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Immigrant Rights Commission
Minutes of Meeting on June 14, 2004

A meeting of the Immigrant Rights Commission (IRC) was held on Monday, June 14, 2004 at Portsmouth Square Community Room. 

I. Roll Call:

Members Present            The meeting was called to order on 6:15 p.m., Commissioners, Casillas, Escobedo, Gonzalez, Haile, Huie, Kaff, Lau, Ow, Nguyen, Specktor, Tran & Zheng were present.  Commissioner Nguyen arrived at 6:30 p.m. 

 

Members Absent            Commissioner Atay, Bondoc were absent.

Others Present            Dang Pham, Executive Director & Winny Loi, Commission Secretary

  • Approval of minutes for May 10th: Commissioner Haile moved to approve the minutes & 2nd by commissioner Gonzalez.  The Commission unanimously adopted the minutes.
     
  • Resolution urging the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors and the Police Commission to take all appropriate measures to prevent any similar tragedies from happening agin in San Francisco.  No action was taken on this resolution.

  • Chief Heather Fong informed the community & the commission about customer service in the Police Department.  The Police Department has been meeting with a number of organizations from the community, such as Chinese of Affirmative Action, Asian Law Caucus, Reverend Fong, Chinatown Neighborhood Resource Center & other groups in order to identify some of the areas they can improve upon.  One of the items that she wants to focus on is the outreach to the community, in terms of insuring that their officers have other ways of dealing with someone who does not speak the language, so that they can provide the best customer service.  If you are calling to get services the dispatcher will find someone who speaks Chinese to help you.  They will also get an officer to the scene to help you.  If someone needs a translator, they will try to find a police officer that speaks the language.  If they cannot find someone who speaks the language, they will use the language line.  Each officer will have a card that lists all the languages; so that they can point to the card so that they will know what language they speak. On this card will also have the language phone number on this card, so they can easily contact someone.  They will try to provide the best service.  They also provide public safety training in the community.  The Police Department cannot treat people differently or take any action because someone is undocumented.  They will provide the services even though they are illegal.  The Police Department does not help the Immigration Department.  You can call  553-0123, if there is not emergency to notify the Police Department. 

    Rose Chung is the Aide for Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s office.  She would like to listen to concerns from the community & the public can contact her at 554-7453.  A gentleman from the public asked if they can fix the stoplight on Broadway, he states that the light on Broadway & Grant is both red at the same time.  Another issue that was brought up; when the delivery trucks deliver food, they go onto the sidewalk where the people walk, so pedestrians walk onto the street which creates a safety issue.  They should designate a certain time when the people deliver products to the grocery store.  A lady in the meeting also addressed the homeless issue on Portsmouth Square Park.  The homeless sleeps on the benches & throws bottles in the park.  This issue needs to be addressed. 
    Reverend Norman Fong informed the Commission of the cuts in Chinatown Public Health & also cutting the translation services to the immigrants.
    Madeline Ritchie, Center Director & Lisa Wang from the Public Chinatown Health Center
    came to the commission to address concerns of the budget cuts.  The proposed cuts will affect 1000 fewer patients & 4000 fewer visits to the Doctor for the coming year. SF General takes ½ a day to a whole day to get translation service for immigrants.  The Mission in the Health Department is to provide services to the poor & uninsured.  The SF Public Health Centers are here to provide services to the immigrants.  Please do not let the city cut these services.  The immigrants really need the services where they can get medical help.  These immigrants cannot afford to go to private doctors to get medical treatment; they rather spend the money on food, which is a necessity.  They support the Immigrant Rights Commission resolution which oppose budget cuts to the district health centers that predominately serve the immigrant populations. 
     

IV.       Commissioner Gonzalez made an amendment to the resolution to replace the wording for Asian & Hispanic with low-income immigrants.  Commissioner Escobedo made a motion to approve the amended resolution, which was seconded by Commissioner Ow.    

