care, and feeding and care that was provided to victory over the last 130 years by our gardeners and arborists. every tree in every part in san francisco, every plant, the landscaping that makes our parks so beautiful, they are that beautiful because of the gardeners, landscape architects, and other professionals of the park staff that care for them every day and night, 365 days a year. where do our gardeners come from? i see a lot of young people here. some of you might be interested in learning how we can nurture them to make them so beautiful for us. we have a partnership with union local 261, who developed an apprenticeship program to teach young people how to be the best gardeners in the world so they could join the staff of the

recreation and parks department and provide a future for parks and gardeners here in the city. thank you to you, 261, and the other partners that have been so great with us. i want to form another new partnership here with all of you. you may not know this, but today is a very special person's birthday today. some of you may not know this, but i got my start as a musician, as a conductor. i have not done it in quite awhile, but i will conduct all of you to sing happy birthday to none other than our own phil ginsburg, who is 45 today. please join me. >> ♪ happy birthday to you have a birthday to you

happy birthday, dear phil happy birthday to you ♪ [applause] >> thank you. all i want for my birthday is 50 more gardeners. all right. let's bring up our parks champion. he is everywhere in the parks system. he is playing ping pong in the square, playing ball, in golden gate park, he is everywhere. ladies and gentlemen, our mayor, ed lee. >> thank you. i thought all you want it was her two front teeth? thank you very much for coming. it is wonderful to see so many families here together.

this is the season where we celebrate with our family and kids. i cannot think of any place more wonderful to be than this 130- year cyprus to share with you the lighting of this wonderful tree. i want to thank our department representatives, city official family, elected officials. i also want to let you know, i came here last year. we saw painted on the side of this train, the world series chickenshit emblem. this year, we have our san francisco fire engine. -- championship emblem. a wonderful tribute to our fire department. i want to thank the chief for coming here tonight, for helping

us with the toy drive, and for bringing a special guest. santa is here tonight, a special guest from our fire department. he is coming. i also want to let you know, in addition to tonight, on the weekend of december 17, 18, rec and park, city hall, all of our city officials, want to welcome you to the civic center. we are going to have a snow village, snow for all of you to play in. come in on saturday and sunday, the 17th and 18th. then on the 18th, we will open city hall, and you can take pictures with your family.

city hall will be open from 11:00 until 4:00 p.m. that afternoon. please come in to join us for the holiday season. thank you. with that, are we ready? everybody stand up. how about a countdown beginning with 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [applause] happy holidays, everybody. >> if you listen very carefully, you are going to hear coming down the streets -- i think santa is coming, mr.

mayor. i think he is coming. there is a lot of traffic out there, but he is on the way. >> good morning, everyone. i'm the executive director of the san francisco tradition nor did. the me take a second to welcome you all warmly to this event. -- transportation authority.

i am glad that we are able to hostess for the third time in a decade. i have the honor of introducing the official welcome to the city, edwin lee, the 43rd mayor of the city and county of san francisco. a former city administrator, former director of public works for san francisco. he was appointed unanimously as the successor mayor in 2011 to fill the remaining year of former mayor gavin newsom's term. as you know, former mayor newsom was sworn in as the lieutenant governor in january to 10 -- 2010. mayor lee is the first asian- american mayor in the city's history. 2010, mayor lee was appointed to a second term by mayor newsom. his appointment at the time was confirmed unanimously by the

board of supervisors. as city administrator, he spearheaded reform that would be reduced the size and cost of government, from reducing the vehicle fleet, to consolidating departments, to saving tax dollars. he implemented the city's move to cleaner vehicles and infrastructure to support electric vehicles. mayor lee also developed and oversaw implementation of his first 10-year capital plan, to guide our capital and infrastructure investment. mayor lee has a long and distinguished career in san francisco. since 1989, has held a number of senior leadership positions. he is a fellow cal graduate. as you probably all know, last tuesday, november 8, the people of san francisco elected edwin

lee in his own right, to serve as mayor of san francisco. let me say, on a personal note, the day before the election, i was having coffee at my favorite cafe in glen park, and lost in my e-mail, whatever i was doing in the moment. all of a sudden, i hear some commotion and see the mayor coming in to shake hands with me. he was doing parts of his campaign stump. it is already a tradition, in a few months that he served as interim mayor, among the department heads, you cannot be incognito in this town, because the mayor will find you. maybe in a cafe or someplace else that you hang out. this mayor likes to be everywhere, likes to know everyone.

