be sure we have greenery and beautification for our citizens. a lot of my friends celebrated chinese new years in china and this year for chinese new years, wilhelm wundt wilhelm wundt of the one of the gifts they gave to the employees is an air mask. if you don't start contributing to its purification, you don't get the kind of air like you do in san francisco. this is why trees are so important to our nature and this is what i love about the city because when it comes to our environment, we do make some serious investments, whether it's green buildings, waste management or going into electric vehicles or getting everybody to change their

habits, one of the habits that we want to continue having is planting trees. and so every year for the last 8 years, we have select a signatory to plant and we have taken the liberties of honoring people that have contributed to the quality of life for all of us. in past years, people like rosa parks, caesar chavez, people that we know and are familiar with, along with people that we are not that familiar with but have made some great contributions. today we thought we would take this opportunity to celebrate an icon of san francisco. the brown twin sisters have been with us for many decades. mary is here today, she's here in celebration and memory of her

sister as we all are and we want to take this opportunity to use the arbor day to have a cedar tree, a tree that will grow taller than mary or i. it will grow to be a hundred feet tall. it will be a tree that will be celebrated here in san francisco for generations to come and we thought it would be not only appropriate, but we thought it would be our honor by planting this tree in recognition of vivian and her wonderful contributions to our city. and we are especially blessed with maryann honoring us with her presence. it's not that easy for her to get around

these days but she has and continues to be part of an incredible twin sisters. but now she's also missing vivian as much as we are and we felt this would be a proper way to create a celebratory atmosphere on how we miss vivian, how much she meant to us and take this opportunity for arbor day to plant this tree in her name. how is that, maryann for a great celebration? >> wonderful. i know my sister from heaven is watching. >> all right. she said vivian is up there applauding us and we have a great time of celebrate. ing. with that, supervisor lee, you should know, it's always been under dispute as to who is supposed to be responsible for this

piece of land. was it the highway folks, the residents who built their homes here, was it dpw, we are trying to gift it to rec's and park for nothing because it's an incredible responsibility. look at how beautiful this place it. we do keep it up. it does barrier the intense traffic that we deal with here. i travel quite a bit and everyone i know always glances here and takes a breath of fresh air a midst all of this traffic. this adds beauty and value to this area. i would like to give this

proclamation to maryann and have her treasure this and the permanent memory of her sister and how we celebrate people who are part of our culture as the brown sisters have been and also have been on literally every page of our wonderful visitors galleries, they have been in movies, commercials, they have become a part of what we see in san francisco and how we advertise ourselves around the world as a great place to live and work in. with that, with this proclamation, declares today to be vivian brown tree day in san francisco and also appropriately names this california cedar to be the tree for vivian brown in san francisco.

>> beautiful. thank you all for coming. >> all right. like the mayor said, this is a california tree. the tree bark was used for making medicine for people with stomach aches. it's also been used as a wind break and been used in many many parks. tree comes from the cypress family and the botanical name. i'm happy we are adding such a tree to san francisco and to honor the vivian brown sisters. now like we've done in many of our events, it's always an

honor to introduce the supervisor of the district and like he said, we are very familiar with this piece of land. this land has had many trees that act as a buffer to the neighborhood and the neighborhood appreciates it but we are still trying to figure out who is the legal owner of it, but in that process, dpw and the neighbors always join and the one thing we do know is we need to take care of the trees and we do that with that, i introduce the supervisor norman yee. >> thank you, i'm just one of many san franciscans celebrating this day, arbor okay for vivian brown. i'm so glad that we have an opportunity to have a celebration in this district 7 to be able to celebrate more

intensely this great icon of san francisco and i just hope that i get to see the tree when it's a hundred feet tall. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you. also as part of our partnership as many of you know we partner with many of the non-profits i see san francisco beautiful here. welcome, kristin who is a great partner with us and we also partner with other great cities. i would like to ask mr. -- to come up and talk to us if you would. >> thank you. it's an honor to be here to celebrate arbor day with you. this is an okay to celebrate our trees, in 4,000 open acres of our city we are able to enjoy and benefit from

over 140,000 trees and a couple interesting facts on arbor day, there are trees and responsible for the creation and monterey pine and different types of trees which you can find in the panhandle which was a laboratory to find what best trees can grow and they settled on those three specific trees. what i would like to say and i can thank another partner mohammed a friend of the forest who cares for the city so well. i also want to give a big shout out to the men and women who take care of our trees, the

gardeners, laborers. mary, i would like to end, did you read the book about a tree that gives and gives to a person who started out as a young boy and all throughout life he came to visit that tree and took a little bit from that tree until the tree had nothing left to give. i think you and your sister have given so much to this city and have contributed to its spirit that there is nothing that is more fitting in honoring the two of you than planting a new tree to give and give back to the community. so congratulations and i'm over joyed to be part of this honor. >> san francisco [inaudible]

