i want to piggyback off of what the supervisor was talking about as far as a community being under attack. in some ways, we are at war with the supreme court voting against us as a community. it is not just one person. it is not just one organization that is going to make the equal rights movement happen. it takes all of us, and visibility as a backbone. i'm very proud to be part of a board that has made it their mission and their commitment to make sure we recognize the work of the leaders of our community who are working at the very grassroots level and changing hearts and minds. to introduce this year's grand marshals and honourees, and those being selected, keep that in mind. there are many of us who, just by attending the local churches, by being educators, by being out, that that is part of our due diligence and social responsibility, and making sure

we do fight for equal rights. these are the people who are making and paving the way for us. that was from my heart. now i will go on script. [laughter] from the little -- multilayer grassroots advocacy work that is being done in the bay area by the incredibly talented kinfol kinfolks, they are our community selected grand marshal. [cheers and applause] to the generations of? or artists that have been fostered by? or cultural centre and just honoured, steered with a loving hand by pam tennyson, from aria, founder of the queer culture initiative that is promoting cultural equity for trans women of colour, through social empowerment and cultural enrichment, to the work that community grand marshal really criticized on to develop safe spaces for lgbtq students, faculty, employees -- and

employees at ucb berkeley, i could go on and on and on about the grand marshals and awardees. they have contributed over 30 years to the lgbtq community. they have litigated and continue to fight for our community through the court system. putting out lgbtq queer and nonconforming images, and visibility, voices out there. john haines, who many of you know at city hall, he works tirelessly and volunteers and advocates for everyone here in the city of san francisco. they paved the way for freedom and liberation. the fair education act implementation coalition with our family coalition, of course,

a lesbian gate freedom been, we would not sound so amazing if not for the lesbian gate freedom band. we thank each and every one of you for your service to our communities and i know many of you are here today and that was my script. thank you. i look forward to san francisco pride. [cheers and applause] >> thank you michelle. 2018 is a special year in san francisco for a number of reasons. as the supervisors pointed out, he was 40 years ago the rainbow flag was first unfurled and flown at the gate freedom day festivities. today it is an internationally recognized symbol of unity, love and acceptance. for two years ago, in 1978, we saw the first performance of the gay man's chorus, who during a dark and painful moment in this history, brought to the community comfort right here on the steps of city hall.

forty years ago, in 1978, harvey milk sat triumphantly atop a car and rode down market street as a first openly gay elected official in california. [applause] if you look at the film and look at the photos, it was clearly a victory lap and he wore a huge smile. he wore a lay around his neck and he were a t-shirt that read, i will never go back. we must never go back. while we have been enjoyed great civil rights and victories, there are those who will take those victories away, as was proven today. we must never stop fighting to defend what we have one, and simultaneously ensure that no one is left behind. we will never go back in the name of the community ancestors like sonny wolf who led the pride parade for over 40 years with dykes on bikes. we must keep moving forward. [applause]

we will never go back. while we face great challenges, we must also seize on great opportunities. the young people in our communities need support and they need mentorship and they need love. they keep us moving forward. we will never go back. the only way we can progress is together as one. take a chance at this june to celebrate alongside the million people we've invited to the city and other human beings, and unite your voices in a call for justice and equality. i want to share some words i saw this morning from a colleague and a friend on social media. sam singer. some of you in the room -- room may know it sam singer. he was reflecting on the assassination of bobby kennedy, 50 years ago, this week. i think it is quite poignant for what we are talking about today. it is our political, social and moral imperative to survive, and

honour those who gave their lives to protest. [applause] with that, i will say, once again, we will never go back. we are generations of strengths happy lesbian gay, bisexual, transgender pride. thank you for being here today. [cheers and applause] >> mayor farrell: thank you. george, stay here for a second. two quick things. first of all, i would like to recognize our district attorney he was here today as well, with us. was clause second, kate, celebrate, we named it kate kendall day in san francisco. but i'm proud to announce today this is lgbtq pride month in the city of san francisco. [cheers and applause]

all right, everyone. and droit the refreshments and happy pride, everybody. [cheers and applause] >> i came to san francisco in 1969. i fell in love with this city

