court in may. i never referred to the students as homeless, and is a badge that i do not think it is appropriate. if anything, i refer to them as transitions students. the definition of this is quite frankly different than the mayor's office intends to define. we tend to focus on the entire district community. the mayor's office is forthcoming in trying to prevent and assist our department. i would like to thank them for securing the additional funding that we will be able to use in the future to help subsidize families. to g>> good morning again. henry of a rise for housing authority pier yen -- henry

alvarez. currently homelessness is the number one preference on our waitlist. on the public housing side we have 25,000 families waiting, of which approximately 2500 of them have self-declared their homeless, and that list is ordered in time and date. whoever has been there the longest typically rises to the top of the list, and homeless families rise to the top of that. and on about your side of aisle, we have a bust -- 11,000 families on that list. the housing authorities programs are regulated by the federal government, by the department of urban housing and development. the criteria by which we housed families, they all must come from about waitlist.

if they are not on the wait list, we typically cannot house them. the wait list is currently closed. we anticipate opening it by the second quarter of the coming year, and including a discussion about preferences. we're hearing about this more and more every day that we may need to adjust our preference schemes, that families that are homeless with school-aged children may come first. there are other groups that wish to become first, so that is problematic. >> how did the wait list it close? take of the department of urban development decides that it await list as i have a reasonable expectation of housing, that it should be closed. we use the rubric if your weight is typically long prevented years, the wait list is closed. of the 25,000 families on the

wait list and public housing, given on average we house 400- 500 families per year, that typically will be longer than a 10-year wait. on the voucher side, that is more than 100% utilized. it is a budget-operative program. basically 10 million per month. once we provide subsidies but add up to 10,000 per month, we typically close the section 8 list. we are at capacity. however, we are hearing from the public that there is a need in certain elements of family population, and our intent is to open the wait list so we can service or assist those families. >> how do you have the discretion to do that? >> we will need to open the list for all families, because

it will create a housing element. the issue will be what are the preferences that we accord to provide? those families with preferences go above those that do not have preferences. the other thing is the notion of how many vacant units we have. that is incorrect. we have approximately 223 vacant units. 100 of which we are processing for families. there are approximately 115-123 baking units -- vacant units that are getting ready to be utilized for families. the typical methodology is to get a unit substantially ready within a day or so of families moving in, bring in the appliances, because we discover without closing up the units we are subject to vandalism and

squatting and theft of appliances, so we tend to for these up as soon as we assess they are vacant. we then start working on them to get them ready, and typically the lesser work that has to be done to get those units quickly come of the more work that has to be done in large construction work, they take longer. i should mention also that the budgetary constraints of the federal level have reduced the ability to do that quickly, so what we're doing to expedite these units is to simply attach families to these units. we will delay other capital activities to get the units ready. that sense that there are large number of vacant units are not correct. we're typically operated of the public housing side at 93% occupancy-95% on average.

our about your program is operating at 100-108% of budget authority, which is where we of been for the past year. some of the things that our colleagues mentioned to you earlier, we're going to look into methodologies of creating a set aside for the specific population group where we take a small portion of our about your program and create preferences that these families can be served a quicker. the issue with that is obviously whoever goes first, there are other families that will then have to wait, because this is a finite product. currently the federal government is cutting resources to provide those services. i hope that answers the question. if not, i would be more than happy to answer more. supervisor avalos: ok, i can't

continue to the call of the chair and get a report back in the new year. how we are able to get families into more stable housing situations and figure out what we can do next of the process. okay? so we could agree to do that. we will adjourn this meeting. thank you very much. [applause]

