together and not fight about the concept that we do have. this is what is helpful for me as a leader. thank you for coming out and sharing. >> i wanted to say thank you, i have heard some of you speak and of the power and the passion that you have for us today. you're able to share with other leaders. hopefully, this will have a ripple effect to the rest of the city and to the rest of the state and the rest of the country. i really appreciate him coming today and for the mayor and supervisor for being here early. what they got to see is what we and our department see every day. give the young person sunlight

and they will be able to meet all of those policy agendas and the problems that we sit around saying, what we do a round of violence prevention work. this is the reason why the have such a strong commitment to use of voice and use of empowerment. which is why we convene you guys all the time and we ask you all the hard questions. we believe the answers are here and the answers are with you guys. thank you for your participation today. and for being honest. that is what i am leaving today with. >> yet been fantastic in organizing this. >> let me give you a little idea. and from the office of fair housing.

the from the local office. what is fair housing and where do come in? with the office where the people file their complaints. for example, the family tries to go somewhere and you think you're not being printed too high because you're african- american or asian, with the office that you come to because it is against the law. your family wants to move and and there is hope children in the family of the landlord says they do not accept children, that is against the law. jhi care of. we talk a little bit about medicare and social security. and also protect those that are disabled. there is no reason why you cannot call us up.

when your friends are affected, when you are affected. your taxpayer money goes to us and that is why we were created. i brought a lot of bags, which ends with our number. we are a free service and it is our job to investigate these matters. it is our job to protect you. remember, there is protection. we tried to get the housing. simply, it is against the law. the matter how tough the owner of the project is. it doesn't matter. that is what my office does human he does have to be out there. let the old people keep calling us. we will take care of it. what about you and your family?

call us up. this is what the office does. this is what fair housing is. it prohibits discrimination. race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, and status, and they told you we are also looking into gender biases. this is against the law. you can't let it happen. we all know that it is happening. give us the name and number. that is what we care about, to make sure that people are being discriminated in housing. and in community programs, we

talk about funding issues. part of what we have done, we give money to the city of san francisco. when we give money to the state. we need to let them know what to do with that money because we give them the money and it is their decision to hear your voice. what about you? what about these programs. you have the mayor, you have your representatives. show them what is important to you because they are supposed to serve you.

they're there for you. and don't forget you have some powerful voices. we have the bags and stuff, take them home with you. >> thank you, maria. so far, and closing activity, we are going to go around the roundtable and we will stand for this. the question that we posed earlier was, if president obama were to walk to the store and you were to give him one policy recommendation to approved -- to improve the lives of use, what will it be? almost all of you have the whole time to marinate and think about this which side will go first we're going to stand on up.

>> like a specific policy because in all of the policies that they are working through, think about and consider how it affects queer and transgendered folks. this have in mind to work with them. >> ellison just to make education more diverse, have more variety and can fit different people's needs. >> speaking on behalf of young people, of what help doing that. i don't have much to my name.

i need as much help as i can speaking on behalf of young people. >> at more foundations, as i was saying earlier, more income students. it can provide a new college experience for them. >> we need more funding for schools on all levels. >> of like for president obama to push for more ethnic studies so people can learn about themselves and learn the role that they are destined to play in the role they played for many years >> universal health care. >> allow use more job opportunities, especially youth that have criminal records. basically the same thing, it can

cost 120,000 for a incarcerated youth and about zero hundred and 20,000 to employ 25 years. i think more youth jobs. >> i am all for currency, you know what they are. unless a budget cuts. >> i would like more access to resources for students so that they can get the resources they need. >> if president obama walked through the door today, my advice to him would be about the juvenile justice system had out i feel that it should be more restorative. i heard in the past five years,

$20 billion taken out of budget cuts. 22 prisons or juvenile facilities -- that is not right. vinny's to be more alternatives, not just going straight to jail. they can clean up the graffiti are something like that. that is the revised the of what give to obama. >> to focus more on youth and give them support whether is them, supports them there the first feature. >> there needs to be continued funding investing in prisons and jails, and there needs to be more adequate schooling in those programs prepare them.

