serve all of san francisco and serve, of course, this park as part of that effort. this park is actually very exciting to me. i have a great deal of pride about how the neighbors came together to really advocate for this park to make great changes here. the playground that's behind me is a big part of that effort. it came in different phases. ball street park, skate park envisioned by the neighbors as well. wi-fi is icing on the cake. so, we know that our city dollars can't always stretch the way we want them to, and we look to our partners in business to be able to provide a helping hand at times. and this is a good, this is a good effort. it's a good project to be able to do that, especially that we have no strings attached, that this is a gift that's actually coming to residents in san francisco that has a benefit that maximizes the benefit to residents. i'm really glad that we have

that, private project moving across the city and this park. so, i just want to thank supervisor mark farrell for his great work. it's been a really good couple months for me working with him on the budget and seeing this project come into fruition, to know that he presents some really great leadership here in san francisco. and more to come i'm sure. thank you for being here. i'm actually going to be introducing our illustrious general manager of the rec and park department, mr. phil ginsberg. (applause) >> illustrious? thank you, john. illustrious? it's a great day for parks and for park users. so, we're thrilled. we get to be the beneficiaries of all this hard work and all this partnership. and it is appropriate that we're here at balboa park. mark, john, and the mayor all talked about the improvements that have happened in this really, really important piece of open space.

it's a dense neighborhoodv. it's in a transit corridor. and thanks to partnership and thanks to community support and thanks to the leadership of our elected officials we've made some incredible improvements here in the last few years. behind us, our new playground thanks to the support of the trust for public land. behind all of you is an incredible new skateboard park which is both a public -- another public-private partnership partially funded with bond funds. behind us even further is balboa pool which thanks to the 2012 parks bond will be renovated with a state-of-the-art swimming pool in a few years. the theme here is meeting evolving community needs. skateboarding has become more popular. the needs of our aquatics programs is changing. the needs of our playground is evolving and so, too, is technology. technology has a very important place in park and park systems and we're absolutely thrilled to welcome the park scape community. parks are democratic. parks create opportunity and accessibility for everyone.

and to have wi-fi in parks and to have the technological investment that will allow neighbors to come and do things that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do here, to learn, to read, to listen to music, we've taken a lot of steps in the last few years to become -- we're marching towards becoming the most economically robust parks program in america. we had a cell phone app, parka meanttionv, park hours, park programs. we can now register online and having wi-fi in our parks will make it easier for park users and frankly our staff to deliver the programs and services that the public expects in our open space. so, we're thrilled ~. government can't do it alone any more, so, this is really about partnership. we're so thankful to google and veronika, thank you for hanging with us. thank you to sf city. a big thanks to mark, supervisor farrell for stewarding this.

and also a big thanks to the mayor who has really given us room to be innovative, room to pursue public private partnerships and has really supported innovation in our parks. and, john, thank you for hosting us here. supervisor avalos has been an incredible advocate for our neighborhood parks and one of the things great about this gift, this is not just goito parks frequented by tourists or destination parks. this is a benefit that is going into our neighborhoods. so, we're really thrilled. the last folks i want to thank are my own staff, katy, [speaker not understood]. these are projects that actually take work and we're -- i'm very proud and appreciative of my own staff's help in delivering this. so, a great day for parks. and i now get to introduce one more very important partner, mark tuitu who is head of the department of technology has brought an infusion of energy into the notion of innovation and partnership.

so, mark, come on up. (applause) >> good morning. it's very exciting to be part of the reigniting of our sf connectivity effort. when i took the job three months ago, mayor lee challenged me to simplify, accelerate, and bring the private sector experience to, you know, bettering the architecture, infrastructure of the city. and, yes, mayor lee is right, we are behind in some ways, but the beauty is that we are ahead in many ways. and there are plenty of opportunities to leverage our infrastructure throughout the city to bring pre-wi-fi to our citizens. now, of course, when you're new in the -- any city company, one important thing is the budget. so, thank you, supervisor

