make sure that we have quality services to the school that exists. vmd also has no programming. it's great that we have something in there for them and that it's consistent with the park that was here. the central soma park, it can be extremely beneficial, especially since it's across the street from the middle school, but we need to be sure that it's for our families. project sponsors have met and we need to make sure that that conversation is ongoing and that it represents us. >> thank you, carla. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i want to say thank you to jane kim, for taking the leadership role and the work you are doing. my name is rudy corpus. i'm a violence prevention

program director serving san francisco for 23 years, working with hundreds and thousands of kids i'm a native. been there all my life. 5 want to be sure as changes are are being made, want to be sure that people can weigh in and know what is good for our community. i've seen things unfold all my life in the neighborhood. i want to be sure we hold people not only accountable, but that we get equity. that's a word that's been thrown around loosely and lightly. i want to be sure also that our current people that are here working together, talking about we are soma, that we figure out the best plan for our people.

we've can't have people come to our neighborhood and tell us what's best and what they feel as though how we should live and how the community should be safer. we have a comprehensive community safety plan that we and some of my brothers that live there and have been serving there, we have for safety. nobody want business, nope want to be in places that are not safe. so come see us. talk about what works. come find out what we know is best for our community. let us make sure that we weigh in. we're talking about a lot of money. we want to be sure we're incl e included in this. when i say equity, i'm not talking about equality. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

i'm gina cariaga. i represent the central soma neighbors. i'm here to talk about concerns in the zoning between folsom and harrison. i want to remind you that this is a residential neighborhood. there are five condo buildings totalling 600 residences within a block of these high-rises. the neighbors here agree that the planning department's 2013 central soma draft was right when it said that the predominant character of soma should be retained and the presence of high-rises reduced by limiting their distribution

in bulk. supervisors, it achieves under all the housing and job growth as the proposed high-rise plan, but a walkable, livable neighborhood. as you weigh community benefits against the new high-rise proposals, factor in the community benefits that our community enjoys, access to light, sky and air. minutes wind tunnels and family of friendly environment. as a property owner, as a giants' fan that walks with other giants' fans, as a tech worker that soaks up the sun while eating my lunch in the public open space, i urge you, don't trade the existing mid rise zoning for the mere promise of new community benefits. thank you for your time. >> councillor tang: thank you. >> members of the committee, good afternoon. i'm nora hurley.

631 folsom. i think it's impossible to talk about improving walkability, bike safety and welcoming atmosphere without addressing height increases along 2nd and harrison. as a long-time resident, i'm concerned that the proposed high-rise plan undermines the goal of the walkability and community-centric charact characteristics of our neighborhoods. it will intensify high wind patterns and creep eight an unwelcome pedestrian experience. we've already lost an enormous amount of light due to the linkedin building. a neighborhood was designed to enhance proximity to the bay and

light reflecting off the water. increasing all the density will overstress and overcrowd our few green spaces, such as south park, which may not only be cast into shadow, but also damaged and filled with litter by day use by people who have no interest more than eating their lunch and smoking a cigarette. our neighborhood is already stressed with high traffic. it includes many highways and exit ramps and a huge conference center. i applaud the effort to make the sidewalks more pedestrian-friendly, the planning commission must balance these efforts during baseball

season and everyday commuter rush hour. >> thank you. >> i'm tom leader. dls landscape architecture. and we're honored to be collaborating with the city and community on a 1-acre park at 5th and brannon that is called for by this plan. there are two things that are key to know. to that end, we've had three public workshops to learn a number of things about where they're coming from, how they live and what they want to be able to do and how the park can extend their lives during the day and on the weekends. we've heard things that are more obvious perhaps like open space

with grass and where kids and dogs can be and safety in terms of moving through. this park is in the center of the lot, but we've heard that people want to use this place to get together. could this be a living room for their community. could it be a place to come for a farmer's market, science fair, see a film, gathering informally in a teadecent-sized open space? the other aspect is sustainability. when we say sustainability, we don't refer so much to metrics and to checklists, but we're talking about the environmental sensibility of a place. and what we find here is that we have to -- we have a place that

