>> good morning. welcome to the press conference. as you know we are

celebrating our city hall and celebrating a civic celebration for people to come and celebrate this beautiful majestic building. celebrating 100 years of city hall gives us a perfect opportunity to honor this building's past history, the architecture, the seismic retrofit and into the future whether it's innovation, technology and also becoming economically sustainable but also environmentally sustainable. we have done great improvements to this building. what we have done in this city hall so replace the 220 lights with led lights. not only will this make city hall energy efficient

but will also reduce our operating cost? city hall's centennial celebration will be june 19th, which will give us the opportunity to celebrate the people's palace. this is what beautiful city hall will be when visitors to san francisco will come that day. the events will begin at 6:00 p.m., delicious food from food trucks and activities and it will end with a beautiful light led show with a multimedia projecting lighting system which will take you through a visual journey through the past 100 years to the present today. we have with us today mayor ed lee, former mayor willie

brown and protocol charlie and who will go through what this event will be in june and as part of the celebration, we will also be producing a documentary. with that, i would like to bring up our mayor edwin lee. you can see i'm a little bit nervous right now. i'm stumbling over my words. i have both mayor's. they will be up here to talk about what a great event we are going to have. mayor ed lee. [ applause ] >>mayor edwin m. lee: okay, naomi, that tells me a lot. everybody, thank you. thanks for coming. this is a wonderful time we are here at city hall and of course i was joking when i wished mayor brown a happy 100th birthday.

first of all i do want to say officially welcome to the people's palace. this is of course a time when we get a chance to reflect not just the brick and mortar although i must say every time i have a chance to look up and look around i have to marvel at a building that moves in base isolate ors and has become a beautiful beautiful building and everybody i have talked with and stepped foot whether it's the elevators or walking up or the rotunda, their eyes are always looking everywhere and marvelling at this historic building. as i look around today, most of the people are the ones

who occupy and come through and make this building come alive. that's you and the thousands that come through this building everyday. i want to say from a very start thank you to mayor brown and charlotte and when we first began talking about how to celebrate 100 years of this building, we also talked about the history of this city and what it meant to each one of us and our own personal histories. i want to say thank you to all of them for agreeing to be the chair of this event. i know and they know that this city is a wonderful place because of it's people and there is an opportunity here to talk about the first 100 years of our city, but also to suggest what we do for the next hundred years and what

direction that we have. i want to give a special thanks to tonya and rich peterson because of your tireless efforts you recognized a start that in order to have a celebration we needed to include everybody. i want to say a special thank you to you because your efforts has resulted in a tremendous out pouring and outstanding inclusiveness and a thanks to steven and mick, thank you for your leadership in making sure this celebration is meaningful and well beyond the physical attributes that this building has. all of you thank you for being here and joining naomi and the staff and the rest of the volunteers for celebrating and helping us celebrate the last 100 years. there has been lots of

stories to be able to tell about this city. and i know that this allows us to also remember how resilient our city has been in the past hundred years and how many times the people of this great city came together to help each other out. it's an opportunity to show case that. and also, there is a moment here during this celebration where we'll have an opportunity to kind of recommit ourselves to the values this city has had in its people's in the past and it's present and future. to make sure that we recommit ourselves to the sharing of the prosperity of this city as it always has attempted to do and has done in the past. we are already doing that with the current agenda of this administration. we are building more homes for people at record

levels. we are improving our transportation network and again, i suggest to you, go to any major city and ask them do they have no cost municipal rides for their low income student and people with disabilities. you will not find a city that has done so. we are making sure that we have a no cuts budget so better and more services can be had by all of our residents in every neighborhood. we will continue to make record investments in our public schools and invest in our infrastructure just like we are doing with this city hall. as we said time and time again , we know it's more than a building of brick and mortar and it's much more because it has been a symbol of hope for people not just here but around the world. our

city hall's storied history has been a trailblazer for social policy that's had global impact. just marvel at the time we had when we suggested and then implemented the marriage licenses for same sex marriage. global global impact. and our entire city continues to serve as a symbol of hope. when we make announcements here, when we have protocol and council general's offices from around the world celebrate here or we have the latest announcement about what challenges we might have or what answers we may have to those challenges. it's a place like our city where the world does change. we are an international leader in civil rights, we are a city of dreamers and doers and we are in fact a city of innovation. in fact the innovation capitol of the world. this is what city hall means to so many people. just as we lead