and and this is where i raised my family at. my name is bobbie cochran. i've been a holly court resident for 32 years. i wouldn't give up this neighborhood for nothing. i moved into this apartment one year ago. my favorite thing is my kitchen. i love these clean walls. before the remodeling came along, the condition of these apartments had gotten pretty bad, you know, with all the mildew, the repairs. i mean you haven't seen the apartment for the program come along. you wouldn't have believed it. so i appreciate everything they

did. i was here at one point. i was. because i didn't know what the outcome of holly court was going to be. you know, it really got -- was it going to get to the point where we have to be displaced because they would have to demolish this place? if they had, we wouldn't have been brought back. we wouldn't have been able to live in burn. by the program coming along, i welcome it. they had to hire a company and they came in and cleaned up all the walls. they didn't paint the whole apartment, they just cleaned up the mildew part, cleaned up and straighted it and primed it. that is impressive. i was a house painter. i used to go and paint other people's apartments and then come back home to mine and i would say why couldn't i live in a place like that. and now i do.

>> good afternoon, everyone. how you feeling? this is a really special day for us. it's our opportunity to acknowledge many of the amazing young people that we have here in san francisco, and we have been doing this now for eight years, and it was something that mayor lee started. [applause] >> and he appropriately calls it the "i am the future scholarship award" because he always thought a lot about our students and thought that they were our future and wanted to get you all off to a great start to make sure you get where you're headed. and our incredible mayor, mayor

farrell has been helping to lead this work alongside us to ensure that you get to where you're headed. so we're really happy to have you here and your families. families are such a critical piece in making sure our young people get to where they need to go, and it's through our families that many of our young people have had the courage and th the encouragement to go onto college and university. so we're glad you're here, as well. my name is hydro-mendoza. i'm the president of the board of education here in san francisco, and so i'm really delighted to be emceeing. for me personally, this is something because of the both sides of the street that i work

on, really special, because you are all sfusd graduates or are in college and graduated from sfusd. so this is our eighth year, and in particular, we just want to thank all of our partners who have been involved with us. we draw from schol orships you've already received and through organizations that you work closely with, and so we want to thank our schol orship partners, many of who are here with us, the black college track, filipino graduates of san francisco, first track, teachers of san francisco, masonic foundation of san francisco, mission economic development agency, mission promise neighborhood, mission graduates, san francisco achievers, san francisco alliance and black school educators, san francisco foster youth fund, san francisco university state project rebound, the association of chinese teachers, and a26

valencia. these organizations reflect the love san francisco has for our youth, so we want to thank you for being a part of that. i also want to acknowledge gina frommer who is our sponsor from the san francisco education fund. she has always supported the work that we do with our young people and with principles, teachers and paraeducators, and last, i want to thank pg&e for their generous support. andrea, you did this donation on behalf of mayor lee, and so it's really important for us to do this in partnership with you, so thank you, and thank pg&e for all you do for our city. these partnerships, as i said,.

we expect you to be the next doctors and lawyers, the next mayors, the next supervisors, and people that will lead our city going forward, so we're proud of you. you represent the future of san francisco, and congratulations to you all. thanks for coming out. [applause] >> thank you so much, mr. mayor. so many organizations that we referred you to us we work with closely, and many are funded by our department of children, youth and family, and i just wanted to acknowledge maria fu, who's the director of the

c.y.f. and lives, breathes, and ettas everythi eats everything that has to do with young people. we have a supervisor in our districts that does so much with public schools. katey tang graduated from public schools. she invests in every single one of our schools in her district, so i'd like to have katey tang please join us for a little welcome. [applause] >> supervisor tang: thank you very much, hydra, and welcome, everyone, and congratulations. as hydra mention, i did grow up going to our public schools here in san francisco and proud graduate of sfusd, and so i definitely know how much it means to be able to support these schools in any way i can. like many of you, i grew up with an immigrant family and was the first in my immediate family to attend college and graduate from college and then go onto receive a graduate

degree, as well. when i first went to college, i really worried so much about how it is that we're going to pay for college. my parents had to work overtime so much that i barely saw my dad on the weekends, he was just working and working and working. then i had a brother that was right behind me, and we were supposed to overlap in college for three years, so i definitely freaked out how we were going to pay for college. so i pushed myself to graduate in three years so we -- i could afford to help pay for college. some of my favorite experiences were the extracurricular stuff that we got to do and earn some money at it, but i'm excited for all of you and the journey you have ahead, and of course all the support that you have from your parents and family and friends. just enjoy it. it's a wonderful time to do

