>> they met in closed session to settle the matter with the director brinkman absent. the board also authorized the payment of two under and $63,000 for the beauty salon. there was no discussion of anticipated litigation. >> move not to disclose. >> second. >> thank you and happy holidays, everybody. have a good afternoon.

>> thank you. let's hear it for the band. [applause] >> thank you. let's hear it for the band. [applause] welcome, everybody. once again, i have the honor of being your master of ceremonies for the annual lighting of the snowflakes on market street. great event. i love being part of it. good to have you with us. i should point out that we just saw a spectacular light show under the dome over west field

center. you probably have not seen it because we are the first to see it. you should get over there and see it during your holiday shopping. tonight, we have the dancing snowflakes from the san francisco ballet school. they are currently preparing for the annual performances of the "nutcracker" at the san francisco opera house. here's something you may or may not know -- san francisco was the first city in the country to premiere the "nutcracker" in 1944. the san francisco ballet is america's first professional ballet company. how about that? [applause] in a few minutes, we will have the snowflake lighting, but first, i want to bring up to say a few words someone who has been instrumental in putting this event together. he is the director of the department of public works here in san francisco. [applause] >> thank you all for coming out. we are very happy to join all the businesses along with all

the other city agencies to continue to improve and improve the quality of market street. four years in a row, we have been adding a few blocks in a time, and step-by-step, we will get all the way to the castro. i am very happy for this event, and i look forward to all the lights coming on. happy holidays. >> don't you love short speeches? i did the best? another instrumental person in putting this together is the public facilities commissioner. >> thank you. this will be short also. we do the street lights in san francisco. it is wonderful to join downtown and like the street up and be part of the community. it is great. hetch hetchy green power lighting up the street. have a wonderful holiday. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. now, joining us i think for the first time for this event is

mayor ed lee. mayor lee: thank you. i will be short, too, because i am. happy holidays, everybody. i want to especially thank these beautiful snowflakes. aren't they wonderful? i wanted to be on time because i know i have a lot more closing than they do. i wanted that iqbal dpw and our puc director -- i wanted to thank our dpw and puc directors. we have increased this netflix by an additional 20. there's a total of 162 snowflakes on our wonderful market street. we have some 81 leptos that are covered. we're going to continue expanding this every year we get more participation. i want to especially thank market street as well.

we also want to signal that we are seeing changes along our market street happened. this is a commitment that i have made. not only the campaign, well before running for this mayor ship, i was proud to participate in all the changes the former mayor did to signal that we want our businesses here on market street as well. you are going to see in the next few months twitter. you're going to see zendesk. you are going to see burning man come aboard. the companies we have asked not only to start here but to stay and grow. all these wonderful companies creating fantastic jobs will join the events we have all along our great market street. you will see united nations plaza with its wonderful market parts -- arts festival starting out through mid december and there will be joined by so many

events. i want to thank everyone for coming tonight. spencer, with that, are we ready? are we ready for a count of? >> i think we are ready. we want all of you for joining us. i want to thank the participants once more because once we do the countdown, you may not be able to see them. thank you very much. we are going to start the countdown. are you ready to join us? >> 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 >> like the snowflakes -- light these netflix. >> here we go. [applause] >> happy holidays, everybody. -- light the snowflakes.

>> when there is this a children's theater, it is a good theater. it is a good theater, you would like it, even if it is for children. that is what i think. i feel like it is both a story for kids and for much older people. it is both about being a young child and letting a toy or a friend, and it is also about what it means to get old. ♪ >> in 1986, my son was two, and i decided i would like to go over the story of the velveteen rabbit, mind you i had never

read it myself as a child. i only heard it as a mother. my first-time hearing it was a bedtime story recording. it was through that that i found the theme and determined how it was going to produce this story. it was through listening to it. when a first mated, i really did watch my son, because i took him to live performances as soon as six months old. he loved it when someone was on the stage. he loved it when somebody was reading to him, the language. >> there was once a velveteen rabbit. >> usually when the bunny first comes out ago, ah, the rabbit. i think kids can relate to it. and they built love nana. nana is the man at all figure in

the show, and she represents stern love. the ferry is also played by the same person. -- the fairy is played by the same person. it is like the love you have for your first child. pure love. >> i think nature is a beautiful thing. all the wild rabbits come from nature. i like that. i think nature is mysterious, a beautiful, and not something our kids get very much these days. ♪ >> there is fantastical spectacle these days because of computers and films. i feel that in a live performance, being pared down, you can be more successful you can ask everybody to buy into

the world you're in. if it is a simple world, they will buy into it, as long as the world is consistent that you have onstage. in some ways, i also want that message for kids. the world does not have to be spectacle. the world can be about relationships, how you feel, and having fun and taking them seriously. and not about being blown away. >> what is real, asked the rabbit one day. >> it is a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long time. >> i think it is a success because, for the most part, if you are 3 or 7 years old, you sit in the sea, and the kids are engaged. they laugh and ask questions but that is part of the success. i think the fact that we tour and do it here and still have

audiences says it is a lasting. i really want to say that it is lasting is because of the story is a gentle story. if it was just ok, it would not have lasted this long. i have had people come up to me and say that was the first dance show i ever saw and that is why i am a choreographer today. i have had people come back after being in the shows and come back to see it when they're 20 and 23 years old. little kids and people in their 50s and 60s tell me how much they love it. and they come back more than once, year after year. ♪

