evening. [applause] the next awards tonight is a very special one to talk about, because it is all about community to that is pretty much what we are about here tonight at city hall. to present this next award is dr. estella garcia, who was recognized with this award last year. [applause] thank you for joining us tonight. tonight we're recognizing the community service award of 2011, eva reale. born and raised in hanford, california. she attended san francisco state university in 1971. she became a student teacher and has fought for at the studies while earning degrees in economics, a process that is, and social work. getting her degree, she met her husband. they have raised four children in the mission. in the 1980's, eva and other

mission community activists to join together for the san francisco voter education and registration project. she'd been organized the great boycott committee. she served as regional manager and a spokesperson of that organization until 2002. in 1988, the ufw co-founder was brutally beaten here in san francisco by a police officer. as a leader, -- there is a happy ending to this story. after a three-year effort, she worked diligently with the college and to ensure justice for delores and to ensure there was a change in the san francisco police department policies regarding police reaction to legal social protests. in 1994, she organized the cesar chavez street coalition. to change the name of army street to cesar chavez street. she led a campaign to keep cesar chavez street in 1995.

she serves and purposes of organizing and producing the and all cesar chavez quality breakfast and said that the parade and festival. you have done so much. thank you for being here tonight. and congratulations. [applause] >> one of the reasons i am up here tonight is because i have been inspired by people like you, eva, and a special person in my life as part of that movement is a presenter tonight that that is my father, senator torres, who will be presenting the next award. [applause] which will be our health and medicine award. i would be remiss, as i was last year, if i did not recognize my other father, gonzalo escondero, and i gorges, a beautiful sister, danielle

torres. [applause] >> the next awardee is at gladys sandlin from the mission neighborhood health center. gladys was social service director in it -- and a public- relations quarter neighborhood -- coordinator for the neighborhood center. she would got an award for mayor dianne feinstein. during 1980, she worked with the prenatal health project at the university of california in san francisco at general hospital. from 1974 to 1937, she was a program coordinator for the educational unit of the american cancer society of san francisco in at the mission district. she is an advocate for the health care and rights of latinos, locally and nationally. through her participation, numerous health organization, she ensures that the particular health and socio-economic

officials of that in the spanish-speaking population are understood and that resources are lat -- allocated to the latino community. thank you for all your work on behalf of our community. [applause] >> i am sorry. buenos tardes. [speaking spanish] thank you. >> it is a great honor for her to be presented this award by senator torres because of all the work they did statewide for the help of latinos in california. >> our next and final award tonight is for the field of education in the but tonight we're honored to honor our superintendent of the san

francisco unified school district, carlos garcia. [applause] we're going to pause for a moment, because our selected designee to seek -- to receive the award on his behalf will be joining us shortly because another event is happening next door. so i would like to invite of ms. maggie for wells fargo. she can say a couple words on behalf of wells fargo, and we will like to thank her. thank you, maggie. [applause] >> thank you. good evening. i am so proud of presenting wells fargo and the 25,000 team members who live and work in the san francisco bay area here tonight with you. first of all, let me say salute

to the council with generals, supervisors, district attorney, and treasurer. they're all here in the room tonight for this special event. i also want to extend my congratulations to all the awardees here tonight. your story is inspiring. your work in the community is excellent. it is really important for the community, so thank you so much for your great work. tonight, on behalf of wells fargo, we want to celebrate hispanic heritage month. this is not the only event we sponsor throughout the year. just for this month, with wells fargo, you probably get a lot of invitations going to hispanic heritage month or the mariachi festival in san jose. coming up, another event. when macy, mario will hate me if

i do not say it correctly. it is the la katrina benefit for the maximum -- mexican and use them, and it is coming up on october 29. we do not only celebrate in this month. we celebrate throughout the year. why we're doing this, one of the reasons that we support events like this is very simple. we know that stronger community makes us successful. as a company as well. showcasing our expense celebrating culture is also important to the soul and important to bridge the gaps of understanding between all of us. that makes starter community. we also care about the community because wells fargo as a lot of team members here tonight. they also live and work and raise our families in the same local communities. the wells fargo team members,

