days ago and the pictures on the wall was from 1937 and 1951. there was not a black face, there was not a woman and there was not a latino in the picture. that's the myth of absence. and if you see it long enough, you will believe that that is how it's supposed to be and for many of us, we've swallowed the pill, o.k.? we've swallowed the pill and i'm going to close right there, i got one poem and i'm going to get off of here so al can get his program back. me and this boy go back 100 years so we can talk like this, you understand. all right, here we go, do it anyway. people really are unreasonable, illogical and self centered, love them anyway. if you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior

motives, do good anyway. if you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies but succeed anyway. the good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow but let's do good today anyway. honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable but let's be honest and frank anyway. the biggest ideas with the can be shot down by the smallest of minds. what you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. let's keep building anyway because people need help but they attack you when you help them but let's keep helping them anyway and give the world the best you got and you'll get kicked in the teeth, but guess what, give the world the best you got anyway. thank you very much.

♪>> good morning.

supervisor carmen chu, thank you for being here in our city administrator, namely kelly, thank you for being here. of course, our new public works director and his wonderful staff here. thank you very much there is a reason why there's three public works directors on this side. ed risk then, our new mta director, and i have the former public works directors. we're here with muhammed and with our city administrator naomi. one, to get an idea of where we're at with the rebuild of our wonderful general hospital. i need not repeat how important this institution is but to tell you that we are honoring that level of importance by being out here in full dress, because we want to make sure that we're on time, with an budget, and

this is proceeding with all of its complications as a major, important hospital-first city. i want to think the whole team that has been working together. i want to thank our dpw construction management team and the inspectors, because they're doing a great job. the reason why this is on time and we look forward to the possibility -- and i always have to say without being too overly exact on updates, but sometime this summer, perhaps towards the end of july, we are looking at the top behalf of this structure -- topping it off of this structure. that is a milestone. the largest bond capital program we have experienced. but one that was a smartly, thoroughly assessed with our capital improvement program and the city, one that i know carmen was proud of in her supportq this and the approach that we have had in how we have

approached and how we have build this thus far. and with the kind of modeling that has been experienced and with web corp. and having the design meld with the construction and construction management and getting early input from hospital management is the model that i think well, for generations to come, will be a model i think we will be proud of. because it will give us to honoring the way we use public money, these bonds. we want to make sure that they're billed to the specifications that we expect and they are done right. -- who want to make sure they are built to the specifications we expect. when we do that, companies can go on to many other projects we are involved in and help our city become that much more and successful. over 3000 jobs have been created in the life span of this project. it is important that we note that, because job creation,

again, is not only my mantra, but it is one that has been in every neighborhood asked that we really focus on as we approach all these projects. we have had a tremendous time in making sure local companies are participating in this project, and that is why ron alameda, a great project manager, has paid attention to every aspect, including local hire, training, local companies -- that is important to us as not only principles but as policies we embrace. having said that and having noted how important this is, with other public works projects that are just as important. it leads me to supporting naomi kelly's announcement she has made in the last 24 hours of selecting not only good friend

but someone that i valued in his eagerness to serve our public in the appointment of mohammad nuru. he comes in at a time when his skills have been demonstrated for this public works department, but also at a time when public works is not only implementing and managing these very important projects like general hospital, but we also have appeared 27, the cruise ship terminal that is already started -- pier 27 and the cruise ship terminal. we had the public library project. and the the last two completing a program that has been very successful for the city. we will get there with the bayview and north beach library. they will be completed because we have wonderful public works managers on top of that. we have the chinese recreation center that is about to be

completed with rec and park. we have a number of fire stations that are part of the whole public safety program, again it reflected in the 10- year capital infrastructure plan. i want to note that public works, while being one of the most important infrastructure departments, has also, over the years, had leadership that have collaborated with public utilities commission, with the port, with the airport, where it muni so that it is part of the official city family of doing things. i know that ed reiskin appreciates this collaboration, because that is how we get a lot of things done. it is not just the construction departments that we collaborate with. we are collaborating with our police department, with our human services department, with all the other agencies that need to get involved. when we do that on the front

