9 judge terri l. jackson. the court is now recruiting prospective civil grand jurors. our goal is to develop a pool of candidates that is inclusive of all segments of our city's population. >> the jury conducts investigations and publishes findings and recommendations.

these reports them become a key part of the civic dialog on how we can make san francisco a better place to live and work. >> i want to encourage anyone that is on the fence, is considering participating as a grand jury member, to do so. >> so if you are interested in our local city government and would like to work with 18 other enthusiastic citizens committed to improving its operations, i encourage you to consider applying for service on the civil grand jury. >> for more information, visit the civil grand jury website at sfgov.org/courts or call >> i never thought i would be at a press conference in the city surrounded by a bunch of pickup trucks. here we are. these are no average pickup

trucks. these have solid green credentials. san francisco has a long history of groundbreaking initiatives an enlargement of victories. this is where the latest bring innovations have been, whether it is pursuing our zero ways to goals by 2020, when the reducing toxics in san francisco, whether it is becoming the electric vehicle capital of the u.s., this is where green innovation happens. and we practice what we preach in san francisco. every city of san francisco's department is required to develop a department action plan annually, which inventory their own emissions and sets common action targets for the department. this process engages departments that do not typically considered themselves and are mentally focused and effectively makes the link between in one of the responsibility and the financial bottom line the efficiency. requiring each city department

to be responsible for the carbon footprint helps integrate the city's climate work into all levels of organizational functioning and incentivizes all employees to participate in this process. the program that we are going to announce today will help make our individual departments sweet -- more sustainable and help us meet the goals from our climate action plans. additionally, plugging hybrid technology and its electric vehicles represent a good start towards achieving the new fuel efficiency standards that were just announced by president obama, a 54.5 miles to the gallon. this was announced when president obama noted, just as cars will go farther on a gallon of gas, our economy move will farther on a barrel of oil. when we achieve the 54.5 mpg target, it will reduce consumption from our vehicles by 40% and cut in half the amount

of greenhouse gas solutions coming out of our exhaust pipe. the electric vehicles, as you may well now, building up the electric vehicle capital here in san francisco is one of mayor lee's top anbar mental priorities. we are honored to be partnering with chrysler and the u.s. department of energy to push forward with yet another dimension of electric transportation. but first, without further ado, i would like to introduce chrysler's senior manager to tell you more about the program and to make a special presentation to mayor lee. >> good afternoon, everybody. thank you for the warm welcome, mr. mayor. beautiful weather, beautiful city. on behalf of chrysler, i am proud to present the mayor and the city of san francisco with

the supply and hybrid trucks. these trucks are part of a grant received from the department of energy to demonstrate technology and further enhance the ability of engineering organizations to implement this technology and future applications to be a part of the green energy that chrysler and bodies and to support the recently announced fuel economy rolling. we are proud to be in partnership with the mayor, and we are looking forward to work with your team over the next few years to demonstrate the technology and to learn from how they will dry data and further enhance the ability to demonstrate these applications. thank you very much. i look forward to working with your team. [applause] >> thank you.

we are just commenting, as your walking up, he has been in the auto industry for quite some years. i have been working in government for some years and we are both tried to find our youth in what we do. it is need to work on something that is fun, that is great for our country, that is very much a part of this movement that the whole country is not interested in, getting off of foreign oil and making sure we do something for our environment. this is fun because you are looking at 14 pickup trucks that have in them a hemi engine, but powered by electricity. these 14 pickup trucks will be lent to us for the next three years or free, thanks to our department of energy and their grants with chrysler's own

contributions put together to allow for our city to devote one of the few cities organized across this. i know sacramento will have some of this. other states, there is only less than a handful of other states participating in this nice experiment. for san francisco, we are probably going to be one of the hilliest cities that have this opportunity over the next three years to test these electric trucks in the most hardened ways. in other words, we are going to have department of public work'' picking up trash in these vehicles, the bureau of engineering to be looking at and traveling to all parts of the city in these vehicles, managing the projects in this city, thanks to our city engineer. different departments under our acting city administrator, including, interestingly

enough, animal care and control. they will be caring for stray animals, making sure they are safely transported, and the day from our streets and into shelters, and so forth. the puc, police department, real-estate department, a multitude of some 14 departments, that will have the chance to use these trucks and the way in which they operate. the very essence of city fleet operations. so i want to thank chrysler for allowing sanfrancisco to experiment with our department of energy, and also while we are experimenting with this, we have uc-davis as a partner. we have the director of our plugged in demonstration project. working together with the transportation electrification institute here.

with their corporations, getting the data about how these vehicles are used, how they are tested, whether they can go up hills as efficiently, bringing up the cargo and animals and tool that dpw will use, various departments inspecting buildings, streets, all of the different uses for a city fleet, all on the dime of the department of energy because they want to see these the electric vehicle properly used, the way that we use our fleet generally now. ali, they will be replacing the fleet that we are using now and saving that money. and then do what i do, i keep in mind -- i do not ever want to run out of the electric power. as i come to city hall, i asked my staff, plug it in.

