My name is phil ginsberg. I am the general manager of your San Francisco recreation and parks department. We want to welcome you to the 90 th, think about that. The 90th annual Tree Lighting. This started december 20th, 90 years ago on John Mclarens birthday and his spirit is here tonight because it is not raining. [laughter] this is truly one of our signature events of the year. Certainly one of my personal favourites. And if you see all the incredible stuff happening here down j. F. K. , if you havent walked down the street, there are rides and food and games and you get a goat of conservatory of flowers from night bloom or the outside of the building and the inside of the building are all lit up. It is super cool. The start of our show tonight is right next to me. Our mayor, london breed. Mayor, thank you for joining. We will have you wait just a second. The mayor is a magician and she will make the magic happen tonight with this tree. Before we make that happen, we need to acknowledge some other special guests who are here that make this happen tonight. They have joined me on stage. Present tonight we have state Assembly Member phil taking who is right there. [applause] i think our assessor recorder carmen to is here or on her way, and then we have our recreation and park commission, our president , mar buell mar you will and all of the commissioners. We have a number of other folks from the parks and Recreation Advisory Committee who are here who helped guide park policy. We are grateful for their support. And i see a few special Department Heads starting with our police chief bill scott who is here. I saw deputy chief david lazar, the head of the department of the environment is here. And many other special guests. If i have missed anybody on this stage, i apologize. I saw a project level in the house. Thank you very much. We do events like this four times a year. Our Family Friendly free events would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors or partners including kaiser permanente, Byward Market , the San Francisco parks allianz, i saw the president of the Parks Alliance in the house, and recology. And of course, none of this would be possible without the hard work of the best staff. The best and hardest working staff in city government. The recreation and Park Department staff. Lets give them a big round of applause. [cheers and applause] so let me talk for a quick second about the tree itself. This is San Franciscos official holiday tree. This tree was planted by john mclaren. It is a Monterey Cypress that is over 130 years old. It has aged a little bit. It might have lost a limb or two over the years, but it is Still Standing tall. Tonight it is sporting over 550 lights. And what makes this Tree Lighting special is that this is the last Tree Lighting, this is 100 the 149th year of golden gate park. So next year we will celebrate the hundred and 50th birthday of our entire park system in San Francisco. Lets give that around of applause. [ ] i mentioned our partners and i want to bring up one special partner. We have many, that help us provide programs and provide services for kids and help us to special events tonight. One of those partners is kaiser permanente. Tonight, the chief operating officer of kaiser his here to join us in celebrating the start of the holiday season. Help me welcome miss miller who will come up and say a few words [applause] good evening, everybody. Happy holidays. Welcome to tonights festival on behalf of kaiser permanente. We are a proud sponsor of recreation and parks annual Tree Lighting ceremony. Can you believe it is 130 years old . What we would like to do is celebrate tonight and also welcome you to the theme for this next year which is making friends one data time. The 150th anniversary or celebration of golden gate park. 150 years. Give that a hand. [applause] in honor of that, we come together across this beautiful city to this world renowned park to meet with friends and family and to make new friends as well. Reminds me of the campfire song, make new friends, but keep the old. That is how this city grow stronger and strengthens through his relationships. We will continue to support these beautiful events and we hope that you, too, will take advantage of tonights festivities. Thank you again on behalf of kaiser permanente. Thank you. All right. So she is truly our park champion and chief. Lets get it lit, she says. She really likes to party and she is not particularly patient, but let me bring her up. Ladies and gentlemen, our mayor, london breed. [cheers and applause] thank you. All right. I love the theme music. First of all, thank you all so much for coming out today and braving the rain to be here with us tonight to celebrate 90 years of a time honored tradition here in San Francisco right in front of mclaren lodge. This is an amazing, fun event. Fun for the whole family. I love the idea that we have so many incredible officials here, but i will need some kids to help me light this tree. [applause] so i see these patient young people raising their hand right down in the front row. Have your parent bring you on up to the side of the stage so you can help me like this tree. [ ] i need some help here with this switch. [ ] all right. Come on up. I think we might be almost at capacity. Hold on. Come on over. Come on, you guys. Are you going to help . Do you want to help . Yes, i love it. You are brave. Okay. This is what we are going to do. Gather around the podium. Gather around the podium, kids. Stop trying to crash, parents. All right. Because we know how to count, we will do the count down starting from 10, and then we will hit the switch. I will ask you, what is your name . Jr. I will ask you and what is your name . Sia. I will ask you to put your hands here because when i say to move it and to liked it, then you have to switch it real fast. Okay . Everybody in this place is going to help us count, but not until we say we will start with 10. Are you already . Are you ready . Okay. Lets start. