drought, and we have increase the capacity, so that will bring us where we used to be, and that is where we need to be to make sure at the end of the day we are protected and have enough water to continue having the great quality of life throughout the region. i know the mayor mentioned jobs, and we feel the same way here. it is very important these projects have brought lots of jobs for workers throughout san francisco and san mateo county, so it has been a win-win situation for our county and the rest of the regions, and i want to thank the mayor for the great partnership they provided, because what i have found, we

have worked on many projects, and this is one of many that has created major improvements to our community. we met on the extension to the trans bay terminal. -- the san francisco transit a terminal. the mayor is aggressive in trying to meet the needs of development. we also recognize we are going to have to have capacity of water that is going to allow us to have extended developments in our community, and today is a historic day we are going to make that happen. you are standing here because you did touch the project, and i thank you for that. congratulations. >> thank you, supervisor. our water system comes from hetch hetchy.

we have been trying to make sure that each area is safe and reliable. we now have a new pipeline, and we have strengthened that connection over calaveras false -- fault. three and four is the next project to come up. we are building a new tunnel under the bay, and when you get to the crystal springs bypass tunnel, we are carrying all the water we needed directly for our customers, if we do not need it for our customers, we store it in this lake, and we can store 22 billions of dollars -- 22 billions of gallons. we are working on crossing every

one of those vaults, and we are in much better shape than we were five years ago. that is done with a lot of people involved. and we have our commission. we have a lot of our leadership here with us today. they have an -- dave is in charge of the people who work to keep this going. they are part of the whole project and part of making it happen. we are trying to make sure your water will have arrived at major distribution points. we are very pleased to welcome

you. if you want to talk about how you prepare your own home and to be able to get your own information so you are prepared for these kinds of things. >> good morning, everyone. it is a pleasure to be here. i was not planning on speaking, but i always love the opportunity puree good -- now i always love the opportunity. the earthquake showed their resolve to literally result from the ashes. we are all working on this together, and we do take the opportunity, particularly as we are about to celebrate what happened on april 18, to remind everyone the importance of being a good member of the community, and you need to be prepared. there are wonderful websites.

our department of emergency management has a web site. the fire department offers free and emergency response training, and our message is to educate and keep it on everyone's mind that our priorities should be prepared redness. personally, they are unpreparedness champions, and i thank you for that. it is a priority to be prepared, and the more prepared each of us are individually, the closer we can get to recovery that much sooner. it is infrastructure that is important, but we cannot forget we should be as prepared as possible for our families and work places to be able to be participative, and we know we are grateful for the men and women who responded, and i am proud of the fire department,

but our resources on a given day are adequate, but in the event of a large-scale disaster, we will need your help. the more we prepare, the better off we will be. but this was upgraded in 1896. new withstood the earthquake -- id withstood the earthquake without any damage. it is the prototype for the hoover dam, but we have had some concrete fall off. next thing we are going to do is go under it for a photo op, and we will invite you to walk under it. this is the first and last time most of you will be able to come here. if you did not have a hard hat, most of you could not come here,

and they are going to rebuild the roadway, and once that is there, and you will not be able to go on top of it. today is one of those days you can see what is going on. you will notice there is construction work still going on. that is part of the improvement program, and that is going to allow us to have a more robust way of bringing it up, and then it can go to a filtration glancplant nearby. if you would like to come with me, we can go over here.

>> 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. ♪ >> there is inappropriate buzz in the room, appropriate because the city that knows how has done it again. -- there is an appropriator buzz in the room. we have leaders from all sectors that have gathered to demonstrate and make a commitment to our young people. we're thrilled that all of you are here. so it all started -- i was 14 years old.

i wanted a job. single -- only child of a single mom in the western addition of san francisco, living in martin luther king square. west side. sorry. [laughter] and my mom enroll me in the mayor's use, employment, and education program. [cheers and applause] and it was my first exposure. i was placed at, then, call the department of public services. and i spent my summer at 170 otis. and it was my first exposure to the workplace. what does it mean to be professional? what does that mean to show up on time? timeliness. what does that mean to show up on time? it gave me the opportunity to understand the possibility, with regard to growing and learning, and it in precise the importance of education. so it was a great and amazing

and foundational starting place for me to now be in front of you as the coo of united way bay area, to ensure we bring more opportunities for more young people. so we're thrilled to welcome you all here today. with that, you're going to hear from a number of our leaders to have made commitments. we're also going to issue you a challenge, so get ready. there is an enormous need, an enormous number of young people who are in need of opportunities. we want to create as many as possible. you will hear about the challenge in a moment. today's launch is made possible because of many fronts. there is no one who has been a more staunched committed leader, committed to our city, committed to job creation, and in particular, committed to young people that our cities leader. please welcome mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, eric. good morning, everyone. welcome to city hall.

