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tv   [untitled]    October 4, 2011 5:30am-6:00am PDT

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waiting for him to pick up his blackberry so we can start texting again. let's keep him in our thoughts and prayers, though, as we work together during the next three days. now, won't you please join me again in thanking today's opening ceremony's participants including the san francisco police department color guard and byron pope from beverly hills. we have a great city clerk from mountain view but she doesn't sing like birom. let's give it up for them both. your annual conference is a critical time for our entire league to come together, learn, and celebrate this year's accomplishments as we plan ahead for the coming year. cities are the cornerstone of our great state, and this year's conference theme is, cities standing strong for cities. we are stronger individually when we are strong collectively,
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and that is precisely why your league of california cities exists. we are 482 separate cities, but the league's efforts for all california cities ensure that each city is stronger. it's our strength together that has been instrumental in the league's advocacy this year. last year, we successfully passed proposition 22 which provided strong protections for local revenues. did you know that this was our fourth, or depending on how you count, if you include 1998 and 1999 at one and two, fourth or fifth straight victory at the ballot box. your league has truly become a powerful force in the state political arena. [applause] but who would have guessed that just a few months later, in january of this year, our newly
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elected governor would announce his intention to eliminate redevelopment agencies throughout california in a way that clearly violates the new california constitution. in the process, his proposal would have killed 300,000 private sector jobs that redevelopment finances each year. the governor's proposal sparked an outcry not only by city officials, but by many others concerned about the devastating economic impact such an action would have on local communities and the state as a whole. despite our collective efforts, the governor's proposal was modified, in part, and married with another unconstitutional bill to extort huge ransoms from the state if we want to avoid ex extinction of our r.d.a.'s. the league hasn't taken that action lying down, either. but i wanted to take this
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opportunity to thank all of you for your efforts in passing proposition 22 and for our efforts to save redevelopment and let's give ourselves a round of applause for that work. [applause] now, you'll notice in your program that we were supposed to be joined today by james mitchell, the president of the flacial league of cities, but for reasons of business, he was not able to get out to california from charlotte where he serves as a council member. james is a great guy, a strong proponent of california cities, and i know he passes on his best wishes for us all. now, turning our attention to the annual conference, the reason why we're all here in this great city. let's focus on what's ahead for the conference this week. the program is designed to provide you with information and resources that you can take back to your cities and put directly
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into action. we are here in san francisco to learn from the experts and each other over the course of the conference. both the on-site program and the conference-at-a-glance page you received at registration will help you navigate the sessions, meetings and events. look for an expo map to identify the 240 companies exhibiting in this year's expo. i know you won't want to miss the expo tomorrow and friday where you'll find many products and services that can help your city. if you'll permit me to to make a shameless commercial plug, please look at page 34 in your conference program and circle booth 908. here's the reason for that. we're plugging this booth because it's ours and all of yours. it's california communities and
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u.s. communities. these organizations provide important products and services to cities at a great discount and both are an important part of the league and help keep your league dues as low as possible. when you visit the expo tomorrow, stop by booth 908 to learn more about how your city can access tax-exempt financing and pooled purchasing power. the expo opens at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow and closes at 5:00 p.m. also, don't forget to enter your city for one of three grand prizes being given on friday afternoon at the closing session. cardiac sciences is giving away two automated external defibrillators or a.e.d.'s, to two lucky cities. cool 'em technologies, whose founder is richard lowenthal, is giving one lucky city an
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electric vehicle charging station plus $1,000 towards its installation, and for those people starting to get electric cars, maybe a volt or a leaf, what's going to come in really handy. enter your city in the bin just inside the entrance to the expo hall. it goes without saying that your league staff is here to help with any information or questions you may have about the conference. today, they're wearing black shirts, and tomorrow, they'll be in red shirts. let's give a big thank you to our league partners, the sponsors of this year's prestigious helen putnam awards and the partner's speaker's theater located on the expo floor. the partners are doing an hourly raffle at the partners village and will be giving away five kindles and five samsung galaxy tablets. you'll want to make sure you're compliant with all of the state
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gift rules. one item will be drawn every hour starting at noon tomorrow. the league partners village features the companies and organizations that work closely with the league on behalf of cities. your partners provide expert information and help frame issues, develop programs for cities and help influence policy making in the interests of cities. be sure to say hello to the league partners who are here for this annual conference. they're wearing white ribbons identifying them as league partners. so please give them a special thank you as you go around and visit them at the expo and thank them for being league partners because they do help make your league a better organization so that it can help all of california's cities stand strong for cities. now, before i introduce our host, san francisco mayor ed lee, i want to highlight tonight's activities.
