thanks again for those that burn able to see this to be able to come through. [applause] and i want to thank the residence. this block has been torn up for a long time, especially since we found the main sewer line needed repair. the residents have endured with little complaint, having to work around dirt, pot holes, trenches, without a little complaining, and we were able to get through this whole thing. thank you. now we are going to learn how to take care of it. you will not see cigarette butts in the planters. no litter on the ground. thank you caughto everybody. i want to introduce juan fuentes

now who will talk about the things that you do not see. >> i am a resident here. my wife and kids have been here, over 25 years. i am an artist. one of the things that the model block has done, we talked about how it has put us closer together as a family. it has empowered us, as a community, to rebuild our block. i have been bargaining with ann -- our houses are side-by-side, so i have been doing a vegetable garden in her garden. i started out with 1 barrel that mardina gave me, from the puc, they gave me a 55-gallon drum. i now have over a dozen drums, 250-gallon drums.

i collect over 1,000 gallons of water that i harvest from the rain. this summer, i watered my whole garden with the water from the rain harvest. that is another thing that has happened. i have also watered ann's garden with that same water. another thing -- karen is not here. she is in that nice, gray house. she has been an advocate, working with the environmental things in this community. she was one of the people responsible for pg&e getting us some solar panels, the phillips solar panels. we have solar panels, mardina, ann has solar power. it has cut our energy costs

down. the other thing we are trying to emphasize in our blood, in our community, to the young people, to respect the block and to keep it clean, and to learn how to recycle. we have green, blue, and black bins. we need to figure where everything goes because it is part of saving our environment. thank you for coming out. [applause] >> thank you. as juan indicated, this newcomb greeting project shows how community involvement and empowerment go hand-in-hand. there are a large number of redevelop the staff who are here. perhaps it show your hand if you were involved in this. the project manager, along with many others.

as well as the staff of other departments, thank you very much. we appreciate it. [applause] with that, let us get to the ribbon-cutting. >> ready? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [applause]

>> thank you all for coming. please stick around for some sweets. >> let me start out by saying, from the get go, last night, i was talking personally with pg&e. we continued the discussion this morning. before coming here, i had a chance to speak to the ceo. we agreed, all the engineers,

from his division, with the city's public utilities commission, rec and park, as well as the california public utilities commission, are all coming together to review the outages that occurred last night. there were two outages. the first one appeared. we are going to get the confirmation this afternoon. it appears from this morning's conversation, it resulted from a down the wire -- downed wire that was providing power to the stadium. the secondary power outage occurred as a result of bringing the power back up and using secondary circuits. that is still under investigation, as to what caused the second outage. obviously, the city was embarrassed. we apologize to the 49ers for this happening. the primary thing that we did,

though, that we did well, we declared public safety the most important thing. and i need to thank all of that and that were at candlestick last night. they were very good at keeping themselves calm. police and fire at candlestick was excellent. we got information out to everyone in the stands through the various radiofrequency is made available to the security, including officers, rec and park staff. in a matter of seconds, those that did not understand what was going on, who may have initially thought it was a surprise is that that was going to occur, they were informed to remain calm. no evacuations were called, but

we immediately went into planning mode, in case that was necessary. everything was safe, and that was the number one concern. having said that, obviously, we all experienced a national embarrassment for this happening. we were on the phones last evening, during and after the game, and this morning, to make sure that this does not happen again. we expect another playoff game in january. the failed splice line has already been repaired by pg&e, but we will be going through protocols with them, with the public utilities commission, and our staff, to make sure we cover every base to make sure this does not happen again for the foreseeable future, for all of the playoff games that may occur. we want to make sure that all the 49ers play are successful,

as the result indicated, but also successful for the fans, so there is no interruption. we are doing a full investigation, having all of the engineers compare notes, and the offices of the puc and our public utilities commission. we are getting some cooperative oversight from everyone, california puc as well. there is cooperation and every point. we are not blaming anybody for this accident that occurred, but we are all going to make sure that this does not occur again. we are all on the same page. i lead that effort, talking to the ceo of pg&e this morning. >> [inaudible] >> we are going to go through that. there were some bomb threats that were well-handled yesterday by the police department, but there was no indication, right

anything other than an accident. we will continue to compare notes with everybody to determine whether or not there were any external events that would have caused this. so far, we do not have any information that suggests this would have been tempered by anyone. that is with the concurrence of our police and fire chief as well. >> [inaudible] >> again, this was an electrical service to the stadium that failed. our offer is separate, to build a brand new stadium, along with santa clara, with new linkages to power, and new lights. these lights take some time, when the power goes out, to re- fuse. the newer lights, which we would

have in our stadium, it is given the opportunity, would be instant. it is a separate issue. >> [inaudible] :xb 4ro>> you will have to talk. york about that. we have a strong plan b to build a stadium for them. if you look and other new stadiums across the nation, especially in major league baseball, even new stadiums having challenges as well. they are separate issues. >> [inaudible] a city-own a switch that failed. do you know anything about that? >> i spoke to city officials. they confirm that the original of which was a failure of their line, what they call a splice failure. that was evidenced by the

recorded arching. we thought it was a transformer explosion. it was not. it was up main feeding circuit line that pg&e owns that somehow failed. they confirmed for us this morning that the original outage was due to that splice failure. how the outage occurred is under investigation. pg&e, our own puc, sfpuc, along with others, are going to confirm that as well, by our own engineers working coope>> [inau] >> i have faith in everyone doing the best job they can. i have faith, going forward, that we are going to work in a deliberate fashion to make sure that this does not happen.

