Families and people that are down here with information guides about where to stop and where to get the best bargains right and also, just being here at this Winter Wonder land i know karen is excited because this wonder land grew out of the need to have a place that was outside of the construction immediate zone or to change that zone for the holidays so john is glad to do this more tor yum and well talk about extended construction later on and during the central subway construction, i think we used our innovation to really Work Together to invite people down here and hose up that construction for a period of time which starts now and wont end until after the new year but this is calm and quiet and you will hear less about construction and more about the voices of our family and kids and people just excited to run through here with all the activities on Winter Wonder land were here to make sure its not only safe but clean, welcoming environment, helpful environment and there were be hundreds of thousands of people down here thankful a Wonderful Fund and were encouraging everybody to take advantage of this Winter Wonder land and all the excitement that happens and also shop locally and make sure you spend time and all your merchant corridors is this is a center piece of it and its also clean and fun and making sure everybody is safe so congratulations everyone, and for all those that are going to be visible, thank you because the visibility of the officers on the beat will calm everybody down and just be alert no matter what part of the city you are in and drive safely and dont drink and drive, thank you. Thank you, mayor lee, we cant do all the great work we do without this partner is our fine San FranciscoPolice Department they work with us and they make sure that we are all of us in the city are protected but most especially the work that the Public Works Department does and i have to say for the many years ive worked for city government, our chief who joined us the way he is running the department and changing things and everything is working better so i appreciate that and i appreciate that partnership you know, welcome to scott. [applause] good morning, thank you. So im going to repeat a couple things that have been said and first of all, this is my favorite of time of year because the mol day season is it about tradition and family and community and none of this can happen without us as a community im talking about city partners, the department of public works and the Publicprivate Partnership we have with the bids and the embassadors it has to Work Together so i want to talk about a couple things about our traditions and one of our traditions that we want in this city and we must have is that when people come here from where they come from and they come here from all over the world, we want them to have a safe experience and a safe and clean experience and i was out here on saturday night with my family i had a great time and i got here too late for the beer garden but i was off duty. I was off duty and i missed the beer garden but he had a great time with my daughter and she brought a friend from out of town and it was a great time but more importantly, what made me so happy is that i saw the city working like it should be working. We had officers everywhere they were engage and we had people cleaning the streets and it worked like it was supposed to work so thats what we want to promote. We want to promote a tradition of safety, cleanliness so people enjoy their time when they come to San Francisco and they enjoy the experience so they bring their families and their friends and couple of things of safety tips and some of this is basic and you will hear this repeated, we dont want anybodys Holiday Season to be torn apart by being victimized of crime, so a couple of things, first of all, when you are doing what you do shopping or just enjoying the city, take a break from the cellphone if you are going to use it use it responsibly and Pay Attention to your surroundings i know this is a life line but Pay Attention to your surroundings i cant emphasize that enough. Also, when you are shopping, when you carry around your package and when you are using the a. T. M. , again, Pay Attention to your surroundings, if you are using your a. T. M. And putting your pin number in make sure you shield it so people cant steal your pin number and make sure if you are going to your car, that you dont leave your valuables open where people can see them and get to them and break in your car and steal what you worked so hard to buy and that is a basic thing but you would be surprised just how many people forget to do that if you return to your car, get some thought to move your car to another location and sometimes people that are out to do harm they will watch you put your packages in the car and you resume your shopping and come back and your things are gone so make sure you do that and the mayor mentioned that we want people to have a safe experience when you walk across the street and a simple thing, obey the law , obey the traffic signals, dont cross against the red light, dont cross against the red hen this is a simple thing but you would be surprised how many people dont take that simple advice one of our goals here in the city is to reduce pedestrian and fatalities and that is a simple thing that will help in that regard and also if you are driving the mayor