consideration, and adopted the avoidance minimize in -- avoidance, minimization, and mitigation monitoring plan for the yerba buena island rams improvement project. action item. supervisor mirkarimi: public comment. >> at an earlier meeting, i had pointed out to the gentlemen who was giving some sort of a presentation that we must all remember that this area we call san francisco belongs to the first people. and in case you ladies and gentlemen do not know who they are, they are the [unintelligible] having said that, at yerba buena island, hundreds and hundreds of remains are found. so we have people who come and

talk about the eir, and they talk about ceqa, and they talk about this, that, and the other, but they do not have the decency to address the cultural or archaeological factors over which they simply override. in fact, if you go to the university of berkeley, uc berkeley, there are over 10,000 remains, and we have this in the year 2011. so all these things, you know, improvements that we call, should be holistic. we should have some compassion. all these things that we build, they will collapse. but if we, in our arrogance, do not do what is right and there

are federal laws that the native american graves and protection act, which the gentlemen it has not read, nor have you so-called representatives, but i am just pointing this out to you because again and again and again in this city and county of san francisco, in our arrogance, we fail to first respect the first people. and secondly, to give them the new honor. thank you very much. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. any other public comment? see none, public comment is closed. some house-7 col. very good. so moved. next item. >> item 11, approved alternative 2b as the preferred alternative for the yerba buena i land grants approved the project. supervisor mirkarimi: public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed.

safehouse-cent call. >> item 12, ever the 2011 san francisco congestion management program. this is an action item. supervisor mirkarimi: discussion? public comment? public comment is closed. same house-7 col. >> item 13, introduction of new items, information item. supervisor mirkarimi: introduction of new items. public comment? public comment is closed. next item. >> item 14, public comment. supervisor mirkarimi: public comment on public comment. ca none, public comment is [closedislaughs] only the bench is laughing. the redundancy speaks for itself. all right, public comment is closed. next item -- >> mr. chair, if i may, i do not

know this is the right time or place to do this, but i wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your service as chair of the transportation of authority, and i appreciate the work that you and your staff have done. i see that there have been many accomplishments. i want to wish you the best in your future endeavors and look forward to continuing to work with you. thank you. supervisor mirkarimi: very sweet of you, and thank you. wearing two hats, multiple hats for step, i certainly want to recognize that added responsibility for staff and interns and everybody else for help manage the duties and responsibilities of the transportation authority, while we recognize the ta staff. and my own staff have had to manage and cope with those responsibilities. thank you to all, your staff, for helping you all where that extra hat, too.

so thank you, supervisor campos. i believe we are done. >> item 15. supervisor mirkarimi: excellent. fantastic holiday, new year, and this meeting is adjourned. ++ >> good afternoon, everyone. thank you for coming out this afternoon. we're very excited to be here today with the mayor to announce the completion of the central market economic strategy and to launch the community ambassador program on market street. i am the director of the mayor's office of economic and

workforce development though it is under mayor lee's leadership that, for the past 10 months, we have been working through a community-based process to create an economic strategy for this corridor of central market street to help revitalize and stabilize this community. as a result of many, many community meetings, business surveys, resident service, focus groups, talking to a broad range of stakeholders, we now have a road map for how to stabilize and revitalize the market street. while much good work has already been done over the last 10 months, we now have a document that will help guide efforts to come. without further ado i am going to introduce the mayor and let him talk about some of those initiatives. the mayor. [applause] >> thank you very much. and to our united nations plaza, also home of our off the grid food truck every thursday here, as well as our arts festival

here as well. these are two examples of how we have reactivated united nations plaza. it has been a plaza that i remember for a very long time, and know my good friend who is now heading up public works, he and i spent many occasions here, as we become a cleaning, brushing, and reece leading. we know that the secret is to activate our committee, activate other people to come and help us with good positive activation spiller that is what our arts festival here is doing. that is what our of the grid food market is doing as well. as you all know, i have been actually spending my second home here along market street for about the last three months. specifically at 6th and market street. i have had the pleasure of really knowing, snelling, thinking, and hearing all this sounds of our central market and

paying attention to every detail of what we need to do. and talking with all of the residents, the social service organizations, the arts organizations that have come here to help us, and the new businesses that have joined us. we all need to work together. i am is so enthusiastic about the fact that we have a very active community benefits district. we have a great merchants association that has formed. we have a very active redevelopment agency that really has gone beyond what their decades ago reputation is, working with the city very closely, working with all of the agencies to help us revitalize this whole neighborhood, and particularly, this midmarket corridor. you all know that what we have done with the board of supervisors and the mayor in terms of our relationship with the technology companies and the