the nation in human rights, we also lead in environmental justice and environmental standards. as naomi said, we are now the oldest building in all of united states to receive the lead platinum certification for a building that conserves energy and water conservation. with the additional upgrades on the solar panels and the energy efficient lighting that naomi described, we are getting prepared for the next 100 years. so i'm proud that the celebration is a unique public private celebration, demonstrates how world class that we are in our philanthropy and this is another example. the partnerships that we formed in this city has helped our homeless families succeed more. it's gotten rid of single mothers on the street more and more. we

created a free muni for our low income youth in

happy birthday, mayor lee. this building wouldn't be here without mayor willie brown. you if i could up this building. what did you do? >> well, in reality, charlotte, when elected in 1996, sworn in, one of the first things we did was try to figure out how to get back into the building. the building had been damaged in '89 and our friend mayor agnes he did to do something about it. in '91 frank jordan, the mayor took over but there was not enough money. most of the money as mayor lee said went to the base isolation which is this building on rollers. it can go 5

feet in any direction without any trouble whatsoever and no damage at all, but the interior of the building, the way it was done by arthur brown when he first did all the architecture in the building had been so eroded over the years with people covering the light courts and all of those things and with people adding more people in here that shouldn't have been here. so in '96, when we inherited the job and ed lee was a part of that and so kelly and naomi's husband, mark primo and tony irons if you remember was the support person and then we got bob coffman then the board of supervisors and we got susan looel to convince the people in silicon valley use up as an example as to make 50 years

ahead of it's time to be retrofitted in a way when mayor lee talked about innovation and we needed to make sure it looked okay. as you remember we got the handicapped, disability people to sign on. we made this building what arthur brown had in mind. that's what makes it so magnificent. the only thing we didn't do and we should do it now. remember i lost the fight. i wanted to put the industrial kitchen in this building. now you have all of these damn trucks out here warming food up. we should have had the industrial kitchen and now there is not 1 word of criticism. todd wille was what we were trying to do and in reality we were trying to do what mayor lee said was to

make it the people's palace. >> we need food. >> correct. since the first day it has been own, it's been a winner and something that everybody just absolutely loves. you come here like i did yesterday. there must have been 50-60 people getting married. i'm a practicing lawyer, i do divorces. i passed out my card. laughed >> if you can believe it it was here long before your birthday. it was before your time, the king of norway was coming and somebody said where can we have it. isn't it too bad we don't have a palace. i said we do have a palace. they said where? city hall. i said let's wake them up. we are moving in. i went to the mayor and

said we have to do something about the judges. they don't like the noise. he said tell them to play golf. i said with all respect, mayor, can you tell them to play golf. with this administration with mayor lee and people coming from around the world. this has been a place to be proud of to show case our city. they are not here for just parties but for doing business and exchanging ideas. i remember after that, there have been many kings, presidents, prime ministers and kings and princesses and from china. we had thousands of people here. i don't think we had the fire chief. not invited. so it was really quite an affair to have the premier of china. a few days later i got a call

from the white house. mike lieber. he said i have good and bad news. he said the premier of china had dinner with the president ronald regan in the white house. i said, well he had to eat somewhere. what's the bad news? the premier said the highlight of his visit to the united states was san francisco. we hear that all the time and now mayor lee has been so wonderful to participate with all. we have 88 council generals. we fly their flag on their national day and very proud to have their constituents here and mayor lee has met with the president of france, the mayor of paris, our sister city. this week on thursday you will meet with the british ambassador and this week the lord mayor. we

are working on calling you the lord mayor. and then we'll have all of the mayors which you started here on the 19th. there will be several hundred mayors for the big event here. we have wonderful light show. and a week later the secretary general of the united nations and celebration of the signing of the united nations and people from far away. how about the celebrations? we did have some super bowl celebrations. i don't know about that now. we did have the 50th super bowl here and the big event will come here and then of course we have the big celebrations for the giants and we want to do it again. steven, got it? i'm tired of crawling out the

window and putting those orange jails on. i'm going to push the button and the light is on to restore city hall. >> the responsibility put to me mr. mayor, where will the warrior celebration be for the championship and i said you are in it. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> i told you a trip down memory lane. next up i would like to invite our partners in putting on this civic center celebration to honor city hall from the giants and nick representing his family who has been wonderful in partnering with us in making sure we have a wonderful celebration for the people of san francisco. [ applause ]