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. [cheers and applause] good job. Thank you so much for helping us here today. Have a wonderful december celebrating joy with your Family Friends and community. Happy holidays, everybody. [ ] good morning, everyone. Hello. I am the site manager here as the new childs development center. [cheers and applause] it gives me so much pleasure to say welcome and thank you for being here today. For braving the rain and making it here anyway. Without further do, i would like to introduce the master of ceremony, she does not need any more introduction. Lets put our hands together and welcome the mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, mayor london breed. [cheers and applause] thank you. I am really, really excited to be here. Last year i was able to attend the grand opening of Natalie Graham commons and it was absolutely amazing. Some of you know the history of Natalie Grubb and the work that she did to help create the Tax Credit Program that allows for opportunity to invest in Affordable Housing like this one that we are standing in and her family was here. It was a great occasion. 120 families of low income are living in this property as we speak. And today, when we open this preschool, they will be prioritized for the slots in this location, which is absolutely exactly what we should be doing in San Francisco how incredible is that . [applause] so im joined here by number of great people and i like to see the young people already playing this place isnt opening until next week, but they decided they wanted to try the place out. That is why they are here today. This new transbay Child Development center is a welcome addition to this Community Thanks to the citys childcare Facility Fund and also, a special thank you to mimi and peter. Mimi here is speak a little bit later. We are so grateful for that Publicprivate Partnership that allows for an opportunity to create Amazing Spaces like this for our children to grow and to thrive. This is the third Child Development center operated by the south of market childcare. So we are appreciative of the work they are doing in this community to provide these opportunities. Highquality childcare, educational services, and free support for families in the south of market neighborhood and throughout San Francisco where we know we have so many children and families. I am really excited about the features. You all look at the beautiful colors, the tiny tables with the chairs that none of us fit in, the bathrooms, the play areas, a place that not only is very beautiful, but promotes creativity and has an incredible learning environment. On world childrens day last month, i, along with president of the board of supervisors announced that we in San Francisco are launching the child and youth friendly city initiative. We are pledging to be a child friendly city and we want to make sure that young people have a safe and healthy environment to grow and to thrive. It is time we start taking care of young people in all parts of San Francisco. It starts with Early Childhood education. Ingrid is here who is the director of the Early Childhood education for the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you for joining us. Earlier this week, under the leadership of president yee, we created a new Stipend Program called carers to. 0 to support two support the early educators because we know one of the Biggest Challenges we have is recruiting and retaining preschool teachers. I experienced this firsthand when we opened a brandnew childcare facility in west point it was promised to that community and they have such a hard time recruiting preschool teachers. We can do better. We need to do better to support the educators who are educating our children. That is why i am really excited about that program as well. [applause] but we are going to go even further. And next year we will hold a child and youth summit in San Francisco to really bring together people and experts and others to begin to have a conversation about how we do a better job as a city with taking care of not just our children, but everybodys children. Other kids who may not have those parents or grandparents or Community Members who are looking out for their best interest. We have to do a better job in investing in kids that often times are neglected and forgotten and not getting the resources that they need and deserve to grow and thrive. This is personal for me as someone who grew up raised by my grandmother in Public Housing and have seen the devastating impacts of neglect. So many of the people that i grew up with and it up, unfortunately in very different situations and i should be the norm and not the exception and so we have to commit to now, today to do a better job for our kids and it starts with our summit and the number of investments that we are making to start to support our young people early in their lives. So with that, i want to thank each and every one of you for being here. Thank