>> if the president came through the door, i was aide to president obama, and hopefully hear my actual voice, and the war's end and the school to the present pipeline and create revenue for education and services our community needs. stop the deportations that have increased during your administration and the increase in border patrol. respect the trees of the native american nations. >> more transitional services for the population because it is not only by their homelessness, but by their sexual orientation. he received of lot of discrimination.

the second they walked in, the readiness programs in the community into being leaders. and just give them big opportunities. >> they will run for reelection soon. democracy can grow and everyone can be represented equally. >> adobe a dream of being passed because it will be more of a parent's decision. >> prioritize education, providing more of grants and

students that are unable to afford college and provide funding for colleges have not spending enough for people that can meet the threshold for other states. >> to fund more non-profit organizations and programs along with java will keep people off the streets and keep them busy working. >> of the tribes of the forum, a delegate to say thank you to the national and local leaders here in you guys are the ones that make this happen. there is lunch for you. thanks.

>> the evening and welcome to this evening's meeting of the commonwealth club of california. you can find this on the internet at commonwealthc lub.org. you can read us online at sf gate.com. now it is my pleasure to introduce our special guest, mayor ed lee. a few months ago, if you mentioned his name, they

responded with the question -- "who the hell is ed lee?" unless you're connected to san francisco politics, you would not know he served four mayor's and he had very powerful friends like former mayor willie brown san francisco's often fractured board of supervisors could not agree on at the mayor, then they agreed on the compromise -- ed lee. the board approved him ten to one, and they do not approve of anything ten to one. who is he? his mother was a seamstress. his father died when he was 10. he was so poor, he and his

siblings would scrounged around in the basement for something to give each other for christmas. in one box, there would be an old shoe. in another one, a shoelace. he won a scholarship to bottling college in bowdoin college in maine. he returned to the bay area to attend ucla berkeley law school, before working for the city government, first as an investigator in the whistle- blowers department, and a few decades after california passed laws forbidding agents from -- asians from owning land, he became the first chinese- american mayor. now his mustache has its own

twitter feed. i feel badly for the audience, because they can only hear the mustache. it is truly awesome up close. his predecessor, gavin newsom, was famous for the amount of here joe he used. please welcome mayor ed lee. [applause] mayor lee: thank you. should i stand up here, joe? is this right. ok. thank you out, everybody. at it is my pleasure to be here, to share with you what it has been like for the first quarter, maybe a third of this year, but also to begin by telling you this is a very unique city. and i continue to be so enthralled by the wonderful people who live here, that work here, even though i finished the

ninth of tin budget town hall meetings, numerous meetings with community-based agencies, inviting people who have not been there for years, as they tell me. i am hearing so many stories, stories about white people came to san francisco. and just -- about why people came to san francisco. and just so many stories about whether or not their dreams or conditions were fulfilled, or they are here working were living with their families or they are trying to conduct business here. it has been wonderful. a lot of people have been asking -- i really -- to i really enjoy it? the word " julyenjoy -- "enjoy" is a little strong.

i set out on a commitment that i would do this for a year. i made a commitment i would try my best to unify the city and then set out to do at least five priorities. at least one of them has been fully accomplished, but the five priorities were budget, balancing the city's budget. we still have a $306 million gap. pension reform, which i will talk about later. we have the america's cup, getting that off the ground. then we have my and placement of local hire and what that means for the city. and finally, i was thrust upon with the obligation to make sure that i selected a police chief, not a temporary police chief. a chief that will carry forth what i consider to be one of the most important things in this city, to secure the public safety of the great city of san francisco. i think i have done that, with

the selection and now the appointment of the chief. so many people have come up to me and clearly you expected a chief who had spent 30 years in his life, but i did not realize how many people he has really known in every part of this community. they come up and they thank us for making that wonderful decision. you will see right off the that, if he will be a great partner to make sure our police force and all the public agency facilities work together and we produce a higher level of public safety in the new year. i set out for a number of these objectives to perform those things in the most non-political way and to give it my full,

150% attention. that means to not be distracted by other offices or what i would be willing to do. today, i will tell you i will be perfectly happy to be perhaps one of the first mayor's that ever comes back to his city job, the job i got paid a lot more for. but also, the job i was appointed to, city administrator, because that has been wonderful for me, to administer the affairs of a great city, and to know it is made up not only of numerous, wonderful neighborhoods, not only a high number of attractive commercial and residential corridors, but also the city i have come to appreciate even more as mayor, a city that is international in stature. one that resonates with so many people across the world.

