♪

[applause]

♪ ♪

[applause]

♪

♪

[applause] >> hello, thank you again. before we send you a laugh, we would like to invite our special guest to come up and say a few words. thank you. >> thank you all.

i want to thank the city of san francisco, but the mayor, the board of supervisors, and the committee that organized this event. [applause] and we cannot have survived the last 12 years -- next january, it can be 12 years since we've founded this. it would not have survived without your support. for those of you who come for the first time, please go to our website and keep following our various performances. we have a big performance, a two-hour concert on november 20 in oakland. it is a fund-raising event. i hope to see many of you there. i could not have done it without my family here. [applause]

this has truly become my family in the last 12 years, and in the last year, they have been all my children. i do not know how to thank them. they have done wonderful work. it is really their work. i just do work behind the scenes. but it is their work, their effort, and their love for arabic music and our heritage. i cannot have done it without the board, and i want to single out the person who established this group with me. [applause] in 2000, and then we established the nonprofit to promote various aspects of the arab part -- art. and we have been under the leadership, and they always say that behind a great man, there

is a woman with a greater behind. [laughs] [laughter] thank you. [applause] >> i would like to thank you all for coming and enjoying the performances and the musical ensemble. now if you would like to join us in the north white hall, just through the stores writer there, and we will continue the celebration. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you and good morning. i want to invite stephen barkley and mike from our staff who have been working diligently with the authority, many different agencies. of course, my point person for making sure we honor the public's request, to do this america's cup and the best possible way and involve everybody. let me start with some good

news. in january of this year, we had an unemployment rate of 9.4% -- 9.5%. as we announced during a year, it steadily went down. as of today, it is 7.8%. sorry. the reason i have that number people, in less than one year -- that many people were employed. i think we're on our way to recovery. it has been exciting to me. that is why, after the election, we kept going.

we want to keep that basis going. i have not taken a break. the excitement of keeping this foundation going is credible. with that unemployment rate announcement, i want to praise and thank our planning commission for their unanimous vote last night on passing the environmental impact reports for the america's cup. that is why mr. bartley is here today. we celebrated that night with a phone call to each other, said, good job. our economic office had been working hard with support staff, commissioners. as we went through those very time consuming public meetings, we meant it when we said it,

that we would honor everything we wanted to do. monique more year is here to be part of this announcement. going forward, we think we have done a comprehensive response to the concerns that were raised, issues that were raised. we can now look forward to beginning to put the work together and start on the construction of our cruise ship, the signature work we wanted to do. celebrating the eir, a tremendous effort, and want to thank all the parties involved, particularly the event authority, organizing authority, the america's cup managing team, court staff, port commissioners, the president of our port commission, thank you for being here.

they are here to join us as we all converged last night. this is a great milestone in putting forth the america's cup. in addition to the environmental impact report passing, which allows the port to begin its work on the cruise ship and the other agreements never wanted to move forward on, we wanted to let you know we have been working, but in addition to the eir, other important issues raised during the many important public hearings. we have the rest of our port commission joining us as well. thank you all for joining us. the excitement is growing. i think i have thanked the port

commission five times now, and i will continue to. during these periods of time, there was discussion of around long term development rights. in particular, they had to do with piers 14 and 14 1/2. along with the good work of port staff, particularly with the event authority, through mr. berkley's considerable help and understanding of the concern that were raised, our offices willingness to work with him to find a solution, we would like to announce in cooperation with the port commission we have a solution. we have agreed to an exchange of development rights with the organizing committee, the event authority. they will be giving up their long-term development rights to pier 14 to 22 1/2 and will be

offered and have accepted the rights to pier 54. i think that is a major agreement. a lot of concern were raised about views, the impact of developing in front of those marina piers. this has been a wonderful solution, took a lot of sensitivity on everyone's part to understand those concerns, while at the same time, making sure we've fulfilled the eir. we are working for different sets of hands as we are moving the acr event forward. i want to once again praised mr. barkley's participation.

he is learning what it is like to do business with the city. he is learning, has kept a calm approach -- perhaps not at the beginning. there was a high level of anxiety. we have a lot of other decisions that need to be made, so it is my style to make sure that we set a foundation where we can talk with each other and present those challenges so that we can make agreements. each of us gives up something to having said that, this event is moving forward. the cruise ship terminal is moving forward. the races -- you will start to see the smaller boats in august.

8000 jobs. that is not just a promise. that will be a reality here. very soon, you are going to see their activity on pier 80, and there will be some public days where you can see the activity going on with the boats. i want to make sure that you see that, in anticipation. i have a third thing to announce today, but before we have everybody speak -- i told you we have several sets of hands working on economic growth in the city. some of you may have heard, the pac 12 media center is moving to san francisco.

they just signed an 11-year lease at 373 third street. those of you who are interested in college sports, you all know that the pac 12 is the league for champions. they hold the highest number of n.c.a.a. championships throughout its history. that is a big deal, the media center. by way of background, they looked at other places when considering where they would go. clearly, there was a big push for hollywood, the l.a. area, with television studios, the brand of hollywood, but in conference with mr. scott, mr.

stevenson, the head of the pack 1 12 enterprises, the future was san francisco because of our commitment to technology, being a city of innovation, and that the future of media is not just one dimension, it is multimedia. they are looking to penetrate markets and want to be close to where technology innovation is occurring, and that is mission bay. they also indicated something interesting that resonates with me. they did not just want to be a national media center, they want to go international. beingé7f is incredibly open for them. larry scott just came back from china. we hooked them up with our program. they want to have markets in the far east, men's and women's

sports. i want to indicate just how excited i am about that and to let you know, names that our generation have been familiar with -- john elway, ronnie lott, kareem abdul-jabbar, jason kidd, tiger woods, they all came through the pac 12 colleges. if the digital media center is here, they will be coming here for their interviews, coming here to announce what they are doing, coming here to be entertained, as well as see their fans. we are on a good role. pac 12 is exciting to have here. so we have the unemployment rate reduction to 7.8%, the america's

cup moving forward on the eir, and this key agreement with the piers and development rights, balancing what the public and port staff has been focused on, and then with our great partners in the ac event authority, and then we have this pac 12 agreement. they want to be broadcasting by next year. so with that, i want to welcome] >> i would like to thank the mayor personally. we are new here. we have not got it right all the time, but we are learning fast.

specifically, with regard to the areas of piers 14 to 22. the mayor called me into his office and suggested to me that that was off the table. so i listened, and we went through a pretty neat process where we talk about what we were trying to achieve. the thing that made us really consider what this was about, we are not talking about a couple of years. potentially quite a long time. so we have to join with the city help us get things done that we want to get done for the benefit of all. anyway, i just want to say that it was a pleasure to work with you, mr. mayer, over the last several makes -- mayor, over the

last several weeks to get this done. [applause] >> i know the port commission and staff, and the public must consider this. there are meetings on going, but they came down because we have engaged them in the discussion. it was important enough to make a special announcement. so thank you for being here. that is pretty much the information we wanted to share. we will open up for questions. >> [inaudible] >> again, we have had an incredibly open process. we have invited everyone to share their views. i cannot say that we are going to, 100%, deal with every issue

in the way that people want us to. we showed our willingness to be reasonable, just last week, when we announced the relocation. we found them a location. they were so happy, they were dancing on the parking lot. gary, intelligent transportations, they willingly except in their relocation. now we have some more to get done, but we have evidenced that we can get this done and take care of everybody. >> [inaudible] >> we are always concerned about any effort that might delay our efforts here. our planning commission has done a good job. the