comes to sexual orientation and gender identity. we have not gotten to the point where we can be completely satisfied that we are what we need to be. more than half -- almost half of all of the homeless youth in the city are lgbt youth; many are struggling for basic housing. we have many challenges but i am confident that we as a board, we as a city, can come together. i'm confident that we will really make sure that this is a city that works for everyone. and i want you to know - my colleagues and i remember the public not only those who are here those who are watching % that the supervisor is committed to doing everything i can so that san francisco lives up to the promise that i

think is the promise the proximity of us who were not born here to the city and who kept so many of us who were born here, here. we truly are city that not only tolerates but actually cherishes values diversity. that recognizes the humanity, the merit that every individual has. that's why i live in san francisco. i believe that this board of supervisors, working with this mayor and the rest of elected family will make that happen. thank you (applause) >> president: it is not honor to recognize a recently

reelected colleague from district 11, supervisor john avalos. >> supervisor avalos: thank you president chiu, and i want to congratulate you on your election to president of the board. i want to say thank you for your service. also want to congratulate newcomers to the board of supervisors, supervisor london breed an supervisor norman yee. i was moved and impressed by your speech this morning supervisor breed, the passion you bring, intersection of our interests are great. i look forward to working with you for years to come. you and i are very like minded. i want to welcome norman yee to

the board as weel; we go back a little bit. working with children advocacy. i welcome our relationship here, and moving forward. colleagues that i work with already, i want to say thank you for the wonderful opportunity i have had to serve review on the board of supervisors. while we might not have agreed on everything, i respect each and every one of you. i feel a lot of regard for each and every one of you. i have learned tremendous amount from each and every one of you. and this whole process of being in the board of supervisors for four years now, the first day of my second term, has been one of continuous education. i want to thank you for that.

i want to introduce my family. i'm getting emotional. first off my beautiful wife karen cepeda [sounds like]. (applause) together we have two kids, renee and emiliana who are in school today. we have been through what close couples go through in terms of raising kids and facing adversity and figuring out how to make a household work. it has been wonderful 15 years. my mom is year, linda parks and stepfather. (applause) i think that what i really got % most of all from my mom % is really how to think and be

thoughtful about the people. and i take that with me wherever i go. i draw inspiration from being around people. i want to say thank you for my life and what you have given me. my stepfather joe has given me a great opportunity, never expected that and i want to thank you for that. i wanted to do is my dad, hector avalos. it's time for resemblance i tihnk, for the gray look. my dad is important to me as well and taught me about the value of work. working with other people and not just yourself. my sister is here, carol avalos who is a nurse at ucla. she has been an inspiration for me as well. i'm joining here as well by

karen's mom, ellen davis. she is also why i am a giants fan, not a red sox fan anymore. i'm a big giants' fan. i brother matthew is here. if you want to stand up in the back. (applause) he is a great brother. lives in la. my brother jess is here, he's going to stand up right now to. my sister-in-law katie cepeda, they have a beautiful garden. i want to say thank you for all your support. have a great campaign staff as well.

what do not have to rev up like we did last year when i was running for mayor; i want to thank folks who help me in my campaign, luis barona [sounds like] (applause) not having an opponent was more than we bargained for. i have great volunteers as well, fabiana ochoa, somewhere in the room. as supervisor mar mentioned, nate miller, he was cloned, he worked in my campaign and also on eric's campaign; he is like san francisco's secret weapon; he will go far in helping other candidates in the future. my treasurer ruth (indiscernible) thank you for your great work. i want to mention susana ralph,

i met her when i was campaigning in 2008, she has been watching our kids every week; she has been a family member, my kids love her and she has been a great support for our family. i cannot fail to recognize what she has brought and she is currently i guess the campaign person. i want to knowledge an honorary campaign person, chris roberts [sounds like] the reporter. he took a columnist that i'm not reveal what was happening in district 11 and revealed what was really happening.