i try not to use any oil so that we can try to do this in the cleanest way possible. that makes it fun. it is a bit of a game that i play with our staff, but that is a game that everyone is playing with these cars. making sure they can go the whole day without using a drop of oil. that makes it fun and challenging and keeps my mind up to use the vehicles in the proper way. it is a corporate for san francisco to do this. we declared some two years ago, in cooperation with all nine counties in the bay area, we want to be the rv -- ev capital of the world. we are doing everything necessary to make sure that we are. with the cooperation of great cities like san jose and oakland, san jose and alameda counties, we are already putting

in the anxiety-recharging stations all over the bay area. in fact, the airport already has 14 charges already installed at the airport, and we have, by the end of the summer, some 43 charging stations in our garages that are already being done. by the end of the year, working together with charge. america, coolant technologies, we will have 100 charging station within san francisco already installed. so you will not have any anxiety. one of those is in the mayor's crotch, and that will be installed in the next couple of weeks. these fast charter will be out there in a public setting. with charge. america, in the bay area, they

are doing charging stations for the residents and another in the public sector for the whole bay area. so we're getting rid of that anxiety quickly and making sure that all of the automobile manufacturers, including chrysler, can develop these beat -- vehicle the best they can, use the data, test pilot them, but ultimately, i think we will see companies like chrysler bring to market an electric vehicles for all of our citizens to use, and every city fleet is doing so. we are working with the company throughout the bay area. we are all experimenting on the different flight uses of this. this is the first time i have seen or course trucks -- really, the dpw's of the world, puc's of the world, all of the utility- driven departments in our city, to carry equipment, cargo,

transport trash and all the other thing that we do, these are the workhorses. this is going to be a great test and use of federal funding. i have to say -- i have to make sure i say this. i am happy for this moment because president obama just signed this very important debt ceiling settlement with congress. the senate and house voted on it. leader pelosi was extremely grave in her performance, getting a number of democrats to sign this. i would be looking sad, even in light of this great news, we have to keep this country moving forward. we will not have the opportunity to use the technology that chrysler is offering if we are not strong in our economics. so we are doing it right. now that we have the debt ceiling behind us, we can move forward on all these programs. i want to thank the department of the environment. alan, you are gracious in your

remarks, but the department of environment keeps me up with great ideas, keeps me talking constantly about one beacon do as a city, how we can contribute to our environment. the department of the in gardening keeps me on my toes to say what can we create? so i want to thank chrysler, the department of energy, for their grants, the uc-davis, their work with the electrification transportation education program, to make sure that we test these things correctly. if we test them right, if we use our knowledge and experience the data here, we are going to have the best performing automobiles developed by the companies that have a great interest in saving us from oil and making sure that our country moves in the right direction. this is our new economy, one that i am proud to say we are doing across major cities across

the country. but we in san francisco want to lead the way. we want to be the experimenters, the ones that push out this idea that we can do it in the bay area. if we do it here, it sends a trend across the country that they can do it elsewhere. get ourselves off of oil, into a more pollution-free society. i just thank all the people working together on this. it takes everybody working together to line up not only our educational institution with us, car manufacturers with the stimulus package fund from the government, and with our own local leaders to make sure we are doing the right thing. again, thank you very much for using your many years of leadership in the auto industry to bring forth new technology, new ways of doing things. thank you for your partnership

with our department of the environment as well and department of energy. [applause] >> we would like to take questions from the press regarding the electric vehicles, but i wanted to mention the sound system is being powered off of the battery from one of these trucks. so this is emission-free power from the public utility commission. all these trucks are equipped with an extra battery to run equipment. we want to let the media know there is an opportunity to do test runs in these trucks. there are two other individuals available for questions. we have a director of plug in vehicle research center at uc- davis. we also have jason connolly from the department of energy. he is the product manager for the chrysler pev project.

now we will get questions from the press. >> [inaudible] >> how long do you charge it? [inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> it depends on how you drive it. for the first 50 miles, that is the charge to peak cycle. that is when you are in a state of charge or the vehicle will be a regular hybrid vehicle. then you can charge it as often as you would like after. we are recommending that you drive twice a day. chieonce it goes into the chargg

station, the truck driver, you get 22 mpg. chrysler does not at this point have any production plans but is an enabler to implement this technology, modify technology come into other applications. it could be an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle or a plugged and hybrid vehicle. that is the purpose of this demonstration program. >> [inaudible] >> it is in comparison to the existing fleet vehicles. i give you numbers on the economy, how much vehicles would be consuming, their fuel efficiency. again, mr. mayor, you have 14

vehicles. >> when you look at the 14 conventional pickup trucks that will be replaced these 14th london hybrid trucks, they will burn 7000 fewer gallons of gasoline a year, save $25,000 in fuel cost, and avoid 91 tons of carbon emissions each year. so very significant. >> there is another piece of technology that these vehicles have that nobody else has to date. they are able to generate ac power, 110 volts and 21 portable, up to 6.2 kilowatts of ac power. that makes the vehicle a mobile generator, in essence. the of the technology we have is we are linked to the smart bridge interface. that is up to mind when you charge the vehicle, based on the

best available electricity rate. you can also a blow the power back to the power grid, through the reverse power flow. if the great need our, you can charge at the lowest rate, and then when the power grid needs power, you can upload it back. basically, selling power to the electronic company. so all of this combined with the regular conventional hybrid technology are all the enablers that we have with chrysler. >> [inaudible] >> chrysler has already announced that we will have the fiat 500 electric vehicle in production next year. >> thank you. we are now going to do the test drives in the truck. thank you.