is -- because it's surrounded by buildings of a certain height and we have to protect people from wind. we have to encourage sunlight for use or it won't be used at all. as we do that, we find there are certain -- >> thank you. >> thank you for hearing me as a member of the task force in 2013. i was the chair of the energy and natural resources, subcommittee of that task force. my name is cole roberts. i work with a company called air up here, focused on sustainability in the built environment. when we were undertaking that task force report, we understood and interacted with the

community that deepened our understanding of the neighborhood. it needed to be married with robust infrastructure, infrastructure for energy systems and the ecology of the place that's been damaged and not restored. there's need for investment. soft investment in the parks and also hard investment in the energy and stormwater systems. it's not always obvious in how it benefits the community, but there are deep, long-term investment benefits. that's why it's called an investment, not a cost. they gain significantly to smart investments taken now. in that investment, i would include social institutions like the san francisco mint. it is an even more valuable

project that's valued today. and another that is not met or in terms of cattlizine -- catalg the neighborhood. thank you for hearing me out. i respect the decision of the group. >> thank you, supervisors, for hosting the meeting and the planning department for doing their due diligence to try to balance the needs of the community. we would like to see some tweaks to the central soma plan to ensure that we're not a museum piece of a community that was once there. we want to see it be a community of long-time residents, businesses, artists, and activists. one way to reach this bill, is to ensure the $20 million will

be allowed more public programming be sustainable. over half of our budget is spent on infrastructure oewd is not enough to work with the community to bring long time residents to participate in the night market. we're generating $60,000 in economic activity. we want to ensure that some of this goes to the residents. and we would like to see some provisions so we can create a new performing arts center. what is shown is there are 5,000 people that want to see filipino arts and culture and we need to give a platform for our arts groups to scale up. and we would like to see more

pathways for community ownership. that being a performing arts center or being in the commercial spaces, so the community is not stuck in this cycle of sharecropper-ship. we've want to participate in the growing real estate equity in san francisco and that's one way we would like to see that happen. thank you. >> thank you for hosting this. many of the members of the filipinos in tech working group are soma natives, grew up here and moved on to tech positions. so our community, our working group, is aware of the issue us that face the community over the past two decades. partnerships with tech community are central. we would like to encourage them

to join the community of children, seniors, laborers, as new companies move in as development grows and changing the face of the neighborhood. we have survived many waves of displacement, with the most recent being the tech boom. the filipino movie will continue to thrive and take part in the neighborhood in a place we've called home for years. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisor peskin, supervisor kim. i'm connie ford. i want to stand in solidarity with everything that's been said here. i have great's a respect.

i've been working with soma. i've been on the soma stabilization fund since its beginning realizing that my son and daughter in law live here and so i belong to in this instance an organization called good jobs for all. we're in solidarity in particular with what alex said and mario said. these jobs, this community, is going to be experiencing must be good jobs, somewhere in the report it says 30,000 to 40,000 jobs. what are the jobs? are there categories? are they good, living-wage jobs?

who will be -- the people that are doing the work at the hotels, the people that will do the service jobs in these high towers, the security guards, janitors, how will they be good jobs and good jobs for all is a program that we'll sit down with the developers as the plan goes out and we would like some of this within the plan that says, any of these jobs need to be for -- especially the entry level jobs need to be opened up for the community, for the people that live there, for the residents, for a targeted population that needs to take advantage, provided the advantage of living and working in a city that cares -- >> thank you, ms. ford. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm heidi mahogny from the