new businesses, through the leadership of the office of economic and workforce development, we have made a solid step to make sure that businesses are welcome here at the central market. at the same time, we need to do more. that is why we worked hard with the redevelopment agency, with all the different nonprofits, the community residents, to work hard to put together strategic and not -- economic development plan that serves as a roadmap for what we need to pay attention to and how we need to do that. i want to say to you, and will continue repeating this, it is not just physical improvements that you will appreciate on this corridor. it will also be a transformation of lives, of people who have been here for years and decades, asking for the city's attention. people who are living in the sro's north and south of market street. people who have wanted a grocery

store, wanted more museums, wanted just the simple vitality of the city reflected in the middle of their neighborhood. we want to bring that in the way in which it is sensitive, a way in which we're going to have a very equitable development and of limitation of this plan. i invite you to study this strategy. i invite you to look closely at how we're going to be asking the city and our own government to fund it, to make sure we encourage funding for it. the financial institutions as well as the company's and nonprofits and the grand foundations. all of them will be participating at many different levels, along with private investment. the resurgence of this is to really encourage the investment confidence that this is a really great place to invest. with those investments, you're probably see right off the bat

some sort of employment and training model, because i think that is what everybody told me as i was running for this great office in this great city. please develop the jobs. that is what gets us into this announcement today. because behind me, these very bright yellow packets, is our ambassadors, our midmarket, central market ambassadors that i want to introduce you to today. as you know, over a year ago, when i was city administrator, we had to respond to some levels of violence along third street and in visitation area. so we responded with the help of the board of supervisors, with then-mayor gavin newsom, and with a number of social groups and crime fighting groups with our youth groups all over, to say that maybe we can do is something different here, something special. we came up with this idea, and hit has resonated in visitation

valley and among third street with these ambassadors. these -- they live in our city. they want our city to succeed, want to work with the agencies, and are trained by our police department's own academy, and now they will be introduced to the beat cops and all the other players that have been here intending to help revitalize. there will be introduced to the new small businesses, like huckleberry bikes, show dogs, like the incoming, moving in, dottie's cafe. these are names of companies you are already committed or are already here on market street to these ambassadors will be here on a daily basis, beginning at 11:00 a.m., and it will go all the way through 8:00 p.m., different shifts. they will be working with people who live here and work here, and

they will be an additional eyes and ears not only looking out for the people who work and live here, but helping to provide basic information about where things are at, about who to contact, and they also have emergency cell phones on them that are provided by at&t for free, so in case they need some backup, they have that instantaneously. they have all been trained to do that. most importantly, i have emphasized their title. they are community ambassadors, the best of the best. they came through our dpw corridor training program. they have, like me, swept our streets, picked up everything there was to pick up. now they get to have this opportunity to be employed on a full-time basis. they get to work with adrian, who has been our civic engagement director through the city administrator's office. she put together the program at

the first of last year, a year ago. and her staff is also not only improved on that program, i also want to thank the redevelopment agency. i want to thank the arts commission. tiffany is here, those from the redevelopment agency. the arts institute, byron chung is here, he has been a great supporter. kurt is here. shannon is with farm table. that is another great new entity that is coming on market street. coerce, mohammed as -- of course mohammed as i mentioned earlier. zandesky is here as well. all of the arts organizations,

whoer going to spend hours not only in the mornings, but in the evenings activating our market street. one of the things i did when i had our campaign office here, we did pop-up art. we did these things that occurred in the evening. i would like this place to be not only safe -- to be so safe that evening activities would be a freight welcome. i want to thank our chief. he has been a great partner. i want to thank our academy for training our ambassadors. now without adieu, we are going to start walking down our great corridor, introducing all of our wonderful ambassadors to the existing, new businesses, and forthcoming businesses that they need to know by first name . thank you very much.

>> good evening, everyone. my name is filled in the third, the director of your parks department. my job can be challenging at times, but on and that light tonight, i feel like the luckiest guy in the world to be here, to support families in the event like this is truly fantastic. this is the greatest city in the world, the greatest parks department. thank you for joining us. 82 years ago, uncle john mclaren, our first park superintendent started the

tradition of minding a mile- long of live trees at, to where he lived at the time. behind you is the official entry of san francisco, and it is called uncle john's tree. it is a monterey cypress that is 131 years old. it is over 100 feet tall. it has over 700 lights. it took 8 rec and park tree toppers to light this up. let's give a big round of applause honoring john mclaren, who would be 160 today. 82 years later, our staff has