you take care of people and that is wonderful. we have always enjoyed living in san francisco. it's you people, people that make this world. what would this world be with no people. so we love san francisco. never leave your heart in san francisco. always come and find it here. [ applause ] . >> okay. and also as part of my job being responsible for many trees and i can tell you that this has become one of the harder parts of my job and we have gone out and tried to get people more involved and between the right of way there are about a thousand trees and from the parks about other 120,000 trees. we are working

very hard to make sure we preserve that asset. many of our trees have aged and we need to start a process of reforestation and it involves good planning. i will ask the veteran of the department who has the policy group to advise us on what we should do as the city. melanie. >> thank you. good afternoon, everyone. it is an honor to be here on behalf of the department with all of to you celebrate arbor day. this is a department of the environment, one of our favorite days. what we support is the climate program. we look at what is our

carbon inventory and where is our carbon emission come from. we know it comes from the environment and we are working very diligently to mitigate the carbon sectors. we know that many trees is the answer to reduce the carbon emissions further. in addition it's critical to our adaptation strategy thinking about if we can't ward off, trees will continue to help us with storm waters and they boost property value where they have a robust

urban forest. i wanted to mention when i first moved to san francisco, i lived on russian hill, i would sometimes take the cable car and i would often see you and your sister see both of them smiling and the warmth they shared as twins, it brought a smile to my face everyday. as you said before you started your sister is smiling down today and it will live on for both of you, thank you. >> we are going to lower the tree and plant the tree in honor of vivian. miriam i'm so happy that you are here with us today >> i have glad to have seen all of you and hope you have a great day and never forget the

beloved city of san francisco. >> we should turn around and get the shovels. after 3. 1, 2, 3. all right. [ applause ] . all right. >> good morning, everybody, thank you for joining us this morning, in the bill gram auditor um and we are joined this morning by these gentleman up here but i wanted to especially thank our district attorney george gescon for joining us and being part of this wonderful effort that we

are announcing today with our technology community and certainly with the families of sandy hook. i would like to thank the families who flew all the way here from newtown, connecticut for joining us here today in san francisco. and while you are far away from home, i hope that you feel welcomed in our city. as a father of two girls myself, i can't imagine the pain and grief that you have suffered these past three months. and i have profound respect for your courage and for your commitment, for turning this grief into action. the tragic and horrifying events in sandy hook elementary school, touched every american, a tragedy of this magnitude brings along with it the pain, the shock, and the disbelief. and it forces all of us to ask the question how can we prevent

such terrible events? how do we protect our children? our youth, our residents? for san francisco, it is very important for us to continue to have an open dialogue regarding gun violence so that we can answer these questions ourselves. today, we honored the three-month anniversary of the tragic mass shootings at sandy hook, elementary school, with technology leaders from san francisco and all over the bay area, joining the sandy hook promise. the launch, the promises innovation initiative and i'm honored to join you at this moment of change. from sandy hook to san francisco, our entire nation is impacted by gun violence on a daily basis. earlier today, the san franciscos family whos who are

also impacted by gun violence met privately with the newtown families and shared their grief and hope for a better tomorrow. thank you for joining us today. i have worked with conway, in many capacities to create a environment that supports innovation and we are in many regards the innovation capitol of the world and i am so proud to see this effort launched here today. as mayor, i have focused on jobs, as a top priority and making sure that our youth get quality education and training them to be able to compete for the jobs of the 21st century economy. the fact is and i have said this often, you can't give a job to a dead youth. you can't tell that youth not to lose hope. and that they can succeed no matter where you come from for too long. we have seen too much violence in our communities and it must

end. yesterday i signed into law the nation's first ban on possession of halopoint ammunition in san francisco. all right. every year we come out to celebrate arbor day in the month of march and i'm happy to kickoff this year arbor day here at this special location. joined with us today we have several guest. i know dan is here, larry stringer is dan is here, larry stringer is >> chair farrell: good afternoon. everyone. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors budget and finance in the for wednesday, april 3, 2013.

i am mark farrell, i will be chairing this committee 1kwr0eu7d by supervisor mar, london breed, scott wiener and john avalos. i would like to thank the members of sfgvtv as well as the clerk of the committee, victor young. do we have announcements? >> the clerk: please silence all cell phones and electronic devices. copies should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon will appear on the april 9 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> chair farrell: thank you very much. mr. clerk, can you please call item one. >> the clerk: 1. hearing to review the impact of illegal manipulation of the london inter-bank offered rate on san francisco's finances; to explore options to recover any losses; and to review any interest rate swaps or other financial instruments the city is engaged in that may have excessive interest rates or fees that should be renegotiated.