>> there has been an acknowledgement of the special places around san francisco bay. well, there is something sort of innate in human beings, i think, that tend to recognize a good spot when you see it, a spot that takes your breath away. this is one of them. >> an icon of the new deal. >> we stood here a week ago and we heard all of these

dignitaries talk about the symbol that coit tower is for san francisco. it's interesting for those of us in the pioneer park project is trying to make the point that not only the tower, not only this man-built edifice here is a symbol of the city but also the green space on which it sits and the hill to which is rests. to understand them, you have to understand the topography of san francisco. early days of the city, the city grows up in what is the financial district on the edge of chinatown. everything they rely on for existence is the golden gate. it's of massive importance to the people what comes in and out of san francisco bay. they can't see it where they are. they get the idea to build a giant wooden structure. the years that it was up here, it gave the name telegraph hill. it survived although the

structure is long gone. come to the 1870's and the city has growed up remarkably. it's fueled with money from the nevada silver mines and the gold rush. it's trying to be the paris of the west. now the beach is the suburbs, the we will their people lived on the bottom and the poorest people lived on the top because it was very hard getting to the top of telegraph hill. it was mostly lean-to sharks and bits of pieces of houses up here in the beginning. and a group of 20 businessmen decided that it would be better if the top of the hill remained for the public. so they put their money down and they bought four lots at the top of the hill and they gave them to the city. lily hitchcock coit died without leaving a specific use for her bequest. she left a third of her estate for the beautify indication of the city. arthur brown, noted architect in the city, wanted for a while to build a tower. he had become very interested

in persian towers. it was the 1930's. it was all about machinery and sort of this amazing architecture, very powerful architecture. he convinced the rec park commission that building a tower in her memory would be the thing to do with her money. >> it was going to be a wonderful observation place because it was one of the highest hills in the city anywhere and that that was the whole reason why it was built that high and had the elevator access immediately from the beginning as part of its features. >> my fear's studio was just down the street steps. we were in a very small apartment and that was our backyard. when they were preparing the site for the coit tower, there was always a lot of harping and griping about how awful progress was and why they would choose this beautiful pristine

area to do them in was a big question. as soon as the coit tower was getting finished and someone put in the idea that it should be used for art, then, all of a sudden, he was excited about the coit tower. it became almost like a daily destination for him to enjoy the atmosphere no matter what the politics, that wasn't the point. as long as they fit in and did their work and did their own creative expression, that was all that was required. they turned in their drawings. the drawings were accepted. if they snuck something in, well, there weren't going to be any stoolies around. they made such careful little

diagrams of every possible little thing about it as though that was just so important and that they were just the big frog. and, actually, no one ever felt that way about them and they weren't considered something like that. in later life when people would approach me and say, well, what did you know about it? we were with him almost every day and his children, we grew up together and we didn't think of him as a commie and also the same with the other. he was just a family man doing normal things. no one thought anything of what he was doing. some of them were much more highly trained. it shows, in my estimation, in the murals. this was one of the

masterpieces. families at home was a lot more close to the life that i can remember that we lived. murals on the upper floors like the children playing on the swings and i think the little deer in the forest where you could come and see them in the woods and the sports that were always available, i think it did express the best part of our lives. things that weren't costing money to do, you would go to a picnic on the beach or you would do something in the woods. my favorite of all is in the staircase. it's almost a miracle masterpiece how he could manage to not only fit everyone, of course, a lot of them i recognized from my childhood -- it's how he juxtaposed and managed to kind of climb up

that stairway on either side very much like you are walking down a street. it was incredible to do that and to me, that is what depicted the life of the times in san francisco. i even like the ones that show the industrial areas, the once with the workers showing them in the cannery and i can remember going in there and seeing these women with the caps, with the nets shuffling these cans through. my parents had a ranch in santa rosa and we went there all summer. i could see these people leaning over and checking. it looked exactly like the beautiful things about the ranch. i think he was pretty much in the never look back philosophy about the coit. i don't think he ever went to

visit again after we moved from telegraph hill, which was only five or six years later. i don't think he ever had to see it when the initials are scratched into everything and people had literally destroyed the lower half of everything. >> well, in my view, the tower had been pretty much neglected from the 1930's up until the 1980's. it wasn't until then that really enough people began to be alarmed about the condition of the murals, the tower was leaking. some of the murals suffered wear damage. we really began to organize getting funding through the arts commission and various other sources to restore the murals. they don't have that connection or thread or maintain that connection to your history and your past, what do you have? that's one of the major elements of what makes quality