>> good morning. i am mark buhl. i have the pleasure of vice chair of the board of the trust. on behalf of the chair, current board and our past board, i welcome you today to a long journey and celebration of a vision, a dream that actually came true. you will hear from other people who have been on that journey about how we got to where we are, but is this not the most

spectacular setting in the world? (applause). i was thinking as i was coming here today. this is part and parcel to a bigger dream and there are people here who were participating in that many years ago. the result of that dream was a renaissance in building really wonderful open space for the people of bay area and people around the world. chrisy field began and the parade ground, then be the tunnel tops which we open in july, battery bluffs. in san francisco we have francisco park opened in two weeks. we are working on an enormous park in bayview at indian bays sin shoreline. these are terrific projects that represent the spirit in san francisco about open space and people enjoying it.

if you think about it 75% of the people in the city are renters. this is their backyard. we have a responsibility to give them the back yard we can. now as some of you have heard me say over the 25 years that i have been barking about parks, victory has many parents and defeet is an orphan. today we celebrate the parents who made this possible. there are a combination of government entities and as important philanthropy from generous people who care very much about i would say because parks really benefit everybody. philanthropy is a way to make a difference in people's lives. you will hear more about that later, too. on behalf of past trust board members and the current ones, we welcome you and appreciate you being here. my job is to simply welcome some

special guests. you will hear from them speaking in a minute. if i find it we will be in business. the wind is not cooperating. let us start with a woman who will arrive in about 10 minutes. normally runs about 15 minutes late. that is because she is busy doing her job. that would be mayor london breed. we have michael alexander, chair of is spur task force and leader of the effort to have the plan adopted by caltrans all the way from vancouver to join us today. thank you very much. alisha, president and c.e.o. spur and long time champion of the parks. supervisor mandelman, chair of

the san francisco county transportation authority. one of the civic partners who made this happen. david abbule, chief district director for caltrans which built the parkway. thank you, david. i would like to welcome supervisor stefani. connie chan was to be here. catherine toy from the california natural resource agency. phil ginsburg, general manager of san francisco recreation and park department. shout out for phil. representatives from the offices of senator. i know dan burnell is here for nancy pelosi.

we have a representative from senator weiner's office. special welcome to susan painter, spouse of late michael painter who inspired us to think about the redesigned companyial drive. susan is here with her children melissa and josh. thank you for being here. that is the heart of this really. also, i recognize current trust board member nicola minor. thank you for being here today. former trust board members janet riley, collins and the last one i will mention if they gave me 15 more minutes i could address this just to her, amy meyer is here. give her a hand. we would not look at open space had it not been for this woman and arm twisting of phillip

burden to draw the map and put that also clause in there that said if the army ever leaves it goes to the national park. thank you, amy. (applause). to our wonderful partnership for the presidio laura, superintendent of national recreation area tiring in a few days from 32 years of service. laura. thank you. i am going to miss that talent. chris leonard, c.e.o. of golden gate national park conservancy. let me say over the 25 years of their existence they raised over $500 million for the golden gate national parks. that is the gold standard in the country. no one comes to a close second. thank you for what you do. [applause]. c.e.o. greg moore who had a lot

to do with that $500 million. he twists arms almost as well as amy does. do we have board chair stacy slaughter? not here. more importantly, i want to recognize two families here. mark and jane perry are here. i believe amy and gordon ritter. are they here? this is how you get things done in parks. i know mark and laurie jane helped not only here but in other parks. that little one across from where they live. for all you do. thank you very much. sh it is my pleasure to allow the people to say a few words.

we will start with michael bolin. >> hey, happy earth day everyone. what more spectacular way to celebrate earth day than a new park over a freeway. how often does that happen? it is not bad. it is gorgeous. we are so excited and grateful. my job is to tell a little bit of a story. that story starts in 1989. it is a really important year. i will not go year by year. this will be quick. 1989 is important in the history of the presidio. in january the army didn't need the land any more and thanks to phil burton and amy meyer this land was going to transfer to the national park service to