four years ago was the most nervous and anxious i have ever been; now i am the one who will be taking the votes, and really anxious as well about when the city was four years ago. four years ago we had a 500 million dollar budget deficit, that would affect services for people all over san francisco; we would have to pay more for services and have services cut; where we needed it most. i felt the first year as chair of the budget committee, i learned so much about my abilities and how to make difficult stands on issues, and how to have working relationships with people going forward. i work closely with the mayor's office and with organizations

across the city. in spite of difficult choices i feel i made the right choices; i always voted with my conscience and i'm proud of that. i'm excited to see the changes happening in district 11. four years ago we were really shaken hard by the high level of violence and homicides in our district. what was great to see in district 11 were places where there was a focus of some of the violence; neighbors came together and made the neighborhood stronger, particularly around athens street, you have a beautiful community garden there, at athens and avalon that will be dedicated in a couple of weeks now. we have a new neighbor organization, they will be honored tomorrow at the neighborhood empowerment

summit. we are seeing a real physical transformation of what is happening in district 11. it is significant because i think the change cost from not what happens to us but we did together to create change. change is inevitable. we can control it ourselves. and what ideas we can share with one another to make them our ideas and our world and our vision for the city that is what. is happening in district 11. we have community-based organizations that have done a lot of work responding to neighborhood needs, holding neighborhood summit we had a summit on a homicide that happened recently and dedicated real resources for these efforts.

the online community collaborative, also started the community grants program, and that is being emulated in other parts of district 11 and also district 6 and in other places of san francisco, the great model to make sure the community residents are working together, something that makes a difference in san francisco. it's really important to really talk about what district 11 is about. it's a very unique district; it's also a district that is often not understood. many people who live in other parts of seven cisco don't even know where the excelsior is [sounds like] or the -- (indiscernible) -- we have seen incredible demographic changes over the years. we have the most households of families with children in san francisco, the highest homeowner rate in san francisco. we have the lowest per capita in san francisco.

we don't have millionaires. we have working-class, middle class people. we are working san francisco in district 11. the residents of district 11 continued so much to the city. we are the ones who pay a portion of our income for robert attacks; we are the teachers, healthcare professionals, caregivers. we also have 5000 more kids on average in district 11 than in other places in san francisco. 5000 more kids. don't have the investment in education that we need to have. we don't have the opportunity for education and employment again people need.

-- there is so much more to do. we are seeing great changes in san francisco. we are seeing great economic changes in san francisco. we have done a lot of work on the board to pave the way for these new economic changes. we have given economic tax breaks for the new companies starting up in the city; we have changed our business taxes well. a lot of these changes are changes that affect big business in san francisco but we need to do more to make sure that we support every day businesses. we are seeing higher income people; (indiscernible) i really believe that san francisco needs to do something deliberate, specific that measures how people on the bottom rung are getting by

in a better way. it's not enough that we just serve the wealthy interest; we make sure that as we do that that we support the people that i getting by not as much of the city. i was at dc about two months ago, i went to a lot of different monuments, really beautiful statues, beautiful buildings, the lincoln memorial, actually passed the lincoln memorial onto the franklin delano roosevelt memorial. something struck me there, quote from fdr: the test about

progress is not whether we add more to those who have enough but whether we provided enough to those who do not have enough. we want to make sure that people see real differences. i look forward to working with all of you colleagues for years to come. i am excited about what comes forward this next year; i am excited about the changes that we have with new blood here on the board of supervisors. it makes things interesting. thank you very much for your time. (applause) >> i want to thank all of you for the incredible honor of serving as your president for the next two years;

other forward to continuing to work with each and every one of you is great to see you faces, supervisors yee and breed. there are so many cool that we need to thank; it takes a village to support the work that we are doing and i want to take a few moments to thank special people in my life. first of course, i have to thank the 70,000 constituents of district 3, and the great community and neighborhood leaders that i'm privileged to work with every single day, and the most amazing neighborhoods in the northeast part of our city. i want to take a moment to thank my friends who are here might ,itching my kitchen cabinet here, michael, susan, diana, emmy, and those watching television. i want to thank, my amazing campaign team.

