>> keep the applause going for the fabulous lisa malone. that was just terrific. [applause] i almost wore the same thing today. [laughter] would have been so awkward. [laughter] no, she was fantastic. now, everyone, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our host, the 43rd mayor of the city and county of san been cisco, the honorable edwin m. lee -- the 43rd mayor of the city and county of san francisco. [applause] mayor lee: wow, welcome to city hall. and thank you, beach blanket babylon. what a wonderful performance. let's give her another hand.

that was just fantastic. when i started being mayor of the city, i turned to our protocol officer and said, "you know, charlotte, we are going to do a lot of work this year, but these years forthcoming, as we work hard, i want to also have fun. isn't this fun? all right. [applause] this is our 50th anniversary of the wonderful song, "i left my heart in san francisco." tony, it is wonderful for you to be here and grace us and honor us with your presence. your 17 grammys are just so unprecedented. you just won two more this past week, and what a wonderful career. congratulations, tony. i want to thank our school of the arts. i want to thank our boys and

girls choruses. thank you. wonderful performances. it is a fitting tribute that our boys and girls choruses and ouryouth -- our yout are here today to perform because they reflect tony's dedicated career to ensure the future of arts education. we have seen what he has done and seen what his support is, and he is encouraging youth to be leaders on and off the stage, to make sure they grow up with the values and the shared values that he has. this is such a wonderful opportunity. i also want to thank some of the school kids especially here today. we have kids from our tenderloin community school. thank you for being here. [applause] all right. we also have, for the first time, at the request of -- the

idea ofcesa -- that cesar chavez elementary school wanted us to webcast this live, so we did it for them. wherever you are, welcome. [applause] tony, for 50 years, you have helped us not only remember a great song, but whenever any of us leave our town, we always come back and call san francisco our home. i know we talked a little earlier and tried to recall that wonderful initiation where in 1961, you first sang that song in the venetian room up at the fairmont. little did you know at the time that then mayor george christopher was in the audience with joe alioto. it was such a marvelous performance that when joe

became mayor, he adopted that as one of our two official anthems. thank you for performing first in san francisco. [applause] tony, you have helped us celebrate so many milestones in our city. you have helped us after earthquakes to come back and revive the spirit of our wonderful city. you have designed the wonderful art pieces to raise funds for those who need that service. you help us to reopen. after earthquakes, you have helped us climb -- not half way, you have helped us climb all the way to the stars with the -- a nation of our cable cars. you have just -- i in your career, you have generated more love and more nostalgic for our bay area -- more nostalgia for

our bay area than all the songs and all the movies and all the television shows associated with us combine. for that reason -- it is really for that reason, tony, that it is my pleasure if you would please come up, to declare today, valentine's day, february 14, 2012, as tony bennett day in san francisco. [applause] and also, on behalf of all of us and with all of our love and with all of our hearts together, to present to you the key to the city of san francisco. [applause]

>> would you like to say a few words? you have 45 minutes. [laughter] >> well, i would like to thank mr. ralph sharon, my great friend and musician, for finding this song. i was in little rock, arkansas, and we were on our way for the first time in my life. he found a song, and he said, "why don't we do this in san francisco?"

i said ok, and i have no idea, but there was a bartender who said, cassette and i don't mean to interrupt your rehearsal, but if you record that song, i'm going to be the first customer -- "i don't mean to interrupt your rehearsal, but if you record that song, i'm going to be the first customer." as i started singing it, the people came up and said, "you have to record the song immediately." i always thought it would be a local song in the area, but the fact that it has become such an international song throughout the world -- everybody loves it, and they love this city. it reminds me of one time when i was playing the fairmont hotel, gorbachev from russia with here and travel throughout the whole united states and in front of the company could tell, i was

listening to him speak about san francisco. he said, "i traveled to every city in the united states, and i was disappointed with what i saw. there was not one city that i liked, but as far as i'm concerned, san francisco is so beautiful that i would like to design 15 cities in russia that look like san francisco." [laughter] and he was right. [applause] my wonderful wife, my family is here. i'm thrilled. thank you very much. i must say -- excuse me, i have to mention one thing.

