>> good afternoon, everyone, almost good evening, and welcome to san francisco city hall. i'm supervisor scott wiener. i have the honor of representing district 8 including the castro on the board of supervisors. and which district are formerly represented by harvey milk. supervisor olague likes to remind me we share the district

5 represented by milk. and we're here today to remember supervisor harvey milk and mayor george moscone who were brutally assassinated decades ago. and we gather every year to remember, and not just to remember and to mourn, but also to remember the positives and to remember frankly both of these great men and what they contributed to our community. you know, with respect to harvey milk, there will never, ever be another harvey milk in our community in terms of what he represented for our community in terms of a step forward. we are now elected lgbt peep to office and harvey was such an incredible trail blazer, not? in just getting elected, but in being a great leader and always holding his head high for our community. and i know when i was first

sworn into office, one of the things that i always kept in mind was something that i understand harvey to have said, * that when you go into city hall, you walk up the central staircase. you don't walk on one of the side staircases because for our community, it is so important for us to walk up that central staircase and for us to be in the middle of everything and for everyone to know that we are here. and all these years later, we've made a lot of strides in the lgbt community, but we still have so much work to do around hiv issues, around our youth, around discrimination, around transinclusion, and all the things that we know that harvey had he been here today would still be working on and leading on. and, so, we have to keep doing our work. and frankly, we can't take for granted that queer people are going to keep getting elected to office if we don't work on that and focus on that, we'll

quickly slide back. so, we're here today to remember and also to look forward. so, it is my great honor to turn the mic over to our mistress of ceremonies, one of harvey's legislative aides and now the director of emergency management in san francisco and one of my absolute favorite people in city hall, the great ann kronenberg. [cheering and applauding] >> i have to move this mic down a little bit, supervisor. welcome. thank you all so much for coming and honoring mayor moscone and supervisor harvey milk today. it is absolutely mind boggling to me that it's been 34 years. i think 34 years ago tonight, i was standing out here, we all had candles. we did the candle light march and we were in total shock,

denial, grief beyond belief. i think we really felt at that point so hopeless because we had lost two people who were so important to us in our community. today, as we leave here and we march up to castro street, we're going in the opposite direction because i think there is so much hope left. we're going up the street, and that's harvey's whole message, his whole legacy was about hope. so, again, i thank you all so much for coming today. we have wonderful speakers. our electeds are here, and i thank you all for coming. you'll be hearing from most of them. and i look in the crowd and i just see family and friends, people who were with us that night 34 years ago. so, i can't, i can't mention every single person, but i thank each and every one of you for being here. i am now very happy to introduce our mayor, mayor ed lee, who is also a trail blazer. and we are so pleased that he's

here today to start the festivities. so, thank you very much, mr. mayor. (applause) >> thank you, ann, and thank you, supervisor wiener. thank you, the other supervisors here today as well representing our board. thank you very much, mayor brown, for being here as well, and the moscone family and friends, and former members of our board as well. welcome, everyone, to this 34th tribute and remembrance of mayor moscone and supervisor harvey milk. you know, i will say at the outset in gathering my thoughts here and my personal thoughts here, of what they represented. as we wait for this wonderful sound to pass by. they made it very quiet here. hope everyone is okay.

you know, mayor moscone and supervisor milk to me, as i was a law student in the bay area when the assassinations happened, and wanted to be part of a government that was going to be much more open. in fact, i had to sue the government in order to make it more open. and those years where struggle and just representing people who wanted to make the city much more equality bent was where i felt. and i feel today that if mayor moscone and harvey milk were here, they'd be pretty proud of what we've been able to accomplish in those years. seeing how mayor brown became mayor and my lucky charm of being now the first asian mayor of the city, understanding -- thank you. (applause)

