this great city of san francisco. no they will be backed up by this mayor and administration, -- know that you will be backed up by this mayor and administration and board of supervisors. your friends, family, the residents of san francisco hold you number one in the appreciation that we have and the wealth -- love of the city family. you are joining a great department. we want to make sure we do our best. you are joining a world-class department of firefighters, paramedics, and all the other wonderful things that we do. i want to impart that i am

personally appreciative of the sacrifices you have made thus far. i will also appreciate everything you do from here on. i will do my best to continue leading this city and making sure we recognize all of the contributions made. we want to keep this city family close so that we can depend on each other whenever we have times of need. i want to signal to the public and your families that this is a day we want to remember as one where we celebrate your entry to this department, how you got here, all of the sacrifices, and make sure that you know that you are serving the best city in the world. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you, mr. mayor. [applause] >> good morning. thank you all for coming today. this is a beautiful looking group of people. give them a hand. they have been through so much in this training facility. i am so happy to be here today. it has been a long time coming. i am hoping we can make this an annual thing where we are bringing on even more firefighters for this great city. we have people retiring, leaving the department in large numbers. we are truly going to need them and more to come. i am hoping that is something we can start talking about. this is such an amazing city.

every single day when you hear the fire trucks and see the firefighters saving lives, i cannot be more proud to be a fire commissioner then i am when i see this great department saving lives. you are coming into a wonderful department. there are people here representing the department whether you are in or out of uniform, you are always a representative of this great city. i am so proud to be here on behalf of the commissioners who are here and those who cannot be here. we're here to serve and work with the city. we are here for you. thank you so much for being part of this great department. we're looking forward to meeting you and working with you in the future. [applause]

>> thank you, fire commissioner. the chief of the department, joanne hayes-white, would now like to say a few words. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. welcome to our beautiful division of training 21 years ago, i sat in those seats and was a proud member of the 1978 recruit class. we're here to celebrate your hard work and successful completion of the rigorous 14- week recruit academy. this the first recruit academy we've had in nearly six years. you now have the skills and ability to enter the field on your assignments and provide firefighting and emergency medical services to our community to fulfil our mission. i remember your first day here on may 2, 2011. i spoke about the importance of

teamwork, getting to know one another, and working together to build on strengths to help those who might be struggling. teamwork serve you well throughout our careers. your ability to do that and be successful has paid off. the staff at the division of trading has provided you with an excellent foundation -- at the division of training has provided you with an excellent foundation. each day, you will gain new insights and experiences you will carry with you throughout your career. hopefully someday you will train other firefighters like yourselves today. whether it is responding to restructure fire, medical,, making a presentation to the community, you are now part of the official san francisco fire department family. i am very proud of each and everyone of you. [applause]

the profession you have entered is more than just a job. it is a vocation. it is an honorable and noble vocation. there are tremendous rewards and satisfaction that go along with a career in the san francisco fire department. along with this comes great risk and responsibility. as firefighters and medical service providers, we put our lives on the line daily to carry out a very important mission. this is painfully present in our minds with the tragic loss of firefighters in june, heroes who made the old and sacrifice in fulfilling the mission of the san francisco fire department. i know vince and tony are

looking down and giving you the thumbs up today. you are to be commended for the work over the last 14 weeks. you have formed a strong team. the bond will always be with you. each and every member of the class i graduated with is a lifelong friend because of the experience, bond, and teamwork reform here at the division of training many years ago. i encourage you to continue those relationships as you move into the field. always challenge yourself. be a sponge when it comes to learning and knowledge. ask a lot of questions. treat everyone the same way that you would want every member of your family to be treated each and every day, even when you have been up for hours and hours. always wear the uniform with pride as you are today. nothing is worth doing unless

you do it 100% all the time. i am proud of the diverse makeup of our class. it truly reflects the community we are serving. all of you came very well- prepared. you were all emergency medical technicians. this is the first time we have had a class that we made that a requirement. it is great to have real estate appraisers, people who have worked in construction, personal trainers, people will have worked retail, 911 dispatchers. that is all important. each of you bring something to the team. i am also proud that collectively, there are many languages that you speak in addition to english. we have speakers fluent in spanish, cantonese, italian, french, russian, and vietnamese. all of that is value added for an employee of the san francisco fire department to serve our

