or bike or walk, people should be able to hail a cab and get one. or call a cab and get one. people should be able to access upcard to share. to get where they are going. ultimately, for those of you who have won, if you want to jump into a car, that should be reasonable and available alternative as well. i have every belief that that vision -- and i think that is really what the voters in vision back in 1999. i think that is achievable. i think we can have a world- class transportation in our world-class city. the reason i think it is possible -- i think the voters, the people of san francisco really had great foresight and vision, putting all the modes together, which is unique in

this country, if not the world. if you need traffic flow -- you need traffic flow to be managed cried. by putting all this authority in one place, i think there is tremendous potential this agency can do. there are wonderful things the men and women of this agency have put in place through tep, sf park, getting the central subway going. the foundation has been laid to spring forward. i also believe and know their are a lot of crete, hard- working, -- great, hard-working, dedicated men and women in mta to have exceptional transit expertise and knowledge they are bringing to bear every day for the people of san francisco. putting all those things together, i see no reason why we

cannot have a world-class transportation system. it is incredibly exciting. i am incredibly excited about the opportunity to contribute to making that happen. i think it is infinitely possible. i think it is what's san franciscans deserve. i do want to a acknowledge both mayors lee and newsom for giving me the opportunity to come to the government on in the first place. it has been tremendously rewarding for me. i want to particularly thank the npw family, many of whom are here today. is tumbling and honoring to see you -- it is humbling and honoring to see you here today.

it is incredibly motivated, confident, passionate group of men and women that come to work every day to try to make san francisco a better place. and if i was successful as the director of public works, it is because of the men and women of the department working together with me as a team with the strategic direction focused on delivering the best service they could to the people of san francisco. my success is, there, that's the spirit. i look forward to working under the direction of the mta board, with the men and women of the mta, the labor organizations and leadership that represents them come with the rest of the elected family of the city, with my colleagues across the government's, from planning to the t.a., to the city attorney's

office, the police department, working with the city family, working with our other regional states partners. all of them an important part of the transportation system here, working with other stakeholders within cac, within various advocacy groups. and really, the people of san francisco who really deserve to have a transportation system. what i will commit to all of you and to the entire board is i will do everything i can during my time here to make it so that years down the road, when we all look back on the decision of the mta board, we will feel like it is a good decision and we will be happy with the results. thank you very much for coming. it is really an honor.

i look forward to serving the people of san francisco. thank you. [applause] chairman nolan: i want to say a word of thanks to the board for the outstanding foundation ed reiskin was talking about building upon. there are so many amazing members of the executive team. we have a strong foundation going for. now we have time for questions. i will take the easy ones. ed reiskin will take the tough ones. does anyone have any questions? seeing none -- [laughter] any questions? >> let me ask the question that every transportation and chief around the world has been i

asked. what do you plan to do to make the trains and buses run on time? [laughter] >> yes, i think the honeymoon is over, huh? i do not walk into this presuming to have all the answers for the mta. the men and women of the india are the experts in their field, and what i -- of the mta are the experts in their field, and what i see my job as is looking at what makes things work and not more. i think the people at the very front lines behind the steering wheel have the answers to these questions. i was just a very frequent muni rider and patron. i think there is low hanging fruit. i think there is efficiency to be found. i think there is no question we

can make the operation work more efficiently, more effectively, i was going to say it is simple, but it is not simple. speeding muni will make it more efficient and cost-effective and enable us to develop much better service. i do not presume to be walking in with all the answers. i think the answers lie within the agency already. my job is to unleash the power for the folks that work here to make that happen. that is what i am absolutely committed to doing. >> how you supposed to deal with the new -- [unintelligible] >> one of my first orders of business will be to sit down with the labor leadership. we need to work as partners.

i do not see this as management versus labor. i see this as in g-8 employees working together towards a common goal -- mca employees working together towards a common goal. -- mta employees. as far as the contract, if changes need to be made, that is what we will do. i will be engaging in a partnership with labor. it will not be so much about the bargaining agreement, but how we can more together to improve the delivery of service. i will sit down with them as soon as i can and work together collaborative lead -- collaboratively to make the muni system as efficient as possible. >> [unintelligible] chairman nolan: we can gather with members of the press if you

like right after this. i hope you all agree that we are enormously proud of the decision we have made, and we look forward to working with ed reiskin on behalf of all the people of san francisco. thank you for being here. if members of the press want to stick around and ask questions, i am happy to do that.

