the blue and gold fleet, which offered free passage on uniform. lorenzo at metro cruises, and particularly captain carl lorton, liaison on the 11 or 12 ships that came in. a thank-you to all of them for that stuff. we have a number of members of the san francisco fleet week association. if you will stand for a moment, i would be so honored. [applause] the fleet week association is a volunteer organization that works around-the-clock, probably for 90 days out of every year. each year, they get bigger and bigger ideas than they can execute. particularly, i would like to draw attention to general quiet making -- general why it making fleet week some memorable -- wyat making fleet week so memorable. ensuring that all of us who are responsible for disaster response and humanitarian aid, we will be able to come together under more comfortable circumstances, getting to know each other. for example, this year's seminar was really inspired by the governor of mississippi, as well as the naval commander who responded in japan. most of whom are naval individua

but the work that they do is demonstrated here. we want to thank fleet week, the general, and congratulate them for this event. the tie in with humanitarian efforts helps us to demonstrate how we can support, during and after, a natural disaster. thank you very much. [applause] >> good afternoon, commissioner. my name is the rain scullion -- more rain -- lorraine scullion. i am here on behalf of the alliance with hewlett-packard. at hewlett-packard, we believe that our global reach of resources and technology assessments has great potential for responsibility to help make our world a better, safer place through improved emergency prevention, unpreparedness, and key social innovation. the activities and programs developed by the san francisco fleet week association, particularly the disaster response humanitarian aid program, reflected many of our own goals and objectives. we were honored to be a sponsor and wanted to thank the port commission and fleet week association for their efforts to get leadership in orchestrating such a valuable and from an event

i asked what fleet week was. she said the great white fleet came in 1938 when roosevelt sent them here. i told her i was not there then. [laughter] she said it was serious. she said the ships come into the bay under the golden gate bridge. the airplanes fly over. they are sailors, marines, captains, animals, generals. -- admirals, generals. i said this was serious. we know that dianne feinstein has been serious about fleet week as she has been involved for jobs leaving the city and the country. she has been supportive of fleet week over all of those years whether she be in office, a citizen, or in the united states and an -- senate. she is very unhappy she could not be here. she has sent this letter and asked me to read it to you. i am delighted to do so. dear friends, it gives me great pleasure to extend my warmest greetings to all of you who have gathered here for the 30th annual san francisco fleet week. when i helped to bring it back to san francisco, i knew that it would be something special, a fantastic showcase for the

the st. francis yacht club. [applause] fleet week is something that we raise funds for to be able to do great things for the people. this particular event has been sponsored by bank of america. i want to thank bank of america for sponsoring this today. [applause] we're blessed to have a mayor that is very supportive of what we do, not just during the one week, but it all times, he is particularly supportive of the united states military and naval services. please help me welcome our mayor, the honorable mayor edwin lee. [applause] >> thank you. good morning. it has been our honor and pleasure to join all of you here at the st. francis yacht club to celebrate and welcome the fleet to fleet week. this is the 30th anniversary of our fleet week. senator feinstein really helped to restart this. i want to personally thank her for her leadership in doing this. may god be with her as she is helping run the country in these very part-time -- very hard times. this 30th anniversary is very special for us. this year, we have more marines an

the u.s. pacific fleet, admiral patrick walsh. [applause] he >> thank you. and thank you for the opportunity to join you here today. what a privilege to be able to follow the table top exercise discretion and the presentation of remarks by the governor. as i think about the work that you are embarked on and the type of steps that you would like to take in the continuum of preparation for natural disasters and the response that you would take as responsible officials, think of the next presentation as an opportunity for a case study. think about the questions that leaders need to answer in times of crisis. what will be unique and different about our discussion in this operation was that this was not one singular event. it was a series of cascading crises, aggravated by hundreds and then eventually thousands of aftershocks. it is continually challenged those who were in positions of responsibility in ways -- in complex areas that were very, very hard to anticipate. i think one question that is important to ask is how do leaders prepare themselves for a crisis s

i am with the san francisco fleet week board of directors. we are very pleased to have the senior leadership seminar taking place this year on the bonhomme richard. just a little quick remark, in may 2010, i got a phone call saying to come on over for lunch, so we can talk about fleet week. i showed up in a room over at the marine memorial, and he had a big chart laid out and had a bunch of his friends sitting there and said, you are all going to be volunteers. isn't this great? then he proceeded to tell me about a wonderful idea that one of our honor read cochairs that, former secretary of state george shultz. he said since we have all these military folks in san francisco, why don't we use the opportunity to do some training to better prepare ourselves for disaster response, so we took that mission very seriously. we talked about having a tabletop exercise in 2010. but if you know anything but tabletop exercise, and i think a lot of you people do, the back room planning is just an incredible process. hours and hours and hours are put in for