end, we get even better results. we get timely results. that is the character of muhammed nuru himself. you know, whenever you pick up garbage with somebody for five years and you go into the gritty as part of our city, the alleyways where we have discovered graffiti and illegal dumping, when we worked along side of companies like recology and others, when we go at midnight unplugging sewer lines in the middle of the night after a huge rain, you know who you are working with. you know the character of the person you're working with. you know they do not give up. you know not only is there a work ethic there, there's a level of enthusiasm that reflects a strong value of love for neighborhood and a love for the city. that is why note -- mohammad nuru has been selected to be our

new public works director for the long haul and will help naomi and all the other departments of the city administrator's office collaborate with the rest of the city family to get things done. i am so proud of mohammed, proud of his consistent effort to reflect his love for neighborhood, that i will be out of their wine saturday from this weekend, on a march 10, to begin my resurgence in the cleanup teams of saturday mornings, and to make sure that you know that just because the mayor said in room 200, i do not sit in that room, i use that room to empower the rest of the networks. i will be out there. when it comes to carmen's district, i will not only be part of the cleanup teams, but i will spend a couple hours both saturday's opening up myself to a neighborhood involvement. and i ask neighbors to join me. i will buy them a cup of coffee. because i am proud to be part of

the clean team, using that opportunity to collaborate with more residents and find out what it is that we can do to continue a high level of service and at the attention to every district of the city. again, i want to reiterate how proud i am with public works. i know wonderful people like joe are retiring. he has figured it out. but, joe, we're going to use you, even in your retirement, because you and so many other water all people who are still part of public works have really deliver on a promise to the city that will take care of not only cleanliness and a bit of vacation but infrastructure and the collaboration needs to represent a great city, a city that knows how to get stuff done. that is all what residents and voters want. they wanted these simple times of getting kingstowne and collaborating and communicating. i know it has become much more difficult with the huge regulations. with financing, it has become

more difficult. with the loss that we're faced with and how to manage the project -- with the laws we are faced with and how to manage the project. with the laws imposed upon the port, airport, muni, and other agencies, we needed to permit that goes beyond sitting back and awaiting root for things to happen. there are actively looking for relationships with our general hospital. our general hospital has already starting to talk to me about, ok, when we're finished with this, there is another project that money to pay attention to. they're thinking ahead about the medical needs of our community. that is why it is so wonderful to be out here, because people are not just taking care of immediate emergencies. there also assessing have those emergencies can be part of a wonderful city that protects itself, that will be seismically safe, that will be working all along this time with disaster recovery. these are all of the elements of

the great city. so i want to thank everybody here was with me. again, i want to thank naomi for a wonderful decision. naomi. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. in addition to all the wonderful things that you said about mohammed's leadership and the reason why i am so confident that he is the best director for dpw right now and can leave this world-class organization is his hardworking it does the plan and work ethic, to oversee all these wonderful public works projects. he is going to oversee these projects and make sure that they, on time and under budget. and one of the things he has done is embrace innovation. he has in dpw staff that he is a monitoring that looks at the performance measures to make sure to look to the performance of these projects, and he meets

weekly with his staff to make sure that, again, there on time and under budget. in addition to the discipline to these public works projects, we referred to him as mr. clean. you can probably twitter that and find mohammed nuru there. the mere mention, he is out at every neighborhood, looking to make sure garbage is picked up, griffey is removed, making sure that our neighborhood in san francisco, every single member it is beautiful. because of his enthusiasm and his work ethic, he has increased the number of volunteers of volunteering along with the dpw crews in san francisco over the weekend to make sure our neighborhoods are beautiful. you have to appreciate his enthusiasm that so many of us are working alongside with them to make sure that this city stays beautiful. because of this, these are all

the reasons and the reasons the major religions are the reasons of why i have chosen mr. nuru to be the next director of dpw. with that, i would like to introduce mohammed nuru to you. [applause] >> good morning. thank you all for coming out. thank you, mayor. thank you, naomi. ed reiskin, supervisor carmen chu, micro-deputy directors, thank you all for coming out. i am honored and humbled that i have spent to lead the department. i feel really good that we had a very good place with the city's capital planning that was led by mayor lee many years ago. we were able to schedule our projects and were able to pass a bonds. as you heard, with the hospital, we just started work on the cruise terminal where we actually got the team to

