[applause] >> leader pelosi asked me what is of going to say after reverend frong. i didn't have a chant rate for that. this is a great day for san francisco. this is a labor of love. we know the economic and transit values of this. as an agency we are committed and not only committed to bringing this fruition on time but under budget as well. is that good? and we will continue the vil against of all of our assets and focusing on the priority number one is safety. this day is possible because of so many people that did so much work here. senator leno is here and the assessor. we have a wonderful working relationship with fta regional leaders and mtc and lazarus from the mtc board and the china chamber of

commerce and the san francisco chamber of commerce and the market street association and the business improvement district and joe an hayes and mike from the building and trades construction council. anytime i get a chance to speak on the mta board i say i am so proud of what we do and we move 700,000 people in the city and it's a difficult task. we have a wonderful staff. we are privileged to have the talent of ed of course for his leadership and i couldn't tell you how proud i am to work with the people on the board of directors and christine, the newest member. and the other members and malcolm couldn't be here today but we are proud to work together on behalf of the people of the city and we are happy to

have john fung head this up and behalf of the board and all of us and thank you mr. secretary. mr. administrator. senator feinstein, leader pelosi, congress woman spear and mayor lee and thank you all for being here and now it's time to make it official. it's sign that document. okay. [applause] >> thank you tom. and as we're getting ready to sign this grand slam document let me make sure we give a great appreciation to our county transportation authority who has been administering the funds for this great project and a great shout out to the union square improvement district. i know there are businesses big and small that will suffer a little bit from the construction but they're going to be patient. they know the result of this is a great future for our great city and thank you to all of

the businesses and we will be communicating with them all the time with all of the agencies. decades now ladies and gentlemen city residents and our city will know the vision started 20 years ago to today we built a great transportation system we're going to be proud of and this is part of our success, the greatest city in the world, san francisco. [applause]

when a resident of san francisco is looking for health care, you look in your neighborhood first. what is closest to you? if you come to a neighborhood health center or a clinic, you then have access it a system of care in the community health network. we are a system of care that was probably based on the family practice model, but it was really clear that there are special populations with special needs. the cole street clinic is a

youth clinic in the heart of the haight ashbury and they target youth. tom woodell takes care of many of the central city residents and they have great expertise in providing services for many of the homeless. potrero hill and southeast health centers are health centers in those particular communities that are family health centers, so they provide health care to patients across the age span. . >> many of our clients are working poor. they pay their taxes. they may run into a rough patch now and then and what we're able to provide is a bridge towards getting them back on their feet. the center averages about 14,000 visits a year in the health clinic alone. one of the areas that we specialize in is family medicine, but the additional focus of that is is to provide

care to women and children. women find out they're pregnant, we talk to them about the importance of getting good prenatal care which takes many visits. we initially will see them for their full physical to determine their base line health, and then enroll them in prenatal care which occurs over the next 9 months. group prenatal care is designed to give women the opportunity to bond during their pregnancy with other women that have similar due dates. our doctors here are family doctors. they are able to help these women deliver their babies at the hospital, at general hospital. we also have the wic program, which is a program that provides food vouchers for our families after they have their children, up to age 5 they are able to receive food vouchers to get milk and cereal for their children. >> it's for the city, not only our clinic, but the city.

we have all our children in san francisco should have insurance now because if they are low income enough, they get medical. if they actually have a little more assets, a little more income, they can get happy family. we do have family who come outside of our neighborhood to come on our clinic. one thing i learn from our clients, no matter how old they are, no matter how little english they know, they know how to get to chinatown, meaning they know how to get to our clinic. 85 percent of our staff is bilingual because we are serving many monolingual chinese patients. they can be child care providers so our clients can go out and work. >> we found more and more women

of child bearing age come down with cancer and they have kids and the kids were having a horrible time and parents were having a horrible time. how do parents tell their kids they may not be here? what we do is provide a place and the material and support and then they figure out their own truth, what it means to them. i see the behavior change in front of my eyes. maybe they have never been able to go out of boundaries, their lives have been so rigid to sort of expressing that makes tremendous changes. because we did what we did, it is now sort of a nationwide model. >> i think you would be surprised if you come to these clinics. many of them i think would be your neighbors if you knew that. often times we just don't discuss that. we treat husband and wife and they bring in their kids or we treat the grandparents and then the next generation. there are people who come in who need treatment for their heart disease or for their

diabetes or their high blood pressure or their cholesterol or their hepatitis b. we actually provide group medical visits and group education classes and meeting people who have similar chronic illnesses as you do really helps you understand that you are not alone in dealing with this. and it validates the experiences that you have and so you learn from each other. >> i think it's very important to try to be in tune with the needs of the community and a lot of our patients have -- a lot of our patients are actually immigrants who have a lot of competing priorities, family issues, child care issues, maybe not being able to find work or finding work and not being insured and health care sometimes isn't the top priority for them. we need to understand that so that we can help them take care

of themselves physically and emotionally to deal with all these other things. they also have to be working through with people living longer and living with more chronic conditions i think we're going to see more patients coming through. >> starting next year, every day 10,000 people will hit the age of 60 until 2020. . >> the needs of the patients that we see at kerr senior center often have to do with the consequences of long standing substance abuse and mental illness, linked to their chronic diseases. heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, stroke, those kinds of chronic illnesses. when you get them in your 30's and 40's and you have them into your aging process, you are not going to have a comfortable old

age. you are also seeing in terms of epidemics, an increase in alzheimer's and it is going to increase as the population increases. there are quite a few seniors who have mental health problems but they are also, the majority of seniors, who are hard-working, who had minimum wage jobs their whole lives, who paid social security. think about living on $889 a month in the city of san francisco needing to buy medication, one meal a day, hopefully, and health care. if we could provide health care early on we might prevent (inaudible) and people would be less likely to end up in the emergency room with a drastic outcome. we could actually provide prevention and health care to people who had no other way of getting health care, those without insurance, it might be

more cost effective okay. i know it's a lot going on, but turn your attention to ms. reyes. >> boys and girls, we are going to read grades. we have been talking about the government and upcoming election. so we will read our book. i love the way i see table one. everybody's eyes are on me. what a great job. "grace for president."