>> to address these concerns, i have made a series of amendments to the resolution that capture the spirit of the policy but would allow continued conversation with the task force and other stakeholders about how we do metering. i believe strongly that the city needs to start developing toes to help create affordable housing. in our housing element alone, we talk about building a 60% affordable, but we are currently not doing that. it is important to start the discussion about creating tools of measuring our affordable housing and creating tools to enforce that. i grew up in new york city, one to my parents who had immigrated here to the u.s. actually, i started really becoming active in working with the community when i was in high school. came out to california for college, went to stanford.

i was always politically involved. when i was a college student, i worked on the initiative to get rid of affirmative action in our public government system. currently, we have 3 legislative items that are pending. the first is going to be coming to a final vote on tuesday, our mid-market uptown tenderloin task exemption legislation. it is basically an incentive to encourage businesses to come to mid-market. in particular, where we have the highest commercial vacancy. and then when i graduated, moved out to san francisco about 12 years ago. i always loved sanford cisco in college, and i just wanted to try it out. i started working in economic development policy. i was a community organizer for six years. i worked with young people,

parents, and families around issues that concern our neighborhoods, whether it was improving muni lines, affordable housing, public schools, or just planning issues in neighborhoods. we just had a hearing last week, and we are trying to do some work around bedbug enforcement, which is a major issue in the tenderloin and of hill and 63. a hearing will actually be on thursday, april 7, 10:30. we're doing our first hearing on pedestrian safety. i think public safety is a huge concern. it ranges from both low-level crimes to pedestrian safety, and so that is a really important issue to me. we are probably more than double what every other district has. and that are preventable. and we can do better. district 6 is one -- home to one of the most diverse constituencies. we have the poorest residents in san francisco. we have lgbt.

we have immigrants, people of color, youth, and a high proportion of seniors in the city as well. we heard that people want to see more jobs, want to see access to more jobs for our residents. we want to see more preventive instead of just reactive. we want to see after-school programs versus the police picking them up because they are out on the street, which i think our chief agrees with. i actually ran for the board of education in san francisco and got to serve a term on our school board. what really surprised me was how much i enjoyed it. i loved it. i love meeting with families, meeting with youth, meeting with teachers, visiting schools, and getting a deeper understanding of what it means to make our system work better. the one thing i really enjoyed was i got to run within a district instead of citywide, was that i really got to know

voters and residents. i actually enjoy campaigning more because i had time to knock on doors and the voters individually. i'd love it. i actually really enjoyed being out on the field. so i spent a lot of time doing it because i got to really get a deeper understanding of what people care about and what people's concerns are and also what people loved about the district and the city. i was talking with the mayor yesterday. he was very interested in seeing how the good work with our office -- how he could work with our office. i would love to see how we could support small businesses because they are the heart at san francisco. they provide 60% 07% of the jobs in sanford cisco, and they provide it locally, and they are not going to offshore their jobs any time. i am not an opponent of cleaning up the tenderloin. i love the tenderloin. i love what is right now. i recognize we have a diversity

of books that live there and people do not want to see open drug dealing. i do not have a problem with people lit think -- people out on the street socializing. i think that is good. that to me is more -- you know, it is part of the character of the neighborhood. i get to represent one of the most exciting and dynamic districts in the city. it is where change is happening, so i think it is exciting in terms of how we can model what it means to be a smart growth neighborhood, how we can use transit and housing effectively to serve our city and also to do a lot of the new green policies that we have developed over the last 10 years.

