>> well good evening everyone. [speaking spanish] >> and thank you for coming tonight to celebrate the accomplishments of the latino community here in soon fran. >> welcome to the celebration here at city hall. >> i am mr. tores and director of neighborhood services. >> and i am ms. linqarga and work for the resource center. [applause] before we continue let's have another round for applause for dr. loco and the music provided. [applause] >> and tonight once the celebration and ceremony is over we hope you enjoy from refreshments and drinks with us. we have so much to celebrate

tonight. >> and so many honorees to celebrate and are you true partners in making san francisco the best city in america in 2012. [applause] >> our theme for tonight's celebration is "community unity" because it's because of the collective efforts of the honorees across the diverse fields that bind us together. >> as we talk about about your programs and the media brings hope what means most to the community. we're we honor your success to san francisco or your distribution to the small businesses or the community or the youth or bringing the diversity to us through

intricate sound. >> whether we inspire us in the community and bringing safety and respect to the most vulnerable among us. >> we salute all of our honorees tonight that bring pride and diggity to the san francisco latino community and let's give them all a round of applause to what they bring to our city of san francisco. [applause] >> so we know that every great city needs a equally great leader and our first presenter tonight is exactly that. he recognizes the importance of the strength that diversity brings to a city and the people who live in it. >> he's a former advocate of affordable housing and rights of immigrants and renters at his time at the law caucus. after 20 years for the government as investigator for the whistle blower program and director of

city purchasing department of public works and city administrator prior to his appointment and election as the city's first chinese american mayor and first asian elected to the office and please join us welcoming our mayor edward m lee. [applause] >> wow thank you very much. good evening everyone. well, it's my pleasure to be here with you tonight and to participate in the recognition and honor of our great leaders from the latino community, and i tell you there are so much construction that our latino community is providing the city in every way possible, the arts, law enforcement, restorative justice, all of the different services in the city, so i am excited to be here tonight and

it's my personal pleasure to be joined here to have our democratic leader nancy pelosi also join in this community celebration. [applause] while we all know that latino heritage month is particularly importance to us in our city. it's the time when we can celebrate the independence and the self determination of numerous central american and south american nations where so many of our residents come from and where our immigrant population came from. there are two important characteristics of the california latino community that we all know, but it's worth repeating. it is one of the fastest growing populations in our state. that's a fact and it's a very young population. good for young age. well, you know the latino heart and soul

of our city is represented through those of you here tonight in attendance and through our 2012 distinguished honorees that represent the diverse latino populations in san francisco. from your accomplishments in business, big and small, to the joy in entertainment that you provide us through your artistic accomplishments, and from your pursuit for social and restorative justice through community service, your essential coverage in the media, your commitment to education and to health and assures every one of us reaches the true heights of our potential, and lastly to the innovators constantly looking for new ways to make our lives efficient and making sure everyone has access to information. we are humbled by all of your service, and all of us share a common vision that

is really focused our family and youth in our city. just this past summer i had the privilege of working with leader pelosi to take up president obama's call to create as many summer jobs as we could possibly create for our youth. leader pelosi we thank you for standing with us to assure the commitment of the corporate partners to invest in our youth. earlier this summer i was happy to sit down with the secretary of labor and announce we surpassed our goal and over 5,000 jobs for our kids in san francisco. [applause] that was a result of city agencies working with corporate and private partners and together we got that done, and we all know the quality of work experience for a young person can be a real bridge to a life line so thank you all for your work. and i also am proud of

the work that we do in our communities with our community partners such as our mission economic development agency, the school district, the many city agencies that accomplish the promised neighborhood grant that we won from the department of education and we will need leader pelosi's to get awarded the funds to implement that plan too, yes. and we hope to hear good news after your next trip to washington dc along with other good news speaker pelosi. [applause] well, we make a promise to build a better future for our latino youth and their families through the mission promised neighborhoods, and another way we can make sure we build a better future for the youth and familys is to make sure our government has the representation that our

communities deserve. i have had the pleasure of appointing many latino leaders to our key government and i am proud to have elected and appointed the best choices that i know of for district five and that is christina olague, the supervisor for district five, and then you saw recently when city college was running into problems and they had their accreditation challenged and i looked again to the latino community and i picked mr. santos to help us with the city college. i know quality education is important and two of the youth commissioners i had a chance to appoint and paul rodriquez and ramone gomez thank you very much for being here and working hard with our youth commission. [applause] and then later this summer i had a chance to appoint the city's

first latino poet layer ret for san francisco. alhand dro mergia. your words continue to inspire us and i know the service and the representation is important to all of our commissions from the latino community where we're serving on the entertainment commission, the public works commission, the arts commission, and the mta commission and in our office at economic and work force development you know i launched a new program as your mayor this year. i wanted to make sure every neighborhood had a chance to share in the growing economy so we established the invest in neighborhoods program, and again who do i look forward to lead my programs in all of the communities? well tonight i want you to know that joaquin

tores is heading up the program for the whole city, another great talent. [applause] and you know he has served as the director of neighborhood services for some time and he has gained a significant understanding of all of the neighborhoods. that's why i picked him. that's where the money is going by the way, and of course as he is leaving the neighborhood services who do i pick? who do i go for? well, christina paloan will be the next director of services. christina thank you very much for stepping up. [applause] as you all know too i have been struggling for this summer for the gun violence in our city, looking again for answers. it cannot just be our police

department. we have to do more, and as you recall i wrestled with this whole concept of stop and frisk and many members of the latino members in the community came up officially and personally and you convinced he it's not the right way to go, but there is a right way to go, and we created a program to interrupt a patterns of violence out there, to help the police with predictive policing and using statistics, and the most important part is organizing our communities, and with that i look again to our latino leadership, and i have picked deanna oroche to head the mission and thank you for stepping up. that is just an exampl