continue the demolition to bring that project to fruition. we have the new police headquarters down on third street. we have several libraries, market street. we have so many great project. i feel very fortunate to come in with this gift of being able to work with all the public works staff, with the staff from other agencies, mta, the police department, and all these city agencies. most importantly, as the new director, i cannot forget where i came from. i did come from the community, and i am a very strong community organizer, and i will continue to spend a lot of time in my community to listen to what their needs are and what kinds of results they expect from the city family. i will do my best to make sure that we deliver. i will also work with the board. i have worked very closely with carbon -- carmen that with all

the board members to make sure they know what we're hearing from the communities. as a family, with the other city agencies, we can continue to deliver world-class projects for san francisco. again, i am honored. i do not want to keep on talking, but i am very excited. i want to thank everyone for coming out today. thank you very much. [applause] >> i think that is it. now, the mantra of mr. clean, let's go to work. thank you. >> good morning, everyone. my name is naomi kelly, city and minister -- city administrator.

welcome to the portola neighborhood. we're celebrating the successful efforts to revitalize san bruno avenue. this city has had a great partnership with the portola never its steering committee, where some of it's never the investments include streetscape improvements, from planting trees and leaves to utility underground in and fixtures and to install office saw improvements and much more. today, mayor edwin lee will talk about launching the investing in iran initiative. joining him is supervisor malia cohen, robert ramirez from the portola neighborhood steering committee, and many department heads, including jennifer from the office of economic and workforce development, ed harrington from the san francisco public utilities commission, regina from the small business office, bevon from sf hope, and

revitalizing our commercial corridors has been near and dear to mayor lee's heart since his days as director of dpw and as city administrator and down as mayor. whether it did the dpw community corridor program, ambassador program, or the challenge grant, the mayor is always asking us how can we strategically deploy our resources to revitalize these aboard commercial corridors in areas that need it the most? with that, i would like to introduce mayor edwin lee. [applause] >> thank you, city administrator. good morning. welcome to the portola neighborhood. that is the pronunciation that i learned many years ago when we were picking up garbage in these little pockets all over this san bruno avenue. and we learned that very

quickly, because the neighborhoods fell that we were not door to make investments in our neighborhood, and if we did not, it would go downhill very quickly. so we started with a number of debra agencies to work together along this corridor. guess what, a few years later with that kind of investment, we have trees alive here. we have got sidewalks that are not only clean, but they have been redone. you have got signage at both ends this a welcome to portola. as a result of that investment, there is a vibrancy that i have not seen in other corridors comparatively. one of the statistics i want to make sure you know is that during the years where this great recession that hit all of us, i think the city's self tax -- maybe we did a little better than other years. maybe 3%. this corridor along san bruno experienced an 8% increase in

sales tax, just because people believe in this neighborhood and continue to come in here, not only for the coffee shops. for the giver and clubs, at the activities, youth activities, -- for the different clubs and activities, positive activities and the neighborhood investments. i could talk all day long about job creation. as you know, cougin recent weeke have been announcing the big leases with a successful technology companies. that is excellent for the city. it is very much in downtown and south of market and in our mission area. but i want you to know that we're paying just as serious attention to our neighborhood corridors throughout the city. yesterday i walked with carmen chu, supervisor chu throughout the teravelle district and got a

good sense of some of the challenges and listened to the copy shop owners, the insurance company owners, some of the other areas where they are giving us and put about how we can improve all along that commercial corridor. this morning, i got the and breakfast with supervisor malia cohen just a block away, and we talked about the different sections of san bruno, how wonderful of an emperor of man that has been over years of effort that has been a collaborative -- how wonderful of an improvement that has happened over the years of effort. this is the kind of framework that we wanted to continue establishing throughout all of the commercial corridors, the merchant corridors throughout the city. as we walked along third street yesterday with the opening of the kitchen, that was exciting. we commented on how positive the feeling was. it is a framework that wanted to