>> for those of us on the board, i know many of us have young ben was in the city. i know a ton of my friends have left the city. one thing that the strike me as we have a ton of data, but it is a different places. this year, we will call for those constituents to come together to understand the issue better and, going forward, enacting policies to extend that period . of all the places i have been, this is my favorite. i am a born and raised san franciscan. more important, i represent district 2. i grew up in the marina district close to the palace of fine arts. my parents still live in the same set of plants that i live in. i went to grammar school here. i went to st. ignatius here. i am a proud wild cat. i went to college at loyola-

marymount university in los angeles. i had a scholarship to play baseball. i remember coming down here to christie field, when my dad was in the military, seeing how the beaches have transformed into but we have today. you cannot beat the views, of course. it just holds summoning memories and i can come here with our kids, our family. i ended up going to ireland to get a master's degree at the university college of dublin. i went back to the states and went to law school at university of pennsylvania. then i came back, and choosing to live in san francisco was natural to me. when you are a child, you do not realize what you had until you leave home. i had the opportunity to live in los angeles, abroad in ireland, and there is no place

like home, when you are from san francisco. i have been a corporate attorney at palo -- in palo alto. i became an >> i worked in the finance industry about 5 1/2 years. in the summer of 2009 i joined a venture capital firm with two other partners. >> we are all excited about the americas cup here in district two but one thing if you think about it everyone knows what fleet week is like here in the marina. this is fleet week on steroids. think about fort mason, these will be the most brings taken places to watch the americas cup. what we're working on and working to continue to work on and want your input on, how do we make it a positive experience for the people that live here. >> i'm happily married and my life and -- wife and i live around laurel village. we have two children, five around they. we are proud parents and now

just excited to be here on the board. i think i'm in the middle. i'm a moderate person. fiscal fiscally conservative and that is the way i intend to practice what i preach here. in terms of getting into politics, i think for me it was really that reasons. first being from here, i think that was part of my own motivation, feeling a sense of roots in san francisco. also raising our children here. i think we went through as a young family the discussion and dialogue that many young families go through. should we move to the suburbs? away decided to stick around and we are very happy we did. once you stick around i think it was a turning point to say we are here for good. what can we do to make this place better? there were a lot of lessons to be learned in running a race in san francisco. a few that stick out, money does matter. raising money. that is a simple, somewhat unfortunate fact if you want to

be candidate. most importantly, one thing i drew out of it is hard work and utter determination is the thing that will, i think, allow to succeed more than anything else. i came from the private sector and looking at honestly answering the question did i have something different to offer that i thought would be valuable it san francisco right now and i think a hrrpbl part of our -- large part of problems are financial and with my background i think i can add a lot of value and that is why i decided to bet in the race. >> it means there might be some small profit if you run it correctly but not always. that is something we really need to keep in mind in our city government. from my point of view is that. we have to figure out what is it lake -- like to be a business person in the city and what we can do to not only have full restaurants and bars but making sure it is worth it to continue

to open successful places that make our community that much better. >> we have a huge unemployment rate in san francisco. it is about 9.6%. the fact that we have not done much about that in city hall i think has it change. that certainly is something i will be focused on in the beginning here in city hall. putting people back to work. it is an individual issue but it is a family issue and we've a lot of families still struggling and i think people have lost sight of that. hopefully we will be getting out of the recession soon but we need to do a lot to accelerate getting out of that recession, making sure families are back at work and children are provided for. to me that is my biggest priority. i think that we do lose a lot of sight in the past district supervisors lost sight of the fact that we do represent san francisco as a whole and we need to make sure in city hall we are enacting policies, laws and legislation that move the city forward as a whole. these are the neighborhoods i

grew up in, so for me it is fun to be in them to really understand what is going on and be able it fundamentals some of the thinking and some of the people that are making decisions. >> right here we played football. flag football right here every year. we hung out right in the gym. directors looked after us. parents used to check in but not only one parent, they checked on all the kids. that is what is great about this district, the community. the family base of everything. >> exactly. and look how you turned out. you are doing ok. >> doing all right. two local city guys. >> there you go.

