ends up being the person who the board ends up with. that is a huge shock. >> when the board finally made their appointment, i was joyful because i thought it would be much more difficult. >> supervisors avalos and, thus ask that the meeting be recessed until friday to allow for a meeting with ed lee. >> i have not had a chance to talk to ed lee, any more than him, to my office and telling me that he was not interested in doing it. that was my last conversation with him. ed lee is currently in china. i would like to see if i can have a conversation with him before we make any kind of determination. >> the current board had run its term. they return for one last meeting to begin -- finish what they began on tuesday, nominating ed lee. >> i will support mr. lee. >> it is for those reasons i will be supporting mr. lee's

nomination. the reason why i wholeheartedly support ed lee is because he is a qualified person and he is the right person to lead san francisco. >> we have engaged in an orderly transition of leadership. this is what separates us, as a democratic society, from other less democratic societies. and i am so proud of us for what we are about to do today. so with that, colleagues, thank you for being part of this historic moment. >> the supervisor campos? there are 10 ayes, one no. [applause] >> the motion for edwin lee passes. [applause] >> you are talking to one of the happiest people in san francisco. this was an extraordinary an historic vote. but it was symbolic.

remember, the new board of supervisors who convenes tomorrow will make the actual decision on who the next mayor will be. >> everybody came down to ed lee with the expectation that it will be done in the most intellectually honest way and in a way that role and order is respected. i think we discussed a few nominations and came down to this one by a common denominator. >> i had a sense of urgency because i did not want to see anyone being acting mayor in the presence of the board of supervisors. that is not the kind of transition i talked about. we need to have a transition -- legislative branch separate from the executive branch of san

francisco. that is the best way to do our work. people would not like the situation of having an acting mayor and president of the board of supervisors. >> now the dominoes in this chain of political events were falling day-by-day. the next day, january 8, new board members were sworn in. >> congratulations. [applause] >> and on monday, gavin newsom was finally sworn in as lieutenant governor of california. >> the duties upon which i am about to enter. [applause] >> the very next day, january 11, the new board of supervisors met for the first time, with the historic first decision of their new term. >> item 3 is a motion to ratify the appointment of a successor

mayor due to the occurrence of a vacancy in the offense of a mayor expiring january 8, 2012. >> i am hoping for is, as we look forward to the confirmation of mr. lee, that we will also, leaving behind the kind of tactics that were used last week, that i thought really made the process feel more clumsy than it should have been. >> this is ed lee's day. i have said a lot about my perspective of this man who comes from the community, who is rooted in our community, who has a tremendous breath and death of city experience. colleagues, at this time, i hope and ask that we unanimously vote for ed lee to be our next mayor. >> supervisor campos? president to? supervisor chu? supervisor colon? supervisor elsbernd?

there are 11 ayes. the motion is approved a [applause] . >> colleagues, i am going to move that we recessed the meeting and we conduct the swearing in ceremony of the new mayor in the rotunda of city hall. [applause] >> so ended one of the greatest challenges the board of supervisors has ever faced, resulting in the first interim mayor in san francisco in 32 years. >> we had a real sense of belief when the full board made the final appointment to successor mayor. we thought there were some and gaps in our knowledge about how to appoint a successor mayor. by the time it was actually done, it seemed almost easy, but it was not, to be honest.

we had planned for different types of variables to occur, and none of that actually happened. no conflict of interest laws came into play, no inquiry issues. >> i thought they did a good job, actually, trying to figure out something that had very little precedent in our city's history, something that was very important. >> angela and her staff did an extremely professional job. she was on the hot seat, under a tremendous amount of pressure. i did not see a lot of the back room arm-twisting, hair pulling, chest pounding that was going on, the pressure she was under, but when she walked out into the board chamber, when she walked into the hallway and the reporters were chasing after her, she was precise and professional. >> in the end, there were some questions about the charter of san francisco. >> our charter spells out a formal process, but lee is

pretty silent on that application process. >> this has happened in 32 years, but i think we need some better certainty on how we deal with this decision of succession. >> the charter has worked several times during times of vacancies like this. it certainly worked during aftermath of mayor mosconi and harvey milk. >> so we may be seeing more of these successor issues coming up, certainly something we do not want to legislate. i hope that we can trust people to be grown up about it, but if that is not the case, we can spell that out. >> going through the first time with little knowledge and information was difficult. now that we have got our record of how to do this, i think the next clerk and the city will be much informed with having our process and having our archives to look too. >> and that is how san francisco government worked out the

