[ applause ] >> we are back, i think that the mayor will speak to this, but we are back coming back, very strong from a deep recession that the country experienced the last few years, san francisco has come back strong. we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, you can see it by all the cranes represented in the sky these days. and the out look is bright and sunny for anybody in the construction industry. the contractors are the employers, the web corps the turners, the kay hills, and without them, we could not employ our students, so with that strong support, that is how we have 23 students already placed. so a strong shout out for them as well. [ applause ]

and the last partnership that makes the goal are all of the colleagues within the city family that help us in a number of ways including funding, support, and we work with them to identify the projects, that places the students on to just about every department that has anything to do with construction is involved in city build. the port, the airport, the public utilities commission, muni dpw, parks and rec, they are all vital contributers to city bill as well and make this thing go and additional and a new relationship that we started that we hope will be fruitful is our relationship with the san francisco unified school district. as we continue to look for ways to encourage young people to get into the construction industry. so all of that partnership is what makes city bill go and brings us here today for our 16 cycle. so i have been here since the beginning and if someone would

have told me seven years ago i would be here saying 16 cycles i am not sure if i would have thought that because it took a lot to put this together. we have definitely gone through the highs and the lows, but 16 cycles where 1,000 graduates into this thing and that is saying something with the commitment of the administration that we have now and the former administration with mayor newsome and so i want to thank everybody for all of the support. lastly i have a special and kind of for me, heartwarming announcement for city college, and a particular individual. i would like to acknowledge city college who has been with us from the beginning, city bill started as a 12-week program. we now go 18 weeks and one of the primary reasons for that is so that the students will leave with credit. and a big push and a part of that we could not have done

without phillis mcguire who is retiring and i would like to give my thanks to the city bill program and to her for all of the effort of making this thing what it is today and we are a national model in this particular industry for what we do and so with that, i would like to give phillis, our certificate of honor, presented from the city and county of san francisco through the phillis mcguire endorsed by mayor ed lee,. thank you. [ applause ] >> so i changed my mind. yes, i do want to say something. and that is that i have been with city build academy from the beginning as well. and it has been one of the proudest pieces of work that i

have had the honor to be a part of. and i'm so glad that i am here for your graduation, congratulations and i am so glad that there are 28 cranes up there for all of you. i know that you will do really, really well and it has just been a delight and this has been one of the best things that i have been able to be associated with in my career, so thank you all. [ applause ] >> without further adieu i get the pleasure of introducing my boss, mayor ed lee and just to say a few words about mayor lee as he walked up. he said 16 and i said yeah, 16 can you believe it? >> and so mayor lee has continued the support of city build and all of the academies that we do in my office, hospitality and technology and healthcare. he is a strong supporter of

every san franciscan getting a livable wage job and puts his money where his mouth is in budget times and every way including coming and supporting us at these graduations. i would like to introduce mayor ed lee. thank you, rhonda. todd, and is everybody ready to work? >> yeah, that is what we came down here for. well, let me say, congratulations graduates. you have a lot to look forward to. in fact some of you already got your job offers. in fact half of you have your job offers and so this is kind of a special graduation because when you just are going to school and you graduate, sometimes you don't know what is going to happen. but here, at the academy, that we have created we build true expectations and skill sets and attitude and then we back that up with real jobs.

and in fact, i want to update you, there are 35 cranes in san francisco. 35. [ applause ] and as rhonda and others will continue saying, and i will say this also, you know, it is a whole village of people that participate in building this movement of expectation that when you do get educated, when you get the skill sets, there has to be a job as a reward for that. there were so many years in the past and i have lived those just a few years ago. and when we did have some graduates rhonda and they looked up and some of these buildings that kind of said well who is building that, and how come i can't be a part of it. you know? and years ago, we saw that happening all over the bay area and then, it went really silent on us. there were no cranes.