supervisor chiu: i fully appreciate the concerns raised by some tenant leaders. i would never supported the project if i did not feel comfortable that tenant rights have been protected here with parker said -- part merced. i say this as one of the few tenants on the board of supervisors, who has been a staunch advocate of tenants before i was elected and with my votes on this board. my parents immigrated to the united states in the 1960's, and i was the first kid born in the u.s. my parents sacrificed everything so that their kids could have the opportunities that they wanted when they came here. i grew up in the boston area, live in different parts of boston, went to a catholic high school in dorchester, which is a section of boston. because of my parents work and the opportunities they gave me, my brothers and i were all blessed to go to harvard university.

it was intense. i stayed there for college, for law school, and i also have a master's in public policy there. those are subjects i decided to study in part because i was very interested in public service and public policy issues and government. i ran for office in part because i wanted to serve the city and really protect all that is so special about what san francisco is. >> we've been talking for years about how important it is to build new neighborhoods, to develop affordable housing, make sure we have transit-oriented sustainable green development that really is worthy of a 21st century san francisco. what we're doing today -- and, frankly, what we're doing this year will have impacts on the city for decades to come. thank you all for being part of this, and i look forward to that mid-cutting. i moved to san francisco 15 years ago for all the reasons that we all love our city. our cable cars. our hills. the diversity of our neighborhoods.

and have loved every minute of being here. >> like many of you here, i did not actually grow up in san francisco. i grew up in another part of the country that was not quite as tolerant or quite as diverse. san francisco drew me, as i think it through all of us, because we live in a very special place. i just want to say on behalf of the board of supervisors -- we have a special responsibility and a special leadership role in the world. as we come together, we symbolize all of this date we have in humanity, the faith we have in the fight for civil rights, the faith we have, frankly, as a common family. >> i consider myself someone who shares the progress of value that need san francisco's -- many san franciscans hold dear. >> i do believe that a majority of this board share the same

progressive values, and i think there is a danger and an overly narrow definition of what is progressive. we have to remember that being progressive stance for values of inclusiveness, of tolerance, of acceptance, and we need to think hard about how we characterize various votes of either being within that definition or outside of that. >> before i ran for office, i worked in san francisco as a criminal prosecutor and a civil- rights attorney and really got to understand how much of a beacon to the rest of the world san francisco is for social justice. i also been spent a number of years helping to grow a small business, got to understand the innovative spirit here in san francisco. at night, i volunteered as a neighborhood association leader and also as the chair of an affordable housing organization and learned so much about the

challenges facing our neighborhoods and facing a really special tools that are the urban villages that we live in. sen for assistance -- facing really the special jules -- jewels that are the urban villages that we live in. san franciscans during campaigns read everything they are sent in the mail. love to meet candidates. a gauge with them in conversations. i also learned how important it is to build bridges between communities, particularly communities of diversity we have. i was just incredibly honored to have been elected in november 2008. my district really encompasses the ethnic and economic diversity that exists throughout the city. as a result, i think my district is really emblematic of the entire city. you can find every political perspective that you could possibly want in district 3. so oftentimes, the interest of

my district and the city really are quite a line, so i do not have to think about this difference is probably quite as often as some of my colleagues may have to. i in particular want to thank the mayor for his decision to protect our nutrition programs. this is something that i think we all believe is incredibly important at a time when we have seen massive federal and state cuts, for us to hold the line locally and stand up in the city of st. francis for our seniors and our nutrition programs and families. i think we have a lot of challenges right now. we are still in the midst of the great recession. we all know way too many folks who are struggling in a minimum wage jobs pirouette of folks who have been laid off at work. i think as a city, we need to do much better at creating an environment where we have more jobs and more economic development. i know that all of us are committed to ensuring that we have a budget that not only provides basic city services that we have come to expect but make sure that we take care of

our most vulnerable. whether it be our at-risk use, our seniors, are disabled, our working families, folks who are out of work. i know something that every public servant who is here is committed to. adding with all come together as a board, as a city. we should come together as san franciscans, and, colleagues, at this time, i hope, and i asked that we unanimously vote for ed lee to be our next mayor. this is also a historic day for the asian-american community. for a community that has been here in santa francisco, for over 160 years, i am a product of that community. i know the ed and all of us of asian-american decent feel the legacy. i want to thank all of you who have been part of