Environment, you dont know where theyve come from or theyve been in ship holds which is really hot, just as a number one rule, if you smell something plastic dont drink out of it. Thats good advice. I have two questions, theyre a little bit unrelated but the first one goes on the scheme of plastic, so plastic wrap, plastic bags, you know, its great to say we should all use glass but we know whats used out there is plastic, and its reusable, you can come up with all these ways to avoid it but theres plastic everywhere and its accessible and cheap, so plastic wrap gets used a lot, there arent that many alternatives that can do what plastic wrap does, i dont use a lot of it and its harder to store things longterm and same question applies for the freezer, its easier to put things in a freezer bag. So, a little tip for that is i do admit to using plastic bags, i reuse them and if something is not i dont use them for liquids and if something isnt somehow already kind of like a solid or whatever, parchment paper around that and then use the plastic just as the thing that keeps it from leakproof or if im taking soup to work, i have my soup in a glass jar but i will throw it in plastic because i dont want it all over my backpack and theres also more stainless steel options which are a little more expensive but thats a onetime investment, just dont lose it, so a box of plastic bags, it lasts me like three year, parchment paper, its the layer that touches your food and then aluminum foil isnt really bad, but parchment paper is a good thing. Plastics in kids toys and kids products, theyre not really labeled, i dont find the same symbol on them and i do a lot of the reuse and recycle, but mostly reusing things so we have handmedowns and all kinds of toys that have been through many generations and i sometimes think about it, i can only worry so much about what my son puts in his mouth, but when you talk about chemicals, where do you start, besides i know wooden toys are best and that was the plan originally, only wood in our house and glass and ceramics, thats all lovely in theory, its not what happens unless youre a waldorf parent and youre strict and its really your principle, so good will has a lot of plastic, so you know, anymore words on that, i realize its a matter of what you can do, but i have not encountered some of those challenges because im not a parent but i have been around a lot of kids, Important Note is that in 2008, a law was passed that mra s sites could not longer be used in kids toys , for right now, if youre buying new toys off the shelf, theyre not going to have that particular compound, plus skish shi ones, theyre not going to have that, i know you have a small child, is when theyre at that mouthing stage of putting everything in their mouth, that maybe be the time to be most concerned about the specifics when they get to the older stage where, you know, theres some pretty nifty plastic toys out there, lets get real, and i like that i had legos as a kid and those were plastic, you know, maybe thats when you loosen it up a little bit and make, you know, judicious decisions, but when theyre putting everything in their mouths, you want to be the most careful about what that is, parents may have other added tips. [inaudible] because most of the toys for kids, we dont really check sometimes where theyre made. Its for toys sold in the united states, so regardless of where the manufacturer is, if theyre sold in the u. S. , they have to comply with those standards, other countries could well have different laws on their shelves and my guess would be vary from laws that would be more health protective to less fighters to join us. I have two questions, ill keep them brief. We cant control where our fire houses are and our fire house is a block off the freeway, we do replace our h fact filters every five mother and is theyre jet black when we replace them every three months, it is a big concern, how do we reduce our exposure when were a block right off the freeway, were bumper to bump traffic, and there are some fire houses that are literally underneath the freeway so how do we reduce that exposure, air filters, if so, what kind of air filters . Youre getting beyond our Technical Knowledge of our filtration, but you know, it might be somebody to consult with somebody with expertise in air filtration for indoor air of course, maybe replacing those filters more often, you know, some very basic things and again, im not an engineer, but wiping down surfaces with moistures rather than a rag captures that better, otherwise youre containing it better, thinking about some of the basic things you do in the home, i would consult someone who has experience in air filters. [inaudible]. [inaudible] and my husband tells me they mop the apparatus floors every day because its a diesel dust, im not sure if its a common practice in fire houses, i was told someone in the Fire Department had developed cancer and they thought it was partly due to the diesel dust so they mop down every day, i know they probably sweep it but i dont know if mopping down is what 9 does, i dont know if this is Company Policy because i havent been there. It is . Okay. I have a question. My question is unrelated, talking about going back to the radiation and how bad it is for your body, so why do they recommend it as a treatment if someone has had cancer of various sorts . Kind of because it can be toxic to cells and so, if you target it, right, and then youre directing it to those very cancer cells that are growing very rapidly and are in a very focal area, then you are, you know, and its at a higher dose than youre exposed to when youre screening, youre killing those cells and youre stopping their growth, so theyre leveraging that particular feature of the radiation just as they do with chemotherapy which is drugs that we wont have to take unless were needing to kill those cancer cells. [inaudible] radiation . It is very focused even though the [inaudible] i was talking about, if its focused, why does everybody leave the room . Theyre spending their 8 hour work day, and even if its focused and theres a little bit of spread, radiation, as i understand, im not a physicist either, does reduce in its power the further away you get from it, right, that theres still, you know, if youre spending 8, 9 hours a day, you dont want that little bit added, theyre Getting Better and better at in medical radiation when theyre using it as a treatment, directing that ray to a more specific and localized area, but, you know, we do see in kids who are treated with radiation early for earlier childhood cancers that they can develop later life cancers as a result, now whats your tradeoff there, the 20, 30 years of life they may have and maybe its a treatable cancer they might get later, but if youre an adult and getting na, youre weighing the costs and benefits. I just wanted to say one thing about the a couple of things about the diesel fuel, christine brings a great thing about where your fire house is located but what are our practices in the fire house, and are your extractors plugged in when the rigs are on or theyre plugged in and blowing into the apparatus floor and with some of our Standing Orders with the ambulances, i know for sure theyre supposed to stay on all the time at a scene, youre at a house in an hour and your rig is supposed to be on outside, thats addressing some of those policies within our department, its like, well, were told you have to leave the rig running to keep the power up or something, well, come on now, you know, cant that not be changed a little bit, so i think that that is, you know, its the diesel fuel we know is something cancercausing, the other thing that came up with me is not a question but a comment with fire houses that i know and just starting to look and theres been some talk in our department, why do we have cell towers on our fire houses and there are some fire houses that have them and theyre in places where its exposing right where we sleep, why do why do we have that and is it a cost benefit thing, and just to start to ask some of those questions of our administration really, so that was it. So, i think that we are out of time, but this was wonderful, thank you for the rich questions and your attention and for bringing so many of you in here. I would like to thank bonnie and the Breast Cancer fund for coming and all of the local coop that uses local ingredients, we practice what we preach. Well, good morning, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Here in the outer sunset on a, what is looking to be a beautiful day, my name is joaquin torres, with the Work Force Development lead intion mayor lees program look tog coordinate city resources both existing and new to serve our neighborhoods in need and to serve our Small Business commercial corridors. One of the things that has been so important to the mayor is making sure that were attentive and listening to the streets and there is certainly no one better to know that than mayor lee who has been both our director of public works, then moved on to being city administrator, and now our mayor of our city. So, to make the announcement of this new program that will benefit merchants and Small Businesses up and down corridors like the one were here on today, id like to invite further direction, mayor lee. Thank you, mayor. applause thank you. Its great to be out here in sunset out in irving street. I should come out here every week, the dpw folk are cleaning the streets pretty well. [laughter] its great to see all of you here today. You know, earlier this year, particularly during the budget negotiations, supervisor carmen chu and i and a number of other supervisors engaged in a lot of discussions about what our neighborhood Small Businesses could benefit from as we saw indications of our budget recovery. And clearly we understood and have always understood the role of Small Businesses. And theyre the backbone of the city and our office of Economic Development was headed by todd who is here and joaquin is helping out with the investment neighborhood strategy. We wanted to really demonstrate that, our commitment. Not just by saying it, but actually doing things that would really support our Small Business. Scott and henry and many others, benny and others who have been around us know that my favorite thing is to go to a neighborhood commercial corridor like terra val or out in the sunset noriega and have meals or breakfast or a cup of coffee and really find out all the distinctions that each neighborhood has to offer. Ive been a big supporter of our commercial corridors. Historically and all my different capacities. But as mayor, i think we get to do something pretty big. So, with the Small Business commission and regina is here today to be part of this effort, along with building inspection tom huey is here, public works as i mentioned earlier are here. All of the agencies working together with our supervisors and Mayors Office have come together and put this program together and we want to announce and launch it today in front of martin lams good will shop here because hes been a real great leader in helping many of the Small Businesses, and particularly those that dont speak english owned by proprietors that maybe english is not their first language. Over the past couple years, supervisor chu and i have been talking about these driveby lawsuits that have been occurring and how shocked some of these businesses are to the sometimes abusive process that are used by litigators to get at them. But in the context of overall our citys willingness to comply with ada, with title 24 of the state, and our own access through our Mayors Office of disability. We want everybody to comply. We dont want them to be victims of irrational and abusive lawsuits. And at the same time, we want to give them the help that they so well deserve. And, so, with the extra monies that we have, with