self-exploration and learn how to live on your own. so thankful for this honor today, and thank you to mayor farrell for continuing this tradition. so congratulations. >> thank you, supervisor tang. not often do you get to be in the room with the president of your college, and we are lucky to have a great relationship with san francisco state university and our president of san francisco state is here to welcome -- i know that there are six of you, maybe. how many of you are going to san francisco state. [applause] >> yeah. so if you'd please join us in welcoming your new students. >> so the six of you, raise your hands again. all right. we're going to have a photo. okay. again, i want to reiterate the comments the mayor and the supervisor, etcetera, and thank all of your sponsors and all of

the families that are here. i'm really excited for you. there there's a special responsibility that comes not only with your scholarship but going to college, and at san francisco state we talk about the responsibility of being an educated person and that your education not only is a great gateway for you, but it's a great gateway for your families going forward. we are actually conducting some research i wanted to share with you. 40% of our students are first in their family to go to college, what we call first-gen. we have about 50 -- about half of our students. about 40% of our students are pell students, etcetera. and what's interesting is once you go to college and graduate, it's very likely that another person in your family, including your mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt,

uncle, will go to college. and the ripple, the wave that we're tracking now is really quite significant. i actually had the honor at commencement, not this year, a year ago, to hand a diploma to a grandma -- great grandma who was 84 years old who had put children, grandchildren, great grandchildren through college and who then finally said it's my turn, and she came to san francisco state, got a degree in poetry, and it was absolutely the high point of commencement. and her whole thing was getting the first grandchild to go to school. and when i told her about, you know, our commitment to the responsibility of being an educated person, it means being active, being involved. as mayor says, we want you to be a good citizen, we want you

to vote. we just want you to be productive in ways that you want to be, and that's when the world opens up to you. so congratulations. i'm really pleased that a bunch of you are coming to san francisco state. i'm on the 5th floor of the admin building. you are welcome. there are free food up there sometimes, but it's really terrific. we think of ourselves as managing talent. so one last bit of advice to hear from a university president, and that is in many ways, you not only look like me, and i look like you, when i was in high school -- i'm from east oakland. i was one of the few chinese kids on the baseball team at that time, and a counselor said to me, don't go to college and waste your parents' money, okay? and the only reason i got to college was a, i could play

baseball, and two, i actually wrote a paper that was published when i was a junior in high school. and i couldn't understand why the counselor said to me not to waste my parents' money. so you get the opportunity for revenge like me because when i got my -- when i got my ph.d. i sent a copy to the counselor. [applause] >> and -- and then, i felt guilt, right? and so when i became a president, i was going to send him the announcement for that, but unfortunately, he passed away, and i did -- i thought, i better not buck the odds, right, that kind of thing. but it's just you have to persist, you know? the world is complicated, it's challenging, but the is opportunity and the support, the scholarships, etcetera, is golden. it's like being drafted one,

whether it's baseball or any sport. but it's an investment in your talents, and i believe that each one of you will take advantage of that. and i look forward to having you, wherever you are, whether you're at state or any college or university because you're going to make a difference, and that's what we expect out of you. congratulations. [applause] >> so i hope the grandchildren paid for their grandmother's education. yeah, that would be good. and katey, could you please talk to my son about finishing in three years? that would be awesome. all right. are you ready? we are going to announce our award recipients, and if i can have the mayor and supervisor tang join us, we're going to have each one of you come up and get your certificate, and this is your opportunity, family, to take pictures. our first award recipient is

claudia lu from lowell high school, going to chapman university. [applause] >> great. congratulations. erica carilla, mission high school, going to c.s.u. sacramento. [applause] >> great. gemma moncana from john o'connell high school, going to san francisco state. [applause] >> yeah, then you can brag.