diverse city. many of you have advanced or bachelor's degrees. with history majors, sociology, i.t., psychology, civil engineering. all that is impressive and important as you build a team and contribute to the san francisco fire department. to the family and friends of our recruits, thank you very much. it has been a sacrifice for the recruits and family members. it has not been an easy 14 weeks. you will find that there will be missed holidays because they are serving the city. we're so proud to have them. we're thankful to you for your continued support throughout their careers. i will also like to acknowledge the division of training staff. it is challenging and rewarding. it was one of my favorite

positions. we're able to impart our knowledge and experience and make our imprint on the new recruits. under the direction of frank costa, they are all to be commended for the work in building the foundation upon which the class will continue to grow. we have many new faces. we had some tiretirements last month. i could not do my job without a good team of people to work with. i would like to acknowledge each and everyone of you chiefs recommend -- representing the department today. i want to thank the commissioners for your support. we're very proud to work with the commission that challenges us, works with us, and expects

us to be our best. we appreciate your presence today. of like to acknowledge local 798. thank you for continuing to advocate for our department, to give the recruits over our class working. supervisor chiu, i would like technology. -- i would like to acknowledge you. i really appreciate your presence and support of the san francisco fire department. the supervisor was chair of the budget committee. it was not an easy task. we appreciate her diligence in that role and how she understands the importance of continued funding for public safety.

last but not least, to mayor lee. he is -- i am proud to be achieved for almost eight years. i am so proud to be working under the direction of mayor lee. he is a colleague and friend. i am so proud he is with us in good times like promotional ceremonies and graduations and in difficult times like in june with a loss of vincent and tony. thank you so much for being here. i will be back to give you your oath of allegiance to officially welcome you into the department. i look forward to seeing you grow.

congratulations. you have our support 100%. all i ask is that you give your 100% each and every day you come to work. [applause] ♪ >> this is where it techs started and this is where we lead from. it is with great pleasure of publicly announce -- i publicly announce the expansion into an

additional 50,000 square feet of offices. [applause] we have quickly proven our ability to build a thriving and profitable ecosystem of some of the best tech startups in the world. these are our next generation of stars. this will be the center of epicness in san francisco, the place for tech entrepreneurs to build their dream with the support that san francisco has to offer. i was greatly encouraged when the mayor came to meet the company's. it would appear in the industry

-- any industry is in need of support and lack of disruption. your support shows needed political support for the technology industry in san francisco. thank you for that. ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce our mayor, ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. congratulations. it is a wonderful building you have here. it is more than just a building. this building houses some of the smartest people you could find in technology. that is what san francisco is trying to do. we're trying to attract the best talent in the world to come here. whether it is from u.s., canada,

or spain, the companies are coming here because they know where the talent is to be found. this is a tech-friendly city that will do everything it can to support technology growth because the real challenge is our future. we're still very strong as a city in tourism from all over the world. we will continue being strong in that because of our natural beauty, the commission of tourism and travel. there is another reason why people are coming to this city. a lot of other cities have build them in terms of creating jobs and having a stable economic foundation upon which to grow. for me, that is what i have been all about in my administration.

what began with a conversation earlier this year with a company called twitter about their needs have us sit down with them. i went to their offices. i chatted with their seceo and cfo. the managers left the room and let me speak to the engineers, people such as yourselves. i asked what they really needed to stay here. they said they loved the diversity and culture. they wanted more biplanes -- bike lanes and infrastructure to support their lifestyle. they wanted help with the

challenging payroll tax. they gave me input at the engineering level and from the management level. we went on to make a pretty historic decision to make sure a company like twitter would grow from 250 people to the expected up to 3000 people in the next two and a half years. that is the vision we shared at that moment. it is beginning to happen. it is the same thing with zynga. we were one of the only cities taxing stock options. we dealt with that. we have been demonstrating we want technology companies to grow. this is the innovation ecosystem we want to create.

we will do everything possible here. as duncan announced earlier, a rocket space is one of a number of technology companies locating here. over 4.5 million space of office -- over 4.5 million feet of office space has been leased this year. of that 4.6 million square feet, 1.6 million square feet have been leased by technology companies. tech leasing has become our basic business in san francisco. it is the bundling of services that come with the space. it is the smart way of doing things. if cities are going to survive,

they have to be smarter about it. they have to reach out to new technology. i have to keep changing government to make sure we are business-friendly and doing smart things. rocket space has an earthquake-safe building. then you start seeing the technology businesses. everybody is innovating in this building. they are innovating with great ideas. whether it is travel, financial , were just better ways of doing business all over the place, we have so much innovation going on. i have gotten innovated and inspired. i am happy to be here and congratulate you for a great

offering of this building and the expansion that is coming on. i want to thank all of the ceo's for the innovation you are bringing to san francisco. my next visit is going to be in the bayview. there is great hope in the city. high-school kids are wondering what their futures will be like. maybe they see blockages, lack of income, less opportunity. when i have the opportunity to talk with them, i will say there are jobs at twitter, and new companies, stay the course. get your education.