make sure that you know as we discuss things like the revolving loan fund at the board of supervisors, as we discussed programs were we're linking an technology challenges with our neighbor minutes. we wanted to do it in a framework in which the public knows we're bringing together all of the different departments in all of our neighborhood corridors, to make sure you know we are going to take care of a lot of things. this is just an announcement here or there, it is an announcement in concert with everything else we are doing. the most important thing is that you know we are working with neighborhood leaders when they come into the corridor. it is not about a parklet that is going to be isolated. it will be embraced by the residences and businesses that will use that. make sure that it is a part of the vibrancy. that they have input to the leadership in developing. every one of our corridors, and

we're going to look forward to not only teravelle, noriega. supervisor of a los -- avalos wants is to pay attention to the geneva corridor. bernal, as well as the traditional corridors. we're going to be working on ideas about a small business loan and what it means to get resources out here where people feel, maybe they're reading the paper every day and see that we're paying attention to the downtown and south of market interest. we're not and inlet. we're just going to be as investment-friendly to our merchant corridors throughout all of the city. even as we set the agenda for the old redeveloper over subcommittee, we are going to be paying attention to all of the kind of commercial corridors that they pay attention to as well, whether it is midmarket are outlining areas like san bruno avenue. that is the framework in which

we wanted to make sure the discussion continues. it is the portola, the neighborhood that has been out here. the neighbors that want to continue investing, want us to invest in debt. it is a coordinated and collaborative effort. today we begin identifying the key partners and leaders. so i wanted to announce that noami kelly is the city administrator and will be working with jen matts as kind of the two leaders in this initiative of the neighborhood investments. the neighborhood investment initiative is going to reflect collaboration of all of the different elements that made a san bruno successful. in an addition to the small business loans, we're going to have a lot of other ideas. where do we bring more of our community ambassador program as we invest in that? where do we bring in the collaboration with our police department here today, where

they can have more visibility so people can feel safe? how do we get our office of small business -- regina is here today, to get their programs out where needed, and to lecture the commissions are paid attention to all of the different corridors. this all has to do it collaboration and a coordinated effort. when we announce the $1 million this year and the $5 million small business loan program, it is in the context of a very good collaboration that we have from agencies like the puc. ed harrington is here today. dpw, community ambassadors program, muni, our police department, and cdbg, our mayor's office of housing. it is all part of the way in which we should do business, getting collaboration as well. so that when we meet with neighborhood leaders here, they know they have got connections

to every single agency. when we work with sf ci5tty and quarter and eight permits online. when we do things like an event parklets and make those successful and accessible. or use money to create an even better coffee shop that will come here to san bruno. it is going to come very soon. we have leadership in place. we have coronation. funding is in the works. -- we have coordination. we're on a positive scales in our economy. i am going to use the additional revenues we see coming into this city. make sure we do it and use it smartly. we are going to invest in our

community challenge grant program that has been so successful all along this corridor. they have worked magic with the neighborhood groups that want to see greening and better programs. the murals in place of grafitti have been wonderful. it will be replicated throughout the city. thank you very much for joining us. [applause] >> coldiron, we have some more people -- hold on, we have some more people. there will be questioned. next, i would like to invite up supervisor malia cohen. [applause] >> good morning. i think today is another example, as was yesterday, of the physical manifestation of what happens when thoughtful people and thoughtful leaders

come together. i like to publicly to thank the portola neighborhood steering committee. thank you for your leadership and commitment to san francisco and to this little cove that recall the portola. my home. i was raised here. my parents still live here. this corridor means a lot to me personally. it is a very committed to continue to support the merchant corridor, as low as the neighbors, and continue to improve our efforts to beef up and maintain the safety as the number-one priority here on the margin corridor. thank you to our community leaders. [applause] >> , thank you, supervisor. next, i would like to introduce reporter wrote rivera's to speak on behalf of the portola neighborhood steering committee -- i would like to introduce roberta ribble -- roberto ramirez. >>