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first, from 6:00 to 7:00, we have the host city reception conveniently located right outside the hall here on the third level foyer as you exit the session. at 7:15, head north up mission street one block to the saint regis hotel for the sixth annual leadership gala casino night which helps support city pack and without city pack, we wouldn't have had proposition 22. so, enough of the public service announcements. we are excited and honored to be in san francisco, consistently rated as one of the most popular cities in the world, for this year's 113th annual conference. the state's fourth largest city has hosted our conference several times and we are thrilled to be back. please help me in welcoming san francisco mayor ed lee. [applause]
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mayor lee: good afternoon. and welcome. welcome to the world series champion city and county of san francisco. i may not be much of a politician, but i certainly know how to trash talk. and i want you to know that that's how i introduce myself when i'm at the u.s. conference of mayors. i kind of say, hey, i'm ed lee, i'm the mayor of the world champion city of san francisco, what are you mayor of? i wanted to welcome all of you here to moscone center, our center of conventions and also to san francisco. and i hope you are enjoying the weather. as mayor of san francisco, i like to welcome you to our city.
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it's a small city that dares to dream big, bound only by our capacity to imagine. and i would also like to welcome you to the greenest city in north america. i'm so pleased that i'm able to welcome you here today and many of you know, i used to be the city's administrator before i became mayor. and as a result, i've seen things from both sides. as a long time public servant, and now as mayor. so i have a pretty good idea on how and what it takes to make a city run so i want to thank each and every one of you for all of your good work because your commitment to your communities and your maintaining the citizens' trust in government, that's what we have to do as cities today. whether you've been in government for just a few days, a few months, or for many years, it's always nice ton that your
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work is appreciated and i do appreciate all the members of the california league and everyone that works in our cities. and we'll be celebrating some of that good work here today when the winners of the helen putnam awards are honored. in these challenging economic times, we're all faced with unacceptably high unemployment, the demands of a shrinking budget and the potential for tough choices in making public sector layoffs. despite all of this, we are working hard to maintain the quality of services and programs our residents deserve while balancing the economic constraints that we're all facing. san francisco, like most cities, has significantly been affected by the state's budgetary crisis. i continue to be very concerned about redevelopment, public safety realignment and the programmatic reductions that
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have been enacted, all of which will harm our ability to create jobs, building the housing and infrastructure we need, and hurt the residents of our communities. on redevelopment, i, like many of you, have been focused on protecting important development projects that are working to create jobs, invest in our infrastructure and affordable housing and rebuild our communities. the league of california cities has played a leadership role in the fight against the unwise elimination of redevelopment, and i want to thank all of you for that. in san francisco, we are focused on transformational projects which will have a major impact on san francisco, as well as the entire region, projects that will connect our communities, connect our cities, connect our regions, and connect our states, projects like the transbay terminal which will be the northern terminus of our
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california high-speed rail, or the central subway project, which will help san franciscans create a world class 21st century transportation system that realizes our transit first policy, or projects like treasure island, a base reuse project that will create thousands of new housing units and an entirely new neighborhood in san francisco, or projects like our hunters point shipyard project that will be transforming communities, revitalizing neighborhoods, keeping our families in our cities with thousands of units of housing, parklands, and allow us to build a world class stadium to keep the san francisco 49ers right here in our city, projects like these throughout the state will make a big difference in our economic recovery. as you may also know, i'm a big supporter of high-speed rail.
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i believe it really needs to be part of our transportation future. this issue is critical to me as a mayor because our economic future depends upon people being able to move throughout our state with ease on roads, rails and in the skies. currently, nearly one-third of all of our air traffic from san francisco international airport is for flights from san francisco to the los angeles area. for those of you who have flown into s.f.o., you have noticed that our airport has no room to expand. what this means is that we have to find ways to shift the san francisco-to-los angeles air draft out of the skies and on to the rails. by moving towards high-speed rail, we not only improve the transportation system in the state, but we also improve our local economy by providing more opportunities for commerce and
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tourism. i hope that, as leaders in our communities, we can work together to ensure that the promise of high-speed rail is delivered to all californians. finally, i'd just like to thank you for coming here to san francisco and to invite you back. as many of you know, we are hosting the 34th america's cup, the third largest international sporting event in the world. thank you. [applause] america's cup will be a spectacular event and i hope that you will come back to san francisco and to the other communities around the bay area to enjoy world class sailing on our bay. by the way, if you're from southern california, there will be preliminary races this november in san diego, so you can get a taste of what these competitors can do. and i also want to welcome my good friend who's going to be speaking this afternoon on your
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keynote. that's chris vene who used to be our chief information officer, and now he's working at the white house as the deputy information officer, technology officer for the white house. i welcome him in, as well. again, thank you for being here. the league of california cities, thank you for enjoying our weather, our convention center. and i wish you well in all of the subjects you cover today and again, thank you for every contribution you make to improving the quality of life for everybody in our state. thank you for coming here. [applause]
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>> i should not be on stage. when you should be seeing -- i am used to the stage but not. that is who should be on stage. i am an animator. i am with picks are animation studios. in some ways, i felt comfortable being on stayed behind my computer. it is weird for me to be on the microphone. i have a lot of work to do but i am here to explain that, i'll come to that later. i wanted knowledge some of our special guests this morning. first off, i have some flashcards. how wanted acknowledged and the
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asian art museum director jay tsu. when i think of jay hsu, i think, aka dr. j. he is master of the universe. also, i never thought had -- would have the opportunity to introduce the mayor of san francisco, mayor ed lee. i just a to introduce the mayor. that is awesome. we also have a bunch of other special guests today. i would also like to introduce david chiu, president of the board of supervisors.