mentioned it, this is a season of festivities and theres a lot of spirits and a lot of good spirits around but you dont want to do that and get behind the wheel of your car because thats not going to help anybody and its probably going to hurt more than it helps so if you are going to drive, drink dont drive and be responsibility with your use of alcohol in terms of your shopping habits, its always good to have someone with but, also with your packages if you happened to have packages mailed to you from where you are maleing them from make sure that you understand there are people that will steal your packages so i was at may sees so coming is delivered this week but i want to make sure i take precautions to let me neighbors know that things are coming or whatever so people will look at for each other. Look out for your friends, neighbors and watch out far each other and again this is a Community Season so its all about caring about and looking out for others and being responsible in whatever you decide to do this Holiday Season so thank you. [applause] thank you as the chief said, awareness is everything so you should always be aware where you are at and what you are doing. If you need to make a phone call if its an emergency, call 911 and if its a quality of life call 311 and well respond. Nothing happens without the partnership of the community and the next person i will introduce ive had the pleasure of working with throughout my time at public works but her work in the private sector forming many of the Community Benefits district and they create the embassador program that we see here that is here to help people but they also make sure that the areas are clean, they make sure theyre free from graffiti and 9 downtown is pren able and welcome from the Business Improvement district. [applause] thank you so much and welcome everyone inform union square and our Second Annual winter walk were so delighted to have you here and im executive director of the union square Business Improvement district and we strive to create a positive experience for all the visitors who come down here and clean and safe is our montra during the holidays. I would like to thank the mayor ed lee for your leadership on clean and safe issues all year around and muhammad may have mentioned i had the pleasure of working for mr. Lee at the maintenance yard so we were cleaning up the streets then and were still cleaning up, right mayor . And i had the opportunity to work with muhammad at the yard and still today and muhammad, thank you for your partnership year around and this area has never looked better and we thank you so much for sending the fix it team down here weve been working with sandra and paint the polls and remove unwanted furniture from sidewalks and paint crosswalks and it should look really great for the holidays down here so thank you and of course, we have beautiful hanging baskets now thanks to muhammad and the gateway here to union square which is never looked better with the holiday lights so thank you and last but not least, i cant forget our partnership with the San Francisco police chief chief scott has been an incredible partner this year giving us additional beat officers were up to eight officers that walk the beat every day work very closely with all of our embassadors here in red to create a strong Publicprivate Partnership together so we believe we may have some funding coming through my staff has worked hard on filling out paper work to also allow for police officers, if i say that and everyone collectively cross your fingers on that one so, good news to come and it is my pleasure to lead the staff here of our Public Safety hospitality and cleaning embassador standing right behind me in red so look out for them during the holidays and theyre here to answer questions and point the direction to tourists to shops and restaurants and let them know where theyre going and they help with quality of life issues and they wipe off from gee tee and they sweep and paint and hmm the city comes through and Additional Resources on the cleaning side on the safety side its just amplifying our effect even that much month sore we can make union square shine so come on down for the holidays here in union square, shop, enjoy the restaurants and the winter walk will be opened every day from now until new years from 8 00 a. M. To 9 00 p. M. We have two beer gardens this year weve got food trucks as you can see behind me and reindeer scooters bring the family down and, shops so come down and enjoy a wonderful, safe, Holiday Season. Thank you. [applause] thank you are, karen. And outside of the shopping season, theres a lot of projects on the drawing board and if you have gone down to Holiday Plaza you might see plantings down the rail and theres decorations that we will put up and theyre getting ready to do work on the tunnel so its a project the Public Works Department is in and the better Market Street the improvement for Market Street we hope will break ground on but theres a lot of opportunities and lots of designs and lots of work that the whole city family is doing and in closing i want to thank mayor lee for all his leadership that he brought to San Francisco you know, i have worked for mayor lee for 17 years but what mayor lee has brought to our city is really all the city departments talking to each other, working with each other and doing team Work Together we make a lot of