farrell, for saving me time and accelerating the effort because with thanks to the leadership of the past few years and the generosity of google, i think we have -- we can jump start this whole process and deliver results fast in ways that will hopefully make you forget the past. i also want to acknowledge a couple of the [speaker not understood]. mike mccarthy and joseph john. we're going to be partnering with sf city and phil ginsberg, margo and all the people that have been involved in this to make it a resounding success. and i think that mayor lee, it by this time next year when you look back, i would say that we will not be in the past any more, mayor lee. i think we'll be ahead and

leading by example. so, i would like to introduce alex turk from sf city. (applause) >> thank you, mark. thank you. it's a pleasure to be here. you know, every issue needs a champion and there's no doubt that when supervisor farrell approached me a year ago and sf city, he had conviction and he had purpose around getting this done and succeeding where others had failed. and also had an idea about crawling before you walk, about finding a way that we could create access throughout the 11 supervisorial districts, throughout different socioeconomic communities in san francisco, providing opportunity. and it was something where he had said hello. it meets the mission of sf city which is essentially to engage our member companies in innovative solutions, historic problems facing the city. and we're certainly glad to be a partner. it is a great day for parks, but it's a great day for san francisco. we are lucky to be san franciscans to have great leadership.

and as someone who has worked within city government and has seen how the sausage is made, per se, we're lucky to have a supervisor like mark farrell who has vision, who has dedication, a mayor who is very open to private-public partnership and innovation, department heads and leaders like phil ginsberg at rec and park and companies like google who care deeply about communities not just here locally in san francisco, but across the globe. we're proud to be a partner. proud to be here today and look forward to working on this, you know, in the years to come. so, with that i'll hand it back to our supervisor mark farrell. (applause) >> so, thanks, everyone for being here. i want to thank everyone who has been involved, as you can hear from everyone who has spoken. it takes a village here in san francisco and it took the collaboration of so many people both inside and outside of government to make this reality. we're all very proud to be here today. and with that, would certainly open up to questions if anyone has them for the next few minutes.

>> [speaker not understood] talking about the broader vision over the next two years, what do you envision? and how does public private partnership as well in the future? >> i'll turn the speaker from my perspective. i think this is a great first step. as alex mentioned, this is let's find a project in san francisco that we can bite off, that we can make sure we get it done right. we took two years to do it and working so closely with google, with sf city, with department heads and the mayor's team to make sure we did it the right way and use it as a model going forward in san francisco. i know that our different department heads and mark perhaps have different perspective, but there are a lot of things in the works in san francisco to make not only in wi-fi, but other technology projects to bring to the residents of our city that the mayor certainly has taken a lead on as well and played an integral role in this. public private partnerships are a way to make this happen. special thanks to google for making this a public private partnership we can be proud of

here in san francisco. this is truly a gift and, again, we say that with no strings attached. and that makes a big difference to the residents of san francisco and for us as elected leaders implementing those projects. it makes it a lot easier for us to get them done. >> mayor, [speaker not understood]. >> as i said, it's a good beginning. and of all people, both mark tuitu, phil ginsberg and others know it's a constant investment in technology that we have to make. and every company knows this as well as government and we're going to make -- you know, this is part of our infrastructure now. and, so, i've been an infrastructure mayor. i've been part of that infrastructure. it's not just freeways and bridges. it's telecommunication, information, infrastructure that we have to constantly invest in. you asked earlier what the vision was.

you know, for me i've always had a very strong vision that every child that is here in san francisco, every school, every educational institution should be at its highest level of skill setting for the 21st century of a city that is an innovation capital of the world. that means we have a lot of work to get done in our schools. we have a lot of work to get done in every corridor, every neighborhood. we still have a serious digital divide in the city and in the bay area, and we're going to get everybody up to speed so that everyone who lives here and wants to be here can also succeed in technology is going to be a key to it in every single industry. whether it's tourism, biotech lifesciences or technology itself. >> [speaker not understood]. >> oh, absolutely, that was the whole reason why i touted that we have 600 members of sf city.

