Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20180207

Basin nations in the United States. For those who dont know where that is, the great states of nevada, utah, parts of arizona and oregon. And before that i worked at the trust public land. And im happy to lead with london breed, malia cohen, our former supervisor who first championed this issue, in favor of the full divestment from fossil fuels. I want to start by thanking the Broad Coalition of environmental advocates, Public Health advocates, clean fuel transportation activists, Democratic Party officials, grassroots advocates and retirement Board Members and as of last night, the commission on the environment who have turned out today to demand that San Francisco Employee Retirement system divest now from fossil fuels and were getting to labor, were saving the best for last. And i mean that sincerely and it is in my notes. I want to start by saying that sciu 101 has been the wind at our backs. I cannot thank you enough. To the folks from dapo, i cannot thank you enough. Well hear from all of them. I want to start not with our president , not with our retirement board member but with our former supervisor. We have a lot of great speakers but this started with supervisor john ovolose who first issued the resolution unanimously adopted by the board five years ago that has not yet be heeded but perhaps with malia cohens leadership will be heeded today. Good morning. Its great to be here. But also kind of strange to be here. Five years after we had first voted unanimously to call upon sfers to divest from fossil fuels. Since that time im a retiree of the sitting council of San Francisco, so i depend on sfers to respond. What we have done in five years of analysis, we know fossil fuel investments is a bad investment. Were seeing the great volatility of fossil fuels while our sfers overall fund has grown from 19 billion in 2013 to 23 billion in 2018, our fossil fuel portfolio has only stayed about the same, meaning this is a really poor investment while we see growth elsewhere. We know why its a bad investment. We are seeing increasingly, the harm thats caused low income communities of color, to cities and towns along the waterfront are suffering from Sea Level Rise, from climate, from dramatic climate events, from hurricanes and typhoons and in california we have our fires. These are all signs that our economy founded on oil and fossil fuel is one that harms life on earth. And its way past time that we start moving our economy to renewable power, Renewable Energy generation. We have called upon sfers for five years to do this, take our money out of fossil fuels and put in renewables and they have dragged their feet almost all the way, like they have the Donald Trump Administration on the board to deny the fact that the world is becoming harmed every day as we continue to invest in fossil fuels. I want to thank supervisor peskin, supervisor london breed and Supervisor Malia Cohen to continue with the work to make sfers do their part to divest and today well see if theyre going to move this the way they have had to these five years. Its time to divest, divest now, sfers your time is up, thank you. Thank you. This has been a tough 24hours in this building, but president breed said something which is profoundly important, that our relationships have to transcend and that number one, its all about public policy. And with that, under president breeds leadership, we, again, unanimously adopted last year the same resolution that a different board adopted when john was on the board of supervisors. It is my pleasure to introduce on the same policy page, the president of the San Francisco board of supervisors, london breed. Thank you. Hi everybody. Im happy to join many of our environmental leaders and our Community Members and members of the board of supervisors and everyone who is here today, who is committed to a cleaner planet for future generations. There are many people to thank, but i want to start by thanking Supervisor Malia Cohen, who is a member of the retirement board who has been leading the fight on this divestment at the retirement board along with victor macres who is also on the retirement board. Thank you both. I want to acknowledge Sophie Maxwell for her long time work to protect atrisk communities from polluting power plants and i want to thank labor. The members of sciu 101 and 350. Org for your advocacy and staying on top of the issue and members of the commission of the environment for ongoing advocacy on this measure. San francisco has always been a national and global trail blazer for environmental practices. We have reduced Greenhouse Gas emissions 28 below 1990 levels, cleaning our air while our population was growing and our economy was booming. We have launched our clean power program, clean power sf, the single most important thing we can do to combat Climate Change and i was proud to lead that initiative here on the board of supervisors. With the enrollment of clean power sf, were well on our way to achieving the 50 renewable target by 2020 and 100 by 2030. Goals that even outpace the Ambitious Goals set by the state of california. And were providing Reliable Energy at great prices. Through the work of so Many Community leaders, we closed the last two fossil fuel plants eight years ago in this city. And we are leading the nation in waste reduction and Resource Recovery thanks to the recycling and composting programs. We are recovering more than 80 of materials from landfill. We are preventing many harmful products from entering our city at off we were the first in the country to ban plastic bags and through legislation i proudly wrote we have the largest styrofoam plan and Drug Take Back Program that has kept more than 24,000 pounds of the bay and landfill. Thats what were doing here in San Francisco. San francisco has been at the forefront of so many Ground Breaking Environmental Issues and today, our retirement board has a chance to make history. We cannot continue investing in companies that pollute our ea h earth. Its time to