Development of the waterfront and the Commission Works very hard with the port staff. In the ports waterfront land use plan, our blueprint for the 71 2 miles of waterfront, we make a conscious effort to plan and maintain open access for the benefit of our residents and our visitors. And the port now has 86 acres of open space which is about 10 of the port property. And our ongoing plan can youxv for increasing this amount to 28 acres within the next eight years. So, this is not the beginning or the end, but were in the midst of what were trying to do. But as you know, you heard from all the other speakers, providing open space is a very expensive undertaking. In the past 13 years, the port has spent approximately 109 million on public spaces. And weve been able to do this, as you heard various sources of funding, but we want to acknowledge in particular today the tax payers of San Francisco that have passed the two general Obligation Bonds in 2008 and 2012 that have made our open Space
Space. It takes a village for us to build a park and i want to very much add the thanks to the so many city staff that came together who monique and mayor lee have already mentioned, but i want to thank in particular the port for your leadership over the many years, all the departments, mayor lee. I also want to thank an agency that i had the pleasure of serving on that many members of the public dont know much about, the bcdc, the bacon Certification Development commission. applause thank you, bcdc. So, those of you who dont know, bcdc is the commission that is responsible for protecting the bay, protecting the access of the public to the bay, protecting the fact that our bay had for many decades until bcdc came along, been encroached by developments that not everyone thought was appropriate. And i think its so special that we are focused today on making sure that this very spot and spots around the entire bay are protected. One of the interesting design aspects of what we stand on ri
History of our city and particularly the hard history of our waterfront labor struggles. And that International Long shore and work house union, yes, very important part of our citys history. applause are reflected in these wonderful artistic and historic panels. And that will just give us even much more of a deeper sense of appreciation for what our city does with this. Then this opens up a viewpoint that i know you know that i personally share because its not just the history. Were also going to be opening up this area for even more people as we establish and get going on piers 3032 and transform what has historically been dying piers into the hopeful new entertainment and waterfront arena. I know in less than five years, an additional 13 acres of open space will had. More of that will be open more and more to the public. I want to see see gail hunter, viethv of the warriors here. I want to thank you for your commitment to working with the city to try to make this happen. ~ Vice Pres
The port, its commission and the staff, because this is in fact 150 years of celebration of our port. And what a way to celebrate with all these wonderful things that are happening here. Its taken 15 years for this project to get done, 15 years. Thats a 10th of the history of the port of San Francisco. And theres a lot of people to thank and moniques already thanked them, but its worth repeating. I think the big Conservation Development commission, the Port Commission, our port staff, public works, all our departments behind me, rec and park, our federal partners have certainly been extremely important. Thank you to everyone for getting to this point. And thank you for the contractors as well, because this has been one of the most visible projects where people along the waterfront have traversed this project for quite sometime and did not experience any Public Safety challenges along the way. So, i want to thank them for that high level of safety. 840 feet alongside our embarcadaro pro
Thank you again to mayor lee and mayors newsom and brown before him for making this possible and best wishes for memorable celebration. Best regards, nancy pelosi, democratic leader. Thank you. applause thank you, dan, very much. And please take our best and most gracious respects back to congresswoman pelosi, your colleagues in your San Francisco office and of course in the capital. They are just fabulous for all of us. Another group that needs recognition is the Port Commissioners themselves, present and past. They have been with us for this project along the way. They have worked hard to marshal scarce resources to make this project possible as the budget kept rising and the need to do more work kept rising with it. And to say a few words of gratitude on all of our behalf, please welcome Port Commission president doreen wuho. applause thank you, monique. And i will try to be brief. Youve had a lot of speeches. But im just as excited to be here and having heard that song, it really b