to move here. a year ago, this was a passion cafe. i had lunch here with a couple of commissioners and felt very comfortable with it a year ago as we saw the changes that were bringing -- that were in collaboration with business partners, neighbors, business owners, the community benefits districts, and market changes. i think the move here that dottie's cafe has decided to take. from joan street, they grew to twice the square footage. they now have 24 employees to operate the restaurant. standing next to me is kurt. congratulations for wonderful decision. the lines are already out, and you're twice as big. this is wonderful. i want to make it official. on behalf of the city, behalf of

our board and the city working together to make this whole area revitalized with our arts world, with our nonprofits, and then with a lot of tech companies that are moving in and having their employees, even now, we can start the day at dottie's cafe, go through the middle with pearl's burgers, and in the evening a hot dog. then showdown's tavern at the end of the night. you have a complete menu of places to visit. this is another part of our effort in opening up and supporting the opening of dottie's cafe. i am sure you you will be successful, because i have been trying to variety-ize my

breakfast places, and this will be on my agenda. one of early-morning meetings, according to my wife, breakfast is the most important meal. i know this will be here. i also wanted to make sure that you knew that you were here as part of a collaboration of different entities. community ambassadors started showing up right here and along the corridor to help people. over 2700 contacts with residents with visitors, business people already. they have worked hand in hand with our police. in fact, here are a couple of the edo instances, thing that they have done to help residents, visitors, constituents with the traditionally hard aspects of this area, and have made it more welcoming for everyone. i know that is of tremendous interest for supervisor kim, who is working with me to make sure we have a high level of

pedestrian safety all through the sixth street corridor, but also is enjoyed with our collaboration working with companies like twitter. those employees who you will see on a regular basis will come here to enjoy your cuisine. i also know there will be questions about anticipating the sixth street substation here. we made a promise, and i will keep that promise. what we have done in the past few weeks is we work with what we had with our free development agency, their assets and debts, and we have decided to isolate the moneys that have been dedicated at redevelopment for the sixth street substation, capture that as the transition turned over to the city. supervisor kim, you will want to

hear this clearly. we are going to build that substation. in fact, to expedite that, we are sending in the dpw staff to review the bids that were taken, not signed by the redevelopment agency because they could not get that far because of the dissolution of the agency, have that reviewed, and see what the work force can do that the money has come over to the city side, to expedite the work at the substation. i assure you we will get this done in short order. i cannot tell you exactly when, but we are already looking at what we can do to expedite the process. i know the substation is invaluable to our overall plan. not only community policing, but the collaboration, the presence that is needed. you will probably inherit even more city personnel, providing

hearty breakfast this. -- breakfasts. we have all the elements here to not only breed success, but assurances for the promises we made in cooperation with our old redevelopment agency, get carried out with our office of economic development. i am so glad that you represent that kind of private investment confident that we want to have. just like pearls, twitter, and one year ago when we sat down and asked, what do you want to do about tax exemption for mid market, this is the vision that we had. we will make sure that we go through every detail possible. welcome to the neighborhood again.

now i get to do something. the most important thing. we are declaring this dottie's true blue cafe de in the tenderloin and san francisco, and mid market. by the way, i used to wash dishes, too. i know how hard it is. >> thank you, mayor. jane kim is also here to say a few words. >> i think you will see a lot of city hall employees here. it is only about seven minutes from city hall. mayor lee said many of the things i would have said. people often ask me, how this commitment to sixth street and mid market has been any

different from before. for decades, we have been talking about the commitment to six street. i think we are really starting to see this today. it is an unprecedented gathering of agencies, folks, city hall, in this corridor. i want to recognize the police department, dpw, urban solutions, which had been harboring with us to lower the vacancy rate. we have residents here who have been organizing around multiple issues, including pedestrian safety, and let multiple agencies on a tour of sixth street, to show how we can improve things here. i think that commitment will show that things are different. i am excited about what we have

here. incredible to have dottie's here. one of the important things about any business is understanding the fabric of where they are coming in. not changing it, but enhancing it. it is a low-income neighborhood, we have residents that have incredible needs. recognizing that they will be working with the community to build a business here. i appreciate you coming here. there are a lot of businesses that have invested here. really excited about what we will see over the next couple of years. i will definitely be here for lunch multiple times. [applause] >> next we have muhammed new rule -- nuru. >> how about a big hand for

mayor lee for the work he has done in revitalizing this corridor? [applause] i have had the pleasure to work with mayor lee for over 12 years. we have been working up and down the street. since he became mayor, he had been putting a lot of effort down here. he is making sure this place is a revitalized. through our work, in many neighborhoods in san francisco, when i got a call from the mayor that he wanted to improve the standards here, i said, no problem sir. the corridor standard is something that we launched three years ago where we went into many of the corridors and put in sweepers. this is not a new concept. it has been done in many cities. the court or worker concept is someone who works with businesses, tells them what is expected of them, helps to keep the area clean, remove