great. very good. congrats. emony katz, leadership state, humboldt university. [applause] >> jennie qwan ku, from mission high school school, heading to cal state university. go bears! [applause] >> jose domingues espina, from abraham lincoln high school,

going to san francisco state university. [applause] >> stay there. the next one is a san francisco state student, as well. cassandra lowell montez from john lowell high school, going to san francisco state. [applause] >> all right. stay there, less, because i'm going to skip katja, and i'm going to have keenan larue come up, from mission high school, heading to san francisco state. >> all right. our next recipient is katja suarez, from mission high school, heading to u.c.

berkeley. [applause] >> great. keyona reynolds from george washington high school, heading to the university of washington in seattle. [applause] >> kyle chan from lowell high school, going to the university of california davis. [applause] >> congrats. laura gian from lowell high school, heading to the

university of california san diego. [applause] >> okay. leisha from galileo high school, heading to san jose state university. [applause] >> nadra mohamed from mission high school heading to holy names university. [applause] >> nacina chambers from raul wallenberg high school, heading to u.c. berkeley. oh, you changed your mind? sorry, you're right.

you're going again. >> double major. >> double major, yeah. pamela campos adrizan from john o'connell high school, u.c. san diego. [applause] >> randy casares from mission high school, san francisco state university. [applause] >> just go stop by his office any time. risen aljas from mission high school, heading to dillard university.

[applause] >> robert verey from john o'connell high school, going to c.s.u. east bay. [applause] >> xiang huang from san francisco international high school, heading to u.c. berkeley. [applause] >> and last, but not least, ling may liang from mission

high school, san francisco state university. [applause] >> let's give our 2018" i am the future award" recipients a great round of applause. [applause] >> so each one of our award recipients will be receiving $1,000 that go towards their tuition, and we did not think about whether or not you were documented, we just wanted to make sure that you got the funds that go directly to your tuition, so we're going to make sure that that gets taken care of. so that is the first step, is getting all your money together so that you can head off and come back and work in our city and make us more and more proud than we already are. events like these could not be

put together or programs like these couldn't be run without the incredible support of two wonderful staff members, so marisa and erica, thank you for all that you do in reaching out to our young people and getting all of the scholarships to us. so we want to congratulate you, we want to thank you. and again, to the families, congratulations. we look forward to hearing some amazing stories about what your graduates are doing going forward, and we want to just thank you again for joining us here with mayor farrell. congratulation watching. >> ever wonder about programs the city is working on to make san francisco the best place to live and work we bring shine won our city department and the

people making them happy what happened next sf oh, san francisco known for it's looks at and history and beauty this place arts has it all but it's city government is pretty unique in fact, san francisco city departments are filled with truly initiative programming that turns this way our goal is to create programs that are easily digestable and easy to follow so that our resident can participate in healing the planet with the new take dial initiative they're getting close to zero waste we 2020 and today san francisco is diverting land

filled and while those numbers are imperfect not enough. >> we're sending over 4 hundred thousand tons of waste to the landfill and over the 4 hundred tons 10 thousands are textile and unwanted listen ones doesn't have to be find in the trash. >> i could has are the ones creating the partnerships with the rail kwloth stores putting an in store collection box near the checks stand so customers can bring their used clothes to the store and deposit off. >> textile will be accessible in buildings thought the city and we have goodwill a grant for

them to design a textile box especially for families. >> goodwill the well-known store has been making great strides. >> we grateful to give the items to goodwill it comes from us selling those items in our stores with you that process helps to divert things it from local landfills if the san francisco area. >> and the textile box will take it one step further helping 1230 get to zero waste. >> it brings the donation opportunity to the donor making that as convenient as possible it is one of the solutions to make sure we're capturing all the value in the textiles. >> with the help of good will and other businesses san

francisco will eliminate 39 millions tons of landfill next year and 70 is confident our acts can and will make a great difference. >> we believe that government matters and cities matter what we side in san francisco, california serve as a model phenomenal in our the rest of the country by the world. >> whether you do not to goodwill those unwanted text told us or are sufficient value and the greater community will benefit. >> thanks to sf environment san francisco has over one hundred drop off locations visit recycle damn and thanks for watching join us

>> so good morning, everyone. i want to welcome everyone and thank you all for coming here today: you know, as mayor of the city, it is one of our core responsibilities as a government to provide public safety to our residents and preparedness for any emergencies that come about. both these issues have and always will be a top priority of mine. anyone in calling 911 in our city needs to make sure there's a live person on the other end of the line when they make that phone call. it is sometimes a matter between life and death. and our 911 dispatch center has seen an increased call volume of 44% since 2011. that is a dramatic increase here in the city of san francisco. it equates to dispatchers answering approximately 1,000 more calls perday.