>> understanding now that we have the first african-american as president of the united states has now been reelected. [cheering and applauding] >> and this is in addition to all of the local regional lgbt persons that have been elected and a pointed to this wonderful city and the region. * appointed i think they would smile, that they would see that their efforts to make this city much more equitable for everybody has been already accomplished. and like supervisor wiener said, the job isn't done, but there's been a lot that has been done. and we're proud of it and we want to keep it going. and just look at the crowd here today celebrating this. you see how diverse the city is and continues to be, and that we pledge in our own official capacities, we're going to always keep these doors open. we're going to always work to make our diversity benefit the rest of the city for

generations and generations to come. this is our commitment. this is why we have these tributetion to remind ourselves of those years when it wasn't very easy at all. when the thought of having a gay person in office was a huge struggle, that people took their lives in risk to actually take up the responsibilities to do so. and now it's become part of our dna. it's what we do in san francisco. it's how we represent ourselves. it's how my pride in being the mayor, i get to join the other u.s. conference of mar and talk proudly of our diversity in this city, and how it helps me run this city. * mayors and now for lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals to take up the responsibilities and have the responsibility of other people's lives that they are responsible for in their official capacities, this would make mayor moscone and supervisor milk very proud of us. and in the week, perhaps less than a week, we have another

historic opportunity for this country as we take up this opportunity of hopefully, we join together to see that marriage equality becomes the law of this land. [cheering and applauding] >> we have that opportunity to do so. and i think everybody who holds office or holds an appointed position in the city is proud to see this diversity. this is what we have worked so hard, so many struggles. and we still remind ourselves of the night of the assassination and what had occurred and how this city was so divided. i believe now that there is such a great unity. when we talk about diversity in the city, how that unity transforms itself. it really is part of our dna in everything that we do. and, so, it is in this spirit that i welcome all of you to this 34th tribute and this remembrance. it is in the spirit that we set

a foundation continually to go forward and be even more diverse and continue to invite people who have never been a part of this government, take up it this responsibility with us. help us bring more people into the economy, to the wonderful city of san francisco. * make sure that their lives are respected with dignity and with the prosperity this city has to offer. thank you for being here in this wonderful, wonderful city of san francisco. (applause) >> thank you, mayor lee. that was beautiful. it's now my pleasure to introduce mayor willie brown who is an iconic figure in our city. and as mayor lee said, the first african-american mayor of san francisco. it is such an -- and a very close friend of mayor moscone. so, it's my pleasure to introduce mayor brown. (applause)

>> ann, thank you very much. mr. mayor, members of the boards of supervisors, assemblyman ammiano, [speaker not understood], moscone family, gay men's course, and all of you who are assembled herein, as i look around, i absolutely know that i had probably the greatest pleasure, other than the moscone children, of literally living with george moscone for so many years. mr. mayor, it was when we were in law school together, we were fellow janitors at hastings college of law. george moscone was amazing. he was just as aggressive about

inclusionary activities. he was just as focused on sharing. and he had an immense pride in the city and county of san francisco like no other. i suspect that much of my love of the city comes from my exposure to george in those very early years. george went through a considerable amount of evolutionary process politically. he allowed john burton to talk him into running for the state legislature. an unsuccessful effort for the state assembly. he went on to become, obviously, a supervisor in the city and county of san francisco. and in those days it was a different city. it was dramatically different. there was no such thing as a so-called progressive, david campos. there was no such thing as somebody in that category.

george moscone, philip burton, represented that which we all now richly enjoy. george went on to become a state senator. and in that capacity, scott, it was george moscone who shepherded the bill that removed criminal penalties between consenting adults in this state that cost people their positions as teachers, as doctors, as nurses, as lawyers in those days. it was a bill that we orchestrated together. and george did what has never been done since, and that is cause the senate to hookup in a 20 to 20 tie in the late dimely was flown in from colorado to break the tie to give us that bill. that set the stage, scott, for all the things that have occurred in this state, and

ultimately in this nation on the issue. i must tell you that george moscone was extraordinary. (applause) >> and then george decided he wanted to be the mayor of his city. and believe me, it was a ball having george as mayor of this city. mr. mayor, i never had so much fun. [laughter] >> as i did with george, enjoying every aspect, having been a son of the city, having been raised by a single mother here in this city, and having an extended relationship with the italian community and that heritage, having an extended relationship with a catholic community, in then probably the most radical person other than john burton in existence in this whole city. he became the mayor of this town. and he set the stage for everybody you see before you,

every single zoll tear i person here on this stage is the end property of what moscone envisioned and what george moscone did. he partnered up with harvey milk to continue that process in the halls of this incredible building. * their death on the same day and by the same hand was literally the end product of what had been an incredible team for achievement purposes in every single solitary category. and now when i walk around the city, whether it's in the embarcadaro, whether it's mission bay, whether it's sea cliff, or whether it's the outer sunset, whether it's hunters point bayview, whether it's the mission, whether it's north beach, whether it's the marina, i tell you in every single solitary space