i have never seen anything in my life as beautiful as these young people. [applause] you stand so beautiful. [applause] -- you sang so beautiful. [applause] >> it is tony bennett day in san francisco. [applause] just fantastic. now, before we leave here today, just one more time, let's hear that special song one more time, now performed by the talented san francisco gay men's chorus, who will be joined by -- yes -- who will be joined by all of our performers here today and then all of you. you can sing along by following the lyrics on the screens.

ladies and gentlemen, the san francisco gay men's chorus. [applause] ♪ >> ♪ the loveliness of paris seems some house sadly -- somehow sadly gay the glory that was rome is of another day i've been terribly alone and four got 10 -- forgotten in manhattan i'm going home to my city by the day -- city by the bay

♪ >> and now it is your turn. >> ♪ i left my heart in san francisco high on a hill it calls to me to be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars in the morning fog may chill the air i don't care my love waits there

in san francisco of of the blue and windy see -- above the blue and windy sea when i come home to you san francisco your golden sun will shine for me ♪ [applause] >> very nice job, everybody.

well, as we close here today, mr. bennett, you have always had the key to our hearts. now you have the key to our city. we hope to see you back here soon in your city by the bay. thank you for this wonderful gift you have given us all these years and thank you so much for letting us honor you today. tony bennett day in san francisco. once again, for the man of the hour. [applause] thank you all so much for celebrating with us today. happy valentine's day. we will see you at the ballpark.

>> good morning, everybody. welcome to our america's cup center here at pier 80. i wanted to make some further announcements in light of the discussion that has been happening in our city on our america's cup event happening, starting this year, and will definitely have been in 2013 as well. i am here with stephen berkley, the head of the event authority. thank you to you and to jim and

mike and our team for working intensely for months on the last few weeks, putting together the development agreement that is part of the investments on the america's cup, which oracle and others have been working on. the last couple of weeks, i have been a key participant with members of the board of supervisors but also engaged between our staff and the abet a party and corp. team staff, to try to get to all of the complex agreements that have to do with the investments. i will say, in light of those discussions, some of which have been written about extensively from all of you, i started to get the feeling that people were for getting help on this

race is going to be for our city and started talking about not only the complexities of planning, permits, investments, returns on investments, i even have people start mentioning lawsuits that have started to creep up. i wanted to get back to the focus. the focus has always been that we would work with our event authority, with the oracle racing team, to present one of the best, most interesting, and dynamic international races this country has seen, and to get back that excitement and not get so bogged down in all of these conversations that we have been having, particularly in the last couple of weeks. we have been working intensely to make sure the event and the purpose of the event continues to go forward.

we are announcing today, in light of the complexity that presented themselves, drawn-out discussions over that, we have worked out some agreements, some changes that will make it less complex and therefore get back to the origins of it. the race is still confirmed here, but we also want to let you know, we have agreed, piers 30 and 32 will no longer be in the immediate discussions for development. we will consolidate all of the teams here at pier 80 for this event beginning this year and through next year. i think that will help with the conversation. certainly with the level of investments that have been anticipated to repair 30 and 32. we will not be needing those,

and we figured that out over good conversation that we had this weekend. that will bring us back to the origins. i want to emphasize, in this decision not to have 30/30 to be a part of this at this time -- and i emphasize, at this time -- consolidation will take place with all the teams but we will still have -- and i am promised, tomorrow, some of the walls around the shed will be coming down as part of the investment in building the james herman cruise ship terminal at pier 27. that will continue forthright in that timeframe. i want to get back to the time bring the new want to have for this year and next here on the races that will happen. we are committed to those time frames. we did not want any further disruptions from that.