continued the tradition, and i want to thank all of the park staff, recreation staff, tree toppers, electricians, structural maintenance crew. everyone had a plan in -- hand in planning this tonight. i want to make sure that everyone is applauded for the great job that they had done. [applause] i also want to thank the city family who is here tonight. mayor ed lee. we will hear from him in a second. members of the board of supervisors, including supervisor farrell, supervisor elsbernd, supervisor wiener, i think supervisor mar is trying to park. supervisor mirkarimi is supposed to be here. i want to thank our fire chief joanne hayes white for being here today. i want to thank our police

chief. our treasurer, jose cisneros our rec and park commissioners. [applause] ana and reid, fiona ma. i also want to thank quickly our entertainers for the evening. we have had some incredible entertainment. the golden gate band. the hoover middle school jazz band. the birchen high-school drum corps. the young people music theater company.

the george washington high school marching band. the brunos. press, circus -- presscot circus. i also want to thank our co-host for the evening, the newly formed parks alliance. the parks department cannot do it alone. the alliance has really become our best friend. i want to recognize their board chair. our executive director matt o'grady will come up to say a few words. >> thank you so much. the parks alliance is the new kid on the block. a brand-new organization, and

yet, a very familiar organization, because we come from the san francisco parks trust and from the neighborhood council. these two organizations got together and realize they can do so much more by combining forces to make this park system the best open space system in the world for san francisco. i wanted to give you a couple of samples of some of the great partnerships we have built to make these parks so fabulous and gray in san francisco. the first partnership is with none other than the parks and recreation department. it is called the gear up program, where we have been tried to buy resources for our part centers citywide. that program has raised, from your generosity, more than $300,000 or reparations centers across the city. bravo and thank you for your generosity.

i want to mention another partnership we have had running through the san francisco parks alliance. take another look at this enormous, beautiful tree. trees like this do not get that way on their own. it started from a tiny seed, and it grew to this beautiful majesty because of the love, care, and feeding and care that was provided to victory over the last 130 years by our gardeners and arborists. every tree in every part in san francisco, every plant, the landscaping that makes our parks so beautiful, they are that beautiful because of the gardeners, landscape architects, and other professionals of the park staff that care for them every day and

night, 365 days a year. where do our gardeners come from? i see a lot of young people here. some of you might be interested in learning how we can nurture them to make them so beautiful for us. we have a partnership with union local 261, who developed an apprenticeship program to teach young people how to be the best gardeners in the world so they could join the staff of the recreation and parks department and provide a future for parks and gardeners here in the city. thank you to you, 261, and the other partners that have been so great with us. i want to form another new partnership here with all of you. you may not know this, but today is a very special person's birthday today. some of you may not know this,

but i got my start as a musician, as a conductor. i have not done it in quite awhile, but i will conduct all of you to sing happy birthday to none other than our own phil ginsburg, who is 45 today. please join me. >> ♪ happy birthday to you have a birthday to you happy birthday, dear phil happy birthday to you ♪ [applause] >> thank you. all i want for my birthday is 50 more gardeners. all right. let's bring up our parks champion. he is everywhere in the parks system. he is playing ping pong in the

square, playing ball, in golden gate park, he is everywhere. ladies and gentlemen, our mayor, ed lee. >> thank you. i thought all you want it was her two front teeth? thank you very much for coming. it is wonderful to see so many families here together. this is the season where we celebrate with our family and kids. i cannot think of any place more wonderful to be than this 130- year cyprus to share with you the lighting of this wonderful tree. i want to thank our department representatives, city official family, elected officials. i also want to let you know, i came here last year. we saw painted on the side of

this train, the world series chickenshit emblem. this year, we have our san francisco fire engine. -- championship emblem. a wonderful tribute to our fire department. i want to thank the chief for coming here tonight, for helping us with the toy drive, and for bringing a special guest. santa is here tonight, a special guest from our fire department. he is coming. i also want to let you know, in addition to tonight, on the weekend of december 17, 18, rec and park, city hall, all of our

city officials, want to welcome you to the civic center. we are going to have a snow village, snow for all of you to play in. come in on saturday and sunday, the 17th and 18th. then on the 18th, we will open city hall, and you can take pictures with your family. city hall will be open from 11:00 until 4:00 p.m. that afternoon. please come in to join us for the holiday season. thank you. with that, are we ready? everybody stand up. how about a countdown beginning with 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3,

2, 1. [applause] happy holidays, everybody. >> if you listen very carefully, you are going to hear coming down the streets -- i think santa is coming, mr. mayor. i think he is coming. there is a lot of traffic out there, but he is on the way.

>> of the meeting of the entertainment commission for the city and county of san francisco. >> hyde? newlin? cavellini indicated