thank you for that introduction. thank you for what you're doing it united way and with the obama administration to help work with us to get youth jobs this summer. how is that as a goal? [applause] before i introduce other people to speak though on this very important topic, i just want to say thank you and welcome to an amazing house democratic leader nancy pelosi, for bringing the sunshine in today, thank you. [applause] as well, i want to thank our board president david chiu for being here this morning. thank you. [applause] i see david campos is here, and other members of the board of supervisors are coming in and waking up and doing other things. [laughter] [applause] i also want to thank our superintendent of schools, carlos garcia. thank you for being here. [applause] and from united way, thank you,

ann, for being here. roberta from after college, thank you for being here. -- roberto, thank you for being here. and you'll hear from two one a fall youth from our city. we will hear from you in a moment -- two wonderful youth from our city. we will hear from you in a moment. as you know, we have a lot of berbers and shows. companies, associations, are college board, school board, leaders from the non-profit area. our community-based organizations have been so and valuable to helping us build an infrastructure here. thank you, all of you, for coming to, i think, this is a historic an unprecedented day, because we have got some great collaboration going on that i have never seen in all my years working in san francisco. this is exciting. it is historic to be part of this, because as a city with our

nonprofit partners, private sector partners, and business, we're all putting together our resources, our expertise in all of our communities to create an unprecedented number of summer jobs and paid internships. by the way, i say paid internships, for our young people in san francisco. for this summer and hopefully to create an infrastructure for the ongoing future working with united way. thank you. a few people around here have heard me talk about a topic, something called jobs, once in awhile. i mention that a little bit when i am are around city hall. but as you know, it is been my mantra, my purpose for wanting to be mayor of this great city to try to create jobs for everybody, for every neighborhood in the city, for every classification, for every age group. and we are seeing some of those results today in our great city. with our unemployment rate falling, we are seeing jobs created.

obviously in the technology industry. the construction industry and health care, manufacturing, hospitality, and in some many of our local companies. but i know we can do better, because, especially when it comes to our young people who suffer an unemployment rate that is three times more than our general population, we can do better. we can try to erase those barriers to employment that makes it so difficult for our youth, especially when you no statistics that we have been sharing with a lot of you. age 16 to 19, 35% unemployment rate. when you get to age 24 group, between 20 and 24, that is about almost 18% unemployment rate. they have got it tougher, while we are now enjoying an unemployment rate that is down, going down below 8%. that is why earlier this year, when president obama challenged our nation, the private sector,

and they also challenged all of our mayors in washington -- we were there in january, to join him in a national campaign to produce jobs to our young people. i said, san francisco must step up. we can be part of that national leadership on this call by our president. because i think many of you know firsthand that a quality work experience for a young person can simply be a bridge to a lifeline. the lifeline for young persons that are setting themselves up on the right path, for lifting up their families. and of course, helping make our city a better place. so the date -- today, we are kicking off san francisco's summer jobs plus, a partnership to create more than 5000 high- quality summer jobs and paid internships for our young people with a focus on at-risk and is connected youth in our city.

as you know, the white house designated the united way to be their national and local partner. i want to thank our united way for everything they do every year. we are into the charity aspects of our city agencies. united way is there to help escorted a that. well, this summer, with their good work, they have helped us win some real commitments from our private sector companies that are here today. also, i want to thank them for helping us build an infrastructure, an ongoing infrastructure to make that job referral right to the private sector very unbreaking, a consistent pipeline that we're going to be announcing today. that will help our young people who are looking for work, connect right into the companies who are ready to welcome them at this summer. i know many of you are here today to be part of this historic event.

i want to thank all of you as well. the city, the largest of lawyer, those city departments are here today, all the agencies we have worked together with, thank you for providing the leadership and recognizing that we have limited resources, and we know that, and we have had those budget meetings already. i asked you to do something probably near impossible. but like so many mayors before me, when i was a department head, they did the same thing to me. i get to do the same thing to you. and it is always asked that you go right to the edge with us. because guess what, for our young people, it is worth it. it is were that to give hope to our youth. so you join us. you take the lead. then i can go out with the city's commitment to 2500 jobs in the city agencies. city agencies like our public utilities commission is going to take kids into the sewer, into the water mains, and learn what

