tv [untitled] March 21, 2012 4:30pm-5:00pm PDT
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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
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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
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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
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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. >> good morning. we recently went through and name change. we're not the portola neighborhood association. i am making the official announcement today. i want to thank the office of economic and workforce development, as well as liz. our partners. i also want to thank the mayor
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and his staff for being here and enacting the initiative this morning here in the wonderful portola, where we have accomplished a number of great things in the past couple of years. and number of volunteers successfully completed the first phase of the island beautification project at the intersection of allegany boulevard and san bruno avenue. we're still hoping to complete phase two and phase three of the project soon. we hope with your continued support, mayor, that we can accomplish this. mid the first phase was made possible by efforts of dpw, mohammed nuru, liz, and sandra. greening and planning has been made possible by dpw and staff and sf clean city coalition. have accomplished and made possible seventh assata improvements along san bruno
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avenue. -- seven facade improvements along san bruno avenue. we have had a series of events to promote a neighborhood pride and involvement, such as an night on the portola, chinese leaders dinner, and a pop-up art gallery this past february right there in that space, which is available for lease. this is the site of our future pocket park and hopefully a coffee house right there in that space. [applause] and i wanted to thank others for their efforts and architects for humanity. [applause] thank you for helping us move this forward. i would like to give a very special thanks to oewd who has been instrumental and supportive. this coming thursday at 6:00 p.m.-exact location, we will be having a needs assessment workshops to determine the needs
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of the neighborhood in hopes of continuing to make the portola of better place. we still have a lot to do. we're confident that with the mayors of the city's continued support, we're going to get some great things accomplished. thank you, mayor lee, for your commitment to helping the portola and other san francisco neighborhoods. [applause] >> ok, next we have a member of sin city coffee, one of the first revolving loan applicants. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. i did not really expect to see all of you here. 15 months ago i was laid off. with $25 and a big dream, i often -- and opened a little coffee shop. amy came around six or seven months later asking if i would like to open another one. i said, if you believe in me, i will take a chance.
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the biggest gamble ever did. mayor lee, your staff rocks. thank you so much. i know what i do open, each and every single one of you can come and check out blue bottle coffee and single origin and chocolate. thank you. [applause] >> all right, in addition to all those departments that i mentioned earlier, i want to thank mohammed nuru from the department of public works to build ginzberg from rec and park, adrian, jose, von, tiffany, and lenita from the community challenge grant. and juaquin. thank you. portola, portola, portola neighborhood. thank you for coming out to the portola neighborhood today. [applause]
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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