alex, i think maybe in a year we'll see 800 members of sf city. there is 1,800 technology firms in san francisco. it continues to grow. they employ over 45,000 people. and i think people want to be here because they want to continue innovating with us. at the same time, as government and as service providers, we're going to continue asking for help from the private sector and be our partners. and i think that's going to help us with infrastructure as well as maintenance and services. >> as you know, [speaker not understood]. what exactly did you mean by that? >> well, i think we will always have a relationship with our business community. i go to them when i need to create 6,000 jobs for our kids in the summer. i'm backed up by the board of

supervisors for that. we have very serious needs in the city, and we don't have all the resources. so, we hope that there will be a very good relationship that's established between the private sector and the public sector. having said that, on issues like providing free wi-fi, when we say no strings, it's kind of like the past conversations we had. we didn't want any inappropriate advertising on things or things that we felt were of value to us that we wanted kids and others to be able to have a free access to without, you know, the -- maybe the dressing up sometimes that we see happening in the marketing world. those will be ongoing discussions that we have and these are discussions that we always have with our business partners, is how could we do it this way so that we provide, you know, the right message that we all wanted to send. to me, it is all about messaging.

and i know businesses need help from government as well. i've been in those discussions where a lot of them said, hey, you're taxing us to death. we did a big payroll tax revision as a result of that. there is just simply -- i think a relationship where there's no quid pro quo, we do it for good policy reasons that we articulate and are clear about. and that's the way we should be running government. that's also the way we should have that clean relationship with businesses. >> mayor, [speaker not understood]. >> yeah, i mean that's why we hired mark tuitu for [speaker not understood]. my competitive spirit with mayor bloomberg in new york, rahm emanuel in chicago, we're always exchanging information about you got this, you got that. our staffs and our department heads do the same. , and so, we're always saying,

they did this. how come we can't do that? and the message gets shared with neighborhood leaders as well ~. so, i get this a lot from neighborhood leaders, how come we don't have wi-fi in all of our parks? how come you always concentrate on golden gate, for example, but not on balboa? these are the kind of things i think we're wanting to make a statement on. i think, for example, our police department a we're working on with technology, another good example. one of these days we're going to have officers be able to dot reports while they're in their vehicles in the streets rather than coming back to their stations and spending 2 or 3 hours trying to do all the reports ~. we're working on that right now. but, you know, i think any city who needs the resources at their highest performance will look towards technology to help us reduce what we're doing today that could be done faster, quicker, and more efficiently and just as thoroughly. >> mayor, i think you answered

this already, but i didn't quite hear her question. google is going to provide the financial [speaker not understood], correct? >> yes. >> after that what happens? >> well, first of all, i think we will make whatever proper investments we will have because we will consider this to be part of the infrastructure of our parks and recreation. as we do wi-fi in neighborhood corridors, we have infrastructure there. so, when i say that we are responsible, the city is responsible for infrastructure, we will then pay to maintain that infrastructure, particularly if residents and the visitors depend upon that infrastructure to work in a certain level. having said that, it doesn't the necessarily mean that we say, okay, the general fund has got to pay for this. that is why i'm touting the membership of sf city, our technology companies. i will tout the membership of the chamber of commerce. i will tout the membership of the community benefits district and the businesses along the

corridors that we want to improve. all of them are partners to help us figure out how to maintain all the infrastructure that we want to put in when we know that the goal is improve services for the residents. so, i suggest that it isn't necessarily going to be reflected in increase to the general fund. it could be healthy relationship with business community to help us maintain that. yes. >> [speaker not understood]. >> well, i think google is happy to do this for the reasons already touted. they agree with us that wi-fi in our parks is a very important, very notable, very honorable goal to accomplish. they stepped up as a member of sf city. part of a whole group of

technology partners that want to help our city improve our services. and i think that when companies step that up, just like other companies have done where they lend their employees to sweep our streets, to pick up trash, to help with the arts community improve along mid-market, they're all saying they want to be great partners in the city that accompanies, as companies that employ our residents, they just want to be great partners. and i think that that's a worthy, worthy spirit and goal. it is what i consider to be one of the finest spirits of san francisco being part of this incredible community partnership. >> so, i thank you guys. i know we all have a number of appointments to go to including signing our budget that we just passed out. so, thank you all for being here. i think we'll be here a few more minutes to answer questions if you want. thank you all for coming and

look forward to making this project a reality. thank you, everyone. (applause)