we will be working with our report, members of the board of supervisors who have been notified about this recent change, and give ourselves some adequate time to adjust to those changes and focus on the things that have to be done to get this race ready. mr. ellison and i were in conversations about an hour ago. he is as enthusiastic about getting the race started. he expects to win, i expect him to win the race. we will look at other parts of our report to see how we can do future investment and entice private investors to come in and make sure we can repair some very valuable parts of our pier. i want to again say thank you to the members of our event authority. i know lucy is here. carey is here helping us raise

private dollars. again, thank you to steven barkley and you're wonderful team for working with us. this wonderful event, with the books that we are starting with, we will start and continue on that time frame and as you have seen here, even though i cannot let you into the secretive rooms that our housing the larger boats, their technology, we will continue on those posts. we will continue to announce that. the time frame that we meet. that is the immediate news. i want to reconfirm, we expect to have these races continue. we expect to draw an hour large people around the bay area to see this race. it continues to be a race that

will blend of technology of how you view the race, how the votes are outfitted with information and technology coming from the race itself and welcoming in the new generation that will be able to see this for the first time from the shore, waterfront, in new ways that have yet to be announced. not getting ahead of ourselves. it will also involve a new generation of people that will appreciate the fast sailing sport, the youth that we think will be excited about this race and future races to come. this is where we wanted to be. this is where we want to confirm the excitement that this gives to our city, a city that is not only dependent but thrives on tourism and events of international stature, as the america's cup is all about. i look forward to getting on one of those ac-45's.

i think you have convinced me. i need to feel the speed on that. that will happen shortly. i will make sure i have my insurance in place before i do that. otherwise, i wanted to give mr. barkley a chance to comment on the change and to reconfirm the things we are doing to make race successful. [applause] >> thank you, mayor lee. the thing that i would like to get across from the amendatory point of view it is, the timeframe we are working to was always aggressive. we had a year-long construction project on pier 30/32. we compressed that into nine months. when we looked at where we were at, where the city was at, ourselves, we collectively came to a decision that maybe this was the best way. for those that no the intricate

details in the planning for the america's cup, you know that pier i-80 was always the contingency plan for teams to base themselves here in 2013, just as they will do so here in 2012. with this behind us, we can focus on having a fantastic sailing event in the san francisco bay, first time it has been done before, and we are really looking forward to it. [applause] [applause] >> we are going to take a few questions and then break. the mayor will be available in smaller groups. a couple of questions? >> are you scaling down your expectations on economic benefits? >> no, i expect the race will continue to draw what we were expecting.

5000 people on a daily basis coming in. the races are still planned the way they are. we expect the bay area to receive a billion dollars worth of economic impact from the races. we are building on that. still, the complexity of the transportation plan, the housing of people here, even to this weekend -- i was working on the taxi hackathon, making sure that they are servicing all the different visitors we expect for the event. we are fully expecting the economics to be as great at it had been. >> could you follow up on those potential construction jobs at pier 30/32 that will be lost? >> i do not have all the details there. obviously, the immediate development of 30/32, there will

not be those jobs there because we will not be developing. does that mean it is forever lost? i do not think so. those piers are very attractive to future development. we will have the discussions in the future. they are planning for this. it is not forever removed, but for this race, at this time, i believe it helps with going forward with consolidating everybody here and making sure the race is the primary focus and timeframe that we want to have to have a successful race. >> [inaudible] >> and the scope of the project at 30/32 was to repair --

refurbish those piers. i think the estimate was $30 million. what we have done here, a couple million dollars already spent here. there are 80 people working here. at last count, 24 local hire people from this neighborhood that are here with one team. i personally see this being replicated along the pier. we will also need to look at -- i do not think this will fit for all the teams -- but we may need to look at putting some teams on the end of pier 27, 29. that was always the plan. from the authority point of view, we see little changed other than moving the teams from 30/32 down to here. the biggest chain would be if someone wanted to walk from the village to pit row, they will now need to get on muni or something.

>> [inaudible] international part us alart fesg on at the same time as the america's cup. have you made any inroads with that? >> i do not think we have ever rejected any idea. i think we have been quite excited about the integration of art throughout all of our events. i do not see a stalling any discussions around it. if they feel that way, i will get in touch with them, but i do not see it as a barrier to the race. >> [inaudible] >> when everybody asks me for funding, i take more time to respond because i do not have a whole lot in my pocket. >> we are going to break and we will be available for questions.

>>