transcultural district. i want to thank supervisor kim for scrutinizing the funds. and not simply to certify the projects of developers. i support the public spaces that are truly acceptable and the further greening and environmental sustainability. as the owner of a small lgbt bar in soma, i hope that some of the funding will go to stabilizing the businesses that are impacted by the fast and frequent development of the neighborhood. i hope that it will support the businesses in the district and the cultural districts in soma, lgbt leather and even comptons with a corridor on 6th. money from central soma could help to grow and stabilize projects that would belief end

the displacement of our communities. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm rachel ryan. i'm here on behalf of the leather cultural district. the leather community has been based in soma for over 70 years. in that time, it's been home to over 100 bars and businesses dedicated to the leather community. i'm an owner of the stud bar, the oldest queer nightclub in san francisco, which was originally opened as a leather bar in 1966. my hope is that we can allocate some of the funds from the western soma plan, just as honey said, to protect legacy businesses and protect cultural districts. the leather district does not have a source of funding through the city yet and i think this could be a really good way to do it. we're looking for stabilizing organizations and businesses, but we have a community of older

folks, many of whom are living with hiv that need access to affordable housing. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm john alderling. first, i want to note the importance of funding for central soma fun, which has done great work. and the $10 billion of future development, there has to be a way to continue that worth with that funding source. second, as many note, there's an essential need for regular funding for the two heritage districts, so we can implement them and not be an empty shell. third, hasn't come up, but it's central to be a community participation process attached, with all of the programs, the

hundreds of millions of dollars from all the sources. these neighborhoods set up a cac to do that, but it's failed. a, it's too big. for neighborhoods, you can't pay enough attention to any of them. second, its purview is too narrow. it looks like the childcare funds that come from the fees. they refuse to have any public input at all. it takes a community advisory board of some kind. the bureaucrats, the departments, all came to ask on every separate topic. and the members listened to each other. they were not just siloed in

their own interests. for this plan to succeed over 10, 20 years, and promises turn to real stuff and need to enact that process. >> thank you. and there has been an opportunity to bring our communities together. >> corey smith speaking on behalf of the housing coalition program with the distribution of funds, we'll defer. on the housing front, we have an opinion. we've made this request repeatedly and would love to see an amendment change in this. it's regarding the implementation measure, calling for everything over 30,000 square feet have 2/3 of

redevelopment be nonresidential. we're asking for 40,000 square feet. it could be more homes in the neighborhood. generally, we're very supportive. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm with the council of community housing organizations. today speaking on my experiences as a district 6 representative for the eastern neighborhood, cac. i want to echo was john said earlier about the need to have fees that are dedicated to support for the soma stabilization fee and to the two new cultural districts. it's critical that the cultural fabric be maintained and funding corrected that way.

one of the drawbacks is how you off the often look at the budget, most of the funds are allocated to a certain number of priority projects and to a certain distribution of uses. what is needed is real community control over the funds, to be able to look at not only those categories that i think steve already spoke about, but to have flexibility to support programming and facilities for nonprofit uses, arts uses, local uses, small businesses and so forth, to be able to have fees that help to shape the fabric of south of market. finally, i think, when a new district is created with a new advisory committee, it's critical like the pacs and soma

stabilization fund, particular constituencies from the neighborhood be considered. that from the soma lgbt leather community be on there. and so we have real representization. the full cost of impact needs to be covered. thank you. >> good afternoon. thank you, supervisor kim for having this hearing today. we've been very active about the street improvements. yesterday we had a meeting about pedestrian safety, open space and community planning. it's an initiative from robert wood johnson that has diverse

partners to build healthier communities where children and their families can thrive. there are six communities participating in this. in this initiative, when children are the focus, everyone benefits. for example, when the seatbelt laws originally adopted to protect young children have saved an estimated 3,017 lives since 1975. so when we heard from attendees, they would like to see more sidewalk programs and to have

signs lit, crosswalks for children and their family. and to organizations that can provide culturally competent outreach and education. for example, through the folsom and howard, there was no english -- or no spanish surveys, and so we want to see more of that. >> to clarify. this is sfmta were not in spanish? >> correct. so when we partnered with them, we collected 200 surveys of -- >> in three languages. i know mr. parks is still here. so i appreciate the feedback

