dragon is the luckiest year. so, here we go. with a little bit of luck, we can follow up on last year. crime was down last year, violent crime, and we want to keep that trend going. the crimes that surrounded the lunar new year last year were down over 50%. we have 11 reports of extortion in 2010, and we only had five reported from the gang task force. it would be great if this year, the year of the dragon, we have none. we can do that through cooperation, working together, and everyone giving us the information we need to make sure everyone is safe and no one has to give up anything that works so hard for. when that language assistance available. if anyone speak another language from english. many, many languages are represented. please, please, use these resources to work with the police department. be as a community. we are all in this together. it's at the very safest year of the dragon as we can.

[speaks foreign language] [applause] >> speaking on behalf of the board of supervisors and president david chiu -- [applause] >> thank you, captain. at the new year's, everyone. it is great to be here. i think is a wonderful and suspicious that the sun is shining upon us. i want to take a moment to recognize the tremendous accomplishment over the past year in 2011, as we heard today, our crime rate continues to go down. i want to take a moment to thank all of our men and women in blue. from rg, command staff, the captain, to those of you could -- patrolling our foot beats every decade you're doing wonderful work. i also wanted think the community partners.

you cannot do this alone. the police department cannot do this alone without our district attorney, without our nonprofits but not want to think the community youth center, chinese chamber, and all the organizations helping. i wanted in the community that, over the past couple of years, have worked very closely with our san francisco police department. we know that the number one way to fight crime is to make sure that our merchants and residents are talking early and often to our police officers in our district attorneys of is to let them know they hear of anything, if they see anything, report it immediately. that is why we're coming together today. i look forward to a wider effort -- wonderful year of the dragon and continued drops a crime. with that, back to the captain. thank you. [applause] >> supervisor eric mar. >> thank you. at the year of the dragon, everyone. i wanted to thank mayor lee and our tremendous leadership in the law enforcement family for

keeping our neighborhood said. in my district, public safety is one of the key issues. i will be a new member of the public safety committee on the board of supervisors. i think a key thing for me to point out is that public safety does not just rely on a law- enforcement, but neighborhood groups that historically san francisco, 60 for everyone, with many different dedicated community activists all over this city that hundred law enforcement, business owners and merchants, to keep our neighborhoods safe. i hope i can work with you in my district to develop a tolerance of safety plans and more city- wide efforts. thank you, everyone, for being here. [speaks for language] >> speaking on behalf of the san francisco police commission will be commissioner angela chan. [applause] >> hello.

[speaking foreign language] i think these are all the happy new year chinese greetings no. as we are studying, stephens, good luck with your business bit of that is for business owners. wishing you good health, especially elderly folks, and again, happy new year. on behalf of the san francisco police commissioner, i want to wish the committee a very happy here and the dragon. the year of the dragon is the luckiest of all the years in the zodiac. parents often tell their kids to have a dragon baby this year because it is so lucky. the dragon is known for being strong, driven, and unafraid of challenges. a time of great celebration. i wanted to make sure that we tell our families, our children, and our businesses that if they encounter any crime that, like the dragon, they should not be afraid to confront these challenges and report these crimes to the police to make sure that other members of the community are not harmed by any

of these things in the future. and in reporting those crimes, we make it a safer place for everyone to enjoy this wonderful and lucky holiday that does not come by very often. i want to know that i am cloud -- proud of our city where we have the first chinese-american mayor. it is a great time to celebrate that, along with the year of the dragon. i want to thank the crime prevention and public safety in the end, especially mr. david chan. thank you. [no audio] [applause] -- [applause] >> our district attorney, at george gascón. [applause] >> thank you. happy new year. had a year of the dragon. i wanted to show our support to the mayor, chief of police, and others. crime is going down. it continues to go down. that is great news. i want to remind everyone that the district attorney now has office hours.