our city has systems that have been here for a long time. i was sad and embarrassed to have this happen on the night of our only monday night football game. everything was on the line. i am very glad we won. i am going to support the 49ers by doing the best job i can as mayor to make sure going forward everything is respected, additional particles are in place -- protocols are in place to guarantee this will not happen again. i think we have everyone on the same page ensuring this does not happen again. it should not happen. we do not want it to happen. yes, i was. the 49ers will talk about thiat

this afternoon, about plans to increase cell phone use of the park. i was concerned for the fans. public safety is our number one concern. the police department, fire department, recreation and parks, alongside the 49ers security, they all acted well. everyone was safe. then the communications with pg&e engineers were occurring all night long into the early hours. we started this morning to make sure everyone was working together. my apologies to the nfl and 49ers. i know they joked about it and took in good spirits and were prepared to go forward.

that is what professional athletes do. that is what the business of football is. we will make sure this does not happen again. i assure you we will be on top of this to make sure it does not happen. i am sorry. >> [inaudible] >> this has to do with cell phones. some fans the return to communicate inside and al felt challenges. i had challenges of my own when i was at the stadium trying to get out. that is what i meant about communications that could be increased. i know the 49ers are working on that with us. they will make some announcements on that. that will be this afternoon. >> [inaudible] >> i keep this hat with me in the car.

i am a big 49ers ban. i want to make sure the 49ers have a successful season, are into the playoffs. they're well on their way to the super bowl. i will make sure they have every game successful as much as i can. thank you very much.

>> good evening, everyone. my name is filled in the third, the director of your parks department. my job can be challenging at times, but on and that light tonight, i feel like the luckiest guy in the world to be here, to support families in the event like this is truly fantastic. this is the greatest city in the world, the greatest parks department. thank you for joining us. 82 years ago, uncle john mclaren, our first park superintendent started the tradition of minding a mile- long of live trees at, to where he lived at the time. behind you is the official entry of san francisco, and it is called uncle john's tree. it is a monterey cypress that

is 131 years old. it is over 100 feet tall. it has over 700 lights. it took 8 rec and park tree toppers to light this up. let's give a big round of applause honoring john mclaren, who would be 160 today. 82 years later, our staff has continued the tradition, and i want to thank all of the park staff, recreation staff, tree toppers, electricians, structural maintenance crew. everyone had a plan in -- hand in planning this tonight. i want to make sure that everyone is applauded for the

great job that they had done. [applause] i also want to thank the city family who is here tonight. mayor ed lee. we will hear from him in a second. members of the board of supervisors, including supervisor farrell, supervisor elsbernd, supervisor wiener, i think supervisor mar is trying to park. supervisor mirkarimi is supposed to be here. i want to thank our fire chief joanne hayes white for being here today. i want to thank our police chief. our treasurer, jose cisneros our rec and park commissioners. [applause]

ana and reid, fiona ma. i also want to thank quickly our entertainers for the evening. we have had some incredible entertainment. the golden gate band. the hoover middle school jazz band. the birchen high-school drum corps. the young people music theater company. the george washington high school marching band. the brunos. press, circus -- presscot circus.

i also want to thank our co-host for the evening, the newly formed parks alliance. the parks department cannot do it alone. the alliance has really become our best friend. i want to recognize their board chair. our executive director matt o'grady will come up to say a few words. >> thank you so much. the parks alliance is the new kid on the block. a brand-new organization, and yet, a very familiar organization, because we come from the san francisco parks trust and from the neighborhood council. these two organizations got together and realize they can do so much more by combining forces to make this park system the best open space system in

the world for san francisco. i wanted to give you a couple of samples of some of the great partnerships we have built to make these parks so fabulous and gray in san francisco. the first partnership is with none other than the parks and recreation department. it is called the gear up program, where we have been tried to buy resources for our part centers citywide. that program has raised, from your generosity, more than $300,000 or reparations centers across the city. bravo and thank you for your generosity. i want to mention another partnership we have had running through the san francisco parks alliance. take another look at this enormous, beautiful tree. trees like this do not get that

way on their own. it started from a tiny seed, and it grew to this beautiful majesty because of the love, 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.