i want to give special thanks to ron conaway -- conway. no one has ever called me and angel except my mother. you really are an angel. you went out of your way. we will develop a strong working relationship with sf city, i promise you. now we're glad to end our program this morning with the man who has been the architect of putting tech

ron conaway and others have stepped up and said, why don't we have a consistent voice? yes we have the chamber of commerce, the wonderful group we have worked with for many years, but why not also have an additional voice? so we formed sf city, a citizen's initiative for technology and innovation, which was aimed at the new developing companies to give us a constant dialogue about their ongoing needs. anything we have done is they have also embraced the needs of our city. it is a two-way conversation. that led to us revising our stock options. we were one of the few cities in the country that was taxing stock options. again, not understanding how the ipo was working for the startup companies, realizing that we would be punishing them for their growth and turnaround, so we gave them another six-year exemption on that. by the way, if we grow, if we sustain and assist you in growing, can you help us with job training? that is what started the conversation on sf city. they have an ongoing program to create the curriculum for hiring kids or our public schools and aimed at re

i want to give special thanks to ron conaway -- conway. no one has ever called me and angel except my mother. you really are an angel. you went out of your way. we will develop a strong working relationship with sf city, i promise you. now we're glad to end our program this morning with the man who has been the architect of putting tech on the map in san francisco and that is our mayor. please welcome back to the stage john mcnedo. john. [applause] >> thank you. it is now my pleasure to introduce our mayor. edwin m. lee was sworn in on january 8, 2012 as the 43rd mayor of the city and county of san francisco. ed lee is the first asian- american mayor in san francisco history. [applause] mayor lee was elected on november 8, 2011 by the people of san francisco while he was serving as interim mayor. appointed unanimously as successor mayor by the board of supervisors on january 11, 2011. while serving as interim mayor, mayor lee championed balancing the budget to keep san francisco safe, solvent, and successful. reforming city pensions, econo