we are here. we want to continue to increase -- [inaudible] make sure the community wants to use the program. we have many different language speaker is. 9-12 had been cameron house but by the end of the year, i want to increase the numbers of the program. we want to continue to move city-wide. we know there's a great deal of need here. [inaudible] not necessarily going to the hall of justice bill that is the reason why we are here. happy new year. we look forward to continued success. as commissioner chan indicated, the dragon symbolizes progress. have a wonderful year. thank you so much. [applause]

>> speaking on behalf of san francisco saved will be the program director -- san francisco safe. >> good afternoon. i would like to thank everyone for coming on this beautiful afternoon to celebrate the year of the dragon with us. and, you know what, it is a great time of the year, a time where you pay respect to your elderly. you get together and clean the house is. the time of the year, unfortunately, it is not a secret that some of the local and asian criminals prey on the potential victims. so we all gather today to make sure that no one and nobody

ruins the festivities. what safe will do, we will be distributing more than 2500 of these crime prevention information packages, as well as more than 5000 of these red envelops with a really important safety tips. those are in english and chinese. also, we are asking the media for help. please help us spread the word. the message is loud and clear that no one should be the victim of crime at this time of year or through the year. and if something happens, then there are resources available. no one should feel isolated.

i would like to mention also that we're celebrating the new year, but we're also celebrating the beautiful partnership, the partnership between the asian community and the city department and the nonprofits and the volunteers and everyone who is helping us with this event. it took years to build this relationship, and this relationship is still evolving. i would like to ask you to join us in celebrating the new year in celebrating this beautiful relationship and partnership, and it is time to hit the road. time to this -- to distribute the crime-prevention information. again, happy new year. [applause] >> now i would like to ask robert to speak. >> thing that made the sun go

away. well, thank you very much. it is a privileged to be here today. i think the mayor said it best bit of good public safety comes from not just reacting, the being proactive. the community comes together, law enforcement comes together as a unified front to protect the citizens of the city but of the director of this division, and it is my pleasure to do this. is a very proud of our agents. the collaboration between the county and city law enforcements. i appreciate the service of our agents, and i thank you for giving us an opportunity to help the community. it is our privilege, and we appreciate it. thank you very much. [applause] >> that concludes the speaking portion of today's event. now i will open it up to questions from members of the media.

this is a first-line 15 years, no questions. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> historically, there has been concerns about extortion at this time of year, as well as other gang-related activities, things like that it up over the last years, it has dwindled to practically nothing. i am very proud of that accomplishment. >> what about the -- [inaudible] >> a number of programs are in place now for those with english as a second language. we have telephone lines. we have a number of language- competent officers in this police district. the district attorney's office has the same. about every department has called 3-competent members.

any other questions? aca none, we're going to begin the merchant whalk where we distribute the flyers. thank you for joining us to celebrate the lunar new year in the year of the dragon. thank you. [applause]

good morning, everyone. thank you for joining us at the under construction site. thank you to the developers and call their supporters and certainly the people that i had met last year, including dennis rogers. we're all here on that rainy day last year when we kick started this project with the developers and housing advocates. your story here also with supervisor and board president david chiu with supervisor kim and our newest supervisor, christina olague. thank you for all being here. [applause] first, let me begin by saying

that during the campaign for mayor and certainly post- campaign, there has been a very strong effort on our part to make sure that job creation and economic development, as i said in my speech and inauguration -- that that becomes a priority for me and my administration. i have a lot of support that the board for this as well. part of that not only is when we talk about jobs and talk about the training and getting people involved that the early level of their education to get into the work force and making sure that they see san francisco as full of hope for them, but also, we have got to take care of some of the other important elements of having a good, strong work force, and that is housing. not just for low-income, although here, that is what this is focused on. that is why we have so many advocates here today, but they will agree that work force and

middle-class housing is just as important in this town. as we see a lot of expensive housing going up -- and that is good, too, but middle-class housing, housing for folks that are working and taking care of families is as important. that is why today, i wanted to use this site and use the opportunity to bring all of our housing advocates together with developers, with financial people, with people representing real estate association, property owners, and so forth, to come together and talk about the need to fill the void, as we have been talking about, where redevelopment is thought to be eliminated on february 1, and where there are constant challenges. in my opinion, have to use the word of abandonment. but the end of state-funded programs. the curtailment at the federal level of programs that we could use to create an ongoing source