graffiti, makes sure the sidewalks are clean, and report any problems. we are very happy to partner in that. the other project that we have also been asked to play a role and is the revitalization of the substation. we will take the lead and look at the drawings that have been put forth, look at where they are at, and then we will bring in our crews to begin work and make sure that that is up and running as well. congratulations to everyone. looking forward to have some snacks on a regular basis. i will make sure that the rest of the staff also knows about your shop. thank you very much. looking forward to being a part of the community. [applause] >> i just want to say thank you to everyone in the neighborhood, mayor's office, urban solutions. all the businesses on the street, everyone has been

welcoming and supportive. it feels like home for us. we are excited to grow into this space. we see a bright future here. thank you once again. [applause] >> we have jenny hear from urban solutions also. after that, we encourage you to go downstairs for breakfast, either here or at another local establishment. >> mayor lee, your commitment to public safety, to clean streets, to small business, and to job creation is very much needed here in the central market. i see many people here who have been living and working here for years, who have been concerned, with the end of the redevelopment agency, services to the neighborhood would end. your commitment to make it a priority to continue funding the

substation, street cleaning, the ambassador's comments is very meaningful and very welcome here. we hope that you continue to make this area a priority. i welcome dottie's here today. there pancakes are legendary. we are thrilled to have you here, we welcome you with open arms and hungary -- hungry tummies. i also want to thank steve barton who bought and renovated this place, turning it into a beautiful place. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much. we appreciate you coming in to patronize all of the wonderful central market and sixth street businesses. the mayor is going to sample some pastries here, too.

>> good afternoon, everyone. thanks for being here. this is our first disaster council meeting for 2012, and it's been quite a previous year, but again, i want to start out by thanking everybody for

working as closely as together as we are. i do feel it's just a higher level of collaboration by our community, our residents, our agencies, our responders and i know that towards the end of last year, we had a number of fires. we had a fairly big one just a few days before christmas in our western district area. i want to thank all of the residents that were out there because there were individual heroes that acted very quickly to get others out, and then, in those precious minutes, our fire department showed up with not only one but five different divisions which was absolutely necessary, five-alarm. their response was excellent and not only did a good job but immediately there was also the fire commissioners, including the chief. we were there. i want to thank ross mirkarimi,

then supervisor, he was out there with me looking out for the residents. several other board members, as well. and we immediately saw not only the residents there but the non-profits that had been there helping out. our faith-based community was there, as well, because immediately, the needs were felt and i think in the context, that there were no fatalities, no real serious injuries, it was just another reflection of the way we're handling serious disasters, yet response is so thorough, so good. and then to follow up with those needs, not only did the community help out and i think the city started showing immediately our sense of support for the residents there that had lost everything that they had just before the holidays, and good response from our helpful communities to help out, whether they were churches or

individuals that would help. d.e.m. also, they made, i think, a very critical call to cal nema to get our city declared particularly at that fire, a disaster, and got the attention of the s.b.a. and the state programs to help out and ind that there are at least six individuals who are going through the process of getting specially handled loans out of that program. there was good follow-up because people, although not serious injuries, their lives are being put in place with that additional help so i thank the staff for doing that and all the other agencies but i think it's the reflection of the kind of response we want to see in case there is that and while we're doing that, we do everything we can to prevent but when it comes to the winter times, it was something we were all paying

attention to and i know sheriff mirkarimi shared this with me, as well, because we had a chance to talk then. we were thinking there were too many fires going on in that district and we were wondering why, trying to make sure we looked at every opportunity, whether our police department and others, to research the backgrounds for all these things to make sure that if they were accidental, we can do something even about accidental better, by better education with all of our residents about how these fires start and where they start and how to prevent them, while we look for any other indications beyond just accidental. again, i think we're doing everything we can to do that. i also want to acknowledge the work that's going on behind the scenes but now becoming more visible, and that's our america's cup. as we approach that very active event, that inviting event with

thousands of people that will be here, a number of agencies are already working together doing the necessary training and i know a number of you are involved in that because there will be so many people and so many activities that are going on throughout the city in anticipation of that and so many agencies that need to have a lot more ability to work with each other and maybe have not had the opportunity to do that. and, then, to, of course, prevent anything from happening that would be negative to the event and really reach our goals for it. so the exercises that are being led by d.e.m. in anticipation of that, the agencies that will touch upon things that include things that will happen in the air, crime control, e.m.s. fire, park events we anticipate, the people movement that are needed, the general security and the use of the water, both for security

as well as recreation, all will be in play so appropriate agencies are being tapped to work through the leadership of d.e.m. to coordinate exercises that will test and need to be tested any assumptions that we are making with our individual plans so we never work in silos. and i want that to be, again, the mantra for all of us. these large events, we have to get out of our silos and make sure we're cooperating and that's been the theme of this and that's why we go through the exercises so i appreciate this and want to thank people for doing that because when we're doing that up front, we're making every effort to mitigate anything that can happen beyond our individual borders which i know all of you will take care of on an individual department basis, it's really where it doesn't come across as individual departments and effects several of us, i don't want any gray areas to prevent us from doing an excellent job as we go on the world stage with

