Health crisis for another. We know, for example, Domestic Violence has gone up, suicides have gone up, people are more stressed in trying to figure out what to do with their lives. We see some of the Violent Crimes going up in the city. How do we justify that . The fact is you and i know were going to be living with covid for the 12 to 18 months or even longer, and so this is hitting in various ways as we try and keep people safe and try to prevent the surge in the hospitals and even deaths. But theres only so much we can emotionally handle as human beings, so ktell us how were supposed to deal with all of that . Thank you, mayor. I appreciate this, and again, this is such a challenging time, i would say the risks the downsides to the shelter in place and the slow reopening are very real and very concerning from a health standpoint and an economic standpoint. I think the Counter Point is no one has said, were going to go ahead and open quickly. As you see across the country, the Mental Health consequences of opening and having a surge, many people are struggling in San Francisco, but if we have a surge like we saw in new york or unfortunately like we saw in houston and parts of florida, we would have all of those concerns that youre talking about on top of the overwhelming the Hospital Systems due to covid19 plus the covid19 pandemic and everything that were dealing with and managing today. Unfortunately, theres downsides to where we are today, but theyre even worse. And we just want people to understand that these times are hard, but we have a pandemic in our city, and it could be much worse. Mayor, i have some numbers, and id like to give them. May i give them . The hon. London breed yes. So our warm number is 8558457415. And then, we also have mobile crisis, so for acute situations. Our number is 4159704000, and the last thing is if you see businesses that are violating the Health Orders around social distancing and good hygiene, please let us know. Please call 311. We will send inspectors out, and if people are violating those orders, we will take steps to aggressively make sure that they do. The hon. London breed and also, i want to push back a little bit. Outdoor activities are permissible in certain circumstances with guidelines, and i do think with regards to religious services, if people have the ability to have Outdoor Services or if there are ways that we can get creative with allowing other things to happen because i know your religion plays a role in things like this. I think its going to be important as we see changes in the number, we want to provide people with opportunities to deal with the challenges of what were facing over the next 12 to 18 months at least. Just think about whats going to happen with our kids and the schools and a number of other things. The fact that we have all of these playgrounds, and kids cant even play in playgrounds. It is heartbreaking for me that we cant even provide these opportunities, so i do want to think of these creative ways that we can support people. If youre one of these people that need help, mental help, testing, please call 311. We have a lot of city resources. Weve developed a lot of publicprivate partnerships to provide support you want. We know its not going to be everything that you want, but we do our best to support folks that are struggling in San Francisco. And the sad reality is its not just San Francisco, but its all over the country where we see this impacting our country, we see it impacting our economy, and the goal is to keep everybody safe, so this is our new normal. So thank you, dr. Colfax, and hopefully, well be able to have more conversations in the future. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at 311. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, mayor. Look at that beautiful jellyfish. The way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel powerful with simple actions to take every day. I was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. My dad was the rabbi in the community there. What i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. And learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your words. When i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. And then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to get into advertising and do graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. By the time i was in college, i decided i wanted to be a decorator. But as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. I only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. I found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. I went, volunteered and my life changed. Suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. Stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. I eventually moved up to San Francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of assembly through Los Angeles County and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about rainforest. One of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, im teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. It was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. The San Francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. We realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. The city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of the city feel and i love the symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix provides, we all have the power to transform our wor