for funding housing in the creation of housing. i know that our housing authority commissioners who are here -- director henry alvarez is here as well -- they will immediately agree. we are not going to take this lying down. we will not become victims, as i said earlier. even if they eliminate redevelopment, we are coming back. we are bringing people together and coming back with private enterprises, developers, people who have worked together with us. they know that delivery of promises has never been about a reliance on government programs, that we would fail ourselves and fail our community if we are so inclined to allow ourselves to lie down. that is why i have helped to assemble this group of people behind me. also people in front of me that are represented in the private sector. people who have been very successful in producing housing. we need everybody to work together. today, i am announcing that in

light of the idea that we had about forming the housing trust fund, that we begin forming a housing trust fund working group. a working group of people reflective of all the talent in our city, from advocates to developers to producers to people who maintain housing stock in the city well. that is the private housing developers, the real estate association, to the business mines and the city, and that i would like a trust fund working group to help me help our whole city come up with the best ideas possible and afford ourselves with an opportunity to work with our borders supervisors, leadership of the board to amass the best ideas we can and bring it if need be to the ballot in november. i want this working group to welcome all the best ideas and

then to struggle, if you will, with those ideas to make sure that we come out with the most agreeable schedule of ideas that we can present to the voters and residents that we are not going to abandon our commitment to this city to build housing for everybody. we are not going to allow ourselves to lie down and say that just because the state and defense do not find this to be their highest priority, in san francisco, we do. as we build training programs for our employees, as we build the technology and the grain industry to complement our tourism industry for good jobs, that we also are talking about the housing that we need to support our local industry and our local workers. i think that we need a press, a thrust at this housing trust to bring everybody together and say

that we could challenge ourselves to come up with the best ideas and to forge alliances that maybe have been in the past only at the affordable housing level for only at the luxury housing level or the market rate housing level, that we can forge an alliance together to build middle-class housing that the city desperately needs. so i am announcing today this forging. i am asking the director of our mayor's office of housing to take the leadership up on this and ask everybody to come to gather on an agenda. some of the people that we have asked today to come together here, both in front and behind me, include the housing advocates, the council on community housing organizations, enterprise community partners, the non- profit housing association, mercy, bridge, chinatown community development, tabernacle, who is part of this

effort here. the community housing partnerships. tenderloin housing. i know randy is here today. mission housing. south of market. community action. enterprise community partners. and then, of course, the developer family. san francisco planning and urban research, the housing action coalition. lennar is here today. thank you for being here. jackson. pacific. hei capital. bank of america. tenants union. coming together to join all of us to make this effort genuinely open for dialogue and for hopefully reaching an agreement again so that we can house our middle-class families and make sure that we represent everybody can have housing for everyone in the city. with that, i would like to ask members of our board of supervisors to join with me on this. president chiu.

[applause] supervisor chiu: thank you, mayor lee. i am really happy that we have represented to a really a wonderful spectrum of folks that care about a topic of folks that i think we all have been talking about for quite some time. mayor lee referred to the proposals he put out last year on the campaign trail. i can tell you that every candidate last year was talking about the importance of affordable housing. it is time to move beyond talk, though, to figure out what the solutions are, but something on the ballot, and get it done. i want to thank all my colleagues who are here. i know supervisor wiener has been leading in making sure we remember the importance of workforce housing. our newest colleagues supervisor olague has been making sure to work with tenants. we all have a real commitment to making sure that we're bringing together all the diverse voices, and i know that every constituency who is here wants to make sure that we see housing