about children service signs as well. >> i want to be sure that infrastructure includes tenant support, including tenant counseling and legal service. we struggle with our tenant support and making sure that there's -- that we're able to serve all the tenants that come to us for counseling. and we need legal support for a lot of the tenants that come in for our counseling and there's just not enough language appropriate and want to make a

note that we serve a broad range of immigrants and wanting to make sure there are small businesses that are responsibility and provide language appropriate and culturally appropriate and affordable goods and services that there are supported by an infrastructu infrastructure. thank you. >> hello, supervisors, i'm david wu with somcan. somcan has been very active in the central soma meetings. aside from the build-out of the park, there must be a dedicated source of funding that goes toward maintenance and programming on the puc site.

in order for it to be a well-functioning, true community space for all. to ensure maintenance, a community steward program should be made up of residents and community groups. it's essential that it's hired from the community and competent to make sure that the new park reflects south of market. they must be held to a higher standard than what has previously existed. it must be youth and family friendly that's accessible and designed for youth and families. to this point, the majority are not youth and family process

does not function as true, open spaces. they must be in the central soma plan. the design review, should be a standard for all in soma where they function as true, public open spaces, rather than being a new design process, there should be a design in place. and one example of a good plan that exists is in bridge housing and put together in conjunction with community members. >> madam clerk, if we could allow the mike to keep going so folks can finish their sentences, that would be great. >> i'm from the veterans equity

center and filipino mental health initiative as well as we're here with soma coalition. soma is home to a lot of people with thattor are seniors and disabilities. we serve the community and cultural assets such as services for immigrants and people with adult disabilities. it should be considered historical resources and we seek to recognize places like filipino education center and i fell like it could prevent

at-risk change and knowing that places are frequented by filipino members and in the larger bay area. some of the fees should support and guide those sites. thank you. >> tony robles. safety is a topic that's been coming up quite a bit, with the upzoning, the wind impacts, the safety and traffic. we've had members of our organization that have gotten into accidents, who have fallen because of high winds, because of oncoming traffic, that have spent time in the hospital with serious injuries.

safety impacts and ramifications must be taken under consideration within the plan. as they say, the road to misery is paved with good intentions and there are a lot of things that are imposed upon us and the community that's lived there, existing community, is treated as though they were the furniture that came with the place. there must be oversight and a voice for the communities being impacted. somebody mention the the ongoing fees for cultural sustainability is very, very important. we're dealing with communities that are being squeezed, who are working extremely hard to maintain their equity and their presence and to continue being an asset to the cultural fabric of san francisco. job, once again, who are these jobs going to go to and what

jobs are going to be generated. are they going to allow people, particularly residents of the neighborhood to stay. will they be sustainable? are they going to be jobs that will allow people to pay the rent. speaking of rent, housing stabilization. we need to make sure that there are legal services and tenant services so people don't start getting evicted all the time. thank you. >> thank you, mr. robles. >> thank you, supervisors. carl shannon. we're project sponsors for three major projects, two of which are 100% housing. 900 units at the creamery and a project at 5th and howard. the third is a combination of office and small affordable housing. steve has been to thousands of meetings. we've only been to a couple hundred. he's been working on this for

seven years. we've only been working on it for five. we're thrilled to see this come forward. it's a huge package of community benefits, unprecedented in the city's history. we do have a timing issue with our 5th and howard project, where to get the tax-exempt bonds in place, the project needs to be approved and ready to go by 2019. that seems a long way away still, but having been at this for seven plus years wanted to be sure that we're aware of that. look forward to getting this done. we look forward working with the community and bringing the public park forward, which is part of our project. >> thank you. and don shaw reached out to me personally to ensure that this project that's 100% affordable housing will of is not impacted. and to ensure that we move