>> chair farrell: thank you very much, mr. clerk. this hearing was called for by supervisor john avalos and cosponsored by supervisor campos. so i will turn it over to supervisor avalos. >> supervisor avalos: thank you, mr. chair, thank you for hearing this item. colleagues, this is an item i brought forward a couple of months ago, looking at the real manipulation that had occurred under the london interbank offered rate. the lie board scandal and what the impact is to san francisco. clearly, we know that there has been real cases of manipulation and scandal and fraud under the liebore scandal and we want to make sure we're doing everything we can locally to try and recover any losses we've had in san francisco. and this hearing is to explore what those might be and to encourage the city to seek action as well. before i start off, i do have a little bit of humor to add to

initiativnrnt this process, goi- initiate the process going back from the report as they reported to the liebore scandal. >> chair farrell: may we have the computer display. >> supervisor avalos: want me to start over again? >> chair farrell: may we have the computer display, please. >> well, however it's pronounced -- >> supervisor avalos: can we start from the very beginning of that section. >> made some mad -- jim. >> the liebore scandal is spreading like wildfire. public outrage is growing over allegations that for years banks all over the word manipulated what's called liebore,. >> now it's pronounced i bore. however it's pronounced, here's

what we know. the british meg bank mar clay made some mad dollar dollars illegally manipulating the so-called liebore which stands for the london interbank offered rate, not to be confused with the european interbank offer rate or euro bore. other than talking about liebore. here's how it works. each one has to tell the british banking association the lowest interest rate at which it thinks another bank would lend it money. how does each bank determine their own rate? it's a complicated process that involves a multitude of factors like investor confidence, the money supply, the human anus, and yanking things out of it. but mostly just those last two.

then -- (cheers and applause). round of applause for the human anus. then that libor rate is used to set interest rates everywhere on earth. of course not everywhere, just places that use money. i believe emperor penguins on the ice shelf are not affected. now here's the wrinkle. the banks that determine libor also employ traders who bet on what that rate will be. they're not supposed to talk to each other but you'll never guess what happened. >> leaders at banks were conspiring to fudge the data to boost their own trading profit. one part of barkleys would say to another could you submit data that makes us look -- that either is higher or lower than

it is to boost our profits. >> personally, i don't see anything wrong with some work buddies doing each other a solid. you know the old saying, you scratch my back, i make the global financial system your bitch. it's all detailed in e-mails between barkley's traders and rate setters like go for 5.36, very important that the setting comes as high as possible, thanks. and, dude, i owe you big time. come over one day after work, and i'm opening a bottle of bollinger. it was unethical to offer a gift of champagne, but no hookers. admittedly, barclay's fudged a couple of things to pump their profits. what's the point it was just barclay and the u.k., right? >> here's the point it wasn't

just barclay in the u.k. >> all right, angry cluster of teeth. so if it wasn't just barclay in the u.k., who else? >> regulators are looking at more than a dozen other banks, and those include citigroup -- >> so what? so citigroup's an american bank. no big deal. >> it's a big deal. [bleep] >> you can't trust anything in banking. >> i knew i shouldn't have trusted those guys. i am never, ever... >> (cheers and applause). >> i am never getting drunk in the steam room again. >> supervisor avalos: thank you, jeremy. apologies for any remarks that might not have appreciated, but i want to make sure we could actually have some context.

this was actually an event that had worldwide significance and certainly was picked up by our news media in the report. as was stated, it stands for london interbank offer rate that leading banks will lend each other when they lend each other money. up to 800 trillion of debt globally are based on liobo. it is the basis of most various rates around the world. during financial crisis a number of banks illegally. ed the libor a proven fact. swidz bank paid 1.5 million in fines and pled guilty to criminal fraud. barclay has paid 464 million fines. rbs of scottland paid 612 million. these are only fines paid to regulators. investors have not received restitution for their loss.

a report from the charitable trust estimate the losses to the u. s. could be 6 million. the city of baltimore is in a class action lawsuit including brokerage funds caused by the manipulation. in january, san mateo and san diego counties filed a lawsuit as did freddie m.a.c., including j.p. chase and others. inspector general of the finance housing agency related that damages could be $3 million. last week, a federal court dismissed the antitrust portion of the baltimore lawsuit. this does not change the fact the banks have pleaded guilty to criminal misconduct. whether we lost 10,000, or 10 million, as a city we owe it to taxpayers to aggressively pursue this issue to hold the banks

accountable. initial reports suggest financial managers were more conservative than other municipalities and we may not be as impacted as others. i would hope that we could use our financial expertise to lead by example on how municipalities can address this fraud. i hope this will be the first step in a bigger process to determine the strongest course of action for the city to protect taxpayers from these crimes. this is also an opportunity to look at the bigger picture of predatory lending practices in municipal finance which i have heard is now a $2 trillion market across the countries. we know that libor fraud is illegal but what about practices while technically illegal are immoral. why do we continue to do business with banks that we know repeatedly bend and break the law. i want to make sure that we're looking long-term how to protect ourselves as a city, what kind of ways that we can create our own processes but also our own i