built at different segments and different parts of the housing need that we have. we have to figure out how we get it all done. i know that the mayor is committed to this and i am committed to making sure we're figuring out how everyone can be at the table, how we can all craft solutions that will represent a good stepping board in building was san francisco is going to look like in the 21st century. thank you for being here. we look forward to getting this work done. [applause] supervisor olague: hello. most of you know me because we have worked together on all sides of the housing issue. i wrote a very brief note that i want to put out there to confirm my commitment to this dialogue and to this working group. i want to say that i am very excited to be coming to the board as these conversations

begin. i look forward to working in collaboration with tenant activists and developers and others who have worked with in the past over the past several years to find ways to address the overwhelming need the city has for low and middle-income housing. the need is great and immediate, but we cannot begin to find solutions without dialogue. please feel free to stop by my office if you want to have individual conversations so we can go and have a little bit more in-depth talk about this because sometimes when you get into the working group, it is, you know, that format is a little bit constrained. i would like to have conversations with those of you here who are open to that. again, i am excited to be part of this. [applause] >> thank you again to all of the

variety of members and advocates and developers that are here today. many of you know that affordable housing has long been one of my top priorities. i knew this year that housing would be a big issue. it was not just low-income families and individuals coming to our offices. it was writing e-mails about how hard it was to continue to live here in san francisco when middle income and even middle upper income tenants and residents in the south of market in the mission were e-mail in our office and telling us how tremendously hard it was for them to remain in the city. i knew this was an issue we would have to begin to tackle. last year ended on a down note with the abolishment of redevelopment where we lost our only permanent stream for affordable housing in the state of california. it is great to be part of a city that is taking a proactive step only a week later to state that we are all going to work

together to build housing for everyone in san francisco. i look forward to this work as well. working my colleagues, i know the ones who are standing behind me have also said housing is a priority for them. we need to make sure we continue to keep the city diverse and livable for everyone. thank you. [applause] >> reverence --rev. fong and reverend mckay were here when we started this. we will need your prayers as we continue forward. rev. fong, i know you have been such a committed person. we ask you to bless us here and encourage us to do well on these efforts. of course, supervisor scott wiener. thank you for being here. supervisor wiener: thank you.

i am really excited about what we are doing. what i want to really stress is the critical importance of focusing on moderate and middle- income housing and making sure it does not get lost in the shuffle. we do a lot in this city on affordable housing, and we talk about workforce housing, moderate income housing, middle- income housing a lot. to be perfectly honest, we do not always put our money where our mouth is, and of course, we need to do more and more on low- income housing, but we have, i think, in the past, sort of but moderate middle-income housing to the side and not really move forward in a substantive way on that. it going through this process, i intend to hold our city accountable to making sure we are actually taking care of our middle income residents and

families in this city because we are in danger of falling out our middle-class in this city, and indeed to prevent that from happening. i intend to work closely with the mayor, my colleagues, and the mayor's office of housing to make sure that we are having a hell looked -- housing policy that is inclusive of everyone and that we continue have a thriving middle class in san francisco. thank you. [applause] mayor lee: thank you, supervisor. i know there would be other supervisors that would show up, but for the conflict of interest. i think with this large number of supervisors, there will be others that will be release supportive of this effort. thank you for being here. i may have been in haste, but i will ask olson lead to come up, who was a designated person to head this effort to.

-- effort. >> this is a great day. i think my emotions on this day are so different than december 29. as a former redevelopment deploy e -- employee and going to that website and seeing the supreme court decision and wondering what we will do in san francisco, and coming to this even when the mayor is taking the lead and solving the problem and taking the initiative is just a great, great event. i cannot tell you how much my colleagues in the state of california are envious. unfortunately, through the governor's decision, there was chaos in the affordable housing community throughout california.

this project is a redevelopment project which will not be funded without tax increment, and that tax increment provided $40 million a year towards affordable housing. one of his questions to me was, "what are you going to do now?" i think we have the answer. thank you, for taking the leadership on this. we now are going forward and trying to create this housing trust fund. we do not have a lot of specifics at this point. that is why we have a working group. we will look at all the possible resources that may go into a housing trust fund and look at sort of the best ideas of other housing trustfu