become part of this system of 410 national parks across our country. that is an important moment. the park service began this process to work with thousands of members of the public to create a vision for this place as national park. that started a public conversation. what could this place be and what does it mean to be a national park? later in the year come october was the world series. i remember it well. there was a little shake called the earthquake. that started a different conversation because we realized the elevated highways around the bay were vulnerable. this one which carried over 100,000 people each day was especially vulnerable. caltrans began a public conversation about the future of this highway. these two intertwined but

parallel conversations began. the result is a world class vision for a parkway rather than freeway that as mark mentioned has allowed us to do some of the things we aspire to do at the presidio to reconnect waterfront with the heart, to transform the center, take an area that a reporter this morning said to me i wish that chrissy field wasn't part of the presidio. i wonder if that is because doyle drive used to be such a wall. it is great to have independent confirmation from a local. doyle drive cut the park in two. now what the presidio park has done is allow us to pull it. we have one presidio now. one visitor experience, new

gateway to the presidio and to the national parks all over the country. that is the reason for the park to be the national park for all. what an incredible vision that michael painter had. so many people pushed forward. so many of you took the notion and transformed it into reality. thank you all for being part of that journey. you know, my mentor, greg moore said to me many times a dream without resources is hallucination which i love. i use that with my staff all of the time. i am a landscape architect. we are notorious for hallucinations about places. what is so inspiring this was a big bold vision. you all came together to find

the resources to make it reality. thank you for that. today is a celebration of all of you. today is celebration of everyone that is not here that came together to make this vision reality. really the purpose of today is to both honor you and to give the key players that played an important role to bring this vision to life an opportunity to tell their stories. thank you for being here. thank you for everything you have done to make the parkway a reality. [applause]. it is my honor to introduce a good friend. michael alexander. >> thank you, michael.

we started with two conversations and how they were brought together. when the earthquake occurred it was clear that the drive which was many decades old not in the best structural shape was going to have to be replaced. the san francisco board of supervisors. thank you, supervisors, formed a doyle drive committee and as signed it the task of bringing together the various elements of san francisco and reporting back on what we wanted. this included caltrans. a lot of neighbors. the sierra club, the spur.

all sorts of people. i was elected vice chair. we got to work. it was tough. caltrans came in with 26 different designs. they said choose one. we didn't like any of them. the problem was that we knew what we didn't like. we had no idea what we did like, what we really wanted. this went on for months. we were meeting at the golden gate bridge district offices. months and months, getting nowhere. until and we always asked at the end of each meeting was there anybody from the public who wanted to comment or ask questions? nobody ever did until one day

this one guy stood up and said i would like to speak. michael painter unrolled a hand colored and hand drawn drawing of the presidio from the perspective he had seen it which was, believe it or not, on top of the dome of the palace of fine arts. that is where he got his vision. he brought it to us, a road that thatnescled into the main post d was hidden with two segments. in that minute, 10 minutes, we knew what we wanted. that was it. it was that clear and that simple. it was not easy from there on.

we had a lot of debates, caltrans decided that it was what michael wanted to do was not feasible. their engineering group that was hired echoed that. i went to spur. i said we have a problem here. fortunately jim chapel had a brainstorm idea. he said let's get the great engineering firm that had a san francisco office involved and let them decide whether michael's design is feasible or not. they came back and it is here and some of the other guys came

back and said not only is it feasible. it fits much better into the park. it will cost less than any of the caltran designs. there was the magic moment. i will leave it at that because others will describe what went on from there, but it was wonderful. i just want to say one other thing here. i have a photograph. i was a magazine photographer. i have a photograph of this little chung of concrete 10 feet long and 3 feet high covered graffiti. the only picture i took of the batteries because that was all that was to be seen. i came here today having seen none of what is exposed now. i said to bolan where did this

come from? he said we uncovered it. it is fabulous. it absolutely blew me away. it tells the history of world war ii at the golden gate. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you for being the invisible hand behind the presidio parkway project. always by michael's side to make this happen. thank you from coming down from vancouver. it is great to see you. i will now introduce this community's fearless leader. our mayor, the honorable london breed. [applause].