that's 1,000 more calls perday since seven years ago. with a growing population in the city of san francisco, we have to anticipate that this call volume will not decrease but will only increase here in the city of san francisco. and last year, our 911 dispatch center, despite many efforts, was falling short on response times. recognizing the importance of this, mayor lee created a task force to look at the issue, along with many of the people standing behind me here today. along with increased hiring strategies, the task force came up with a number of innovative approaches to help our dispatch center, tapping 311 to handle non-emergency calls. welcoming back recently retired veteran dispatchers to duty, and hiring, training and retaining more dispatchers than ever before. as mayor it has been a top priority of mine to continue to improve our 911 dispatch times. we have put a number of

policies in place over the last year to improve our response times, but we cannot rest on our laurels and we have to do more here in the city of san francisco if we want to continue to emphasize san francisco safety for -- public safety for our san francisco residents. and since these strategies have been implemented, we have seen an increase in our response times by 22 is. which is good but we have nor work to do. we have to continue to bolster our dispatch here here at our department of emergency management. so today, i'm introducing new funding to tackle exactly that issue. we are investing $8.9 million over the next two years to train 90 new dispatchers here at the department of emergency management to continue to improve our response time, to make sure that our 911 response times are over the 90% national standard that exists today.

we want to make sure our dispatchers have the resources they need to respond to calls quickly. in addition, we are giving them the tools and the technology that they need to do their job appropriately. so the budget also includes technology upgrades that will shorten the time it takes to dispatch fire and medical assistance on our streets. it also includes power loss prevention tech 23408g to ensure utility disruption will not interfere with our center right here. in short, this funding over the next two years will make sure we have a world class dispatch center here in san francisco. our residents deserve nothing less. meeting the national standard of 90% call times within ten seconds demands a fully staffed department and dispatch center, and i am thrilled as mayor to be making these investments for the public safety of our residents. in addition, i want to talk about vst investments that we

are making for our fire department through this budget. the men and women of our fire department save lives every single day here in the city of san francisco. we have some of the best men and women firefighters here in the city of san francisco. we need to continue to give them the tools they need to continue to do this beers. this package will include $15 million for new firefighter apparatus, fire trucks, engines, ambulances and command vehicles. the new ambulances are outfitted with cameras to make sure drivers have better sight lines so they're better able to navigate our very tight and congested streets here in the city of san francisco. our men and women in the fire department are also responding

to increased medical calls here in the city of san francisco, so today i'm announcing we're investing $1.5 million for the fire department to add an additional quick response vehicle. this team and the budget to support them will build upon the success of the ms-6 program that responds to high frequency emergency service users. the team will provide 24/7 medical response to call services and ambulances that are needed in our streets where we need an ambulance or a fire engine. this team will also alleviate the appreciate on the larger fire vehicles to come to the scene. combined with the additional investments we've made over the past few weeks and that we have announced, i want to make sure that san francisco residents know that we are investing in the future of the city, that we are investing to make sure the

streets of san francisco are as safe as can be, and those that are on our streets can get the help that they need and off the streets as quickly as possible. since day one as being mayor, i've always states that public safety has been my top priority. these investments and the funding we're making reflect exactly that. as mayor of the city of san francisco, i want to make sure that i leave our city in a safer place than when i took office, and i believe these investments will do exactly that. so i want to thank everyone for being here today, and with that, i want to turn it over to our director of the department of emergency management, ann croneberg. >> thank you, may or farrell. thank you so much for your unwaivering support of public safety here in san francisco, first as a member of the board of supervisors and now as mayor

of san francisco. as the mayor stated over the last six months we've implemented strategies here at d.e.m. that have allowed us to maintain our goal of answering 90 is pfrs of our 911 calls within ten seconds or less. the first part of our strategy focused on hiring and training new dispatchers. it takes about nine months to a year to fully train a dispatcher, so it's a long process, it's a huge commitment. the fact that the mayor is giving us the funding in the next two years to hire additional 90 dispatchers will make a huge difference for us here at d.e.m. last year we added almost 40 new dispatchers and we're seeing the results of that right now with our 90% call answering time. the second part of our strategy was to make sure that the public knew which calls should be going to 911 and which calls should be going to 311. as the mayor stated, 40% of our