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thank you for coming. the mayor does not come along. he has a policy. supervisor carmen chu is also with us. we are also lucky enough to have supervisor mark farrell as well. maybe he is having a pastry or something. there is a lot of traffic between here and city hall. that is a bad joke, i know. we also have supervisor eric mar here with us this morning. all the supervisors are sitting together. we are also lucky enough to have the chief of protocol for the city of san francisco charlotte schultz. last but not least, we have tony sun, chair of the asian arts commission.
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that's good started this morning. i am going to get off the stage and and things off over to jay hsu. he is going to tell us a little bit more about what we're doing today. >> someone needs to hand me the remote. terrific. brand implementation is a journey. the asian art museum embarks on a new journey. to reinvent ourselves, to engage a broad audience. the broad audience is very much at the core of what we do here and who we are. why now, you ask? as the aging world influence grows, so is understanding its
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culture. more than half of the global population lives in the asia. to look at our own san francisco bay area, one third of the population are of asian descent. also, a challenging economy offers us the opportunity to take advantage by being bold and taking risks. we need to increase our impact and by doing so, increasing revenue. also, a successful restructuring of our long-term debt. that took place earlier this year and has put the museum on sound financial footing. on that note, i would like to thank the city leaders for leading the effort and working with our newseum team in finding solutions. today, i am particularly happy to say, at this moment in history, we have an asian mayor,
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asian president of the board of supervisors, and an asian commissioner for budget and finance. [applause] any successful brand always starts with a strong vision, and we do have a vision. with asia as our lands and aren't as our cornerstone, we start connections across cultures and for time. in other words, asia is our focus, but our per view is global. one single important word in our vision is connection. making connections. we particularly explore connections in two dimensions. we want to connect cultures within asia and also connect culture is globally.
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asia and the rest of the world. the other dimension is connecting the past with the present and future. in other words, connecting the historic arts to the contemporary arts of today. for our visitors, we translate our vision into our brand promise, which i want all of you to remember when you leave the building. the past is never static. the past is full of potential for new discovery, new knowledge. our programs are to unlock the great potential of the past, to find a new perspective. to look at the past with today's perspective, today's questions, so that we can learn more from the past. in doing so, we want to inspire the creativity for our program,
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the creativity that exists within every one of us, to create new conversations, new questions. awaken the past, inspire the next. in doing so, we want to appeal to our lovers and art newbies. in other words, the museum is for everyone. whether you are local or far away. no matter your interest is in asia or elsewhere in the world, everybody has a connection. we want to make those connections and discoveries. let me give you one example of how we have started to implement our brand and to realize our brand promise for our visitors. across all you will see an
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exhibition of exquisite korean ceramics dating from the 15th and 16th century, as we all would display our works of art and the most beautiful of manners, so that our visitors can enjoy the beauty and style of those people. at the same time and, for the first time in our history, we have built a new contemporary dimension to the exhibition. the curator has included work from sample -- several contemporary caribbean artists, ranging from photography to installations, too surprising media that somebody may or may not realize, all of this that you see is made out of soap. this brings up a question, what is a sense of permanence say?
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looking at the contemporary art enables us to reflect on the timeless pieces of the 15th and 16th century with new questions, new perspectives. likewise, looking at that contemporary art in the context of the traditional art, we can ask the question, how is art today? what inspires us about tradition? in other words, awaken and inspire. so we will do a lot more along these lines. in doing so, our focus has started to shift from art objects to an experience centered around art. art is at the core of who we are, but want to create a new engaging experience that allows us to connect art to life,
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connecting to our individual needs. the branding is really about transforming the institution, how we do our business, but most importantly, how we serve our visitors. how we create a new experience, how we engage our individuals to have individualized experiences. one part of our brand identity is our visual identity. we want that to reflect what our brand is. particularly, three qualities. we want our visual identity to convey that, one, our brand offers a new perspective. second, we are forward and confident. the third, the asian art museum in bites all to engage. in other words, the asian art museum is for all people. offering a new perspective that
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is bold and confident but inviting everyone to engage. now it is time to unveil at our new visual identity. may i invite the mayor and our board chair tony to join me in cutting the ribbon. >> wow. it is time. as these folks get in place, i am going to count down. we are all going to say asian altogether. get ready with your scissors. i am going to begin my countdown. 3, 2, 1. asian. wow. [applause]
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>> now that the mayor and board chair has helped us through this point, may i invite them up for some pictures?