>> mayor breed: i am wearing heels in the park. i am in awe of the view and the magic of what i feel today. when i think about conception of projects that take place in san francisco and then seeing the results of the work the hard work of so many people who have a vision for what something like this could be, it is really amazing. it is not surprising. we are always thinking outside the box. thinking about new innovative ways to make the city more beautiful than it is. what an amazing testament to michael's legacy.

thank you, susan for being here today. his work here and vision along with the doyle drive task force and people who care about the presidio and wanted it to be this place where we know these views have existed since the golden gate bring was -- bridge was built. it is amazing. it is something we all can cherish. when i traveled all over europe to talk about san francisco and what is new, i talked about battery bluff, the tunnel tops, the fireworks, fort lauderdale -- fourth of julyand the thingsd with the feeling of comfort and excitement from the golden gate bridge to the beautiful water

and all that that entails. we know the city is special. we know that when we make spaces like this. waterfront spaces like this available and open to all people, it has a tremendous impact on our mental health, on our happiness because we saw during the pandemic just how important parks and open space really was. they were so crowded and so heavily used. as we began to reopen and our economic recovery, of course, is important. also, what is equally important is how we continue to beauty fiand support and uplift our parks, open space, residents and all of what that entails. i have been really fortunate to go to a number of these park

renovations, park open space, downtown in the middle of the high rises, the sales force park, new space we opened at 5mwhere the chronicle building is. what i also appreciate more about these projects is the support from the private sector. the public private partnership that exists where san francisco and people who care about the assets say we are going to contribute the resources to making this happen. you have people like our fearless leader nancy pelosi fighting in congress to bring in resources to make it a priority. thank you, dan, to be here to represent our speaker. you have people like jim from spur and others who are looking at innovative ways to make our city an urban city more functional for all of us and the

national park service and presidio trust and rec and park department and phil ginsburg is here to create this space so it is not just a place where freeway passes, a place where cars drive. it is a place where people walk and picnic and bike and throw balls around and hang out and just enjoy life. i am really grateful to be here to celebrate this milestone in our city's history. i look forward to coming here to enjoy this space. i really look forward especially to what happens when we opened the tunnel top. together these two spaces provide open public park space of over 50 acres of san franciscans to enjoy. thank you all so much for being

here today. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. thank you for making sure that san francisco is the most beautiful, innovative and most livable city in america. it is a miracle. i fly home from traveling and look at the golden gate from the air every day. thank you. it is my pleasure to introduce alisha john baptiste c.e.o. and president of spur. alisha. >> thank you. hi everybody. looking at where we are today, i have been having a hard time remembering the old doyle drive. it is also a little hard to believe that there was a moment in time when this vision seemed like it might not be possible. it is true that there was no

guarantee at the beginning of this effort we will have a rebuilt doyle drive anything other than 8 lane highway. the process started with a task force which is very san francisco and it was a classic task force, a ton of stakeholders, very few shared points of view. everybody was very certain their opinion was the right opinion. they were all valid. we needed to come together toward something that is whole community could rally around. it really was when michael painter came to the room to say here is a vision for a parkway that people have something to start to generate common cause around. even with that galvanizing vision it was still an effort. it took extraordinary

perseverance and courage on behalf of all people involved to make that vision a reality because we know that to get to something transformative we start with the vision but we have to work through all of the messy reality to get to the end of the road. speaking of proverbs i heard a japanese proverb that said vision without action is a daydream. action without vision is a nightmare. we have all experienced that. i am proud of the work my press deassessors did in this. the spur roll was to keep the stakeholders together. keep that group focused on the vision but really to support the professionals in their work so that what they were delivering for the community was the best for the community. i do want to note we are in this moment now where we have another opportunity to really make

enormous investments in infrastructure. thank you, nancy pelosi. think of this as an example of infrastructure in partnership and done in a manner that puts a bold vision at the center. for us at spur we will continue to tell the story of the presidio parkway. it is so important to recognize what we can do when we come together around bold vision, with courage and with perseverance. before i sign off i want to acknowledge a couple of people who just were instrumental in the spur work or realizing this place where we are today. michael painter in whose memory we are here. amy meyer and the recreation

area and jim cappel and michael alexander and the whole team bringing about this outcome. to the san francisco county transportation authority for your efforts. to caltrans. the work to prove the validity of the payler plan -- painter plan was instrumental. to the many thousands of people regular residents of san francisco who said we want something more. they gave their time, energy, commitment to making this dream a reality. grateful to all of you and thank you so ever. [applause] >> thank you. this is a project that only happened because of a very unique partnership. one of the hallmarks with the