divest. Its time to divest. Its time to divest. Its time to divest. And do so, quickly. Washington d. C. May ignore Climate Change. Our president may ignore Climate Change. But here in San Francisco, we are going to put this at the forefront. Were going to make sure that they know we have to make change and we have to make change now. Its not fair to our planet and future generations to come. Divest now, do the right thing, lets get this done. Thank you for being here today. applause thank you president london breed and thanks for shouting out Sophie Maxwell. We had two polluting plants, the Hunters Point plant that supervisor maxwell led the fight on closing and years later with the incredible work of the City Attorneys office, the murrant plant was closed. As supervisor breed said at the forefront of this, inside the belly of the beast, supervisor cohen has been a star in making sure that we divest. And that vote is happening shortly. She has to go in a closed session at 11 30. Supervisor cohen has been leading that fight and god willing, a little after 1 00 p. M. Well get that vote. Its still on the bubble but i know malia is going to make that happen. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. First, i want to recognize many people that have brought us to this point today. I dont see jed holtsman, hes been attending the sf retirement meetings for years. I want to recognize supervisor peskin for bringing this issue to us and lending his voice in the desire to put pressure on the staff to make this vote happen today. And i want to recognize supervisor ovolose, he took an unpopular position early on and i want to appreciate his leadership style, although different from mine. But nonetheless, here we are today. I think its a testament that you need both moderate and less support to make this happen. Its not a political issue, this is really the right thing to do when we think of the health and wellness of our entire world. I want to recognize the members of siu 101 who have spoken in two minute intervals. Many i had to cut off because your comments were too long but it was good to see you all. And the retirees making the most of their retirement time coming out to support. And i want to recognize the number of staff people to help me and educate me on the importance on this movement and how we can continue to move forward and uplift and recognize our indigenous folks who are here that led the way when they were fighting dapo. There are many people whose shoulders i stand on that we need to recognize. The seriousness of the issue were going to vote on today is not missed on me. We all know fossil fuels emissions are harming our children and health and doing irrepairable damage to our planet. As a city, we cannot build our pensions on the health and wellbeing of our children and future generations. But divestment is not just a moral imperative. This is not just a talking point, a political issue of the day. As a fiduciary member, we have a responsibility, as fiduciary member of the retirement board, i have to make sure every person can retire with dignity, with assurance that their pension is safe and no one is taking a gamble. The investments in fossil fuel endanger that promise. The board of supervisors has repeatedly demanded that staff implement divestment plan and frankly we have no plan. The engagement strategy that has probably had a hand in jed holtsmans hair falling out, i think you would agree that engagement strategy has been very hard to stomach. The staff has touted the strategy but honestly theres been no accountability. Theyve had no mandated timeline for any companys responsiveness. Im getting in the weeds but the retirement board has a process on how they pull back divestments and its a multi level multi tier response. Its too much pollution. They have not identified an acceptable ratio of returns to emissions. Due diligence hasnt been done. The process for evaluating environmental and social risk has been haphazard and inconsistent. As our city continues to pay out money for healthcare and invest in mitigating Sea Level Rise and trying to prevent flooding on our streets, we must put our money where our mouth is, we must stand up and shout out. Our pension budgets must not exassrbate the issues. We must limit for the safety of our residents and wellbeing of employees, working and retired. I call on my colleagues on the retirement board to join us, take our childrens future seriously and finally divest from fossil fuels. Ladies and gentlemen, i stand with you, im excited and im looking forward to casting my vote this afternoon. Thank you. applause thank you supervisor cohen. I want to make a few more shoutouts. First, as we just heard, this is not a conservative issue. This is not a liberal issue, this is not a moderate issue. This is not a progressive issue. This is a moral and financial imperative. To that end, supervisor cohen, supervisor breed and myself serve as members of the Democratic County Central Committee and it was our colleague keith boraka that issued it to divest. That passed unanimously. Thank you keith for that leadership. Thank you to bay. Org, fossil free sf, indian people organized for change, next gen america. Sf berniec. R. A. Ts. And last night with incredible testimony from victor who talked about the way the investment industry works, about score cards, out of the half a billion dollars that the San Francisco Employee Retirement system has invested in fossil fuels, over 20 of it has not yielded a positive return to the fund. Just what supervisor cohen was saying, for five years or more. Thats what we call a bad investment. That is a bad investment. This decision can be made as a fiduciary decision and moral imperative as we did around guns and ammunition and tobacco. It makes prudent sense for the retirement system to divest. I want to shout out the commissioners gathered here who took the very bold step and at the department of commission of the environment last evening voted for full divestment within 180 days. Which is a strong demand. Thank you commissioners. With