Because here in San Francisco, were really fortunate, as the mayor said, to have some generous voters. Emwho say, you know, when we put something on the ballot, they support it. They know its the right thing to do. The infrastructure project, all of the things that we need to do to make sure not only that our city is working today. We need to make sure it is working for generations to come yes, were all upset over the congestion. Yes, we dont like van ness avenue right now and a couple of other places. But at the end of the day, its going to be even better. This is an example of what we can accomplish when we make these projects work for san franciscans. So thank you to each one of you. Thank you to the department of public works, thank you to clerk. Thanks for these folks who had the opportunity to work in their backyard. This is really amazing for the city today. Thank you so much. [ applause ] thank you, supervisor breed. Next were going to hear from city administrator, city administrator actually chairs our planning committee. When these projects get delivered or they get conceived, they actually go through a serious vetting process. It is a process to approve them. It is through her leadership that these projects are actually able to happen. When we work on these projects. When we have challenges or we have concerns, we always have to make sure the city administrator knows what happened h. Were very thankful to the voters. Theres only so much money. We have to finish these projects on time and on budget. Under her leadership, we developed another one. Welcome as city administrator. Thank you, mohammed. I dont know if anyone said it yet, but welcome to the new medical examiner facility. And you heard the mayor and supervisor breed talk about the hall of justice. We are trying to decant the hall of justice so we can demolish that building. I was watching the historic movie, bullet with Steve Mcqueen in the late 60s. They filmed a lot of the scenes in the medical examiner facility. I thought to myself, oh, my goodness. Nothing has changed 50 years later. I dont know if there was even an upgrade or renovation. It was exactly the same thing. Look at how weve evolved over the last 50 years, new technology. We were skinnier around the waist so it was for skinnier people and it was undersized and didnt meet standards. And this is a project near and dear to the city administrators hearts. It started for me in 2013 when i was trying to get this facility to be part of the easer program and with the director of Public Finance we were successful in convincing our capital plan colleagues to put this as part of the 2014easer bond, which went to the voters. It was a 64 million bond. I want to thank the voters because they moved forward with us to bring this new facility, so i just wanted to thank all of you for that. So we hit the ground running in 2014. What you may or may not all remember. I had an interim director of the office of the chief medical examiner. He was not a doctor. He was not a forensic pathologist. He was not a toxicologist. He was a great administrator while we started the International Search to find dr. Bukowskih. It started the design. Ive been working with public work works when we worked with recruitment. And i found dr. Hunter. Im telling you i found you just in time, dr. Hunter. We tried our best. When he came in, our input into the facility made it when you go on a tour, i think youll see what a state of the art facility is and how lucky we are to have this building. It was a lot of your great input. So thank you, dr. Hunter. When you tour this facility, supervisor breed touched on it. The family room. I mean, this is a time when you are grieving, especially when the families who come here, it is yourely an unanticipated death, so youre in shock. And the family room in here compared to what was at the hall of justice was just it will change the experience. It will try and it will be more comforting and warming to what youre already going through. And then for those who are squeamish, like myself, at the hall of justice, i would take circiquitous routes to make sure that i didnt pass out. The flow of this facility is excellent. Like i said, all of you will be very impressed when you go on the tour. I want to thank clark, public works, the Contract Monitoring Division and city build. Because you heard the mayor and the director say that we hit all types of goals with our local Business Enterprise goals and our local hiring goals. 6,100 working hours of local residents on this building, half of them from the bay view hunter s point neighborhood. 34 of the construction crews were from San Francisco. I want to thank all of your leadership throughout the city. So thank you very much and enjoy the tour. Okay. Were almost there. Were almost there. As i hear her speak i remember working for the city one of my jobs was to maintain the hall of justice. Can i tell you that facility with the news we just heard with the leadership of the board of supervisors and the mayor we are all moving out of there and delivering this facility. One thing at public works that we take very, very important is to work closely with our client and make sure that we deliver the state of the art project that our clients expect to have. And leading that effort is our chief medical examiner, dr. Hunter. Please come up and speak. [ applause ] and im also impressed with the amount of dedication and hard work of mohammeds team at public works shepharding this project from infancy to completion and that is what we have here today. I would like to recognize two individuals that were dedicated to this project and really did get us to where we are today. They worked very closely with me and the finer points of this building, i think, is is due to that interaction. I do want to its magdalina ryer in the crowd . Okay. Magadelena was the project manager who worked with the staff to ensure the design