interesting partnership between local, state and federal agencies working with the private sector and the community to secure resources and deliver the project. one of the key players is the san francisco county transportation authority. it is my pleasure to introduce our next speaker. supervisor mandelman, chair of s.f.c.t.a. welcome. >> what a beautiful day. i am the supervisor for district 8. all supervisors think their districts are the most beautiful and best. supervisor stefani up folks in the northern part of the city do all right. it is such a pleasure to be here to represent the transportation authority and decades of work for which i am not responsible. i am happy to bask in the flow

on behalf of those decades of transportation authority staff and board commissioners. i want to congratulate again the presidio trust and jean frazier and michael bow lanfor extraordinary work for the city and for the presidio. i want to echo and this is said before. dan bernal, please thank your boss on behalf of all of us. she recognized and knew that this had to be a park and came up with the way to do that in very hostile conditions with tough republicans making it very hard along the way and her mentor phil burton and amy meyer thank you for all you did to create this regional park that we benefit from throughout the

bay area. i had the opportunity to see this a few weeks ago. to see this work in progress almost done. i was stunned by the views. i want to thank all people who did so much work. landscape architects and plants and all of the people who delivered this here. i think my special role is to talk about the transportation project, too, big transportation project. it is a gorgeous park. there was a roadway running through here not too long ago. it used to divide the six acres of natural beauty and they are reconnected to another public space to enjoy the shoreline. presidio project was carefully designed not only to improve safety for motorists but also

improve access to the golden gate national recreation area. transportation authority as cosponsor allocated transportation sales tax funds for planning, design and construction that were matched by major investments with the state's, federal government and private sector. more than $2 of outside funding for every local doll laare in the project. thank you to the voters who approved the prop k sales tax in 2003 for support of safe reliable transportation and accessible open spaces like this one. the voters are going to have, we think, another opportunity to vote on the extension of the prop k sales tax this fall. projects like this will make it

easy to convince the voters it is a good investment. i want to thank the people who did the hard work. executive director chang for everything you are doing in transportation in san francisco. really the prior executive director who is here louise and your mom is here. wave. you did such a good job. you gave us louie. jose louise led the parkway through the early stages of planning and approval. tilley called him the master strategist for making it a reality. sometimes those transportation planners do amazing things. thank you. thank you to michael painter

whose vision design enabled the battery bluffs. thank you for being here. i want to thank projects and cosponsors on the project caltrans, current and former directors, whose partnership was instrumental throughout the project. thank you, of course, to the many workers, designers and contributors who helped with the project. it is the work of many hands and demonstrates the excellence and design and results in public infrastructure to not only serve needs of residents and economy but something beautiful that reflects and respects surroundings and serve and inspire our region for generations to come. thank you everybody.

enjoy. >> thank you, supervisor. next it is my pleasure to welcome representative of the other key partner in the highway project, david ambule. she director for caltrans. welcome. >> i would like to congratulate you for hosting today the beautiful park to celebrate dieio diversity of the bay area and honors the history of san francisco landmark. since being founded by the spanish in the late 1700s. it has undergone several major transformations. caltrans, $1.1 billion redesign of doyle drive has played an integrate part in the latest trap importantmation. -- transformation. design for 21st century.

for battery bluff caltrans invested $50 million in land scape improvements of the it is money well spent. i am certain future visitors agree. people forget it was built in 1937. it wasment to be nothing than a utility roadway from the golden gate bridge. it was designed to not interfere with military activities of the presidio and keeping public out of the base. we moved on from that design and with forward thinking vision of late michael painter they worked to develop an open space that celebrates the beauty of this area while making it accessible for everyone. it is truely striking. the engineers teams at caltrans and the county transportation authority certainly had

challenges. rebuilding the retraining wall for the national cemetery provided opportunity for engineering team to create design that honored the veterans while celebrating the beauty of the area. in addition, dedication to the project helped provide many of the yous everyone is enjoying today. i would like to thank some of the individuals who helped make this project a reality. our depdeputy for design. chief of the design team t.project management. jonathanen inc. project honoring the past and future is commendable. thank you for the efforts. they will appreciate your work.

i would be remiss if i don't say the long-term project manager and director who is here to help celebrate the opening of the park. for us the leadership and foresight. it made this reality and it made us work to be better and do better things. i would like to thank the people of san francisco for supporting this wonderful project and without your support and understanding for the inconveniences that construction brings we wouldn't have a project like this today. finally, i would like to encourage every one to take a moment before they leave to remember the past and think about your future when you come to visit battery bluff. thank you. appreciate it.