that is what the city really needs, somebody who knows the city, knows what the city is all about, what the city wants. has got the kind of discipline, the kind of 7 to 9 scheduled to make it happen. he has already set an example, and we are all looking forward to a hold term of this with him. ladies and gentlemen, it gives me a great pleasure and it is my distinct honor to introduce mayor edwin lee, mayor of san francisco. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. thank you, josé, for that wonderful rendition of our last meeting. i want to welcome all of you here to san francisco, i want to welcome all of you self-help movement folks, local

transportation experts, individual that have dedicated your lives. i want to thank you for occupying san francisco this morning. i know i'll get questions there this afternoon. i wanted to be here this morning to welcome your conference, to know that you have a mayor here at greatly appreciates your self-help movement. we have had hours -- prop k -- and we have had many discussions about those. especially with dpw, how to balance that money to make sure that we are getting everything out of it that we can. we are doing everything we can with the sales tax. i hope you have a chance to visit some of the project that are under way because of prop k. we have wonderful projects, one that i am very proud of in helping our infrastructure will come, not only the increased population we are increasing, --

experiencing, but also the need to run the state. i noticed here in your conference you have a focus on the future. i first thought, in my relaxed way, after the election was over, -- that is close to one of my favorite movies "fight for the future." it is kind of like that. when it comes to transportation infrastructure, the priorities we have, in our government, and our residents feel about it, it is almost like you feel like there are aliens from another planet trying to stop us from creating a future for our society and community. i know we have some great projects in the state, but i want to thank you for coming to san francisco. with your ideas, the collaboration you have, priorities about making sure that we have sustainable, good

neighborhoods that are built with and through the transportation infrastructure that we are talking about, we are going to have our state really tried to depend on you to recover. i know without making infrastructure investment a priority, our state will not have the ability to recover economically and for the people who want to have good lives and improve the conditions in the state. i want to mention three of our projects. there ones we're very much invested in. the first is our procedural parkway. the second is the trans-based terminal. -- the trans-bay terminal. the third, the third -- [laughter] [applause] of course it is our essentials subway. [laughter]

that is going to be with the help of the department of energy. let me tell you that. [laughter] i wanted to talk about our parkway. we are about to finish next year if the first phase of the project. we will be connecting golden gate bridge with the new safe roadway that connects everybody to many points south. it is wonderful. i have been there at least twice with secretary lahood, jose, and many representatives of our congressional and senatorial bodies. they are seismically retrofitted. it will be even more beautiful. you will see a lot of scenery and around that. we're excited about completing phase one and look forward to

starting phase two. for the trans-bay terminal, one of the most important projects we're building downtown, we have had the program since the bay bridge was built. the trans bay terminal houses different transportation modes. we already have under construction the rebuilding of that terminal as a transportation hub. there will also be a brand new neighborhood of offices where people live and work. there will be a beautiful series of buildings where designing in the most sustainable and environmentally friendly way to make sure we keep our status of as being the greatest city in north america. we anticipate there will be 27,000 permanent jobs created as a result of that terminal.

we are building the north terminal hub for high-speed rail. we're going ahead and building it. we're building it in anticipation that the high-speed rail system will be built in the state because it is the smartest thing for us to do. that is what i am planning the future for. we are the only high-speed rail project already under way in the whole country. we anticipate we can work out an agreement with all of our friends to make sure it accommodates their needs and addresses their fears to minister it is sustainable. we strongly suggest that we are very much a part of and want to electrify caltrans rather than just build something new that will disturb everybody else's neighborhood. we know that our future is

linking the north and south. 1/3 of our airline flights through san francisco airport is the los angeles to san francisco commit. because of the capacity of our airports, we no longer have any capacity to expand, we need to move up on to rail. san francisco can be successful by inviting more infant -- international travel that we are known for. it is vital for our future. it is a great neighborhood being designed and built. you are going to see this being one of the most sustainable projects you will ever see. it is the center of 11 different transportation districts. a project that had been identified as one of the controversial once during the campaign over the last three