>> please join me in welcoming our mayor, ed lee. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. i am very happy to join all of you here today. it is an exciting day to join our high school kids, our high school, here at john o'connor. principal gomez, our deputy superintendent, our school board president, and our building trade, thank you for being here. the director of the joint power trended authority. we have the sfpuc, the school

alliance, school district personnel. we are all here because we are excited about this wonderful announcement. we are here in a very green, multipurpose use building that has just been opened. this is going to be representing something that i am quite familiar with. i know mike and others closer to my age, we had a wood shop. we had metal shop in middle school. we had exposure to how to deal with graphs. more importantly, you are talking to somebody who used to spend five years at the department of public works, as the director. we're having to pay attention to our infrastructure, one of the most important things any city can do. when we are trying to grow a new economy -- and as you know, i have gone around the city

selling this idea about how the economy is about tech jobs, but we also have an important infrastructure to take care of. if we do not take care of the infrastructure, these other jobs will not be here. jobs at the transbay terminal, which we are already building, celebrating and historic project labor agreement. we also have a commitment to our growing kids, that we are going to get them there. they are not just going to school to get bored. they have to have those jobs here, and we need them trained and ready for those jobs. so, in this new economy, when we are investing, like our city is, my commitment to the city is making sure we pay attention to infrastructure. we are going to do it right and make sure that our kids know, by

fulfilling their educational goals, being exposed to a facility like this, where you are building our labor representatives with the curriculum that the school district has offered to work with the infrastructure agencies that we have just mentioned, we have a curriculum that will train them in the jobs to come. being able to pay attention to this overt -- capital structures of the city, our high school kids can be exposed and get the experience, whether it is automotive, engineering, architectural design. they will get that exposure here in the center with all of the participants. so i am excited about this because it blends so much of what i believed in, what we have been doing in the city. all of our facilities that we are building in the city, whether you look at the mission bay, the building's at hunters

point, treasure island, a partner said, all of these projects, or the hospital's going up, they will all meet plant engineers, in infrastructure commitments. for our high school kids, as you often heard, maybe not enough, i want to welcome you to the million-dollar club. that is the difference, what our school district is trying to teach all of you, to make sure that you know there is a difference between someone who just graduated from high school, and someone who will go after their college education. it is a million-dollar difference. i want all of you to participate in that million dollar economy, because that will be the difference. and we will be working, not only through the school alliance, city colleges, local colleges to make sure we reinforce that.

i am here to celebrate, participate, and the knowledge all of a great, wonderful entities that have come together to create this tech 21 center, where this exposure and experience will happen, with your leadership, printable gomez. these kids will be able to see they have a way forward in this challenging city, but one that will be there city, when they have all the skills. thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> thank you. mr. mayor, we want to thank you on behalf of the 56,000 students in the san francisco unified school district, children of our community, for your tireless work on their behalf. we look forward to calling you a long-term partner. thank you. the mayor was gracious with his time. as you can imagine, he has a

full schedule today and asked to be part of this ceremony today to show his appreciation for the work being done here. we want this to be a celebration and i would probably take until now until 3:00 to thank all of the dignitaries here, but i wanted to recognize some of our elected officials and dignitaries. of course, you met mayor lee, and we also have with us today two commissioners of our board of education. commissioner sandra fuhr. we also have commissioner moss. [applause] we are very happy to with us also -- the mere mention her -- our transbay executive director

maria ayerdi-kaplan. thank you for being here with us. and the executive vice president for the united educators of san francisco, linda, thank you. and our president of united educators of san francisco, denis kelly. thank you as well. whenever you go down this path, you are going to miss someone. with all due respect, as i see you, i will call you out as we go through the program. thank you for being here. i serve as the separate -- deputy superintendent for social justice. what i would like to think about, as the good to this dedication ceremony, this is a tangible, real world artifacts of social justice. if we believe social justice is about kids having opportunities to explore career paths,

opportunities to have jobs in the real world, if it was not for these types of opportunities, that is social justice. we are happy to have you here to be part of the celebration of social justice. on a personal level, i will say to you, this is so important to me, because i stand before you as the son of a dirty man she metalworker. local 353 in tucson, arizona. why is that important? it is important because mayor lee mentioned, you cannot run a city, have infrastructure for a city, without these jobs. there is a connection between college and career and career and college. they are very much interconnected. as my father, who never graduated from high school, later earned a ged, the person