can you raise your hands. great, they are around the room here. [applause] because they also work and live and raise their family here. that is why it is important for us to support the community. the local approach has guided wells fargo and lot of ways for how we do our business. wells fargo is the number one public giver among all the financial services company in the bay area. i think a lot of our friends are here. a lot of my friends are here to you can feel this, and i know. for this year, we also are making milestones in many different ways. we contributed last year almost $21 million. $20.7 million to the local non- profit organizations. but more impressively is our team members volunteered 90,000 hours of volunteer hours in support of nonprofit organizations.

sitting on the boards, volunteering a different events, and raising funds to help the community. i want you to know that we're very committed to the hispanic community. also very committed to all the communities, so that we can be a better community in this environment. i also want to give a special thanks to mr. corona, issue is based here in san francisco, for allowing us to be part of this event. [applause] promoting the arts of the latinas. thank you so much. the event is going to be in that court later on. we look forward to seeing you at the reception. i would like to thank our mayor, eduardo lee, which i changed his name to, for letting us join him tonight, hosting this event so we can celebrate together.

i look forward to seeing you at the reception. and congratulations once again to all the awardees. thank you. [applause] >> well, thank you very much, maggie. it seems as though the person who would be accepting the award on superintendent garcia's behalf will not be able to join us. but the presenter is someone who i thought was a very important to pass that a war on it too. i would like to say a few words. he created a program. it is our treasurer. [applause] >> hello, yes was so honored to be here and to join you in giving this incredible award to superintendent carlos garcia. i have had the honor to work with him to launch an exciting program called kindergarten to college, which opens up automatically for every child entering the san francisco public schools at kindergarten a

college savings account. it puts an initial deposit in for each and every one of those children. it is funded by the city. it is administered by the treasurer's office, and it is in a strong partnership with the school district. the reason we're doing this is that studies show that if a child grows up with a college savings account in the child's name, that child is seven times more likely to go to college than a child without a similar account. we want to bring that kind of success to every child here in san francisco. thank you to you all and to the san francisco public schools. [applause] >> and we will be certain that carlos receive his award. there's a special gift that all of us presented with the department of the environment. the bags the honorees will receive. i want to thank the leadership of supervisor john avalos and supervisor campos. [applause]

john, you can stand. to make sure that we had certificates of honor from the board of supervisors signed by each and every member for each of our honorees tonight. i wanted to thank the minority leader, nancy pelosi, for sending someone to bring us her awards but the assembly member who also provided it certificates of recognition. and the senator who joined us tonight. thank you again to wells fargo, to you, maggie, to you, carlos. we're so much looking forward to enjoying the entertainment and the culture that you brought with us to city hall tonight. without further ado, we will begin presenting next door. in addition to that, i wanted to make sure we recognize our other sponsors that are so important for us tonight. an issue to wells fargo and others, want to recognize at&t,

pg&e, bullhook bank usa, and a special thank you to ms. ann cervantes, who helped design the beautiful program. thank you for helping to design that. [applause] she really puts a lot in to make this happen for us. we invite you to try the food next door, served by check moon -- chuck moon, along with the florida street cafe. thank you for bringing us commission language vocational schools and florida street cafe to provide some of our beverages for the evening. we wanted to make sure that we had some libations tonight for all of you that representatives of the latino community. you can try them tonight. the bodega winery and others, all who wanted to be here tonight to help reflect our diversity that we can enjoy.