months is the subway. it has been supported by our city, every federal official, and the state transportation agencies for two decades. it is the second phase of the first phase that was completed. we're getting linked up with new stations for people going to union square or chinatown, no.- south. all of our new homes and additional residents that will move into the city, over 10,500 new homes are being built in the southern part of the city. that is going to be our new area of living. we have cleared it out. we have done it right. we have used redevelopment

tools to make sure our future has adequate capacity. the central subway is vital for our future. it will be transporting 73,000 passengers a day to add to our over 700,000 transit riders in the city. that is our future. i am glad to share it with you. i know you are talking about and focusing on the future of all of the counties. the san francisco transportation authority and the mayor do support of the work you are doing. i want to praise you for coming here and sharing your ideas. the best ideas are about to come. one of the most serious things we can do is that we have got to move our cities forward. we have got to move our neighborhoods forward.

we have to contribute to moving our state forward. we cannot sit back and watch our infrastructure decay. we have to make sure the right investments are made and that we make those investments. not investing in transportation means we would not have a company like twitter, zynga, a sales force. all those companies are coming here in part because they know we have invested properly in our transportation infrastructure. that is how their work force gets around. that is how they get around the city. welcome to san francisco. thank you. i hope you have great ideas and cooperation. thank you. [applause]

>> this is holly lee knox. there are some proud pet owners in san francisco and they have brought all their pets here to strut their stuff. >> it's an annual event that we've had. this is our 18th year. we bring in rescue groupers, vendors, supporters, lots and lots of animals. it's a proud day for us and for the animals of san francisco. >> the costume contest is really

fun. people get really creative. it's a really fun event. people go all out, create costumes, buy costumes, whatever it is. but there's some really fun ones. >> we're just celebrating the pets and just their companionship and how they are invaluable. so everybody's having fun. >> we're the city's open door shelter. that means we take in every animal that comes through our door regardless of age, condition, species, everything in the city comes through us that is in need. >> animal care control, it is such an important agency and is very understaffed, has very few resources. but we make animals don't have a home, that we get them a home and that we don't put the animals to sleep,

that we're able to adopt them out. >> we have a huge number of volunteers who come in and they will walk our dogs, socialize our animals, play with cats, play with them, bring them to adoption events today. >> i volunteer with the animal control center and i do that every week. >> we're in an organization called friends of a.c.c. with that organization, you can donate money if you don't have time. if you do have time, you can come down to the shelter and volunteer to actually have one-on-one time with the animals. if you're like me and you don't have time to give to an animal, if you actually have one of your own, you can get your fix on the weekends, come in and pet them and love them and it's great. >> this has been pet pride 2011 brought to you by san francisco animal care and control.

to find out more, visit them on the web at sfgov >> sanrio famous for the designs for hello kitty. i thought i would try to make it as cute as possible. that way people might want to read the stories. then people might be open to learn about the deities and the culture. ♪ they reached out to make about five or six years ago because of the book published. they appreciated that my work was clearly driven from my research and investigation. after i contributed my artwork,

the museum was really beside themselves. they really took to it. the museum reached out to me to see if i would be interested in my own space inside the museum. i tell them that would be a dream come true. it is the classical, beautiful indian mythology through the lens of modern design and illustration and storytelling. they're all of these great sketch as i did for the maharajah exhibition. i get a lot of feedback on my artwork and books. they complement. they say how original the work is. i am the first person to say that this is so derived from all of this great artwork and storytelling of the past. the research i put into all of my books and work is a product of how we do things that a--

at pixar. sometimes you will see him depicted monkey-like or as superman. i wanted to honor his monkey coloring. i decided to paint him white with a darker face. it is nice to breathe new life into it in a way that is reverent and honors the past but also lets them breathe and have fun. it is almost a european notion to bring these symbols and icons from southeast asia. they decorate their deities. it was a god they interacted with every day in a human way. the most important thing has been to create work that is appealing to me.

i want to see vishnu to pick did in a modern way. it dawned on me by reinterpreting the deities in a way that is modern and reverent to the history, i am building a bridge for young and old audiences to make friends with the culture and these icons to learn their stories. ♪