there was layoffs. there were just reductions of workforces. and so, a very serious discussion went on with contractors with labor leaders to our city agencies, the way that we do business in the city, our community-based organizations who saw years of frustration and graduated five or six people and couldn't find a job. we are with those degrees, what was the coming together on it and we worked really hard to bring everybody together and this is what the academy has meant to me and now, we see the fruits of it. not only are we bringing the workforces together, we are bringing your families along with it because they support you and they support the sacrifices that you make. and you will make more sacrifices just like i do in this job that i have. and many of those sacrifices

will have to do with how you use your money. how you use your time, and how you help one another out, to be successful. and how you work with unions and your supervisors to make sure you are safe on the job, with everybody else's safety as a primary consideration. because we are not going on very flat ground these days. if you are going to be involved in a project you are going up. and you going floors or you are going deep down to build the fount daysings for things and this is the infrastructure that we have. we are doing the right things in the city. we are investing. we got a general hospital that is already over halfway built and we just started over a billion dollar tunneling project for the central subway and we have got and we finished a cruise ship terminal and we are on the way to develop three or four major properties along the water front. and we have got a public safety building under construction in

mission bay. we have got 4,500 residential units under construction today on just three blocks along market street and we have the private sector technology groups working with us and so there are jobs out there. are we ready? do we... are we ready? >> yeah. yeah. there are jobs. and the reason why there are jobs, is because companies who have been in these bidding wars for many years, companies that we know of, web corp turner, swinerton and consolidated engineering have struggled for years and now winning the bids and putting through the promise of local hire, of first, source hiring, and then we have got companies moving in, and the first thing that we talk about is yeah, we would like you to build here, but we would also like you to use local labor and then the unions have been there with us creating the training

jobs, sacrificing some of their union moneys to make sure that they worked with public works and public utility commission and the port, and the airport, and the mta, and the school district, and the city college and everything that we build got to have local folks on it. this is the promise that we made and we are going to carry it through because i don't know if i know of any other way to build a city than to build it with the people that live there. this is what we should do. >> so as you experience this graduation day with your friends, your family, the people who supported you, think for a moment of the people around you and how that this is day forward you are going to get those jobs. it is really what you do with that job, what you do with your first paycheck, you blow it? some of you might. and you will have to think about the second paycheck. but somewhere along the way, you do what all of us do in our

economics, you save it, you build a family around it, because you earn it, and whatever you earn, it is your investment, and we talk a lot about that these days. about investment and being an investment friendly city because that is how we are able to get contractors to work with developers, and to work with the unions to create at jobs. and it is all about investment. and i want to say today, that we are graduating our investment with you. you are our investment, we invest a lot in you and i am depending upon you not only to build the great structures and the great roadways and the great housing, i want you to build great lives, because that is what san francisco is all about. it is about building lives, and it is about supporting each other to build communities. and then we turn around and we invite everybody who wants to come to this great city, all that you got to do is work together and have a sharing economy and support each other,

and i think that is very simple and so with this graduation time, i want to thank you for being our investment and we have got a lot invested in you and i want you to be successful for that very reason and just ask you one thing, when you become successful, you turn around and you invest in somebody else. and eukarotickry the spirit on. this is the strongest spirit that you ever see in san francisco. and we are strongest in the whole bay require right now and our economy is the strongest and everybody believes that we have it. and i am going to keep it going but we have to share it with everybody else. this is the time to show that we are not the san francisco of 25 to 50 years ago where the haves and the have-nots and the have, one over the have-nots, but this is about a sharing economy where we invest in other each and this is the way that we can sustain our economy for everybody thank you and congratulations. [ applause ]

thank you, mayor lee. good evening, my name is zelda saly and i have the pleasure of working with the city build team and we are going to move on with our program this evening. i would like to acknowledge the presence of supervisor district five, breed, i i appreciate you coming this evening, supervisor, thank you. [ applause ] >> the success of city build has only been possible due to the support of the many partners we have. rhonda spoke to that earlier. and one, our next speaker is one such partner. he was a third generation laborer, who rose through the ranks of the labor's international union of north america and served as secretary treasurer and business manager of labor local's 261. in 2009, delatora was elected business manager of the north

thener california district of labor and in 2010, appointed to the general executive board as the vice president as large. he is responsible for the non-profits and serves on the boards of the san francisco planning and urban research association, and mission housing, development corporation and the institute. he serves the laborers through his work on several labor boards as well as the joint apprenticement training committee. please join us and welcoming our partner, oscar delator. [ applause ] >> good evening. thank you, zelda for that kind introduction. and thank you mr. mayor, just made his remarks for being a mayor that invests in the youth of this great city.

it also, supervisor breed for being here taking the time from your busy schedules. my remarks will be limited but, first i would like to congratulate all of the graduates that went through a successful in the city build academy. i know that you guys went through a tough course and now you have the means to be successful whether you pursue the industry by being electrician, a plumber, a operator a carpenter or a laborer. when i think about the industry i think of a lot of words to describe the construction. it could be very satisfying when we see a building that you worked on and gives you satisfaction that you worked in that building that you have something to do and you contribute to build that building. pride, quality, hard work, all of you know that it is hard work to work in the industry.