the extra monies that supervisor chu also had and making sure that we used it wisely, we decide that had we would create this ada Small BusinessAccess Program in conjunction with asian Neighborhood Services and northeast credit union. We would not only provide some free assessments by certified access specialists that would come out here to the commercial corridors like irving, like noriega and taraval in our investment neighborhood strategies, they would offer these free assessments that would do the inspection and allow the Small Businesses to understand what all the challenges are. So, it begins with that assessment. And then with the monies that we do have, we wanted to followup with our sf shines programs and other programs that we have and offer a combination of grants and micro lending loan programs that are available to these businesses so they can make the corrections in an affordable way. This is our citys attempt, it is fully supported by the board of supervisors, and this program i think now has its ability to be launched and have really meet these access challenges in a positive way. So, were not just avoiding lawsuits. I think we do want everybody business to be compliant, as they should be. But were caught up sometimes with businesses that change hands. People dont know whether or not theyre grandfathered in or whether or not how accessible it is to everybody. But we also know that there are many people who have disabilities that have also want to have access to the businesses all around these corridors and enjoy it as much as we do. So, i think full compliance is the goal. And to have education, to have free access assessment being done. And then to followup by those that are challenged economically, to have loans and to have grants that are made available to have all of them participate in this program is incredibly good for the city. And i think it will help many of the Small Businesses understand their obligations to respond to these better, but also help them get into compliance better. So, im glad to launch this program here on irving street with supervisor chu who has been a really big champion for this. But we have many members of our Business Community that have also been asking us to do something positive about this. And not let these Small Businesses become victimized in these driveby lawsuits. To do what we can to make it a positive thing. So, im so glad that joaquin has come aboard to help us. He, having headed up the Neighborhood Services program for years, now has his talent with todd in making sure that all of the Small Businesses along these commercial corridors have access to our programs, have a higher degree of understanding, along with our Carla Johnson and our Mayors Office of disability, and all the different agencies working together, were going to make this successful. This is a family of agencies that care about our Small Businesses. Last time i looked, there were over 71,000 businesses who registered that had less than 100 employees. Thats an incredible sign of businesses that have that are our backbone, that hire a number of people. Theyre not the biggest employers, but they do hire the largest number of employees. Over 51 of the citys employees are hired by Small Businesses. And i want to continue supporting them, nurturing them, have them increase. I hate seeing vacant, vacant buildings, vacant spots. Benny knows every time we walk down there, whats going on with this site . Whats going on with that site . Char men chu knows that as well. Weve done a lot of walks together. I want to see every one of these vacancies filled with small bustling business necessarition. We need them to hire more local folks. And one way to do it, one sure way to do it is to make sure that they meet the ada requirements, the federal requirements, the state requirements, our local efforts to make sure that those that have disabilities can also shop and be a participant in our local economy. So, with that, joaquin, thank you for your leadership. We get to launch this Wonderful Program right here. There are three streets in district 4 that are going to benefit from this. Were going to roll this out to all other 85 neighborhood corridors in the rest of the city. Its that many . 25 . [laughter] all right, christmas must be coming early. Ill talk to supervisor chu about any more monies we can release. Thanks very much. Thank you, mr. Mayor. applause thank you. And now id like to bring up the supervisor, the district that were in today, someone who is no stranger to the importance of supporting our Small Businesses whose family used to run a restaurant. And like to invite to speak now supervisor carmen chu. applause thank you, everyone, for being here today. I want to thank the mayor so much for coming out and launching this pilot here on irving street. As you know, when i came on board in 2007, one of the most important things we wanted to relay was how important it was to not only support our downtown businesses, but also to support all the Small Businesses that are located across the city in our communities. For many of the folks who come down to irving street or noriega or taraval or jude a a lot of the times people who come here who own the shops are locales are debttionv. They are people who live in our communities who want to help make our neighborhoods thrive. In 2007 when we first came on board and subsequent years, one of the things that we noticed was that there were a number of different businesses that were being targeted with some of these driveby lawsuits. Many a times when i spoke to businesses, they did not know about the requirements that they had to meet with the federal ada laws. Once letters came in, they didnt really know how to respond. They sort of put it away. And it was more egregious especially for our mono lingual communities and our merchants who really didnt understand the correspondence that they were seeing. And, so, it really left them in a bad position.