that, i would like to bring up isabelle sezie who is a young leader, a grassroots leader and thank you isabelle for being here and thank you for your work. Good morning relatives. I come from the northern tribes. Im 23 yearsold and live on occupied territory. I want to first pay acknowledge to the people of the land we do stand on because indigenous voices, indigenous rights and sovereignty is important to remember and acknowledge. I am a member of idle no more sf bay. Sfd fund dapo coalition and defending mother earth treaty. I want to start by saying we welcome the pension board and seiu Public Sector members to join our ranks as water protectors. The vote to defund is critical. Its critical to protecting the water. The divestment vote and movement in San Francisco has been initiated and fostered by long standing grassroots, indigenous advocacy throughout Turtle Island and mobilizing groups that have fought long and hard for this moment today. We have seen and continue to see the violation of indigenous rights and the threats to our water. All of the sacred systems of life. The standoff at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access pipeline is not over and its just the beginning. To show that the many other Standing Rocks around the world that we are not afraid to stand up to big oil and to divest. The assault on mother earth is real. The Climate Crisis is real. And all who are living in those yet to be born need clean air, clean water and clean soil. And we need to remember that. We all need clean air, clean water and clean soil to live a healthy and sufficient life here on mother earth. And i want to thank the San Francisco board for hearing us out and responding to the frontline call to divest from fossil fuel projects and the investments. And last, i want you all to know that my generation, the next seven generations and all our non human relatives, we thank you for this and we will be completely relived of any hardships and i send my best regards to the vote in favor for us to divest completely of fossil fuel projects and infrastructure, expansions and any investments because we all know we need to keep it in the ground. Keep the oil in the ground, keep fossil fuels in the ground and divest. Thank you. applause thank you for those profound words. Before i introduce the final speaker, i want to say that all aspects of our government minus the sfers board, at least until 1 00 this afternoon, are on the same page and i want to shout out our City Attorney who has initiated some of the most Ground Breaking litigation against some of the largest fossil fuel polluters in the United States of america. And the reason i bring that up, because as cities and states start this kind of litigation, these investments become more and more risky. These become stranded assets and i speak to you not only as a member of the board of supervisors but as a member of the California Coastal commission, where last year more emergency permits were applied for because of Sea Level Rise, king tides, beaches being buried under the sea, than any previous year. As we just heard, this is real. We would not be here without the strong support of labor advocates. Sciu 101 have led on the fight and they take it personally because many are vested pensions invested in the risky big oil assets. Thank you joseph bryant, thank you Martha Hawthorne. With that, my friend joseph bryant. Who is ready to divest in fossil fuels . We are were not in the chamber. I want to hear noise. Who is ready to divest in dirty fossil fuels . We are thats right. Im the regional Vice President of sciu 101. We represent in San Francisco over 15,000 city workers who are vested in the citys pension fund and were urging the board of retirement to divest in dirty fossil fuels now. I want to give a huge shout out to everyone who has played an Important Role in this, its been a village that has come together to help move this. Thank you former supervisor ovolose, supervisor peskin, supervisor cohen, president breed. And the commission on the environment for your resolution pass last evening. Thank you very much and i would be remissed without acknowledging our retirees here who have broken their backs to ensure this is a priority for sciu 101, particularly david page, Melissa Hawthorne and many others here who have led the fight. With this, we have reached the point of insanity. Its a bad investment. Were losing money on this investment and destroying our communities and we still have to spend our time, energy and effort here to fight for it. What is going on. This is absolutely insane. With all the challenges were facing right now from the federal level, from throughout this country, were having to spend our time in the most progressive city in the country to fight for a very basic concept, to do the right thing, divest in fossil fuels. Were here for that and were not just asking to say do it eventually. We want a timeline. We want something real. We need something real. So please join us today sciu 101, again adamant supporter, well be up there in the chamber causing whatever ruckus we need to to ensure it happens. Thank you very much. All right. Lets keep it real, lets make it real at 1 00 p. M. , at 1145 Market Street on the sixth floor is the meeting. I hope all of us will be there sitting in the audience ready to testimony. And with that, Martha Hawthorne leading us in a few chants. When i open up the paper every day im just amazed at how many different Environmental Issues keep popping up. When i think about the planet i want to leave for my children and other generation, i think of what contribution i can make on a personal level to the environment. Clean power sf is San Franciscos key way of fighting Climate Change by Renewable Energy and offering it to San Francisco customers. Im from the San Francisco Public Utilities commission. The program came about with state wide legislation in 2002 to enable people to take more control over supplies. I first heard of the program when the organization was advocating to launch clean power sf. What im most excited about, its going to bring 100 Renewable Energy to my home and reinvest into Renewable Energy infrastructure and jobs. I had gone to a lot of street fairs and heard from the staff at the San Francisco Public Utilities commission to sign up for clean power sf even before it launched. We learned about clean power sf because our Sustainability Team is always looking for clean operations. Linkedin is the Largest Online network. There are about 530 million members using our site. In this San Francisco office theres about 1400 employees working in roughly 400,000 square feet. After signing up for the program we heard about the San Francisco program and learned they had commercial rates and signed up for that. Im the coowner of the new wheel electric bike shop. We opened this store in 2012 and the new wheel sells and services electric bikes. 