is without question the most important vote we will cast as members of the board of supervisors. >> alioto-pier, there are 11 ayes. this motion is approved as amended. >> there was a lot of ambiguity run the process. to have the board to settle on a process felt really good, that we had to tackle that part of it. >> if you are a supervisor, you cannot vote for yourself. if you are nominated for that office, you cannot participate in the discussions, so you have to leave the room. you cannot text people, you cannot get on facebook. you can watch the process in your office, but you cannot let anyone know what your thinking or doing. the most you can say is i accept the nomination, and then leave. if you do not accept the nomination, and you can participate, and then you will be out of the process for

consideration. >> with the process agreed upon, board member chris daly call for nominations to begin. >> could we please at least spend a moment talking about what we would like to see in the next mayor of san francisco. >> were but board members retired and the item continued until after the thanksgiving holiday. >> to continue with my shakespeare aim, it is cold and i am sick of heart. i would like to continue this discussion to the next time we meet. >> chris daly was tried to push this early on, let's get someone in their early on. there was pressure to get someone from the left tube lined up the vote. was it going to be a tom ammiano, david campos, an arin peskin, a former supervisor?

>> but then mayor newsom said that he may delay his wearing him that as a lieutenant governors for a week. then the border supervisors, the modern new board with let the mayor. >> the question is when i do that. i have no charter obligations to do that. my term does not expire for another year-plus. so i have to resign first before a new mayor can take that oath of office. i have a role to play, even though the board of supervisors is the official who. >> mayor newsom, infuriatingly, frankly, kept his cards close to the best until the last moment. people did not know if he was going to stay in office to allow the new board to vote, people did not know if he was going to go to sacramento early. >> the key to this whole process that the board of supervisors cannot appoint an interim mayor until the office is actually vacant.

he did not want to be the necessarily to the sport of supervisors, which were his political adversaries for so many years. >> anything can happen at the board of supervisors. as long as they publicly notice it, they could call a meeting every day until january 3. >> meanwhile, several names were mentioned as potential candidates to be interim mayor. >> it was fascinating to watch the trial balloon go up. people's name would be floated for a week. there was a flavor of the week. david campos. former mayor art agnos was floated as a potential in term mayor. so was sheriff mike hennessey. so was the chair of the public utilities commission. current state senator mark lino. current senator leland yee. >> there were reports in the newspaper about various board members being nominated.

we were concerned about how the conflict of interest laws would apply to them. very specifically for foreign issues. perhaps there would be six board members who would be not able to bridge as a paid in a successor mayor selection and appointment process. we would lose quorum. we have to contemplate how we would then bring back quorum. i went to bed every night with it on my mind. i woke up with every morning. >> time was running out. there were no more meetings scheduled in november due to the holidays, and the board did not meet again until december 7. san francisco citizens again waited on the mayoral selection. >> we want someone who has the greater good of the people of san francisco in mind, not just business owners. >> i am here today basically to urge you to select an interim mayor who will prioritize our nonprofit sector coming here in

san francisco. >> supervisor daly once again called for a discussion of mayoral character polities and possible nominations. >> it would be a good idea to try this mechanism out and see how it works. >> the daily would again be disappointed. supervisor maxwell motion for the question to be tabled until next week. >> the motion to continue passes. >> they did not want to push the envelope and vote until they had it in the bag, and no one was able to get all that in the bag, so without that, people were afraid to take the vote. if he took it and your friend was not picked, and of story. >> for maxwell bought determination to delay the voting, one thing she wanted to do was to make sure she could find a consensus candidate. >> the next week in december, the board met again for the last in the meeting of the board.

still without a mayor selected or even nominations made. time was running out on the current board, but december 14 seemed like a rerun of december 7, with supervisor maxwell again making a motion to continue to the last board meeting in early january. >> colleagues, i ask that we continue this item. i think we have three weeks to have somebody floating out there for that amount of time is not going to be to our best interest. it will give us an opportunity to really think about, in the next few weeks, what is ahead of us. it allows the board to step back and take a breath and wait this heavy decision that we were just about ready to make. >> there was no one lined up. that was one of the most fascinating and frustrating things about the process. no one knew what was going to happen. everyone was asking.

it was amazing. do you know what is going on, do you know who has the upper hand? >> after the holidays, and jerry brown was sworn in as cal.'s next governor. but the tenant gov. elect gavin newsom played his delight card and was not sworn in. some saw humor in in his delight. >> i am proud, from your the tenant governorship, if and when it begins -- >> others disagreed with the decision. i think he should have been sworn in on monday. that seems to be in the spirit of the state of constitution of california. >> the next day, the board had one last chance to nominate their twice for interim mayor on january 4. >> when the board finally got

around to actually nominating people for, and taking up the issue of inter mayorship, the first thing people should know is it was late at night. the board really put this off as light as they could. people were tired and cranky. that is the first thing people should know about this meeting. >> they said they would take nominations according to who was on the roster first. so it became a game of jeopardy where the question was, who could press the button first? then it became this sort of strategy. >> having run out of time, board members began the first round of nominations. >> i would nominate former mayor art agnos. >> current city administrator ed lee. >> everyone is expecting hennessey to have the sixth vote. >> i would like to request a 20- minute recess. >> perhaps an explanation?

>> i would like a recess. that is my explanation. >> colleague, can do that without objection? >> he took sophie maxwell and they started walking down the hall, across the hall to room 200, the mayor's office. when it came down to it, bevan dufty said, after talking to the mayor, newsom made an argument as to why edwin lee should have the job. >> supervisor daly, having witnessed several progressives vote for a moderate saw the progress of dreams away. >> we ostensibly had a majority on the board of supervisors. we had an opportunity and we made the biggest fumble in san francisco political history. >> once it became clear that ed lee had the votes to win, nobody wanted to pull the trigger.

so they stopped the meeting -- at midnight -- and decided to have another meeting that friday. at the end of the day, so many people had been put up for consideration, and here is the one person that had not and he 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.

>> 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