and construction of the facility completed as desired. Completed as desired meaning that is not an easy thing to do. We want this facility to be functional now and functional in the future. We want it to work. So we were arm in arm with public works and magdalena did a fan taftic job of making that happen. And did an amazing job at that. I would like to recognize a member of my staff. Christopher warziak who is my director of operations. And christopher is right next to magdalena over there. And at this point, i suspect a lot of you in the crowd know christopher. If you had anything to do with this project or had anything to do with the coordination and the move, you know who christopher is. Hes been dedicated to the office. You no he him as a fierce advocate for the office, the medical examiner. Hes worked tirelessly from the early stages of the Building Design to construction and finally to coordination to make sure that this all come shz together and works cohesively. I cannot fully express my gratitude to christopher, other than to say thank you very much for a wonderful job. Lastly, i want to thank the residents for the city and county of San Francisco for making this facility possible. Thank you, San Francisco. [ applause ] lets give another hand to the medical Examiners Office. They work hard jobs. I mean, these are tough jobs. Okay. Our last speaker is from the San FranciscoPublic Art Program when we do projects in the city we are required to set aside some funding for art. And i think that its a very good policy because, when we do these buildings, we are able to also add some beauty and some art to the project. And speaking on behalf of the Arts Commission today is susan pontiaz, who will tell us a little bit about the art in the building. And when you get to tour it, it is beautiful, beautiful art that reflects the neighborhood and reflects San Francisco. Welcome, susan. [ applause ] thank you. Save the best for last. We are really lucky to live in a city that values art to beautify its public spaces like San Francisco. But many of you, to be blunt, may be asking with what is the role of art in the morgue . Many members of the public, when they come and are here in the midst of decent and deep grief with no art. Yet, it is prove than certain kinds of imagery can reduce stress and anxiety. This was our very special goal from the very onset of this project. Our goal was to select art that contributes to a sense of calm, peace, and tranquility. It is part of the way that the city expresses compassion, and we are really proud to be a part of that effort. And i know all of the artists who participated are also proud to be part of that effort. So as you enter the lobby, the first piece youll see is my murial axelrod. Is murial here . Yes. Murial is right there in the purple sweater. She has created a beautiful collage inspired by the salt marshes and wildlife of india basin. The work was created with thousands of pieces of fabrics that the artist has carefully arranged, pinned, and sewn together. I invite you to take a close look. It is really amazing. Some of the fabric that is in the birds, as merilee mentioned was a jacket worn by g. Boyd steven whos served the city over 30 years as the chief medical examiner. Theres also a collection of framed art works on the walls in the publicly accessible areas of the building. And these, woulds are all by San Francisco bay area artists, inspired by the unique beauty and scenes of the bay area. The artists are in the collection, and i ask you to raise your hand if youre here. Susie barnyard, who i know right behind me there. Whose studio is in the bayview. Elaine kummes, there. Stanley goldstein, b url e landow. There is b url e and alan mazetti. Theyre way in the back. And coming soon to the landscaped area right behind me will be a largescale sculpture entitled alma by sculptor, richard doitch. I dont know if richard is here student. The stainless steel sculpture is inspired by alma, a flatbottomed schooner built in 1891 by fred seamer in his shipyard at hunters point. At 22 feet tall, it will help identify this facility as a civic building and provide a major art asset to the community si also want to give thanks to all of the artists for their great, would. I want to thank project manager, mary chu, from our office, who was on the front lines making sure all of this coordinating all of this work to get into the building. I also want to thank other staff from our Arts Commission, jennifer lavorne, who is our senior project manager, and jennifer kranedoyle who is here as one of our registrars. I want to thank elaine from d. R. W. , the project manager for all of their support in helping us realize this project. Thank you very much. Okay. So at this time we are going to cut the ribbon. And after the ribbon cutting, the facility will be open for tours for just one hour. So well go from 12 00 to 1 00. So if you are available or have time, i would encourage you to walk through it. It is a very beautiful stateoftheart facility to seeing how things work through to how things flow from all of the labs that are up there to these capabilities to what this modern lab will do for us. So thank you very much for coming out today. I just really appreciate it. We look forward to delivering more projects on your behalf. Thanks. [ applause ] countdown. Ready. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one whew [ applause ] [music] clapping. in San Francisco the medical examiner performs the function of investigating medical and legal that occurs with the city and county of San Francisco from a variety of circumstances in San Francisco there is approximately 5 thousand deaths annually im christopher director for the chief mr. Chairman the chief my best testimony a at the hall of justice on 870 drooint street that is dramatically updated and not sufficient for the medical chairman facility ive Charles Program manager public works should a earthquake of a major are proportion occurs well not continue to perform the services or otherwise inhabit the building before the earthquake. Were in a facility that was designs for a department that functions and in the mid 60s and friends scientific has significantly changed weve had significant problems with Storage Capacity for evidence items of property and also personal protective if youre doing a job on a daily basis current little storage for prirjs are frirnlsz were in an aging facility the total project cost forever ever commercial is 65 million the funding was brought by a vote of go bond approved by the voters and the locations is in the neighborhood the awarded contract in 2013 and the im the executive director we broke ground in november 2015 and that started with the demolition of existing facility we moved into the foundation and january so Pile Foundation and then with second construction of the new facility. One of the ways that we keep our project on time on budget and were having quality to have regular meeting and the variety of meetings with construction process meeting as well as cost of control meeting and im a project manager for public works the office of chief commercial we want walk the project site when we sign up and also with a contractor insinuates for a change over we need to verify what or what was instead of. The building is 42 feet tall so it is two stories and 46 thousand square feet roughly were thats a great question to be on time and budget have the roof complete a the exterior moving with the site work. And as you can see weve got a lot of the interior finishes installed. In an effort of an differentiate the facility that designed to work for 72 hours. Not taking into account there was a lot of structural updates made into this building not seen in other construction throughout San Francisco or other barriers we have friday morning examiners from 8 to one Public Comment monday to friday because of air circulation we literally have to shut the doors and so the autopsy is done without staffing being able to come and go or exit the space and literally lock down the autopsy in the new facility we have bio build one door opens and closed behind you you can gown up and go through a second seizures of doors that has its own independent air supply and now in the exterior opt space having that middle space have greater flexibility of staff as they move in and out of the area. In the current facility Investigative Unit has small tiny, tiny place in the area of the new facility is almost doubled in all divisions from the current facility and the new facility. The planning we have here gives them the opportunity to have the pool needs to complete theirs jobs in a much more streamlined fashion. Were looking forward to have secured parking to minimize the egress of you know visiting and the members of the public but really to minimize the investigators remaining remains from our advancing and so the facility. We have a new visitors area were building that is a little bit more friendly to families. One thing you may notice in the room no windows there is no Natural Light not good for most autopsy but in the new facility at new hall we made that an objective they want to insure we were able to look up in the middle of exam and see the sky and see Natural Lights. Thats one of the things the architect did to draw in as much light as possible. We have staff here onsite we insure the design of the new design enables the investigators and other investigators skiefksz to consider to house on site this meant we needed to design and plan for locker room facilities and shower rooms the ability to sleep. Third of the construction going into the building has been by contributions of Small Businesses. Part of the project is also inclusive to the sidewalk have all new sidewalks and new curve cuts and landscaping around the building well have a syrup in front of the building and rain guardian. The medical Examiners Office has been a several if in their contributions of the understanding the exception and needs. Its a building that the chief medical examiner has been looking forward to quite a few of the. It is extremely valuable contribution to the, neighborhood address San Francisco as a whole. The building will allow is to have greater very much and serve the city and county of San Francisco and the neighboring happy holidays. Happy holidays. All right. Im glad to be here with our supervisors, Council District merchants, community mbz, but of course, were here to thank local 798, our Fire Department. What a what a challenging year that weve had. And i know our hearts always go out to the people who will put themselves in danger in order to save others. Time and time again, our firefighters, whether its fires up north or around the bay area, they jumped to it and saved a lot of peoples lives and property. But they give joy and can do that more than other people that we know that may not have that opportunity. This toy program is something that we all take great pride in, because it represents so much of our valve values of giving back and making care of children in our city so they can have a similar experience when the holidays come. Not everyone gets that same experience, but our firefighters and our union know how to do it. On that christmas day, they will make that extra effort as well to visit the families that didnt even have something that arrived for them. Thats a special treat. It is something that i value so much, that represents a city that keeps our city really strong. So, tommy, do you, to the union, to all of the members, to the Fire Department, congratulations on the toy program, reverberating a wonderful place, for the collection, and for its distribution and also to say thank you to each and every one of the members for the overthetop contributions to the families of the city. Happy holidays to you. [applause] thank you. Appreciate it.