forward with that project or pass this plan in a timely manner. >> i'm alice rodgers, vice president of south beach mission bay organization. i want to commend the planning department on all of the extreme outreach and hard work they put into the plan. and likewise, want to commend the community, people that are here today and john elderling, in particular, for helping the city focus on this as a community plan. it's always talked about as industrial, but as these people have illustrated and you well know, there's a very rich community and cultural legacy in this area. so i'm looking forward to this being a plan that ends up not

displacing people that makes good on its promise of cultural and community, community involvement and guidance. and i want to thank you supervisor kim for asking the prioritization of the strict projects and the other projects. so far the promises have been quite general and i have had a hard time seeing it brought down to the street and i appreciate your comment today on air quality. it is an emerging issue. it's not a new issue, but it's a difficult issue to grapple with. and i think it's an emerging, important focus. thank you so much. >> thank you, ms. rogers. >> good afternoon. teresa flanderick, community action. i'm here to support my friends, my community in soma.

we represent soma. what we also know is how important it is to feel and know that you are safe in your neighborhood, in your home, that your home will not be taken. and so to have funding that would also afford a purchase of some of the rent-controlled buildings so they're not turned into tics and luxury condos and sold to the highest bidder. to preserve the housing that is there, also the sros. that it would be great to have funding that is specified for these purchases, as well as any affordable housing that is to be built, if there is no more land yet because it's been used for other things. that becomes a problem. so in terms of securing a cultural district, a community that's been there for many, many years, to do all that we can to

preserve what is there so that the people can continue to grow their community, rather than have it destroyed. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you, supervisors, for holding this meeting. i'm raquel odondis. i thank the planning department for the presentation and glad to hear that the plan is to keep what's great in soma. for us, what is great about soma for decades is the seniors and immigrant workers of that been fighting to make the neighborhood livable, for everyone. and this is before the city and planning and the whole region has come to focus on soma as a place to build this housing. so we hope to keep the existing community there, that's first and foremost. as you know, central soma's

plans comprise our cultural district and many vulnerable seniors. we've survived many waves of displacement and to the most recent with the tech boom. we've lost half of our community in the last several years, but we're still here and we love soma and soma is a cultural and social hub for filipinos city-wide and region-wide. while there could be many opportunities with the central soma plan, there are no illusions that there aren't risks for our community. the new development can bring about another way of displacement for our community and other populations. we need to make sure there are strong measures and concrete investments to mitigate potential harm. we look forward to working with

the planning department and board of supervisors and everyone involved to make sure there are relay ford -- real affordable housing and that the public benefits are soma-wide and not just central soma. there is provisions for development of community assets and strong community oversight of benefits. and last but not least the dedicated funds to community and economic development. thank you. >> i'm michelle levis, soma resident. as you all know, soma has been in development for san francisco and has become a neighborhood of ultra rich and ultra poor. i would like to advocate for an

increased range of affordability. we have families where two families work minimum wage jobs and they don't qualify for the affordability, making too much. i have a struggle between talking about the new dream community when across the street, part -- pardon my language is a [beep] show. it's hard to not think about what is happening on the other side of sixth street. the school is in crisis. we have one school in our district and talking about a new school is ridiculous to me. we had to get pinterest to pay for a second social worker because we have the highest number of homeless kids. 85% of middle schoolers were reading below grade levels. we know that means they will

drop out and become incarcerated. for us, it's a huger issue, instead of just what is happening in the footprint of this plan area, but we hope that some of this can reach over to the other side of 6th street. park and rec in this plan, i frankly have more faith elsewhere than the soma plan. the rec center has not had hand towels since may. so there are issues when we talk about renovating the rec center and creating parks, what it means for now? how can we creep eight new when we don't take care of what we have? and i feel there's disproportionate investment in structures, not people. there are people in crisis that need the support and putting it into a building or a set of activities doesn't meet the need