so, what you are looking at here, we mobilized the fleet and pushed forces to honshu. the uss ronald reagan, the first effort was to save lives. eventually it would come underneath the plume and protect the radiation in the atmosphere. next slide. this eventually became a hubs and spoke approach to providing support in northeast honshu. as we provide that support, what you are looking is our own way of working with u.s. aid. these other rapid response teams, developing a picture of who is in need so that we can have a better understanding of situational awareness on the ground and act on that information. it allowed us to address the directed needs of the people of japan. what the people wanted was to return to normal as soon as possible. meaning they wanted to clear the schools. they wanted to address the human needs of the population. which meant showers. it also meant providing use it to help to relieve the tension and the pressure that had built up on people. now, to the consequent management. while the humanitarian assistance operation is in place, we need to get t

the u.s. pacific fleet, a fleet that has about 120,000 people, 180 ships, two dozen aircraft, 44 submarines, six carrier strikers, and we will talk about how we have organized our selves to respond to the crisis in japan. in the course of the previous two years of this assignment, we have been involved in a six humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. super typhoons in the philippines, vietnam, taiwan. earthquakes in samoa, christchurch, new zealand, chile, operation in japan. on average, what we are seeing in the ring of fire is about every six to eight weeks, a calamity, a natural disaster. in the case of operation tomodache, the reference point that i it would be very helpful for those who want to study this is to go back and look at what nova and the public broadcasting service has done in terms of collecting now scientific measurable data, and one of the points that comes out in that 60-minute documentary is that in terms of instrumentation, scientists now know exactly what happened, where it happened. and then, in your case study sort of approach, you can now test the earthq

they have said that the american fleet must get out of the south china sea, the east china sea, the straits of taiwan, the yellow sea. they have frightened all these countries in southeast asia p even japan and others who are now deciding maybe we don't want the americans to go home, so obama is marching into this opening and this base in australia as part of it. and what you've got is sort of a low-key cold-war beginning. but i will say this, the ecclesiastes communists are themselves responsible for their stupidity. they're alienating virtually every neighbor they have. >> how far away is china from australia? >> you got three, 4,000 miles. >> how long would that take for one of our long distance bombs -- >> they've got a new bomb -- you can get -- >> never mind the bomb. if you want -- >> anywhere in -- >> you remember lou upset we became with the russian fleet off the coast of the south america? >> well, look, john -- we've had a 7 fleet in the far east since the cold war began! what are you talking about? >> eleanor? >> pat is right. the u.s. presence is welcome there in part because o

the south america? >> well, look, john -- we've had a 7 fleet in the far east since the cold war began! what are you talking about? >> eleanor? >> pat is right. the u.s. presence is welcome there in part because of china's growing power and the nervousness of everybody in that neighborhood. but i thought the chinese statement was actually quite restrained. if china had brought 2500 of its military personnel to south america, we would go ballistic in this country. so i think they appropriately had to say something. and i don't think either country wants a cold war. so i think the trading relationship between these two countries has to continue. china is a huge market. and i don't think the president intends to embark on a cold war here. but he's asserting himself as first pacific president after a string of presidents came from europe. 21st century will be very different. >> the chinese have a presence in south america today and in the caribbean? >> oh, yeah. they're there looking for resources, and they're everywhere. >> friendly with chavez? >> they're friendly with whoever will give t

i want to commend the ta and the director for taking a similar tack to look at the fleet management and construction costs. we have maintained that the analysis on the capital programs for transit operators are really neglected in the whole piece of watchdog in and make sure we get better service, so we're really appreciative and want to work with you on this effort. to follow up on supervisor campos's point, we also know in this room when we have significant cost overruns there is a tendency to pull from core operations that has an impact on the ability to put service on the street to implement programs that have broad support try to get our youth to have more accessible transit service, to put the additional revenue hours -- all of that isall of does its connected. we look forward to the next committee hearing, to hear from the advocates. we have seen clear guidance from the fta and the administrator. this is a big area of emphasis. i want to thank you for that. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. any other public comment? step right up if anybody disasters. all right, public comment is