it is about what we represent. and that representation is not easy to explain at times,, but it begins with a very prominent after it, and that is because our city is so diverse. i am a product of that. i will continue to make sure the doors are open to anyone who wants to serve this great city, anyone who wants to show their love for it. i will continue doing that. it is because of its international stature, our city of san francisco enjoys being the attraction for the whole bay area. when companies or visitors are deciding where they want to spend their money or make an investment or have a good time, they will think of san francisco in some any positive way is because we have allowed ourselves to evolve as an international city. that is so important. so many cities are trying to

protect their coffers and investments, to be the city that they are. i want to continue being the city that people hoped for us today, to put a positive aspect of hope in the city. that means today and it will mean for some time that my administration reflects a strong effort to create and sustain jobs for everyone. if i have learned anything in my visits throughout the city it is that everybody wants to get a job. they want to be here. they want to sustain themselves year. they know how expensive it is. i know how expensive is. i made one of the biggest, most nervous financial commitments buying a house here in my whole life here that was when mayor willie brown ordered me that if i wanted this job, i had to move into the city. i bought a couple of times, because finding a 3-bedroom

house in the city was an enormous task. i did it well my kids were jumping up and down on the bed, saying "we are going to disneyland. we are going to disneyland." because their vision of san francisco was a place of play, a place where their eyes are open everywhere they go, they can get the culture and the arts, all the wonderful things we have invested in that make this city successful. jobs continue to be the thing i am trying to do in this city. it will resonate in all the decisions i make. it is the responsible thing to do for any major city now. whether or not we consider ourselves a local city, our regional city, an international city, it is job creation that makes the city run well. for all of us here, i know you have great hope that the city will be able to have decent

jobs here that can maintain, that they can spend a good amount of their careers in, and that is why i spend a lot of time with chief adviser kim and supervisor david chiu and the other supervisors talking about how we can sustain the midmarket. that is why we passed a week ago the midmarket payroll tax exemption. we wanted to welcome new companies into the city and understand what it was blocking their ability to stay and to grow. to hear a company -- not just from the cfo, from the president. when i visited twitter, i closed the door and they allowed me to speak to their engineers, to their workers, to the people doing the engineering work atwitter.

as we closed the door, i laid out -- ok, kids. what do you really want out of the city? in very plain language, they said, "mayor lee, we like the culture of the city. we like the local restaurants. we like that we can work here for an odd number of hours and we wanted to be safe. we want to make sure we can ride our bikes to work. 25% of them ride to work. they have bike racks on every floor of the building. they also said they wanted us to expand the experience of bicycle riding, to make sure the city was green. all the young engineers -- they, too, said they loved the diversity of the city." that gave me a clear indication that is for the next generation of workers in the city, people

who will build in the street, and then to realize what twitter and companies like that have done all over the world, being a conduit for some many events that have occurred, even the latest event that has occurred. they were still part of that. twitter was feeding information to the whole world about what was going on. and to have that product, that name-brand he suggested as a san francisco homegrown products -- we have not heard "made in san francisco" for a long time, have we? it used to be garland. to have an engineering, technology product sounds unique to me, with potentially 4 million users across the world. keeping a company like that, that will grow their employees from 350 to the expected 3000 in the next couple of years will be a fabulous contribution to the

change we expect in the market. that is what we are trying to do and we're seeing implications of that happening already. i wanted to let you know, my last conversation with the assurance team group -- shorenstein group, they are about to spend $80 million retrofitting even before twitter spends its money, which will be around $15 million renovating the space that they need. that is a million-dollar, plus another $20 million -- that is an $80 million commitment in the first year. i think that is a great indication. now we are seeing smaller businesses will be attracted. a burger place will be opening

in august. i just had lunch with a commissioner at a cafe on sixth street. wonderful place. we will have a police substation on six straight. that will be open by the end of this year, early next year. we already have a commitment from our new chief of police that it will be staffed. there are a lot of things happening that will change the face of midmarket. again, it is job creation, jobs. there are so many other things we are doing that are job- creating. clearly, america's cup, very exciting. will produce the people's plan to move 200,000 people every day in 2013 towards the latter part of that year. we are excited about that. the people's plan has been put on the web site. it is already interactive with people who have ideas. we will be sharing