progress so mayor lee i want to continue to thank you for your leadership and bringing us all together and really you know no lines all of us in one place and trying to make the city a better place for everyone. So that will conclude our press conference and enjoy your shopping and this is the season and come down here and theres the winter gardens, theres union square, theres all these beautiful shops here and spend some money and enjoy the Holiday Season. Thank you very much. [applause] good morning, everyone. My name is todd rufto of the Workforce Development program. Its great to be here at the San Francisco museum of ice cream. I want to thank the entire team here for hosting us for this event. This is a special day. We are doing the Fourth Annual launch of the mayors shop and dine in the 49 local shopping campaign. This is a really big deal because it is a partnership between a great many members of the Small Business community and the neighborhood throughout the city focused on helping san franciscans spend more money in our local commercial corridors and at Small Businesses in San Francisco. But it is also an opportunity to celebrate the entrepreneurs that are making that keep San Francisco strong, that are keeping the city thriving and vie brand. One of the things that im really excited about and want to focus on today is the incredible partnership of all the members of the Small Business community that are here today. Where are you, jason . Raise your hand. Hi, jason from shop small saturday. Thank you very much for your partnership and continued klb ration. Collaboration. We have mark quite thesing, regina dickendreezy, the council of district merchants has been a critical partner of ours as well. We have the Council District of merchants here as well. Juan of the things that were really proud of and really inspired by is our mayor, ed lee. The mayor came to us four years ago, the office of economic Workforce Development and said i challenge you to create a program and campaign that gets more shopping done in our local neighborhoods. Increase the amount of spending to support jobs and Small Businesses and also support taxes and the vitality of our neighborhoods. And we, through the incredible work of Mariane Thompson and gloria chan, Joaquin Torres in the office of economic Workforce Development launched this program to do exactly that. To encourage and challenge san franciscans to do more in our Small Business community. Mayor lee has done more than any mayor that i know to invest and support in Small Businesses, directing more money and investing more money than any administration in the citys history to support Small Businesses through the invested neighborhoods program, by launching a Small Business portal, by meeting constantly with our Small Business leaders and as a tireless advocate for the issues that they care about most. It is my honor and privilege to introduce mayor lee. [applause] thank you. Thank you, todd. Good morning, everybody. Let me correct todd because i want to make sure you understood the challenge. I challenged him to find me more ice cream. That was the real challenge. And im really happy to be here. At the Ice Cream Museum. This is one of those innovative ideas, very unique to the city and, of course, theyre getting booked up like crazy and were in the heart of our shopping and union square and, of course, the chief and i already have enough chants. We need some opportunities to smile and, of course, were about to jump into this speckle pool. Forgive us if we have too much fun. The holidays are beginning. Were going to have lots of fun. I want people to not just come to the city but take advantage of really supporting the backbone of our Business Community and Small Businesses and people here, karen fled knows union square is at the heart of a lot of things that we do during the holidays. You have jeffries toys, my favorites. Theyre a legacy business in the city. And keep supporting them. [shouting] well have all of the different Business Associations that are working together with us. But the experience is all about fun. Safe fun. And that is why the chief and i will be doing a lot of things over the holidays to make safe shopper programs, to provide the safety level that people have. Reduce the Harm Reduction program on our streets. Make sure people, as many people can get off of our streets. While work on those hard things. In between those difficult, challenging things, we want to work with our Business Community to provide safe fun for the kids that will be here. Thousands of kids over the holidays, families. People from all over the world that are taking advantage of this wonderful city that we have. And were doing this with programs, yes, that we funded but we want to make sure that Everything Else is working for folks on the longterm. Small businesss are so important to cities like San Francisco. More than the backbone, they provide the innovative, the Cultural Diversity all over our neighborhoods. This is one big area. But listen, shop and dine in the 49 is about shopping in all of our neighborhoods. Allow them to give you cultural innovation, Small Business innovations, shopping small innovation because when people put their entire lives behind their Small Businesses, you should see the innovation that comes out of their ideas, their service, their good patronages of products and designs that are locally sensiti