calls that come into the call center really are not emergencies, so here we are, trying to address that issue and let the residents and the visitors to san francisco know that we have a highly functional 311 center that also operates 24-7 that people can call for non-emergency kind of issues. we also had an ad campaign this last year, which i think really helped us in educating the public who could call. at the department of emergency management, we reach more than 25 million people through our ad campaign last year, through social media, bus ads. you probably saw the ads on bus shelters, as well, be it the 311 or # 11. our strategies have increased our hiring, redirected calls, and allowed the public to be

better educated. the announcement today of the additional $8 million to hire and train 90 new public safety dispatchers over the next two years is critical to maintain san francisco's ability to meet and exceed our call standards. for our residents, businesses, and visitors, this is an investment in our ability to quickly receive help when you have an emergency when you call 911. for our dedicated and hard working 911 dispatchers, this is also an investment in you. you've worked long hours over the last few years, oftentimes working mandatory over time, being away from your family, being away from your loved ones. with the continued investment in 911, we are hoping that we have the appropriate staffing level and that people will be able to have a life outside of work, as well. so thank you, mayor farrell, again for your vision and for

your investment in san francisco's 911 system. the collaboration and coordination that we have here in san francisco between our public safety departments is something that we think is quite wonderful. we work very closely with the fire department and the police department. none of us could do it by ourselves. really, it is this investment in the entire public safety system that's going to make a difference. so at this point, i'm going to turn it over to my friend and colleague, chief hayes-white, to say a few remarks. >> good morning, everyone. thanks for coming out. first and foremost, i'd like to acknowledge and applaud mayor farrell for his efforts not only as surprise but as our mayor. as he said, he has always prioritized public safety and for that we are grateful. he has always been a champion about keeping our community safe. with all of the challenges that we see in an ever growing city

that we want to keep safe. also, like to thank mayor farrell for his investment in the department of emergency management. it's all about partnerships and collaboration, and the funding is much needed at the department of emergency management. that is the first agency that's call when someone is in need of help, and you need to have a high functioning department in department of emergency management to be able to get the appropriate resources out to the streets of san francisco via the san francisco fire department and san francisco police department so thank you for that investment. that's where it all starts. we're very proud to say that it was a privilege working for mayor lee, just as it's a privilege working for mayor farrell, and mayor farrell has expanded upon some of the initiatives of the lee administration. as he mentioned, over $13 million for new equipment to

keep our members safe and our community safe. it's very important that we have state of the art equipment. it does a few things. not only does it add to the safety of our members, but it achieves goals such as vision zero goals. all of our specifications now for apparatus, talked about the importance of vision zero. making sure we have environmentally responsible vehicles to the highest he mission standards as well as moragile vehicles to navigate through our windy and narrow streets here in san francisco. so making that investment and bringing on a new you are fleet will achieve a whole lot of different things that we really appreciate. just as the department of emergency management has experienced a boost in their call volume. we have, as well. it kind of makes sense, right? 25% increase in call volume since 2013. we're one of the busiest fire departments in the nation. we run over 150,000 calls a year, and we pride ourselves in getting to the scene within about a five minute time period.

if it's a medical call and someone needs transport, our response times are back where they should be in that we get an ambulance to the scene within ten minutes 90% of the time and that's because again, the great investment that we've started making in the lee administration and has continued in the farrell administration. we appreciate the continued support of mayor farrell and look forward to continuing to serve the residents and visitors to our beautiful city. thank you. [applause] >> so thanks, everyone. we're going to conclude the press conference. we'll be available to talk and answer questions on the side here. thanks, everyone.

the june 20, 2018 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. board president frank fung will be the presiding officer tonight. he's joined by commissioner ann lazarus, commissioner dale honda, and vice president swig will be absent tonight. brad russy will provide the board with any needed legal advice this evening. at the controls is the board's legal assistant, gary cantara. we will also not joined by representatives from -- be joined by representatives by joseph duffy, patrick