values, it is about the future of our city. you have heard all of those that you have attended. the budget town hall meetings and meetings with our community- based agencies. you need not hear from me today again about the goal, but i do want you to hear from people who i think are our challenge and reflective of our city, so i want to invite up to the podium today three people -- three students who will talk to you in their own terms about how they feel a city can be safe, a city that can be solvent, and a city that can be successful. if i may invite zack parker to please set up to the podium. he is 8 years old. he is going into the fourth grade at sherman elementary school. he likes playing basketball and drawing. he will be visiting yosemite and his family in oregon over the summer and attending summer camps. thank you for coming today. he is joined by his mother. go ahead,. >> hello. [inaudible] mayor lee said he wants the city to be safe, the word means more than one thing. will walk to school, play outside, or go shopping

we had to make sure were together time and again with us, residents and had the confidence that our city could not only treat them well but also plan for their future, with them, working with them. groups such as the homeless, those on the lower end of our housing affordability. all of that has come together over decades of hard work. right up until last week, that work continued at the highest level in order to make this happen. i need to spend a moment thinking the people who have been before me in this position and other federal positions. they have their history marked in many years of essential contributions to this plan, and to the workings of the island, to the vision that is being presented today. first off, senator feinstein. i want to thank her deeply for her contributions. [applause] leader pelosi for giving us the funding. [applause] former mayor willie brown. his vision for the island. [applause] the only thing i have to apologize for is the casino idea. [laughter] lt. gov. gavin newsom. my predecessor. thank you for his wonderful contributions. when supervisor and now still

the city budget reflects so many values of our great city. whether it is departments or community-based agencies or whether it is neighborhood groups, we all had to put our focus on and make sure that this budget would be balanced in the right way. so i want to especially thank all of our labor unions in the city for coming together this year. they were fantastic, and they were obviously very forthright in the things that they represented. particularly, i want to think, especially, the police officers and the police officer association and the head of that. as well as tom o'connor and the local 798 and the firefighters. the public safety contributions from we have some $31 million of savings over the next two years. [applause] and that represents a huge sacrifice. [applause] the public safety officers were part of a larger group of all of the labor unions that we have worked well with in the city. i want to thank all the labor unions for coming together, not only on the budget, but also on our pension reform package as well. to the community-b

i will start you out with this fact, speaking of our beautiful city. 25% of our beautiful city is taken up by public right of way, streets, sidewalks, and scraps and parcels that the city leaders laid out to convey people and vehicles. the public rights of way are important. that is what we stoeward. a lot of it was designed more for utilities and vehicles than people. what you have seen over the last few years is a rethinking of the public rights of way. we're here to talk about one small example of movement in a positive direction in terms of how we use our public spaces in san francisco. without further ado, the man you would all like to hear from. he is serving the great city now and once did as the director of public works, our mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for your leadership as well. i am up here for the ribbon cutting ceremony. i want to thank all the neighbors that live up here. you have seen corners of the city where grass is growing or people are neglecting these places. along comes a bureaucracy called dpw with others gaining confidence that we can

our problem. the rest of the solution was coming from the expenditure side which means reducing city costs and pension reform, which the mayor has been working very hard to implement. it means reducing the size of our work force and the cost of doing business as city departments and reductions to the amount that we're able to allocate to the contractors, a wide range of policy approach is designed to close that gap and bring this back into sound basic structural financial balance over the next five years. the approach that the mayor has tried to take is to spread those -- the burden of those solutions out over multiple participants in our cities government and our budget. the idea is that we know there will be sacrifice in order to bring the budget back into balance and the idea is to have an approach that depends on shared sacrifice where we are asking to have revenues be part of the component of that shot agee and we're asking labor to participate in that strategy. we're asking our city departments to participate in- energy. it will not be easy but i think it is a balanced proposal and three court p

our economy. as you know, i have worked very hard to do that. i see so many other cities and counties around our bay area as well as in the nation that are very challenge by the economics of the country, the state, and the area. for me, it is very important, and it has been a topic that i have taken very seriously from the very first day of taking the oath of office. as far as plans for continuing our work on development issues, we will continue to focus on sector-based strategies, and i think these will be the most effective ways to attract and maintain high-growth industries in san francisco. this includes our targeted efforts on biotech, clean tech, manufacturing, and our international initiatives. with the passage of the central market payroll tax exclusion, we have focused effort on promoting opportunities in central market, and we continue to promote a valuable tax incentives like the enterprise zone, workforce programs, green incentives, and other business assistance programs for current and prospective businesses. i want to thank the supervisors as a whole for wor

he is in shape, challenging everybody, and also doing great work with our city, building our general hospital, helping to build our new puc administrative building. this is andy ball from webcor. come on up. >> mayor lee was great to ride with this morning. it was a wonderful way to start the day. let's hear it for greenland's -- green plains -- green lanes and churros. [applause] it is one of will to have a building that reduces carbon emissions. webcor has been building a foundation for cycling for the last 11 years by supporting 8350-member cycling team. we have a professional team. we set by women to the beijing olympics -- four women to the beijing olympics, and we have national champions. we have been very successful. now, we are advocating for cycling. commuting, for kids to be able to have a safe way to get to school, more bicycle lanes, a better understanding that there needs to be recognition of the cyclist and -- as a vulnerable user on our roads, and that is starting to change the laws to make that recognition, so we have roads now designed to recognize the fact that peop