this event. thank you very much for that. i want to single out the -- also the leadership that d.e.m. is doing when it comes to a bay web. that's been in the papers. it's before our board of supervisors and thank you for holding those hearings, members of the board, that we are pushing forward this bay web because we do have very, very clear needs to have better communication, better spread of data. the chief mentioned that during the playoff games at candlestick, as well, some examples where things could have worked better if we had a bay web approach to our other agencies to promote higher levels of data exchange. we need to get there and i want to signal to the board that our staff, working with d.e.m., will make sure we answer every question about the financing aspects to it that might be of concern and make sure we get through that quickly so we can get on to building a system in

collaboration with all the other agencies that are involved in the bay area, all their responders, all their emergency agencies. we need this because we are going to be hosting more events in this great city that command a level of bay area collaboration and with that, we need, then, data and communications that work across our cities. that's important to us and we are also honoring the serious federal funding that had been made because they believe this is also their goal in supporting us, as well. and finally, again, i want to acknowledge all the members of the disaster council, including the new members from the community and from various agencies we work with, along with all the departments, and the board of supervisors, as well, in paying attention to how we manage disasters and how we prepare for them.

things do still make me nervous in my years as public works director and i've already asked d.p.w. as well as the city engineer to begin studying what's happening on the tower and telegraph hill because those slides always leave me some level of uncertainty as there's so much housing up there and visitors that go up there and the tower itself so we're going to get a study going to what the short term, middle term and long term challenges are on those rock slides and what they're indicating to us. i need the best engineer minds to give us that information so we can go on to higher levels of effort there. i also want to make sure we are all continuing to pay good attention to disaster recovery. that's been my personal interest but i'll tell you, all the things that we're already doing on disaster recovery, i've

indicated to many other cities as i go through the conference of mayors and talk to them about what they're doing, they acknowledge that disaster preparedness has a lot to do with recovery planning that goes on now because that leads to a stronger tie with our communities about what mitigation is really all about and where we need to spend our infrastructure money. i want to thank everybody for participating in that. you'll hear reports. every time there's a disaster in the world, if we can get somebody over there that representing our city, not only as part of a humanitarian effort that we've done like for turkey that you'll hear about today, but if we can bring back that very live experience that people have every single time we come back with a reinforcement that our recovery planning and our disaster preparedness is not only apropos, it is absolutely necessary, and again, i also signal a thanks our fleet week because that is really turning

the corner for us. it's no longer the very important celebration of our military, the humanitarian and ongoing training we have with our military in the country about our own disaster preparedness is extremely important, getting everyone involved in that. with that, i just wanted to make that initial report and thank everybody for participating this disaster council meeting. thank you to the board members, again, for being here. >> thank you, mr. mayor. i happily can say the mayor gave most of my director's report so that's wonderful. thank you so much. i have a nice little presentation for you, mr. mayor, that is a fun way to start this out, i hope. we had a beautiful coat made for you so that when you respond to our disasters we can tell who you are right away. [laughter] >> it is the mayor.

anyway. i hope it's all reflective, it's heat resistant, all of that stuff. i hope you enjoy it. [applause] >> we didn't want to be outdone because i know the fire chief gave you a hat after your election. >> i'm hoping not to wear this too often. >> i hope you don't have to, as well. just a couple of quick things that i did want to touch on, is a little uwasi update. i think most of you know that there has been cuts at the federal level on uwsai funding. this last year, we lucked out in that san francisco and the core cities remained whole, which is wonderful. so we will continue to have our $34 million of funding regionally for this current year. next year, it's questionable.

what we're hearing from washington is that perhaps all of the tier 2 cities or regions will be cut out this year. if that's the case, we still may be ok next year but i think we need to be thinking long term about how we sustain the efforts that we have begun and make sure that we can continue to become more and more prepared and ready for the big one when it does happen because funding at the federal level is definitely declining. san francisco, at this point, is in good shape and in fact the approval authority last week voted to keep the core city allocations of oakland, san jose, and san francisco, $1 million each before any other funding is expended so that's a very positive thing. just real briefly, we were very happy that the state e.m.s.

authority ruled just a few weeks ago that san francisco can maintain its exclusive operating area for ambulance response for 911 and emergency calls. this has been up in the air since 2008 so that's a big victory for us, very happy with all the work that mr. dudgeon has done working with the state and with chief hayes-white and her command staff. we really -- that's a big victory for us. just following what the mayor said about advance recovery and the resilience work that san francisco has been doing. we have really been acknowledged throughout the entire country as being at the forefront of that work and that gets back to what mayor lee, in his former position as city administrator, led up the resiliency effort and did that pre-recovery planning. on february 16, fema is coming out to roll out their national recovery plan and so they are doing it in san francisco, here

in city hall. the mayor is going to be giving the opening remarks that day and in fact i had the opportunity to go to harvard in december and go through the national preparedness leadership institute, which was this fabulous program, and all of the instructors from around the country are saying that san francisco is the lead, that we are the model that should be followed in other places. so fema will be looking to us for direction and i think that it's a way for us to highlight all the great work we've been doing and continue to do. just on a very last note, we will be doing all the 1906 earthquake remembrances that we do every year, so i hope you will join us at lata's fountain at 5:42 a.m., or whatever time it is, some god awful early morning but it's a lot of fun and we will be doing community