[applause]. >> it is my pleasure to introduce the final speaker. friend and boss. fearless leader of the presidio trust. >> i am rarely known for being speechless. i really am. >> thank you very much. i thought it was going to rain. then i thought what better way to celebrate earth day with rain in san francisco. it is beautiful. this project like everything we do in the presidio was collaboration.

you have heard of many people who participated in this. >> in closing i would like to thank those not mentioned. i have been in public service all of my life. i have been in government service. i believe that government in if hands of the right people with the right ideas is the greatest force for good human kind has ever created. [applause]. as we see the problems that government can create. celebrate the people not mentioned. all of the people who toil for low pay and in obscurity to make projects happen. i would like to have every person who has served at any time whether you have been

elected, appointed or you are a staff member in any level of local government, city and county of san francisco, rec and park department, municipal transit authority, county transportation authority and all of us at the local level please rise to be recognized for all of your work. [applause] >> they may being sure the streets are clean and parks are beautiful and hospitals are running. thank you for keeping us moving, healthy and keeping parks beautiful. we have also colleagues at the regional and state level who toil in obscurity often because they are further away from the people they serve. i want to give a shout out to caltrans. this is not an easy project. i personally was not so easy to

deal with on this project. all of our colleagues. if you ever served at state level as elected or appointed or staff member in the metropolitan transportation or caltrans, golden gate bridge district, please stand up to be recognized for your work on this project and everything else you do to keep this state running. [applause]. to my colleagues in federal service. we are honored to be a small but mighty part of the golden gate national recreation area, which is one of over 400 units of the unbelievably magnifcertainty national park system. i would like to honor everyone on the federal level with the federal highway administration who helped with the project,

national park service, united states park police which provide security and law enforcement in the presidio. if you have ever been elected, appointed or staff member of the federal government including all of my colleagues at the presidio trust please stand and by recognized for all of your work. [applause]. >> here together is an example of government doing something wonderful for ourselves, colleagues, friends, neighbors, children, grandparents and for the entire world. thank you for everything you have done to make this project a reality and for everything you do to keep government in the united states something we can all be proud of.

[applause]. >> thank you, jean. now, i would like to invite the speakers susan painter, supervisor stefani, chris and laura to join me at the garland to formally open the battery. >> five, four, three, two, one. [cheers and applause.]

dev mission's goal is aiming to train young adults, youth so we can be a wealth and disparity in underserved communities like where we are

today. my name is leo sosa. i'm the founder and executive director for devmission. we're sitting inside a computer lab where residents come and get support when they give help about how to set up an e-mail account. how to order prescriptions online. create a résumé. we are also now paying attention to provide tech support. we have collaborated with the san francisco mayor's office and the department of technology to implement a broad band network for the residents here so they can have free internet access. we have partnered with community technology networks to provide computer classes to the seniors and the residents. so this computer lab becomes a

hub for the community to learn how to use technology, but that's the parents and the adults. we have been able to identify what we call a stem date. the acronym is science technology engineering and math. kids should be exposed no matter what type of background or ethnicity or income status. that's where we actually create magic. >> something that the kids are really excited about is science and so the way that we execute that is through making slime. and as fun as it is, it's still a chemical reaction and you start to understand that with the materials that you need to make the slime. >> they love adding their little twists to everything. it's just a place for them to experiment and that's really what we want. >> i see. >> really what the excitement behind that is that you're making something. >> logs, legos, sumo box, art,