11 people work here in San Francisco and our store is about 2,000 square feet. Electric bikes are fantastic for transportation in the city, theyre clean and green and you get places faster than any other form of transportation. It amplifies the power, it doesnt replace it. It makes it easier to get places by bicycle and its so enjoyable and environmentally friendly way to go and more convenient in San Francisco. Clean power sf requires two products, green, 40 renewable and competitively priced with pg and e. For those who want to fight Climate Change more, 100 renewable at 0. 02 per kilawatt. I decided to go with the super greens, after finding it only to cost about 5 more a month to have super green, thats a nobrainer, i can do that. We were pleased that clean power sf offers the super green 100 for commercial entities like ours and residents for the city of San Francisco. We were pleased with the package of services for linkedin and now encouraging our employees who have a residence in San Francisco to sign on as well. Clean power sf buys its power from renewable plants that feed the energy directly into the grid. Theres a commitment to sustainability throughout the entire organization and this clean power opportunity reflects that. One of the wind farms we use is the shilo wind farm and that is large enough to be able to provide energy for up to 200,000 homes. Our mission is sustainability, even though our bikes are Minimal Energy use, it Still Matters where the energy comes from and part of our mission in sustainability is how we run everything run our business. Having the lights come on with clean energy is very important. The Sunset Reservoir has solar panels that take up about four city blocks covering the reservoir and the solar power generates energy for city resources and clean power sf for residents participating in the program. It was easy to sign up for the program, i went online to cleanpowersf. Org and i started getting pieces in the mail letting me know i was going to be switched over and it just happened. When i pay my bill, i still go to pg and e and i dont see any difference between now and a year ago. Sign up online, just have your account number ready and it takes about two minutes and theres nothing to install. No lines are getting connected to your home. All the power goes through the existed power grid. We havent had any problems with the switch over to clean power. Its super easy to sign up. Our book keeper signed up online, it took about 15 minutes. Nothing changed but now we have cleaner energy. We see clean power sf as a key strategy to meet Renewable Energy goal, we have a goal of 50 Renewable Energy by 2020. Currently we have enrolled about 86,000 customers across the city. About 20 of what we hope to serve in the future and in the next two years well offer service to all San Francisco electricity customers. An easy way to align your environmental responsibilities and goals around Climate Change and its so easy that its hard to not want to do it and it doesnt really add anything to the bill. Joining clean power sf is one of the easiest ways to fight Climate Change, receiving cleaner energy at low and stable rates, youre helping to support a not for profit that helps influence the energy grid and produce more production. I would encourage any business to seriously convert to the clean sf service. Its good for environment, business and the community. You can sign up online our call and the great thing is, youll have the peace of mind that youre doing your part in your household to help the environment. Look at that beautiful jellyfish. The way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel powerful with simple actions to take every day. I was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. My dad was the rabbi in the community there. What i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. And learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your words. When i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. And then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to get into advertising and do graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. By the time i was in college, i decided i wanted to be a decorator. But as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. I only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. I found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. I went, volunteered and my life changed. Suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. Stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. I eventually moved up to San Francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of assembly through Los Angeles County and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about rainforest. One of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, im teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. It was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. The San Francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. We realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. The city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of the city feel and i love the symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix provides, we all have