you combine that with the fact that we have an affordable housing in most parts of the city, it is no surprise ouromeless numbers have gone up in recent years. the city needs to recommit ourselves to the values that our city was named after. st. francis believed in compassion for those who have less -- had less than others. those of us with opportunities have to give back. part of that entails taking care of the most important among us, the folks who have need, including our homeless. >> let's talk about the transportation situation in your district. you mentioned that transit could be better. how is parking and traffic? is there enough muni service now? >> you are talking to the one member of the board that does not only car. i get around my district by muni, bicycle, or hailing a cab. our transit system is truly challenge. our bosses are late one out of four times. -- our buses are late one out of a quarter times. they're still not as clean and safe as we'd like. we can do better and investing in our muni system. we need more taxicabs on the streets. is difficult to obtain a cab. i support the c

she has been such a great city administrator that you overlook her background work. she has been doing the job very competently as our real estate director and acting city administrator as well as being the deputy over those years. amy, thank you very much for fulfilling that role. we appreciate it. [applause] it goes to show if you look at talent, you can be from any background and fulfill all of these jobs. it is wonderful to be part of san francisco and part of the government as well. i want to welcome up here the lifetime achievement grand marshal for this year, bishop yvette flunder. [applause] >then i want to call up the rest of the grand marshals. the national organizing grand marshals, the trevor project, please come on up, the whole project. ok, they are here in spirit. our local organizational grand marshals, the glbt historical society and history museum, come on up. [applause] then we have our community grand marshals, dr. erin belkin, victoria korakowski, christiana remmington, therese terry st uart, dr. roland stringfellow. [applause] grayland k. thornton. [applause] these are our grand marshals this ye

too many of our cities are like that. a city should -- you know, not all parts of a city are going to be the same. you're going to have some neighborhoods that have large houses and big lots. that's okay. and you're going to have other parts that have apartment complexes and duplexes, that's okay too. but there's some things we should all have in common in all of our neighborhoods. they should be places where children can grow up safely, where they feel comfortable walking next door, going down to see their friend down the street, where the infrastructure look okay, it's the streets and the sidewalks, they look okay, where there are not drug dealers and prostitutes down the street. that's not how you and i would want to live, have our children grow up, and we should -- i know we don't want any of our children to have to grow up in places like that. they should have a grocery store down the street and a bank and a library. they should have, generally, the amenities that all of us have, and every child should have at least t

i want to emphasize the strength of our city relies on the strength of people likfrom the community. you build it here, in glen park, the mission, chinatown. it builds up the strength of the city. it comes back to our department's opening up their resources, not protecting it like other bureaucratic agencies have historically done. we've said we can do it and be challenged with a grant program completely open to everybody. these things are worth the $1 million it looks like today. it is worth 10 times more in building camaraderie and companionship with our neighbors. i want to emphasize that. i want to represent that by giving what i can do to reflect our appreciation for the leadership. it is a certificate of honor to julian for his leadership on this project and many other projects that have kept this community working and expanding and growing. there is a design around his leadership. by voice vote as the mayor and city administrator that when you have strong communities, things like disasters, we will have strong neighborhoods to help us recover back. this is the beginning of that

and also to make sure that we are investing and renewing every part of our city, to make sure that the tourists enjoy this area, and even people like ourselves -- those of us now live in the city -- will love it even more. this will benefit everybody. i also want to introduce another champion, someone that i have worked with closely this past year, who has led a very positive dialogue. that is our board president, president david chiu. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. i want to welcome everyone to what mark twain calls a classic summer day in san francisco. i am proud to be here as part of this announcement, and i am here on behalf of my colleague jane kim, who is stuck in city hall. the two of us have the honor of representing the number one place in san francisco where people come to shop, and hello to everyone on the cable cars, spend time in our incredible city. this is an announcement of how we build 21st century city -- cities, how we can create communities on very busy dance streets. we know it takes a village to create a parklet. i want to thank the city department for being

now that we have got our record of how to do this, i think the next clerk and the city will be much informed with having our process and having our archives to look too. >> and that is how san francisco government worked out the kinks, twists and turns, bombs in the road, to select its new interim mayor, ed lee. san francisco's first asian- american mayor. >> this has been an unprecedented and historic transition of power here in san francisco. i am so happy the board of supervisors came together to select an outstanding choice along many outstanding candidates to lead us over the next several years. >> over the past several months when this issue has come up, it had been agonizing. the board has been put into a difficult situation. there are a lot of differences of opinion on how to run the city, how to mass make a decision, who should be in place, 11 people to agree on that is a challenging thing. i think we have done the best we can do in the process, considering the difference of opinions. >> the people of san francisco can now choose their mayor, the direction they want to go. that is w

in many ways, we at city hall feel we're off the hook in that area, that we do not have to worry about our public schools, that other people haven't covered. i think the city can do a tremendous amount. it can do a tremendous amount for our families. one thing i learned from my predecessor, chris daly, is what we can do to ensure we are prioritizing parts and affordable housing for our families and -- prioritizing parks and affordable housing for our families. i think that we need to support things that our schools cannot fund, like summer school. i would love for our city, in better revenue years, to have the longest school year and the longest school day, to really model for the rest of california what you can do if you really fund schools. so, that is the third area. hopefully we will kickstart our economy back up again. >> it looks like we are out of time. i want to thank you for joining us today. supervisor kim: thank you. >> we have been talking to supervisor of jane kim. watch for the next episode when we will be back.