>> thank you, naomi and thank you mr. mayor for the opportunity to help plan what will be i think an incredible celebration. the giants saw some great opportunity with this. we have had a little bit expertise in planning incredible celebration at city hall. when asked to participate, we said absolutely. we know how to create an incredible event. we had 50 million people celebrate with us and we are ready to do it again. the next on the docket is june 19 th and we are going to have a lot of fun. part of that is working with the family on some incredible entertainment and bringing some amazing experiences at city hall and civic center. also with partners of obscure

a, this is an incredible light show. when we turn the lights on, you are going to say, i got it. it's going to be spectacular. that's how thrilled we are to partner. nick, do you want to speak on the entertainment? >> sure. thank you for putting this together. like in wayne's world, i feel like i'm not worthy. i would like to say thank you to everybody for giving us the at some point to do what we love to do. i say that on behalf of myself and the family. we love to present music to the public. it's our thing. we view this as a great opportunity to do it. 100 years ago coming out of the earthquake and the fire people of san francisco with determination

and creativity rebuilt this city hall and bigger and better than it was before and that's the way people here are. music provided the soundtrack then and will provide it now. music is a way to capture the history of how things felt at that moment in time. the people of san francisco expressing their determination and creativity have also created music that's been important in our state. the world on this event is to do our best to bring all of that together in sort of a co-hear -- coherent but fun framework for everybody. we are going to run two stages. our musical director is chuck prophet. one is led by which -- chuck and the other by smith. they are going to bring music to san francisco from various different communities

and in a way that is fun and very exciting. that will be followed after the lighting of the obscurea stuff with some department -- dj's and it will be a time to dance. this is an opportunity of a lifetime because we are only doing it every hundred years. if you don't get aah! -- out to do it now i don't know when you will have the opportunity. i want to give my thanks to chuck and lavae and mary sternberg and susie who have worked with planning this event. that's it. we are looking forward to having a great time and hope to see everybody there. >> absolutely. naomi, would you like to

introduce rich? someone has to pay for all of this. we have nick and tonya and they will talk about the fundraising efforts. [ applause ] >> thank you let me acknowledge my wife tonya. she's not up here. she's shy today. she's not a shy person. she's been spending a lot of time helping steve and nick helping plan all the elements in the centennial and the year. since she has a zoo to run literally i have spent my time focused on the financial side of the equation which is to help fund all of these various things. i have great news to report to you. first i want to report to madam administrator and mayor lee, charlotte mayor brown, it's been great working with each of you over the course of the last month. in general terms, what we have

collectively set out to produce not only as an event but the documentary that was mentioned as well as the two lighting initiatives which are going to be really extraordinary, that is a total $4 million effort. wonderfully the city has budgeted $1.8 million towards the capital improvement to this city hall leaving a $2.2 million gap. how did we raise $2.2 million when there are so many other incredible and needy causes around the city? well, first of all i'm here to tell you good news that we have raised as of this morning in the bank $980,000 towards that $2.2 million goal and in addition $400,000 pledged in hard

commitment almost towards the $2.2 million goal that we set out to accomplish this year. that's a conservative number and that a couple of the individuals who have pledged money thus far have indicated that they are likely going to give more than what i'm budgeting more. that maybe significantly higher, but we are not counting that before it's received, of course. so we are about a little bit more than a third way through of the centennial year and two-thirds away from our fundraising and we are grateful where we are and we wouldn't be where we are without the incredible generosity of our donors and corporate and really the foundation of visited dollars. in fact two-thirds of the money committed and raised to date have been from individuals and foundations. these are just people doing good things

for the city. i want to take an opportunity to acknowledge of course the hell man family, mick and family and friends for their leadership at the very highest level and i would also like to acknowledge bruce heart with the hurst foundation. bruce, i think gave us the most significant and early gift to help get this going. bruce with the hertz foundation. i wanted to acknowledge them. [ applause ] with that i will turn it back to naomi. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> okay to get the word out, we have developed a public service announcement which i would like to unveil. we've created a promotional tv and radio spot

broadcast through kqed celebration website at www.sf.com, the giants radio station. we would like to invite the public to send us your favorite moments through social media and we thank mascot lucille for the first tweet. let's checkout this video. >> by the powers vested in me. >> world champion. >> please join the san francisco to join san francisco's celebration of city hall. happy birthday, city hall. [ applause ]