be dedicated. we will be there to deliver the jobs for you. the technology companies are here to stay. this will be our future. someone suggested this might be another bubble. i do not think so. people are interested in forming long-term relationships with the city. they are looking for talent. they are not only starting here, they are growing and staying here because the talent keeps coming. i will do my part to and still -- instill hope in youth. you will do your part by starting, growing, and stayed.

when a resident of san francisco is looking for health care, you look in your neighborhood first. what is closest to you? if you come to a neighborhood health center or a clinic, you then have access it a system of care in the community health network. we are a system of care that was probably based on the family practice model, but it was really clear that there are special populations with special needs. the cole street clinic is a youth clinic in the heart of the haight ashbury and they target youth. tom woodell takes care of many of the central city residents and they have great expertise in providing services for many of the homeless. potrero hill and southeast health centers are health centers in those particular communities that are family

health centers, so they provide health care to patients across the age span. . >> many of our clients are working poor. they pay their taxes. they may run into a rough patch now and then and what we're able to provide is a bridge towards getting them back on their feet. the center averages about 14,000 visits a year in the health clinic alone. one of the areas that we specialize in is family medicine, but the additional focus of that is is to provide care to women and children. women find out they're pregnant, we talk to them about the importance of getting good prenatal care which takes many visits. we initially will see them for their full physical to determine their base line health, and then enroll them in prenatal care which occurs over the next 9 months. group prenatal care is designed to give women the opportunity to bond during their pregnancy

with other women that have similar due dates. our doctors here are family doctors. they are able to help these women deliver their babies at the hospital, at general hospital. we also have the wic program, which is a program that provides food vouchers for our families after they have their children, up to age 5 they are able to receive food vouchers to get milk and cereal for their children. >> it's for the city, not only our clinic, but the city. we have all our children in san francisco should have insurance now because if they are low income enough, they get medical. if they actually have a little more assets, a little more income, they can get happy family. we do have family who come outside of our neighborhood to come on our clinic. one thing i learn from our clients, no matter how old they

are, no matter how little english they know, they know how to get to chinatown, meaning they know how to get to our clinic. 85 percent of our staff is bilingual because we are serving many monolingual chinese patients. they can be child care providers so our clients can go out and work. >> we found more and more women of child bearing age come down with cancer and they have kids and the kids were having a horrible time and parents were having a horrible time. how do parents tell their kids they may not be here? what we do is provide a place and the material and support and then they figure out their own truth, what it means to them. i see the behavior change in front of my eyes. maybe they have never been able to go out of boundaries, their

lives have been so rigid to sort of expressing that makes tremendous changes. because we did what we did, it is now sort of a nationwide model. >> i think you would be surprised if you come to these clinics. many of them i think would be your neighbors if you knew that. often times we just don't discuss that. we treat husband and wife and they bring in their kids or we treat the grandparents and then the next generation. there are people who come in who need treatment for their heart disease or for their diabetes or their high blood pressure or their cholesterol or their hepatitis b. we actually provide group medical visits and group education classes and meeting people who have similar chronic illnesses as you do really helps you understand that you are not alone in dealing with this. and it validates the experiences that you have and

so you learn from each other. >> i think it's very important to try to be in tune with the needs of the community and a lot of our patients have -- a lot of our patients are actually immigrants who have a lot of competing priorities, family issues, child care issues, maybe not being able to find work or finding work and not being insured and health care sometimes isn't the top priority for them. we need to understand that so that we can help them take care of themselves physically and emotionally to deal with all these other things. they also have to be working through with people living longer and living with more chronic conditions i think we're going to see more patients coming through. >> starting next year, every day 10,000 people will hit the age of 60 until 2020. . >> the needs of the patients

that we see at kerr senior center often have to do with the consequences of long standing substance abuse and mental illness, linked to their chronic diseases. heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, stroke, those kinds of chronic illnesses. when you get them in your 30's and 40's and you have them into your aging process, you are not going to have a comfortable old age. you are also seeing in terms of epidemics, an increase in alzheimer's and it is going to increase as the population increases. there are quite a few seniors who have mental health problems but they are also, the majority of seniors, who are hard-working, who had minimum wage jobs their whole lives, who paid social security.