i was honored to share the campaign team with supervisor mar, nicole, dan, -- you guys rocked it. i want to thank the amazing city hall aides, thank you for being the best swat team at city hall. i want to thank amy chan, judson -- i want to thank a couple of individuals who have known me for 42 years, my brothers ed and steven, and my wife for raising the next generation of chius. i want to ask one person to stand up, who does not expect it, my partner, candace chen, could

you stand and be acknowledged. there are two other individuals not here today that i owe thanks to. a mother and father. the are watching this online 3000 miles away; mom and dad, i love you. could you please give them a round of applause. (applause) when my parents immigrated from taiwan, they hope that their son would follow in dad's footsteps to become a doctor. sorry mom. but i want to thank both of you for supporting me in a very

different tradition of service. one of the amazing things about this class of supervisors here, in the class of 2003, is incredibly diverse we are. when we were kids we lived in the public housing project in the western edition. we came across the border of the civil wars in guatemala, we played baseball in the marina. how each of us got here and the neighborhoods that represent give us 11 different perspectives and we reflect this strength of our diversity and the challenges. last night at midnight i took a moment to re read my speeches for the last two inaugurals.

four years ago, my first day at city hall, i asked the board to change the tone of politics and to usher in a new tone of civility and cooperation. two years ago, i asked that we move beyond the traditional opposition politics, position inflexibly taken. we are not voted into office to take decisions. we are voted into office to get things done. while getting things done may have been reminded to us and campaign slogans, i want to tell you how proud i am of this board of supervisors has been getting things done in recent years,

whether budget reform when we first came to office, the class of 2008, a supervisor avalos pointed out, we had half 1 billion dollars deficit; that is a quarter of the size today. what the pension reform, america's cup, construction cranes along the city, we passed -- when our founding fathers set up our democratic system of government they envision that the legislative branch would not be neat and tidy. it is messy.

we balance the community's interest as we meet the challenges today. we still have a lot of work to do. this morning i was almost late to supervisor breed's swearing-in. my bike lights got stolen, then the muny bus was late, and i had trouble catching a cab. together we have much to do. i have literally dozens of friends who have moved from the city after they found a lifelong partner, had a baby, and decided they could not afford to live in the city. together we have to do better at reversing families like and making sure that everyone who wants to gets to live in san francisco. we still have too many young people who are not graduating from high school; too many young people who did not have

jobs; too many young people who are being killed on our streets. together we can do better. we call ourselves the innovation capital of the world but there are so many ways that technology can improve our city services. imagine if we have a phone app that help people avoid having their cars towed, that reserve big tables at golden gate park or can tell us when you drive over a pothole where street crew should patch it up. together we can do better. with cannot solve global warming by ourselves seven cisco but we can show what we can do for the environment; i am proud of the fact that we are on the cutting edge but together we should do better. we have a hard-working ethics commission and san franciscans have repeatedly worked for ethics reform; we need to make sure that the laws are enforced and the

public is no question our transparency. now, in any legislature is easy to think of ourselves as rivals, as part of one faction or another. today was different about this board of supervisors is that there are more of us who do not think that the rigid labels of yesterday help. no one outside the city sees the differences between us, and there are endless opportunities for each of us to lead. a few months ago our beloved san francisco giants won the world series again. (applause) and they did it because every single member of the team showed up every day, played to the strengths, work together as a team, and took turns making the big

plays. whether it supervisor mar, or supervisor farrell addressing looming costs, supervisor breed getting the jobs that young adults need, supervisor kim making sure all kids graduate, supervisor yee making sure that small businesses succeed, supervisor campos fighting for wage breaks; supervisor avalos delivering a local hiring. by the end of the season if we are going to help each other succeed we are all going to win. now the time when the public has been worried about fiscal cliffs in washington and the dysfunctionality in sacramento,

the city of st. francis has seen the finest moments when we come together, universal care, living wages, as goes san francisco, so goes california. as goes california, so goes the nation. cities rise and fall, supervisors come and oh. colleagues, i am honored to work with each and every one of you, our time together to build a city that the last. let's get to work. ladies and gentlemen. we are adjourned. (applause)