>> please join us in the court over there. muchas gracias. buenos noches. >> thank you, everyone. >> ok. we will get started. i'm the senior communications manager for the california department of trorbgs spokesperson for the san francisco oakland bay bridge. we have invited the media to give you an update on construction progress for our new bridge. a number of things are happening right now and will continue to happen the next two years as we

get ready to open up the new bridge to public service. first, we have a transport ship that recently arrived during our final segment that will be put in place the next couple of months to complete the main deck for the suspension bridge. we also, the past few weeks, have constructed a cat walk system that is very visible to the public that will act as a platform for our construction team to erect, to basically place the main cable of what will be the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge out in three-dimensional space. that is another very visual element that continues. as we get closer to the end of the year, we will begin erecting equipment that will be placed out there. it will basically look like a

giant conveying machine that will pull the cable strands across over what you see that is the cat walk system. that work will begin, the actual pulling, probably january of 2012. but the equipment is being installed now. you will get a chance to look at that in the field today. our contractors have been working long hours to ensure that the transition structure is completed on time. we have the westbound portion of that structure that would take you into san francisco. it is nearing completion and should be done by the end of this year. then we will begin construction on the eastbound portion. it has started but you will see concrete being poured soon. then coming in the spring of 2012 we will complete an operation that started earlier this year. we moved eastbound traffic to the south on the oakland side of the bay bridge to accommodate

for construction work that will be happening the next couple of years. that will allow us to open the bridge all at once approximately six months ahead of the original schedule. in the spring we will be basically closing the westbound bridge heading into san francisco for a period of days. we will come back with more information so you will know what will happen. this is similar to other closures. while closed we will shift the approach to the bridge after you come out fof the toll plaza traffic will be shifted to the south that. will allow us to surgically remove a portion of the bridge that is currently in the way of the new bridge's alignment. while traffic is running on the new portion we will remove the old portion and allow us to put the construction crew there and basically complete the new bridge so we can open the entire thing at one time.

this is a lot of information and you can go to the bay bridge info.org. before i break it down i want to say tonight is special. we are going to illuminate the construction lighting on the cat walk for the self-anchored suspension bridge for the first time. and most people when i say big deal it is construction lighting and maybe our architects would say that, but what happens is it is little bit of revealing. this is out there because they have to work at night and they need the pathways illuminated but ultimately it means you are getting an early look at what the bridge will look like at night for the first time at 7:45 tonight. we wanted you to be aware of that. those are the main items we have asked you to see. this is one of the few times we have been able to work out with the contractor that we could allow you to come out and be

physically on the bridge and go up inside the tower. we hope you will work with us, follow our safety standards. there will be a number of cal tran personnel to ask questions regarding safety or access. if you have any questions see me or tony. at this point in time we will -- mike, do you have a quick one? >> why today? just because the lights are going on? >> let's take the q&a. i will run through the presentation because it will help the folks that it is their first time doing it. >> paul, are you ready? this presentation is available on line at our media bar. this is just to give you an understanding of the different elements for the bay bridge.

the first piece is the arrival of the final steel deck segment on the transport ship that came in yesterday, on sunday. here is some of the footage of the pieces arriving in the bay underneath our western span. there is over 5,000 tons of steel on the transport ship and this is the last ship of its type coming in for the bridge. still a couple of hardware items we are awaiting but the bulk of the steel is now here. and what are we actually seeing today? basically, if you look at the very end of the self-anchored suspension bridge there is a gap between that and the sky walk. over the next couple of months the pieces that have arrived will be filling that gap. here you can see, using google, we have outlined the gaps that exist. these are the pieces that recently arrived and need to be placed. the next couple of months you

will see us in this order place 13 west, 13 east, 14 east, 14 west, and connect them into the bridge. over 350,000 bolts are used to connect this. there are 28 sections overall. these are the final four pieces that will complete that deck. they are some of the most complex ones we have had to build for the bridge because inside of them is the anchorage of the structure. the techniques topic are the cat -- the tphebnext topic is the c walks. we have seen this happened. you can see slightly different the process that they used to put them in place. this is vintage footage but the same type of structure. steel cable, steel or chicken wire mesh that the workers work on. we have wooden platforms on top of the mesh. you see this guy struggling a