where it is. i don't want my kids to have to see that on the way to school. it's a huge issue that we hope can be taken as a whole and not just within that footprint. thank you. >> seeing no further comments on item number 3, i request that we close public comment. >> public comment is closed. i want to thank all of the staff and members of the public and supervisor kim and her staff for the long road it's taken to get to here. in the first hearing i raised some questions about whether or not there are studies that could allow for more housing and we discussed that offline, and also talked a little bit --

supervisor kim, haven't talked to you about it, but the initial prop-k notion of metering and to see if there were ways that we can meter the amount of housing as offices being developed. i think that's a conversation we should be having. before i got back on the board, supervisor kim attempted to do that and ran into some opposition from the other side of this building. but to get the plan forward, it has to get out of this board. it may be an opportunity to insert metering in, so we don't end up with office and then housing way later. you guys can take a crack at that as you would like, but also a way to communicate with my colleague as we're supposed to do. >> noted.

we'll come back to you. >> and i know that we've had conversations and i know -- first of all, i know through watching some of the planning commission meetings, there's been a lot of public comment about the balance of housing and office and there's been requests to examine where we can adore add or convert within central soma. can you go into that a little bit? >> yes. the plan has 7,000 housing units rebuilt. i.e.r. assumed 8,000 or so housing units in the area. so there is margin to move that around. that said, since we started the conversation, we identified a few locations where we have additional housing. the planning department was not

considering use of the state density bonus in this area. supervisor kim, we looked at that, so it's resulted in about 600 more housing development units. and we've identified a few office sites proposing to carve out space for affordable housing, so that adds to the total. there are not many more moves up our sleeves to add units altogether, unless some of the sites that are slated to be office somehow switch over to be residential and that moves the needle, recognizing you want to move that within the bandwidth of i.e.r. or else we have to start that over. so we discussed this previously and -- >> the 30,000, 40,000. >> right. it's abstract, but to make it a

jobs-oriented district, we're requiring large parcels to be jobs-oriented and the threshold is 30,000 square feet. if it moves to 40,000, it will be several hundred other units built in the neighborhood. >> thank you. a number of things i want to know -- one additional question for mr. wartheim. one member of the public talked about height and shadows. >> yes. we would not allow any building to move forward with a shadow on south park. that is built in and that's why heights around south park are around 45 feet. and we'll make sure any building would not. >> so none of the heights being contemplated in the central soma plan right now would add additional shadow to south

park? >> no. >> thank you. i just want to acknowledge the members of the community that came out today. and for talking about the priorities that the community would like to see in terms of how we distribute the benefits of the central soma plan. and, first of all, to acknowledge that we have a community that's accepting of density and growth and height and i think that says a lot about the neighborhood that the south market is. but ensuring that as we accept growth and we understand that it is a role to build more housing in san francisco and the bay area that we want to ensure that the benefits or the value that private developers are building upon, that it be shared with the community and how we would like to see that value shared. and to reiterate to be sure that

we're supporting our small businesses and our legacy businesses and those communities with the leather lgbtq community, as well as filipino, and making sure it's more than historic districts, that we're able to support them to live and continuing elements of south of market community. i also heard a need to ensure that we are supporting our tenants and allowing them to continue to live there with support services and legal support in language-appropriate services and that we are ensuring preservation of affordable housing and building new housing. i had just heard about a site

grand aurenti, single-room occupancy hotel units that have housed philippifilipino members community and the city is working to acquire the 22 units, but i had a heart attack when i heard about the $10 million in deferred maintenance that is coming with that site. and so there's a lot of work to do to preserve units and not build new ones. finally, i think it's important to note that we're able to articulate the list of priorities that we have under the different buckets of benefits. and i did want to just, again, support some members of our public that spoke about air quality. i think it's incredibly sad when we hear about, you know, all the particulate matter that people see on the leaves and our trees