>> san francisco is home to some of the most innovative companies of the 21st century. this pioneering and forward looking spirit is alive in san francisco government as well. the new headquarters of the san francisco public utilities commission at a5 25 golden gate avenue is more than just a 13-story building and office ablation. instead, city leaders, departments and project managers join forces with local architectural firms ked to build one of the greatest office buildings in america.

that's more than a building. that's a living system. ♪ ♪ when san francisco first bought this land in 1999, it was home to a state office building. >> this was an old eight-story brown building the state owned and the workers' comp people were in that building. it was an old dee correctvth it building for decades. when i was a member of the board of supervisors, all of us wondered why we hadn't done anything there and the mayor thought the same. >> if an earthquake happened, the building was uninhabitable. it sat there vacant for quite a while. the city decided to buy the building in 1999 for $2. we worked and looked at ways that we can utilize the building for an office building. to build an icon i can building that will house a lot of city

departments. >> the san francisco public utilities commission has an important job. we provide clean, pristine public drinking water to 2.6 million people in the san francisco bay area from the hetch hetchy regional water system. with also generate clean renewable energy for city services like public buses, hospitals, schools, and much more. and finally, we collect and treat all the city's wastewater and stormwater making it safe enough to discharge into the san francisco bay and pacific ocean. >> in 2006 the puc was planning a record number of projects. >> the public utilities commission is a very infrastructure-rich organization. we're out there rebuilding the water system. we've budget working on power generation in the country. we've been doing sewer for the city. we're looking at a brand-new rebuild of all watt systems in san francisco and we haven't had a home that's been other than mental. >> they staff over 900 people. the puc is in two office locations. >> you know, this is such a

great place for a building. if the puc owned that building and we could make that the icon i can sustainable building puc represents, wouldn't be a dramatic idea? >> so, one of the major decisions we made was we wanted to make a statement with this building. we wanted this building to be a lead platinum building which is very few buildings in san francisco that achieved this mark. >> leadership and energy environmental design, it takes a look at the way we think about the places where we live and work. i like to think of it as designed for human and environmental health. lead addresses five categories that enhances environment. indoor air quality, energy, water, materials and resources, and sustainable sites are the five categories for the lead. you can go for several gold or platinum certifications. >> the city wanted to be silver lead status. . maybe gold was a stretch.

and people said, if we're going to be a sustainable organization that the pucs this has got to be the top of the line. it's got to be a lead platinum building. what does that mean to us? we run water, power, and sewer. so, those are some of the biggest things involved in lead platinum. ♪ ♪ >> by late 2008 the project, as we got the contractor on board and we were able to start pricing it, we're a multi-, multi-, multi-million dollar over budget. >> the story a lot of people don't know after we got select today do this project, the first price we came in with was $180 million. and the city said, you know, this is a great building, but we just don't want to spend that much money. so, the project was on the verge of being canceled. >> if you're looking at why this building came to be, in many ways it also included mayor gavin newsome, particularly, who really had an

affection for this building. he saw the design. he saw the potential. he wanted to make sure that that building got built. and he said, do what you need to do, but please, if you can make that building work, we need to have that building in civic center. >> i happened to be at a green conference santa clara. he said you shouldn't cancel that project. can you work with us? michael cohen phoned me up the next day. can we cut $40 million out of this project? it was one person more responsible than any others, it's tony irons, was the architect that was responsible for the revitalization of city hall who came to my office and said, we cannot abandon this. we can't walk away from this project. we have an opportunity to really take a lot of our values and principles, particularly raising the bar as we did as a city on our green building standards, mandating the most aggressive green building standards for private construction anywhere in the united states. and showcasing them in this new building. >> the city for the sfpuc, it

was critical that the building stay as a lead building. the easiest thing to do to cut out millions of dollars, let's just go from lead platinum to lead gold. but that wasn't the objective. this needed to be the best example of energy conservation of any office building in the united states. >> we became involved in the san francisco public utilities headquarter project during the time when the project was at a stand still for a number of reasons, largely due to budget issues. and at the time we were asked to consider an alternative design using concrete rather than the scheme that was potentially planned for previous to that, which was a steel frame structure that used hydraulic dampers to control seismic motion. >> so, i met with my team. we worked hard. we came up with a great idea. let's take out the heavy steel structure, let's put in