as the redevelopment agency. thank you for your guidance in getting us here, to this ribbon- cutting ceremony. it is an exciting time. we are starting to go through a rebirth, as we focus on how we are reprogramming mandel plaza, continuing infrastructure programs as well as structural improvements to the bayview opera house. i am putting everyone in their area on notice. this will be the spot. the third street merchants corridor is coming back and it will be bigger and better than ever. this bill be the new spot for international cuisine. we have a peruvian restaurant down the street. here we have eskender. this is mediterranean, modern african, very bayview. we have some fantastic asian

cuisine along the corridor, along with fantastic taco places. this place captures exactly what san francisco is looking for, bringing people and communities together over a wonderful meal. i want to thank the city family for being here, the friends and neighbors, those who said that it could not be done, those that said it would not be done. hero -- here we are celebrating the ribbon-cutting of a fantastic restaurant that will be opening up. i look forward to being a faithful patron. al norman, thank you for your leadership in the bayview merchants association. [applause] and if we have any aspiring business owners in the house

today, there will be funds available for those people that have a burgeoning of entrepreneurial spirit. i am very excited to be here and welcome you all here to this fantastic opening. [applause] >> we have what we call the third street corridor program here. it is a collaboration with the baby business resource center. is sharing here? it is a collaboration with them and redevelopment and a couple of city offices. over the last few years, we have been able to do improvements on 25 businesses on third street, which is no small feat. [applause] technically, this is part of the program. i just wanted to report from our staff, limon was standing room

only on saturday night. [applause] comintern in over now to tiffany for a couple of words from the four redevelopment agency. [applause] >> thank you. it is a pleasure to be standing here in this building. there are affordable homes here. this is a manifestation of the ongoing investments that mayor lee and others have spoken about, in terms of the physical and economic investment in the bayview. too many people are here to thank but this was truly a covered a partnership, both at the state level, to build these homes, from community development, redevelopment funds, to stimulus funds, the mayor's office of housing, up front equity.

we are truly pleased to be able to continue to invest in ongoing vibrancy of this third street corridor. and number of months ago, you saw the city's investment. we are investing in food for soul here through eskender's vision. i am pleased to be here today and i welcome you all. thank you very much. [applause] >> a couple of words from al norman of the baby merchants association. >> you want to welcome everyone here for this wonderful opening. keep your suits pressed because we plan to have many more openings like this in the bayview. we have a tenfold job here in the bayview.

we want you to join us because we have big plans in collaboration with our mayor, supervisors, but the other merchants in other districts here to make this one of the safest neighborhoods in san francisco. we want you to feel that you can come down and shop and eat and have a good time, as if you were going on union street. our job is to make sure that you are safe, having fun when you come to visit us, and make you want to come back and bring people with you. thank you so much. [applause] >> first of all, i want to thank you, mayor lee, andrea baker, for all of your hard work. [applause] from the bottom of my heart, i am very excited to move to this neighborhood.

also, this is a long-term dedication. it may not happen over a year. it will be a solid, simmering good movement that will change the way we eat around here and the way we live. for example, i do not know if you saw the garden over there. we are growing some vegetables and grains. some of did you will probably be eating today. i am so excited. i have something in the oven, so i cannot speak too long. i am so happy. i want to thank all of you, including the neighborhood. enjoy. there is plenty of food. thank you again. [applause] >> i believe there is a special table for the mayor and naomi kelly, tiffany, a couple of other department heads.

thank you all for coming. we really appreciate it. congratulations, eskender. >> 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.

>> this is one of the museum's longest art interest groups. it was founded by art lovers who wanted the museum to reflect new directions in contemporary art. it has been focused on artists in this region with an eye toward emerging artists. ♪ it is often at the early stage of their career, often the first major presentation of their work in a museum. it is very competitive. only a few artists per year receive the award. it is to showcase their work to have a gallery and publication dedicated to their work. ♪

i have been working with them on the last two years on the award and the exhibitions. the book looks at the full scope of the awards they have sponsored. ♪ it has been important to understand the different shifts within the award program and how that is nearing what else is going on in the bay area. -- how that is mirror beiing wht else is going on in the bay area. ♪ there are artists from different generations sometimes approaching the same theme or subject matter in different ways.

they're artists looking at the history of landscape and later artists that are unsettling the history and looking at the history of conquests of nature. ♪ artists speak of what it means to have their work scene. often you are in the studio and do not have a sense of who is really seeing your work. seeing your own work at the institution have gone to for many years and has an international audience is getting the word out to a much larger community. ♪

>> 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. ♪