now this year we have not only mayor edwin lee, as an historical time in san francisco. we have four asian-american members of the board of supervisors with us. as a representative of district 3, i could not be more happy to introduce my district supervisor, the president of the board, supervisor david chiu. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. it is an honor to be with you tonight. i want to wish everyone a happy year of the rabbit. unless you are vietnamese, in which case, i was a very happy year of the cat. after 160 years, this year is truly history. i am honored to serve with you, not just with the diversity that our board of supervisors represents -- and i want to thank ross mirkarimi, david campos, and malia cohen who are here with us today -- but it is an honor to serve with three other asian-american supervisors. we finally reflect the population statistics that we have here in san francisco. more importantly, it was an incredible honor earlier this year to take part in an historic, unanimous vote for the first time in our city's history to have an elected lead

lee. >> i edwin m. lee. >> do solemnly swear -- >> do sol manyly swear -- solemnly swear -- >> that i will support and defend -- >> that i will support and defend -- >> the constitution of the united states -- >> the constitution of the united states >> and the constitution of the state of california -- >> and the constitution of the state of california >> against allen miss foreign and domestic -- against all enemies foreign and domestic -- >> against allen miss and domestic -- >> that i will bear true faith and aline of scrimmagens. >> that i will bear true faith and aline of scrimmagens >> to the constitution of the united states. >> to the constitution of the united states. >> and to the constitution of the state of california. >> to the constitution of the state of california. >> that i take this obligation freely -- >> without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion -- >> without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion -- >> and that i will well and faithfully -- >> and that i will well a

i want to thank mayor edwin lee and his entire staff.bers of the board of supervisors, the apa official elected families. this is the first year with ask for a personal contribution to our celebration. i want to thank both of you. last, but not least, the celebration every year has included a lot of community efforts to spread the word that the month of may is apa heritage month, to put on the kind of public relations effort need to in the city and county of san francisco. we will have a reception in the green room afterwards. no contribution is too small, but i would like to take this opportunity to invite our major sponsors up here as we do have an appreciation gift for you. to start our work, i would like to invite are presenting sponsor. this is the first year we have up presenting sponsor. we would like to invite president david t [applause] >> just very briefly, on behalf of target, just very privileged to be part of this. it is a new day and it's an exciting day. never before have we celebrated asian pacific heritage month and the

mayor edwin lee, without further -- adult probation is here, too. mayor kelllee, thank you for yor patience. the microphone is yours. [applause] >> thank you. as you all know, i am not going to have been long speeches. and i'm here to listen to you tonight. but i want to say a couple of things. it is my pleasure to be here with supervisor avalos, supervisor carmen chu, the other department heads, to make sure that i fulfill a promise. while i am occupied this great office of mayor, i will listen to everybody in the city. the matter where you live. that is what i have been doing this whole year. i am three months on the job and it is wonderful to have a new relationship with the board of supervisors. thank you for working closely with me, john. it is no wonder that i am coming out here more than others, but i will say this. john asked the question about how many of you have an $5 million. i noticed on many hands. -- not many hands. but i will say this. if families are as strong as they are here, it does not matter how much wealth you have. if you do

edwin m. lee, the mayor of san francisco. [applause] mayor lee: thank you.nk you for that wonderful introduction and thank you for being here. it is the seventh annual celebration. sydney already explained our history, what president carter did for us, and what we are doing for ourselves, joining the whole city and region in celebrating asian-pacific portage month. i am so grateful to the board of supervisors for this whole four months of leaving this great city. i will say once again as i have said through many corners of the city, whether it is a town hall meeting or just your regular family association dinner, the hundreds i have been too -- i really feel proud of our asian community as a whole for allowing me to serve this great city and for all the years of struggle and coordinating and push to keep the doors of government open and to keep opportunities for many generations of asians to serve this wonderful city. thank you. i continue to thank the board of supervisors for this historic vote that happened in january. saying that, i want to kick off the c

[applause] >> the motion for edwin lee passes. [applause] >> you are talking to one of the happiest people in san francisco. this was an extraordinary an historic vote. but it was symbolic. remember, the new board of supervisors who convenes tomorrow will make the actual decision on who the next mayor will be. >> everybody came down to ed lee with the expectation that it will be done in the most intellectually honest way and in a way that role and order is respected. i think we discussed a few nominations and came down to this one by a common denominator. >> i had a sense of urgency because i did not want to see anyone being acting mayor in the presence of the board of supervisors. that is not the kind of transition i talked about. we need to have a transition -- legislative branch separate from the executive branch of san francisco. that is the best way to do our work. people would not like the situation of having an acting mayor and president of the board of supervisors. >> now the dominoes in this chain of political events were

it really is my pleasure to introduce to you the great mayor of san francisco, edwin lee. [applause] mayor lee: everybody, thank you very much for coming out to the artery of arteries in san francisco. i want to also acknowledge the wonderful work that the arts foundation is doing. they were the first agency that we were able to fund back when i was city administrator, when we were thinking, how could we start changing the street? we had that old theater that was and did already, but it still look like a porn theater. we were all reminded of how vibrant arts was. we started looking at the site, and they were looking at it, and we finally were able to give a little grant called the community challenge grant, and we emphasize the word challenge. the gray arts foundation took up that challenge, and now they are expanding, and now we have fantastic murals open tonight, and they were the first, but they led the effort after the arts commission and grants of the arts went to work along with the mayor's office. i know north dakota is there, and she is working very hard because non

i am personally honored to introduce both of our guests today, mayor edwin lee of the city and county of san francisco, and mayor gene kwan of the city of oakland. it is important to highlight the corporation. to give you a city that are for ever linked by earthquakes. with the bay bridge near its completion, these two individuals have been building their own bridges between many bay area communities. both have made significant strides toward moving toward resiliency in the face of earthquake hazards. we will hear from mayor lee first. as city administrator, he has been working with the department of the emergency management to oversee san francisco's disaster recovery and response effort, in gauging with many department to coordinate disaster operations. i also want to know mayor li has provided a lot of behind-the- scenes support for the recovery effort in new orleans, and i am sure this experience has prompted him to launch an innovative disaster recovery program that has evolved into the disaster resilience san francisco initiative. we applaud the mayor's ongoing efforts in his ef

edwin lee. [applause] mayor lee: thank you. thank you very much. welcome to the people's hall in san francisco. i want to first of all say -- i have always wanted to say this. the commissioner is such a wonderful person, and she has been our commissioner on immigrant rights commission, but you could see her when we walked in. she was hustling around getting everybody settled, doing what we needed to do to have a successful event, but she has been a wonderful adviser to me for so many years and a great asset to the city. i want to give you a round of a free shares applause. -- appreciative applause. thank you so much. it is my personal pleasure to welcome all of you here to celebrate nowruz. this has been something that supervisor mirkarimi and i talked about for so many years, to make sure we on this day and make sure all of you feel so warm and welcome, so, we are joined by supervisors wiener, farrell, cohen, and there will be other surprises that will come in as well. they know and we know that the celebrations here are very important. they estab