Sara, a new immigrant parent who wanted to explain why they should not cut these services to the immigrants.   When she heard about these cuts, she was very nervous, because if she becomes sick how can she communicate with her doctor.   Where would she go for help?  Cutting these services would really affect the immigrant community.   Health is very important, please save the services for our community.  
People from the community came to speak about the budget cuts affecting the immigrant community.  They asked not the take away these services that helps immigrants.  Many immigrants need the translation services. 
Sally Leung, ED for the Chinatown Economic Development Group strongly supports the Chinatown Public Health Center. 
Ms. Zhou an immigrant from China came to the commission to ask not to cut these health services.  She would not know where to go to get help if these services are cut.  Health is very important, if we are not healthy how can we work to feed & take care of our families?  Please do not cut these services, it’s very important to us.  Sally from Chinatown Community Development Center told the commission that many immigrants couldn’t afford physicians; she hopes that the government will not cut these services.  

Christine Falvey from Department of Public Works
came to listen to any suggestions from the community.  She mentioned to the community that there are projects that they were working on in Chinatown.  The 1st project they are working on is the rat abandonment project, which they are working with Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s office.  This project is to try to catch the rats to maintain clean buildings in Chinatown.  This is going to start in Chinatown & spread throughout the city.  If you notice someone building having a problem with this issue, you can call 554-7287. Another project is the volunteer community organization day on August 21st to promote volunteering to clean up Chinatown. 

Ms. Lee from the community asked if they could fine people $100 for spitting in streets. She asked if the Department of Public Works can have someone, who does not wear a uniform, so they can catch these people spitting on the street. 

Carol Cheungfrom the community asked not to cut out the Chinatown Health Center.  She had cancer & she got help from SF General Hospital.  Many immigrants get medical service from them. 

Teresa Caffese from the Public Defender’s office came to the community to talk about their services.  Jeff Adachi is the elected Public Defender in San Francisco.  Their main office is located at 555 7th Street & their juvenile division located at Laguna Honda.  They also have a juvenile office at Youth Guidance Center located at Portola.  They have a felony unit, misdemeanor unit, juvenile unit & mental health unit.  If someone is charge with a crime & cannot pay for an attorney, the Public Defender’s office will represent them.  If the person is monolingual, the attorney needs to explain the information to the client in their language.  All of the information that the client explains to the attorney is confidential.  If you need assistance call 553-1671; dial 0 to get the operator & ask them for the language you need.   Commissioner Tran asked Ms. Caffese to have the subpoena form translated to Chinese & Spanish, so people can understand the information.   

Ted Wang from Chinese for Affirmative Action
came to the commission to talk about translation services.  He stated that there are about 3,000 requests for translation in SF General.  Currently many kids & families help out with translation.  These positions should not be eliminated because many immigrants rely on these services.  He also mentioned that the Police Department also has many challenges in dealing with people who only speak one language.    

Cynthia came to the commission to talk about the XCEL Academy being placed at Newcomer High School for year 2004-2005.  Newcomer is a one-year transitional program to prepare immigrant students for regular high schools.  Newcomer has ESL and primary language content area classes so that students receive high school content and acquire English as quickly as possible. No member of the Newcomer community was consulted.  Newcomer High was only informed of this proposal in the second week of May, at which time the administrators of the two schools were told to discuss the accommodations necessary for receiving the other school.  It was only today that a district official informed members of the Union Building Committee of Newcomer High School that this plan is all but imminent.  Under this proposed plan, Newcomer High must give up 8 classrooms to accommodate XCEL Academy.  Approximately 130-200 new immigrant students for the next school year will have to be sent out to other high schools. While we respect XCEL Academy and its mission, we are still extremely concerned that placing another school onto the Newcomer premises may not be in the best interests of the students of either school.  More importantly, we fear that the temporary displacement and diversions required to accommodate the other school will lead to the END of the unique services at Newcomer High School.

 

Adjournment:            The Commission meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.