little bit to get in place. these guys had to do some different things than we had to do. but again you can see there the cat walk creates the geometry of the bridge. in the 1930's when those came out that is when bay area residents saw what the west bands looked like. that is what you are seeing right now. in the past few weeks away put our cat walk in place. you see a couple of film images of what you will see on site as they connect to the top of the tower. this is our back expand, the short expand that goes toward the island. also online we have a couple of quick methods of i think this is some of the electrical work that was done to put the lighting system in place as we get ready to place the main cable. here is a shot for scale that you can see. you see one person working there. the lights are the exact same

fixtures that were used on the memorial bridge in 2002. american bridge procured them and is using them here. when we put those in place that was a preview of what that would look like at tphaoeufplt tonight, the same thing. that is the cat walk segment. the final deck segment installation. that is over the next couple of months. these shots show a little bit of a very large crane -- barge-mounted crane that does the heavy lifting to put the segments in place. the pieces weigh over 1,000 tons and they are put down in place where they need to be and are pwoeplted together that. is a few shots of what the operation will look like the next couple of months.

as we finish the year, the hardware will go in place for cable placement and as next year begins we will go into placing the main cable but what is the main cable and why is it different on this bridge? this bridge will be the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge with one main tower and one cable. if you follow the arrows, you can see it starts on the east side, comes across traffic over the top of the tower, wraps around the back of the bridge, comes back across traffic up to the top of the tower and anchors back on the other side. if you think of a traditional suspension bridge as a hammock connected on two sides, this is more like a sling, connected on one side and loops around the other. so, if that makes sense, then we can show you sort of what the next process is. in order to put this cable in place we have connections that

will be happening primarily on t the eastern side of the self-anchored suspension bridge and the wraparound will be happening on the western side of the bridge. if we look at the eastern side first, you can see how the main cable comes down into the road that you drive on and like any traditional suspension bridge the cable fans out. this cable is made up of smaller wires. you look at the fact sheet, you will see there are 137 strands, of 127 wires each. the wires are about five millimeters in diameter. each could basically lift a military grade hummer and there are 17,399 of those wires in the main cables of the bridge. so, as it comes down to the deck it comes through the stroud and fans out and ties back within that deck section. that is how it connects on the eastern side of the bridge. if we look back at the main

span, the cable wraps around the western side at the island. unlike traditional suspension bridges where two cables move up and down, our one cable is moving on three plane, coming kraog across track and back. so we have changed the angle and we bring it around. another saddle about midpoint where during construction we can work with the tensioning on the cable so we get it where it needs to be for placement. then on the other side you have the same three-dimensional saddle that takes the deviation as it comes across. so, i hope that makes sense. it is moving in three planes. it is not coming straight down. it is coming at an angle and across. that is on the western side. and there are steel cables

inside that beam that are holding down that end of the bridge inside some of the strongest foundations in the world. the cable is made up of strands of wire, 127 of those wires are in one strand. there you can see the hexagonal pattern of one strand. we have 137 of those strands that make up that main cable. when they are in place and we have the rest of the hardware, the cable is compacted into a insul cylinder form. that will be happening in 2012. then where we are going today? there. that is the top of the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge. you can see it iis clearly part

of oakland and downtown san francisco. that will be empty today and it weighs over 800 tons. over at the island we have another project to connect this back into the tunnel. here you can see the bridge has been designed, the eastern span, with side-by-side travel. as we come on to the island we have to reorient that traffic into a double deck configuration so it can go into the tunnel and on to the west. so we have the traffic detour and right now we are building the westbound structure that will take the traffic off the suspension bridge and connect it to the top of the tunnel. after that is done we will have

the eastbound traffic headed from san francisco to oakland slide underneath that structure and connect into the tunnel on different foundations for seismic regions. so you see here outriggers. they will support the westbound structure. there is a different foundation for the eastbound structure so the structures can move in a large scale earthquake. and that is what this project is all about. these are a couple of shots that will be clear when you get there. they were taken from a airplane, a helicopter. there is the westbound structure that is being cast right now. you can see the columns down there below for the eastbound structure that we are getting ready to work on. and a shot from the platform of what it looks like toward the