it is to keep our infrastructure going. right? we have rec and park in charge of the most beautiful parks in the world and our neighborhood parks, our golden gate park. we are going to have youth working with them all summer. our public libraries. the libraries that are not closing. they are opening as we speak. more neighborhood libraries open. they have an exciting program for our youth. even our juvenile probation department. yes, they have jobs for our youth this summer. they're going to be part of a challenge of all of our departments working together with youth works, with our department of children youth, with our families, our school district, to 4 hour 2500 jobs. so i want to thank all of the department heads for being here today. you are really finding out how hard it is to do more with less, but you are working with me to make this bonafide commitment to

all of our youth. now i turn you to the attention of our private sector. the true economic engine and job-creators for our city. our private sector employers are here today. whether you're with associations. i want to thank you for joining us. actually, i want to thank you in advance for matching the number of jobs we are going to have for our youth. in fact, if i can say this, i actually want to thank you for beating us. [laughter] [applause] together, we can create more than 5000 jobs for our young people, especially kids from difficult backgrounds and with barriers to traditional employment. and we are here to help you make sure that their work-ready and that we can place them with you. and we will hear more about this

in a minute. some of you in this room have already made an early commitment, and i want to really thank you. i want to applaud your leadership. i want to thank you on behalf of all of us but we have companies like bank of america, wells fargo, and pg&e, along with sf city, jamba juice, hornblower, price waterhouse, salesforce, union bank, ups -- there are so many of you that early register your tremendous support for this unprecedented collaboration with us. so i want to thank you. but i will probably do something that will make my staff a little nervous. you know, in an addition to just thanking you today, hopefully with your commitments that you're going to reflect, i am going to offer something else. and i hope that my staff listens to this carefully. if you join us that if you

create jobs for our young people this summer and beyond, i am going to get out to as many of your company's this summer and thank your employees personally. i want to be there with you, with the youth in your companies, and personally thank them for helping us meet the high number, unprecedented number of jobs you're creating, and thank them for celebrating our future with our kids and your work force. because this is important to me. this is important to president chiu, superintendent carlos garcia, and others have joined me in this unprecedented cause. we're making history. we're making history with bringing everybody together, united on this front. speaking about making history, i just want to say a little bit about nancy pelosi being here today. our house democratic leader has been a national champion. she was with me yesterday for a good part of the day, going through and revering with our

municipal transit agency and our very hopeful completion of our central subway -- revealing with our minister transit agency our hopeful completion of central subway. she was kind of like me. all we can talk about is jobs, jobs, jobs. and there are some great programs president obama and her have put together, and we have benefited from them so much here and used it rightly so to employees so many people. it is my great pleasure and honor to introduce her this morning to be part of this exciting and historic effort. please welcome leader pelosi. [applause] >> thank you very much, mr. mayor. i am honored to be here with you this morning on this very important occasion. listening to you and the enthusiasm that you have always had and that you demonstrated here today, we're very blessed to have your leadership on this

initiative and many other initiatives as well. but the summer youth jobs initiative is an important one. it is important in terms of survival for some of these kids to just get a chance. it is important for their success once they get that chance. it is really transforming to of for them and for our community. it has a benefit of their contribution, which is a very individual one and a very special one. i wanted to join you in acknowledging the businesses that have already made some level of commitment to all of this. i want to add to that ron conway, because i know he is representing many, many tech businesses, which are largely small businesses. while we want to acknowledge corporate america that is participating in a very strong way, and that is very important, and some small businesses, as you mentioned. but the idea that this

connection will be made with these young people and small businesses in our community, hopefully they will all grow big, these kids and these businesses but that is really a very important part of the public-private initiative that the president had in mind. certainly a pleasure and a great source of official pride to be with the mayor, with david chiu, with members of the board of supervisors, and of course united way, the official partner the president named. thank you for your leadership, eric. your story told it all. it told it all. what a difference that job made starting when you're 14 years old, and we are all blessed that that opportunity was there and was taken advantage of. i am excited that we're here with carlos garcia, our superintendent. unfortunately not for much longer, but fortunately for the length of time that he was. jose and alicia, your our vip's

of the day. we look forward to hearing your story. and roberto, that is a college program that is very important. i want to say how this fits into some things. when the president became president, we had the recovery act, which is done great things for san francisco, i am proud to say. but part of it was the jobs now initiative. it had different names in different communities. but san francisco was in the lead and demonstrated to other cities how you can take advantage of this public-private partnership and what it meant to not only young people but some a little older than young people as well. a new congress who did not have the opportunity to renew that, some of us went to the president, many from this area. we went to the president and do it, but the need is still