kinks, twists and turns, bombs in the road, to select its new interim mayor, ed lee. san francisco's first asian- american mayor. >> this has been an unprecedented and historic transition of power here in san francisco. i am so happy the board of supervisors came together to select an outstanding choice along many outstanding candidates to lead us over the next several years. >> over the past several months when this issue has come up, it had been agonizing. the board has been put into a difficult situation. there are a lot of differences of opinion on how to run the city, how to mass make a decision, who should be in place, 11 people to agree on that is a challenging thing. i think we have done the best we can do in the process, considering the difference of opinions. >> the people of san francisco can now choose their mayor, the direction they want to go. that is why this decision was so appropriate. >> the other big shock is that

the moderates seem to have won this round. people thought, progressives have themselves on the board. there is no reason that they will not get together and take a noted leader who is a progressive to be interim mayor, and then stayed there for another term. the great thing about being in term mayor is to get to run as an incumbent. the fact that the progressives could not get together to get somebody into office as interim mayor in their own self-interest was very surprising for a lot of us. >> what happened in the last month in city hall was an incredible show of democracy that was part policy, part politics, and it all came together, and more than anything -- not just from a reporter's perspective, often was this? but there was a public interest as well on what was going on in san francisco government. we take it for granted a law that there is a city government here. this was something that brought people together.

you heard people talking about it at the cafes, park playground, people who do not always pay attention. in that $0.10, it was the best thing we could have done for city government, even though it was a little bit messy. it was a lot of fun and an eye opener. it got people interested again.

>> happiness rains supreme. nearly one thousand couples tide the not. >> by the powers invested in me, i declare you husband and wife.

>> the north like court was turned into a huge extension of the city clerk and hundreds of city and county employees were trained as volunteers. >> the process has been amazing. the people have been so gracious and supportive. the energy here is fantastic with so many couples getting married. it's a fantastic experience. so wonderful. >> we have been planning this for a year. we thought we were doing the ceremony for the 2 of us. actually, being able to be a part of this time in history and in our history is amazing. >> it's really nice to have our

relationship recognized as important as our parents and not something less than. >> we have been waiting for 18 years for this and when it was available for the state, we had been waiting for a long time and wanting this. this is a momentous occasion to have equal rights. [applause]. >> we have been together for 14 years. it's been really great and we're really pleased we came during this 2 weeks. everybody has been so welcoming and it's been so set up and people have guided us. it's been easy, there was live music. people are so friendly. so excited for us. it's really great. >> but i would also like to say

thank you to the mayor and the city attorneys for bringing this forward. >> absolutely. >> because that's where it started >> this smooth running operation did not come by accident. it requires planning and a thorough rethrough. >> today san francisco took the step to make a case that we believe in the words of the california institution. we took action. >> from february 12th to march 11, 2004. under the direction of the mayor, they gave licenses to 4 thousand same sex couples. they came from all or the

united states. >> they were overwhelmed with the same chance to get married. >> we started to get them couple by couple and that line starting going down the hall way, around the block and continued over the weekend. they drove from washington, oregon, we saw families and hoping they would get through the door before we closed down for the day and the next day they want come back. we had very little time to plan. >> in 2004, when the city opened up marriage licenses to

gay and lesbian couples we were here. and then got in and got married. we were so appreciative for the city to do this and make it available. it was for chaos. >> in 2004, we had no idea what to expect. we had originally wanted to marry under the 9:00 a.m. court opening. meaning we were trying to do it in a way where we could get the first marriage under the bell before the courts came in to stop us. what we didn't know was what we didn't know. it's going about things and not knowing the consequences. we had to quickly organize a

way to get through the enormity of requests to get married >> later that year, the california supreme court ruled they were void. >> the law in this case worked. we challenged the law and went up the ranks and eventually the supreme court said stop and we stop. there was a great sense of despair in some sense, but hopefulness that we would live to fight another day and in spite of those licenses be voided and the fact there was disappointment and we had to stop and everything we had done had been taken a way as well. i think people lived with the

expectation that they may see what they now have seen. i don't think many of us thought it would happen so quickly. >> after years of working it's way through the california system. the supreme court voted unanimously to challenge the ban on same sex marriages. >> we are literally across the street and couples could run and demand we offer a marriage license to them. >> we got the call early on may 14th, where they said can you come in and make a meeting. that's where we found out the court already notified the city attorney's office there were going to render a decision >> then on may 15, the supreme court struck down the ban on