and very dangerous. and so the qualities of the experience and the qualifications that you are experienced in the academy will give you the basic fundamental awareness to make sure that you stay safe and return back to your families. for the employers, it is very important that they are competitive, that is one of the things that they look at. and make sure that they are on time, and number one, that they make a profit. we all know that employers get in business to make a profit, and if we can't deliver that, and a good employer or any employer are one job or two jobs from being bankrupt, if they have two bad jobs, they are done no matter how big they are. this recommendation we look at to approve the funding described to make candidate - are the

expenditures set in stone if we vote on this tonight. can we reallocate some of the funds and change some of the expenditures in this spreadsheet we have before us? >> commissioner are you refer to changes that would take place throughout the year or in the next two weeks or something in between. >> no for clarification i think that

having a thorough discussion i feel w that if it's bind i'm a little bit uncomfortable to make the vote because there's no flexibility to change a recommendation about funding. so that was my in question question if it's bind or not after we approve this we can look at the spreadsheet and make changes i'm comfortable for that. this timeline is putting us in an awkward situation. i don't know if our prepared to go through it now so i guess the question is to simply is to - is

that binding may we change it next week >> can i make a suggestion and then ask the two folks if this would work based on their understanding which is different than mine that were so the concept i think i hear the suggestion president would be to pass though tonight and then maybe based on the augmented budget if in this discussion it becomes clear that modifications to this aspect of the budget would be in order or intiefrd then i'm wondering if there could be procedurally a separate meeting on the same evening on

the 25th but in order to meet the requirement that there be a distinctometer it's scheduled as a special meeting of the board that would allow the modifications to take place. so my questions is is it possible to do that or is there some prohibition as having the meeting on the same day >> no, i don't believe so so long as it's a separate he meeting what we did a few years ago. we had a meeting and adjourned it and reopened the regular meeting that was fine >> so with that i think we would suggest that you take the action tonight and understand and we understand there's a

probability particular next week there could be a modification forgive a special meeting on the 25th and a thank you for that suggestion. i think it's probably a good suggestion i'm in agreement with that. i don't be able to attend the budget discussion how many classes is this going to effect and what are the funds for the k c utilized for those sources? >> i'll call on some of our academic folks if they can respond to the questions ms. lee. for the grade 9 size reduction. i think i believe it's utilized in all the high schools; right?

if you could elaborate on that >> it used to be for ninth grade english and math. historical it was the way in which the district use the resources so to keep the smaller class size in those subject areas for 9th grade >> what about the k cs there was a lot of money being put so what k c how will it be utilized for the students? >> anyone is there any staff

that knows about the california entrance exams. i'm sorry can you speak into the mike for the record >> come in we're losing our - i believe the bulk of that is in the k c department and then some of it is used for our summer school k c classes. we still do summer testing for seniors and then still need to pass the k c. those are the two things i'm aware of >> then i'm sorry. >> was ms. lee finished.

>> and i think i was also going to ask is that this is the perfect example. so if you look at the expenditure without looking at our skews rate of california entrance exam we've not met our targets. it lends ourself to wonder if there's more studying

>> if we wanted to make changes can we make the changes in the budget. my other questions is seems to me if we want to make changes we figure out how much is in one column so all the money that is being flexed or the fund balance money is in the general fund. so the program questions to me would that i would want answered are what are we doing and what resources are we deploying to i'd the k c issue how is it integrated 0 into the a n g issues. by the way, i think that's an interesting example the k c money we're proposing to do

something different in 2014 this and that in 2013. i want to know as a mechanic question and compliance question is for us to be told when we get to that, you know, in my mind i think the only thing we need to vote on to change if we still follow this process if we want to change the fund balance column. so if somebody can gept that clarified before technique. >> the general fund - the money that's being swept is in the general fund. so if we put those into general uses the general fund goes down.

the point is this is someone else's priority. this is the legislature saying here's all the little programs you must spined money on whether or not i think it's important. the whole local control facility is you put the money toward your priorities. there might be a priority that we're addressing but i don't know that meg around with the tier 3 people is going to get us there. i don't want to get lost in the weeds. but i would like to ask is if board members have speck questions about why are we spending money on this and that let's get to the meeting on tuesday so we know why there's

$50 in this column rather than a thousand. the question i want to ask is remember in many cases the categorical format does tell you how to spend it. i'm presuming because we have a higher priority to do something a little bit differently that might not be compliant.

entire - i believe if