the power to transform our world for the better. We have to provide teachers with curriculum online, our curriculum is in two different languages and whether its lesson plans or student fact sheets, teachers can use them and weve had great feedback. We have helped public and private schools in San Francisco increase their waste use and students are working hard to sort waste at the end of the lunch and understand the power of reusing, reducing, recycling and composting. Great job. Ive been with the department for 15 years and an environmental educator for more than 23 years and im grateful for the work that i get to do, especially on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco. I try to use my voice as intentionally as possible to suppo support, i think of my grandmother who had a positive attitude and looked at things positively. Try to do that as well in my work and with my words to be an uplifting force for myself and others. Think of entering the job force as a treasure hunt. You can only go to your next clue and more will be revealed. Follow your instincts, listen to your gut, follow your heart, do what makes you happy and pragmatic and see where it takes you and get to the next place. Trust if you want to do good in this world, that let me begin by saying good afternoon to everyone. I am Mohammed Nuru, the director of public works. I want to thank everyone for joining us today to celebrate this construction milestone of station number five. It brings me great joy to honor the progress made on this tremendous project located here in the west end neighborhood. This will deliver a crucial piece of City Infrastructure to thousands of nearby businesses, residents and visitors. Our agency, public works, is proud to have designed a modern fire station that is expected to exceed National Accreditation standards and serve the essential needs of our first responders. It may not look like it yet, in less than a years time, a seismically sound fire station will be standing in this very place. It is true public works fashion, the project team has been working hard to ensure this facility will be delivered in timely and fiscally responsible manner. On time and on budget. With that said, its important that i think the entire public works staff, our project team led by our city architect, project managers and i want to thank all the staff from public works who worked on this project. But most importantly i want to thank our construction partner in this, alton construction, leading the project and getting it this far. Youll hear from a lot of speakers about the station itself. It will be the most resillent station of all the fire stations here in San Francisco because it is a very well designed facility and will meet all the standards as i said earlier. We have quite a number of speakers. Ill start by introducing the president of the board of supervisors and supervisor of the district london breed. Please welcome her. applause good afternoon everybody. Thank you all so much for being here today. You know, i have a special love for this fire station because i grew up just a couple of blocks from here. Every year, every time i look at this fire station, all i can think about when i was a kid is toys. This is where i actually came on the door that was located on turk street, thats where we went to pick up our toys during the Christmas Holiday because of the firefighters toy program. And so i know tom oconnor who is the president of local 798 is here, thank you for continuing that program and your leadership in this city. You know, theres another reason i love this place is because many of the men and women behind me, this is where they work every single day and my aunt, who was mentally disabled, she would come here all the time. Sometimes she would be in a good mood and compliment the guys especially and talk about how handsome they were, but sometimes she had difficult times and the people at station five treated her like family, they took care of her, and i know who is our deputy chief was a captain here during that time, they love michel so very much and i want to thank you for taking care of my aunt and being there for her. This is really a family, and the folks here, they save lives every single day and take care of this community and love this community. So this station is really not just a gift to our city, its to demonstrate to the men and women of this department, we want to make sure they have a great station, a station that works for them. A station that is state of the art so they can do the job theyre doing for our citizens and city and county of San Francisco. I want to say thank you to all the folks working on this, to alton for their work on the construction project, moving on time and on budget thus far. And thank you Mohammed Nuru for leading Construction Projects all over the city, i know theyre not always on time and budget but thats okay, well get to that another day. And our chief will be saying a few words later and our commissioners. This station is going to be a jewel in the city, its the station we deserve for our residents. I look forward to being here and cutting the ribbon when we open in one year. Take care. applause thank you supervisor breed. And also i have to say from the bottom of my heart, the last few weeks have been very difficult for all of us. London woke up in the middle of the night and took over the city and really did an excellent job. Lets give her a hand for that. applause now i want to introduce our partner who has worked with us from the beginning all over our city, whether its trying to work on systems, whether its remodelling fire stations or building new fire stations, leading the effort of going through the whole effort to make sure we have resillant structures and the correct tools that the Fire Department needs to do its job, welcome chief hayeswhite. Good afternoon everyone. The job is looking great. First and foremost, i want to acknowledge four of our five Fire Commissioners that are here. The Fire Commission is under the direction of president cleveland. Thank