same sex marriage in a 4 to 3 vote. they fought all the way and won. >> what a day in san francisco. what a day in california. what a day for america. what a day for equality. >> the most extraordinary part of this is i support we had from the elected family. what cities would you have an entire board of supervisors and a city attorney who was ready to fight and had purposefulness. >> the supreme court's decision was final at june 16th at 5:00 p.m.. >> he married the lesbian

couple at 5:01 p.m.. >> we expected that we would have a significant interest in getting married at city hall. >> we realized we were not staffed up to get licenses that people were anticipating. we definitely did not want people waiting in long lines. we wanted them to plan and invite their friends. know what time you're going to have your ceremony. >> we had to create an appointment system and let the people know ahead of time that on a given particular day, that's all we can accommodate. >> we appreciate they can make travel plans and know when they get here, their flight lands

and we are going to get to them at 12 >> on june 16th, huge crowds gathered in anticipation of the historic moment. newses crews from around the world were sent to cover the first same sex marriage >> i think today marriage as an institution has been strengthened. i think today marriage has been affirmd and today we can say, it's the first day in the state of california that we are providing marriage equally and fairly to everyone, denying no one their right to live out loud. [applause]. >> meanwhile, the office the

clerk had been busy planning to move its licensing for a 2-week period to handle the hundreds of apointments. >> we couldn't shut down our offices because there's other services we provide. it wasn't like we could shut down, take the equipment here and move it to a satellite office. >> it was up to the it director to do the best you can. beg, borrow and steal and we knew what the mission was, what our goal was. with our it group and our software vender, they came together and pulled it together for us in the north light court

>> handling several hundreds of marriages required volunteers >> you know, on the outside, it looks pretty simple. behind the scenes, there was a momental, mountain of work, the details into everything we had to do. it was overwhelming. because we have such a great department, they stepped up and said what do you need? what part of this can we take over and you can concentrate on the things you need to concentrate on. olga was coordinating all of the volunteers. >> we had 350 volunteers and i received hundreds of emails and calls. city employees and members of

the public that wanted to work. >> we had to come up with training programs. there's a check in person. you were a greeter, part of the licensing issue unit. you were on the recording side and each one of those functions required different skills. or the deputy message commissioner. >> donna place the ring and repeat after me. >> that was just a huge load off of our plates when she took that over. and every day i thank her and i said, i can't thank you enough. >> i worked a lot of late

nights. may be the latest was 2:30 a.m.. my has would say, you have to go to bed. the first week, it was beyond midnight, one click. once i think it was after 230 in the morning and i was trying to get this out. >> they said we would get our schedules sunday night, so 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, 10 o'clock. i got it at 11 o'clock. this person who doing the schedule, there was a whole spread sheet and the 5 shifts and so she had all these names

and having to coordinate based on the demand and it was impressive. it was the first time i appreciated what administrators do. >> you get in a.m. training session, 4 hours. that would be the complete training session and there would be another group in the p.m. for training as well. >> the marriage commission was simple, smooth and then we were all sworn in. >> on june 17th, the office of the clerk was sworn in. >> we had volunteers to come in and greet them.

>> i am a greeter at city hall and we provide information for families coming to get married. a lot of people are here for the first time. quite a few people are here from out of state and out of country. this was a big deal getting married. we have talked to people together for 38, 40 years. they are excited and nervous. >> once we figured a way to have a security area for appointments for license and ceremony. we looked at the north light court how it's structured. how people would come in and the work flow of that area. there is a check-in area in front of the central entrance

and they would verify their appointments and they would proceed. >> my wife who works for the city told me they were looking for volunteers. and that's me. so, i was interested in helping out. and i think it's those people that have been together for a long time that are the most moving story. i am sure the young people appreciate, the more you appreciate the change. >> i think what's also moving is the fact that everyone that works in the city is enthusiastic. everybody in city hall. they are very excited and behind the whole change going into affect. >> i just got an email. i work for the san francisco public library. they needed volunteers. it was something i wanted to do.

i have friends who have been married. i wanted to help out. >> i am a summer intern. i am working on gender equality in the private sector. the theme is equality for the summer. it's pretty exciting. people are really nervous. we have to ask them for id. >> we and have an appointment and allow them to proceed >> once you are ready, you and your husband to be need to check in with