i am also honored to be a part of the planning committee with fleet week. since 2004, the conflict general of canada has used week as an opportunity to showcase the integrated nature of our shared north american defense, collaboration between canada, the u.s., and the friendship we share. this year, canada participated with four ships. we were also pleased that our lead flying team, and the royal canadian air force snowbird flight team also performed at the air show. just to give you perspective, and the snowbirds are our elite flying team, on par with the blue angels. in addition to the air show, the pilots also visited the local v.a. hospital to do good will of reach. the government of canada, consulate, and partners, secured $31,000 in corporate partnerships -- sponsorships through the consulate, transcanada, alberta tourism commission, and canadian tourism commission, and that money went to support the snowbird participation. while the week was entertaining, our participation is more than just the activities but showcasing to californians the integrated

and two minutes either on a phone or on a computer, you can actually access any of the cars in the entire fleet the city car share has. zip share also has a similar arrangement. with that i would like to invite up laura, who's here on behalf of rick hutchison. rick and c.e.o. of zip car actually met with mayor lee and i two years ago to kick off the discussion around this pilot project and we very much want to thank city car share for being a great partner with the city. >> thank you, president chiu, mr. mayor. i am laura haber, director of marketing/planning for city car share. as was just alluded to, i'm here on behalf of rick hutchison who sends his regrets. as mentioned, this program is two years in the making. rick is the c.e.o. and now presenting at the international car association in montreal as we speak. car share is being promoted worldwide. just so you know, not just here in san francisco. i want to thank again mr. mayor, president chiu for the early vision and leadership in this program and sfmta and city administrator's office, who's been a pleasure to work with operationally. we'r

on behalf of the consulate general, i would like to thank the port and also the fleet week board and the general for their leadership over the last six months in putting together such a great week week event this year. thank you. [applause] >> any other public comment? >> maybe one last round of applause for our fleet week four. -- board. [applause] thank you so much. to wrap up, i just wanted to announce, due to scheduling issues, we are proposing to cancel our regularly scheduled meeting on november 8 and replacing it with a special meeting exactly one week later november 15 at the same time. public session at 3:15 at the port commission meeting room. one last thing i wanted to make sure that commissioners and staff and everyone -- the front page of the "san francisco chronicle" featuring david kelly, an amazing man in his own right come and a tenant of hours at pier 36. we are proud of him and his company and everyone working there. we hope you got a chance to see it. that concludes that portion of the executive director's report. >> thank you. is there any public comment on this i

the fleet race, which is where we have all of them at the same time takes about 40 minutes to completea 15-minute break in between races, and we usually have about 15 of these races a day. at the end of the day, these sailors are absolutely shattered, exhausted. these races are physical and demanding and they are operating within 80% of their maximum heart rate. this is athleticism at its finest. >> [inaudible] >> we anticipate all the teams to be in. >> [inaudible] >> i did not say that. i said all the teams that are currently and will be with us to the conclusion of the program until 2013. >> the world cup that is going on now has nothing to do with the america's cup. they are totally separate athletic events? one does not lead into the other? >> that is right. the america's cup world series is like formula one racing. at the end of the season, they have one winner. then the second season will have its champion. then we will pick up with louis vuitton. the best way to explain it to americans, this is like the playoffs. very much in the nfnhl, everyone qualifies for the playoffs. but

we will also have a presentation by admiral walsh, the commander of the pacific fleet. he will talk about the united states military operations in japan during the catastrophic earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear issues that came about. we all know former mayor willie brown will introduce the panel, and they'll talk about regional cooperation. these will be bay area mayor's talking about regional cooperation during disasters and preparation in activities in which they cooperate. following that, we will have a discussion moderated by a former news anchor here in the area on the business role in disaster response. i think we all know that the private sector has a major role in disaster response. following that, we will have a little ship tour. friday, october 7, we will have a program with a discussion on social media's role in disaster response. we will also have a presentation by the assistant, not -- deputy commandant of the marine corps now, but he was boots on the ground during the operation in japan. it is a robust program. i should also mention that on october 5, as th

my point is, the mta will be able to deliver on its fleets, irrespective of whether it takes an expensive project this. -- expansion project like this. the other, i want to make in reaction to the focus to the on- time performance, there could not be a worse idea than to exonerate the mta of the need to achieve a good love all of on- time performance regional level of on-time performance. the last thing we want to be doing is lowering a standard of performance. it might be a great thing to say we have achieved something, but the reality is, we need transit in this town to work and to be competitive with automobiles, so that people will continue to take it. the last thing we need is an exodus from the transit system because we have lowered the standards. we are committed to working with the mta every day to find ways to deliver service more efficiently, stay on schedule, to find alternatives to delivery that may give the riding public a better standard of service. but the idea of lowering the standard does not make sense, and we do not need an outside consultant for that. the mta has alrea