drawing, computers, mine craft, and really it's just awaking opportunity. >> keeping their attention is like one of the biggest challenges that we do have because, you know, they're kids. they always want to be doing something, be helping with something. so we just let them be themselves. we have our set of rules in place that we have that we want them to follow and live up to. and we also have our set of expectations that we want them to achieve. this is like my first year officially working with kids. and definitely i've had moments where they're not getting something. they don't really understand it and you're trying to just talk to them in a way that they can make it work teaching them in different ways how they can get the light bulb to go off and i've seen it first-hand and it makes me so happy when it does go off because it's like, wow, i helped them understand this

concept. >> i love playing games and i love having fun with my friends playing dodge ball and a lot of things that i like. it's really cool. >> they don't give you a lot of cheese to put on there, do they? you've got like a little bit left. >> we learn programming to make them work. we do computers and programming. at the bottom here, we talk to them and we press these buttons to make it go. and this is to turn it off. and this is to make it control on its own.

if you press this twice, it can do any type of tricks. like you can move it like this and it moves. it actually can go like this. >> like, wow, they're just absorbing everything. so it definitely is a wholehearted moment that i love experiencing. >> the realities right now, 5.3 latinos working in tech and about 6.7 african americans working in tech. and, of course, those tech companies are funders. so i continue to work really hard with them to close that gap and work with the san francisco unified school district so juniors and seniors come to our program, so kids come to our stem hub and be exposed to all those things. it's a big challenge. >> we have a couple of other providers here on site, but we've all just been trying to

work together and let the kids move around from each department. some kids are comfortable with their admission, but if they want to jump in with city of dreams or hunter's point, we just try to collaborate to provide the best opportunity in the community. >> devmission has provided services on westbrook. they teach you how to code. how to build their own mini robot to providing access for the youth to partnerships with adobe and sony and google and twitter. and so devmission has definitely brought access for our families to resources that our residents may or may not have been able to access in the past. >> the san francisco house and development corporation gave us the grant to implement this program. it hasn't been easy, but we have been able to see now some

of the success stories of some of those kids that have been able to take the opportunity and continue to grow within their education and eventually become a very successful citizen. >> so the computer lab, they're doing the backpacks. i don't know if you're going to be able to do the class. you still want to try? . yeah. go for it. >> we have a young man by the name of ivan mello. he came here two and a half years ago to be part of our digital arts music lab. graduating with natural, fruity loops, rhymes. all of our music lyrics are clean. he came as an intern, and now he's running the program. that just tells you, we are only creating opportunities and there's a young man by the name of eduardo ramirez.

he tells the barber, what's that flyer? and he says it's a program that teaches you computers and art. and i still remember the day he walked in there with a baseball cap, full of tattoos. nice clean hair cut. i want to learn how to use computers. graduated from the program and he wanted to work in i.t.. well, eduardo is a dreamer. right. so trying to find him a job in the tech industry was very challenging, but that didn't stop him. through the effort of the office of economic work force and the grant i reached out to a few folks i know. post mates decided to bring him on board regardless of his legal status. he ended his internship at post mates and now is at hudacity.

that is the power of what technology does for young people that want to become part of the tech industry. what we've been doing, it's very innovative. helping kids k-12, transitional age youth, families, parents, communities, understand and to be exposed to stem subjects. imagine if that mission one day can be in every affordable housing community. the opportunities that we would create and that's what i'm

>> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of san francisco. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. so where will you shop and dine

in the 49? >> i'm one of three owners here in san francisco and we provide mostly live music entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and it's not a big menu, but we did it with love. like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. for latinos, it brings families together and if we can bring that family to your business, you're gold. tonight we have russelling for e community. >> we have a ten-person limb elimination match. we have a full-size ring with barside food and drink. we ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar.

we're hope og get families to join us. we've done a drag queen bingo and we're trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. this is a great part of town and there's a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. there's a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hang out at. we have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and it's exciting. >> we even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. it's in the san francisco garden district and four beautiful murals.

>> it's important to shop local because it's kind of like a circle of life, if you will. we hire local people. local people spend their money at our businesses and those local people will spend their money as well. i hope people shop locally.

>> good afternoon. thank you for coming to the aapi heritage month kickoff press conference. i am the coordinator of the celebration. how many years have we been doing this? 18. in san francisco this has been going on for 18 years. in this country, the abi heritage month became federal law in 1978. this is the 44th year of