who taught me geometry was not my geometry teacher, who had a master's degree. she was wonderful, but i was just one of those kids. i learned geometry with my father actually doing the work. when you are cutting out sheet metal, bending the angles, you have to make it fit and you have to measure. i learned about ankles and how geometry works by actually doing it. when i say that career tech education is about college readiness, it is about utilizing all of those skills that we send kids to school every day to learn. this gives you a reason to read and write and do arithmetic, because you get to apply it. that is the duty of what is happening here today. happy to have you here. what a wonderful building. what do you think? do you like this building? [applause]

this is our flexible use green building. we call it the text 21 building. we have not named it officially yet, but there is a naming opportunity for you, if you want to take advantage of that. just kidding. before we dive into the program, i would like to talk more about all the wonderful individuals that have made this a reality. this has truly been a collaborative effort on the part of our partners, union partners, labor partners, educators, former administrators. you will hear from the former principal, dr. schultze, who was part of the original work. before we get to that, i want to introduce the current principal, martin gomez. this high school is named after

one of san francisco's own labor champions, and john o'connell. i want to introduce to you the man leading the academic work in collaboration with all the wonderful teachers here at john o'connell high school. [applause] >> it is a lot more full than it was five minutes ago. as principal, i want to welcome everyone to this event. it is important, not only for o'connell students, but all of san francisco. the district is making a push to include, improve, and pushed toward education. today, we are here to celebrate another reason of how o'connell is supporting and encouraging all students to be prepared for college and for a career. while some people are spending their time looking at what students are going to college,

which are going to a career, with this new tech 21 program, the courses will support students to be prepared for a career, and for college. that is the difference between the programs of before and now. the new tech 21 courses will require students to be able to apply tougher math concepts. the program will recruit students that are college-bound and students that want to go straight into the workforce. the whole purpose is to make sure that these students are prepared for the requirements that internships and jobs are asking for out of high school. we want to ensure all of the graduates are prepared for these requirements because we are promising them jobs and internships, which is huge for our students, and for san

francisco. i want to thank mark, david, the entire ct department, all of the stakeholders, dr. schultze, the previous administration, for making this building, and the course of the reality, which is much needed in san francisco. it is an exciting time to be a high school student in san francisco, but particularly, that john o'connell, and if you are excited about these tech 21 classis, please stay in touch with us as we figure out ways to continue supporting students. thank you for your time, thank you for coming out, and let's move this forward. [applause]

>> sanrio famous for the designs for hello kitty. i thought i would try to make it as cute as possible. that way people might want to read the stories. then people might be open to learn about the deities and the culture. ♪

they reached out to make about five or six years ago because of the book published. they appreciated that my work was clearly driven from my research and investigation. after i contributed my artwork, the museum was really beside themselves. they really took to it. the museum reached out to me to see if i would be interested in my own space inside the museum. i tell them that would be a dream come true. it is the classical, beautiful indian mythology through the lens of modern design and illustration and storytelling. they're all of these great sketch as i did for the maharajah exhibition. i get a lot of feedback on my artwork and books. they complement. they say how original the work is. i am the first person to say

that this is so derived from all of this great artwork and storytelling of the past. the research i put into all of my books and work is a product of how we do things that a-- at pixar. sometimes you will see him depicted monkey-like or as superman. i wanted to honor his monkey coloring. i decided to paint him white with a darker face. it is nice to breathe new life into it in a way that is reverent and honors the past but also lets them breathe and have fun. it is almost a european notion to bring these symbols and icons from southeast asia.

they decorate their deities. it was a god they interacted with every day in a human way. the most important thing has been to create work that is appealing to me. i want to see vishnu to pick did in a modern way. it dawned on me by reinterpreting the deities in a way that is modern and reverent to the history, i am building a bridge for young and old audiences to make friends with the culture and these icons to learn their stories. ♪

supervisor kim: good afternoon, . the court today is gail johnson, and we would like to acknowledge the tofrom sfgtv. -- the staff from sfgtv. are there any announcements? >> all persons attending this meeting are requested to turn off cell phones and pagers. if you wish to submit speaker cards, given to the clerk. please submit an extra copy for the file. items will be sent to the full board will be acted upon at a board meeting of january 10, 2012 and was another day is 2012 and was another day is indicated.