in the other open space areas. i see that in my unit where i live when i open my windows, but we want to be sure as we grow this neighborhood it's safe neighborhoods for children, families and seniors to live in. so i'm very excited about the plan of the portion of the plan that will be dedicated funding to improve air quality and greening the district. i think that's just vital. we need to make sure that people are living, thriving, and we're doing what we can to mitigate for the negative environmental impacts in the neighborhood finally and most importantly, what i walk away from, we need to think about how the governing structure of the fees as they come out through the multiple buckets, affordable housing, residential, environmental, pdr, open space, schools, childcare and cultural preservation, that as much as we can that we set

our priorities with the soma plan and we have a long-term governing structure that can ensure that fees 5, 10 years down the road still reflect our community priorities. we heard mention of the cac through the former redevelopment area plans. i should note we have the soma stabilization fund that looked at how to distribute infrastructure and community service, looking at it as an option for some of the fees as well as the eastern neighborhoods advisory committee as well. so michael is to work with the community as well as planning to set up a governing structure for how we disperse fees in the future. i think there's a lot of work to

do and i ask the community to help us to develop our list of priorities as well, as we think about what the priority services are, i'm struck by, you know, hearing the staff at betsy carmichael, in terms of the readi reading level scores, it's hard it hear, but sacramento does project spending needs for prison based on 3rd grade test scores. there is a nexus between when children succeed in elementary school and the likelihood of ending up in our prison system. so whatever we can to do strengthen our communities in the long term, i think we should certainly be focused on that. finally, i mentioned this in the beginning, but really thinking

about our cultural districts and how we support that through the central soma plan as well. so this is the second of three hearings that i've called on the central soma plan. i want to thank all the departments for being here. we've didn't ask all of you to come up and speak today, but think it's important for the departments to hear from the board and members of the community. so, chair peskin, i have no further comment. i make a motion to file this item. >> councillor peskin: happy to file the item and look forward to the third hearing and hearing both from members of the public as well as continuing to work with supervisor kim and planning department staff on the notion of metering. with that, we'll file the item and adjourn the hearing.

>> good morning, everybody. thank you all for being here on this mournful day.

as i'm sure you all know, our may mayor, mayor edwin m. lee passed awau early this morning at zuckerberg san francisco general. he was 65 years old. i want to thank dr. susan orlick who is here with us today and the dedicated professional who is cared for the mayor last night. our thoughts and prayers are with mayor lee's wife anita and his daughters tanya and brianna at this time. when he passed, mayor lee was surrounded by his family, by his friends, and the colleagues who loved him. ed lee lived a life of service cut far too short, but short far too soon. like me, ed grew up in public housing. the son of working class immigrant immigrants, he developed early on a profound sense of community. a commitment to helping others.

his father was a veterans, and his mother a seamstress. they instilled in him a humility and self-lest work ethic that he maintained throughout his entire life. the mayor's father passed while he was just a teenager, but heart break could not derail him. ed earned a scholarship from boden college a prestigious liberal arts college in maine, and after graduating, he relocated to the bay area where, like so many of us, he fell in love with the city that he would call home for the rest of his life. he attended balt law school at the university of california-berkley and joined the asian law caucus. ed lee fought against discrimination, working on the front lines to keep tenants from being evicted. he was, from the dawn of his

career, an advocate for the powerless and the voice for the overlooked. as a director of the human rights commission and the director of the department of public works and our city administrator and as mayor, we tend to forget, but when mayor lee was apointed in 2011. he face d tremendous challenges in this city. he believed everyone should have an opportunity to have a good job with a good wage.

and in san francisco and he believed everyone should have a secure place to call home which is why one of his first campaigns was for the housing trust fund that has invested millions of dollars in rehabilitate i rehabilitating affordable and efforts to rehabilitate and rebuild over 7,000. he always said he didn't want folks like him and me to be known as public housing resident, but to be known as san san francisco residents. and those suffering from mental health and substance abuse. and he explored every option and embraced a