one monday mrs. barrington rolled out a big post wer all the presidents on it. grace could not believe her eyes. where are the girls! that's a very good question, says mrs. barrington. the truth is, our country has never had a woman president. no girl president? ever! >> no, i'm afraid not, said mrs. barrington. >> grace sat down at her desk. no girls. whatever heard of such a crazy thing. finally she raised her hand. >> scholars from uc berkeley, we talked about how very special we were.

we tell you all the time you are special. the mayor, of all the other schools in san francisco, chose to come. and uc berkeley. so the mayor will talk to you a little while. all of our attention is which way? >> well, good morning everyone. >> good morning. >> i want to first begin by thanking your teacher, ms. mayes, for letting me come and be part of your class room today. of course your principal for letting us come to be part of your earthquake preparedness day. how many people know what today is? go ahead? what is that? okay. well, yes. [ indiscernible ] >> that is right. we call it the great

earthquake drill. yes. we are getting ready. did you know -- let me give you numbers. 56,000 students in our school district are all participating at the same time. in the cities, 322,000 people are part of this drill, yes. then in the state of california 9.3, from los angeles, san diego, san francisco, all participating in this earthquake drill. that is pretty big large numbers of people that are joining all of you. don't you feel special? yeah, everybody is doing this. i have to my left and right are really important department heads. our chief of police is to my left. he is participating and has

a lot of staff to support this effort. we have our fire chief. did you know? you reading from the book, grace for president, she is our female chief of our fire department. to her right is rob, the head department of our department of emergency management. one of the most important departments that's working with police and fire and connected up with the whole state with our school system, school board, principals and students to organize and make sure we are prepared for the next earthquake or emergency. this is why we have the great california shakeup drill. this is why we are doing it all over the state. we have to be a little better prepared. how many of you think that you're prepared for the next earthquake at home?

yeah? do you think you have some emergency supplies ready? everybody has a flashlight? what do you have to have to make sure the flashlight works. >> batteries. >> that's right! hopefully when you go home ask your parents, your mom and dad in the house do they have extra supplis in case there's an earthquake. how many of you will be willing to do that today when you go home? we greatly appreciate it. that will make you feel safe and your household. you have to have preparations and be ready for things. that is why we do these drills. practice, practice and practice, keep talking to each other. sometimes i may not be here. in a few years might be a

new mayor, new chief of fire and police. people, should they forget? >> no. no, they should not forget about being prepared . this is why we do these every year. we have a lot of events in between to make sure everybody is working. because we want you all to be safe. we want you to grow up. we want you to be really successful, have the best jobs in the world. but we have to take care of things that might hurt us and be prepared. in an earthquake or emergency, it could hurt us or a member of your family, your household if we are not prepared and getting ready to recover right off the bat. is that a good message for everybody to bring back home? will you do that for me? thank you very much. it is greatly appreciated. i want to thank ms. reyes for this opportunity to be with you. our school district and our -- and members of our school board are here too

to oversee and make sure we use everything in every class room. by the way, one of the reasons i came to the uc berkeley -- yes. >> like uc berkeley? >> i like it. i graduated from uc berkeley too. [applause] >> law school. that is where i went. are we ready? >> that was the -- go back into our routine. it may happen when we are doing our regular thing. we will continue as we are and when we hear that, we do what we always do, okay. thank you very much. >> thank you, thank you. we actually maybe will stick around. we are interested to see whether grace does become president. how many know we are voting for president of the united states?

>> go obama. >> yeah, i will take a pass on it. thank you very much for all of your attention, for making sure you asked the right question when you go home tonight. we appreciate that you take responsibility. you will be a great friend to your class mates and good family member and good citizen of san francisco. thank you very much. good job, you did great. >> great in your uniforms as well. >> we are uniforms as well. >> love the stars they are all wearing. >> for third grade, very attentive. thank you for letting us come into your class room. you can ask questions or continue with the story. whatever your teacher would like. >> ask questions if you'd like. this is an opportunity. >> how old are you? >> how old am i? can you guess? >> 95? [ laughter] >> can you not guess!

[ laughter] >> only third grade. >> close, close. i'm 60. and she's 48. >> in between. [ laughter] >> i was -- so you will remember this, i was born in the year of the dragon. >> oh yeah! that is how i have fun when it comes to numbers and it comes to age. >> we all have different jobs. we all have specific things. the fire department puts out fires and rescues people. the police department keeps

everybody safe. what my department does is help everybody know what everybody else is doing and kind of orchestrate the whole thing. so we run the emergency operation center. we do a lot of communications. we talk to a lot of people. >> so he has a special place. >> you know, we all have -- >> duck, cover and roll, yes! good job.

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