>> the supervisor is running just a little bit late. she should be here shortly. we do have with us this afternoon mohammed nuru, director of d.p.w. mohammed, where are you? [applause] mohammed is going to have to rush out, but he wants to say welcome and thank you. >> good afternoon, everyone. and thank you for inviting the department of public works over here to talk about our contract processes. we are part of the city family and he will not be able to stay

for the whole event, but edgar lopez, who is from our department, who actually is involved in many of the projects, the new public safety building, most of the projects in san francisco are actually under his leadership. so he can talk in detail about how they meet many of the goals and what we have coming out. we do have quite a number of projects that are coming out. all those new projects are subject to the 30% local resident hiring. you will see from the information that our department has far exceeded many of those goals that have been sent. we actually track everything and i think the exciting part is that we do have a number of projects that are coming online,

and so this hope for work. as it relates to purchasing and buying equipment and rental equipment, which many of you are very familiar with, we've also far exceeded the goals that have been set for us. so we have all that information. you're in good hands. and thank you for allowing us to participate in this forum. it's a great forum. and please just work with us and ask us questions and we'll do our best. so thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mohammed. director nuru, we have worked many years together. some of you already know him from our neighborhood and what he does. what he's done in the neighborhood, he will continue to do at the department of public works. he will make sure that his

commitment to the residents and to the public is just the same as he has done with cleaning the neighborhood and keeping our city clean. mohammed is one of the most dedicated, committed civil servants. so i want to thank him for being able to pop in just a little bit. something came up. he had to rush off to take care of an emergency. our next part of the program will be my commissioner. here comes supervisor cohen. i'm going to give her a chance to come in and put her bags down. i would like for the commissioner to come up and talk a little bit about our guest speaker today. i'll just say something briefly. i met him almost two years ago. and he's absolutely one of the most supportive advocates our community could have.

he provided for us to have a training program two years ago, c.m. construction management testing and inspection training program. we had 21 residents from san francisco to participate in that program. the program ran for eight weeks, for eight hours a day. that's a big commitment getting up and being there at 8:00 on a saturday. i was a chaperon. i know, i'm still tired from that. the kids are exited and quite involved with the classroom. we had the bay bridge inspector, one of the big highlights of the training program. he talked about the white stripes you see on the streets. the kids were just amazed he had invented that. he had a lot of patents and he brought all his props. they really enjoyed that. out of the training program, each -- once they completed the

training program and they graduated, they received a cal tran certificate of training for c.m. construction, which have allowed them to work on public works jobs. we want to be able to do that again in partnership with call tran and we're looking forward to that cooperation in the future. but again, we were able to place quite a few of the trainees, and i understand from just hearing from them from time to time they're doing quite well. they're still on the job and doing a great service. so i'm going to bring the human rights commissioner up and she's going to give us a little bit. [applause] >> good afternoon.

thank you for coming. this is a great, great crowd. thank you so much for taking the time to come here. i have a very easy job this afternoon. i have to introduce an incredible department head. jan has been with the california transportation agency for the past 27 years serving as engineer and very high-profile management position. at this capacity, he is responsible for the day-to-day operation of state highway for nine counties in the bay area. that's a huge responsibility. he is managing 7,600 lanes of

high waist. he's responsible for employees with the operation budget of $550 million. and you have to pay attention to this part. $4.1 billion of contracts. that is a huge job and he has been doing an amazing job. with that huge responsibility, he still finds the time to go to town hall meetings and the community meetings, meet with everybody, and talk about what he's doing and also help with them, work with them to understand the whole process. he has been involved in design and improvement of major projects such as i-80, u.s. 101 auxiliary lanes, the central freeway, the san francisco international airport expansion project ramps and roadway

improvement. i'm sure all of us, when we go to airports, you basically send a thank you for making it very easy for everybody to get in and out. and as you recall, many years ago before the improvement, there was a tremendous bottleneck, and what he has done, he has made it really easy for disability concerns. in addition to the tremendous responsibility he has as a district four director, he's also serving as a commissioner on the metropolitan transportation commission. she also served as ex-official member of the joint power authority. it's truly an honor to have him here as our guest speaker, and please join me to welcome him to the podium.

[applause] >> good afternoon. thank you for that introduction. it is really an honor for me to be here with you today. i want to thank the supervisor for having this town hall meeting put together and thank all of the city agencies who are participating in this. i want to thank zola jones, who found me and let me know that this event was going on. and sent me an e-mail. it's been two years since we last met and it's good to see you again. these days -- we've got a short power point presentation that i'm going to be using.

just talk about some of the things we'll be doing, what our agency is about, the type of work that we do. and as you all know, cal trans covers the entire state of california. and in order to better manage that, we have broken down the department into 12 districts just like the city has different districts. that helps us in being closer to the community. helps us in increasing the utilization of the small businesses, disadvantage businesses and disabled enterprise businesses. the department manages 50,000 lane miles of highway, 22,000 employees statewide. my operation here in district 4, it covers the nine bay area counties. as you can see in the map. which is about 7,000 lane miles of highway. we have the toll bridges that we operate. we have just under 4,000

employees. our budgets, our capital program ongoing at the present time with 155 contracts, it's about 4.6 billion. so there's a lot of work that is going on, and a lot of that is due to the toll bridge program. half of that is the repair of the various toll bridges that we have, and of course the biggest project, one of the largest public works projects in the nation is the span of the bay bridge that we're working on. in the district, we work with all of the 101 cities, with all of the nine counties that covers the bay area, with seven self-help counties, including the san francisco county transportation authority. we work with the 26-plus transit agencies that are in the region and with the condition management agencies. it is a dynamic region. there's a lot of needs in the

area. and one of the ways that we do try to incorporate and enhance the utilization of a small business is on a small business council, which is a council comprised of the association of the california engineering companies, african-american chamber of commerce, the hispanic chamber of commerce, the mexican contractors, and the list goes on and on. we meet on a regular basis and they advise me on ways of increasing utilization of the small businesses, disadvantaged businesses, and disadvantaged -- disabled veterans enterprise businesses. as you can see, if you can look at our statewide small business council, which covers the entire estatea