you for your support every step of the way. applause as director nuru eluded to, theres been a lot of change and difficulty in the past several weeks and i would like to also acknowledge the great vision and support always of Public Safety that mayor ed lee had, if not for mayor lee we would most likely not be standing here. I want to acknowledge mayor lee and certainly president breed, this is near and dear to her heart. This is a vital part of this neighborhood and community. We are all very excited about it. So thank you president breed for being here. And certainly it is a partnership. I have a lot of respect and admiration to my colleague, director of public works, theres a phenomenal team, all those standing here. Thank you for what you do. And i want to acknowledge tom oconnor, vigilant making sure we have healthy safe work places and the men and women standing behind me, members of this very station looking forward many drive by each day to look at the progress of the station. Hats off to alton construction. These are the men and women who will be working out of the station, led by the assistant chief here at this division house. We only have two division houses in the city, one at 19th and the other right here. Its a vital part of our operation. Assistant chief is with us and the members assigned to engine five, truck five and battalion five, who by the way are still at work, reassigned to local stations. I just wanted to say thank you, great job and we look forward to cutting the ribbon as president breed said. Appreciate it. applause we all know no project happens without the partnership of the actual contractor. So were going to ask the contractor from alton construction to come up and say a few words. I will tell you, i have made quite a number of visits to the site during constructions and some of the beams and bolts are the largest and strongest i have seen in construction. Being built, i know this is not going anywhere. Welcome. Come say a few words. applause they dont usually let us talk at these things. Rolling the dice with that one. Im the Vice President of operations for alton construction. We are the general contractor on this project obviously. For the last 20 plus years we have operated almost exclusively in the Public Sector, schools, police stations and obviously fire stations. When our group when i said i was going to say a few things, i thought about the common stuff, site constraints like working in a big city and it occurred to me that the aspects of this project are not particularly unique at least for me. This is what we do every day. We work in this environment. And the truth is, the materials that go into a building like this are not often the reason a project like this is successful. Its much more often due to the personalities and work ethic of the people on the ground working on this every day. So you know sorry im happy to have the opportunity to say that the group of architects, engineers and project managers i work with every day out here, sort of lower level are of the highest caliber. You know, the architects who are here, the engineers are here. Shawn obrien, the engineers, im not sure if theyre here. And captain mcfarland, the Fire Department representation at our weekly meetings. So to say that i have been impressed with this groups professionalism would be a dramatic understatement. We operate in the nine bay area counties and have hit every corner of every county and i can say without uncertainty this group is exceptional without question. Theyre workers, theyre not delegators. They get into the problem and get us what we need every day to keep going. We havent always agreed on everything. This isnt a fairy tail but the group has been fair and direct with us every single time and its not as common as you might think. I for one am excited to be part of this team and on behalf of our small team, the superintendent, project engineer without whom i would be under water on this job. Bob and shannon alton, disappointed they cant be here today and on behalf of our entire alton construction family, congratulations to all stakeholders on the milestone and a special thanks to the people i work with every day. Its been a real pleasure so far and im looking forward to a strong finish. applause thank you andrew. And all those guys you name are from public works. This project was from a scratch to getting out to contract was done inhouse and speaks to the capability of what the Public Works Department can do, it wasnt like that many years ago. Now we have healthy projects and were proud of that. The next part of the event, were going to sign a beam. We do have markers that all of the guests can sign. But before i do that, on behalf of public works i want to say thank you to all the men and women of the Fire Department who protect us and make sure our city runs smooth every day. applause thank you, thank you all of you. Supervisor breed, commissioners, we have pens over there, if you can start the signing process on the beam. We will sign the beam and allow everybody to go back to work. Yes, sign. Hi, im ryan a prlth letting project manager with the sfpuc working at the sfpuc is a fastpaced environment the puc is American People eye person so breath and depth allows us to work on allows me to move across my career path. Fill the roadway. Our unique projects is the heritage puc Water Treatment longterm improvement plant its one of the largest projects ive managed and supervised to be successful as a project manager you have to be hard working and selfmotivated and being adaptable is important because the construction it is very fabulous that get me up in the morning youre going to be project solving and seeing the project go to me thats fun, i like coming t laura thomas sitting in for our president bryant tan. So welcome, it looks like were up and running. First of all, please make sure any cell phones, pagers noise making devices are set to silent and thank you to sfgov tv for broadcasti broadcasting this to the community. We wanted to start with expressing condolences to bryant n,