you to nadine who you will hear from in a minute. The ring the Mayors Office of housing and Community Development in the office of early care and education. Mercy housing and the architects for this project, santos priest got who was instrumental in this project. It is absolutely beautiful and we are grateful. Thank you for to the contractor. Thank you to make me haas who is joining us here today who is the president of the mimi and p. But peter hoss fund. It does take a village. This village came together to make something magical happened and i am so looking forward to doing more projects like this to change what is normal in San Francisco. Having access to affordable child care for all families. Whether you are low or middle income to create to make sure kids have the kind of environments while they grow and thrive. This is just the beginning and i am excited to partner with the next speaker. President with the board of supervisors, norman he, who is ready really like the childcare king. Let me tell you. This man, when we came onto the board of supervisors together and every single instance he had already been the person who had advocated to make sure that with development there were resources for childcare with anything that we were doing, whether it was Holding People accountable to think about childcare and how we provide resources for young people, he was at the forefront of those conversations and so i am excited that we have come full circle with the fees from developments being used for purposes like this. That is what is making some of this happen. So we are able to do that with the hardworking leadership from the president president of the board of supervisors. [applause] thank you. I like to think that i play a role in some of the staff and part of it is i am just one person and many of you in this room have been in this battlefield for decades and this is really, to me, the results of all those battles we had over the 40 years i have been involved in this field. I am really thrilled to be here. When i walked through here today , i kept on thinking, every child, every toddler, every preschooler should have the same opportunity and this quality environment. And of course, the south of market childcare is really the ideal organization to operate this. Not only are they won of the best quality Early Education organizations in the city, with their commitment to this area, to the south of market area pre sees almost everybody in this room. They have been here for 40 or 50 years and ive worked with them through many of those years and seen them grow and wanting to serve the people who live in this community. Thank you to their organization. And again, mayor breed think a lot of organizations that made this happen pick it really does take a village. I think this village came together from this. One of those important persons that is part of this village is mimi hoss. I really admire her for ongoing, never giving up, support of Early Education in San Francisco thank you, mimi. [applause] even the kids know that. It has been my lifes work. I work in this field as an educator and also an executive director of one of the larger childcare providers or Early Education providers in San Francisco for over 15 years. That i have seen, what i have seen over the years is the need to constantly advocate for more resources. Early educators are underpaid and unfortunately the state has not been able to keep up with its investments. As a city, we have invested in creating an entire office of early care and education dedicated millions to sustain our child provider workforce. And most recently as mayor breed mentioned, i really want to commend her for supporting this notion of the program. It is something that i played a role in many years ago in creating the program. And at the time, it was earth shattering for it to happen. It is something that the rest of california followed right after we did it and i was telling a story to somebody, i have forgotten now, but two months ago, i was approached by a young lady, probably under 20 something. She said, hi, i remember you. You were santa when i was in preschool and i said wow. Why would a preschooler remember that . And she said, no, because my mother, joy, told her when she was growing up that it was the program that she was ready to leave the field. And because of that program she stuck it out. I think she is retired now, but she stuck it out for many more years. That is what we need to do in San Francisco is support our teachers, our early educators who really are the most important people when it comes to education of our children in San Francisco. Thank you very much again. I would like to say that i never get a chance to talk about Early Education enough. It is never enough. We are seeing a slight increase in our Young Children population number one issue i hear all the time from families and parents is that, you know, Early Education is inaccessible and unaffordable in San Francisco. Mayor breed and i announced that we were taking the challenge to be truly a child and youth friend friendly city that Centers Children at our policy and planning decision. One of the easiest ways to ensure that that every neighborhood, every housing, every project provides adequate space for childcare. I have been around for so long. I could talk about history a lot there was a downtown Childcare Development fee or plan that was brought to San Francisco over 25 years ago by some of my predecessors on the board of supervisors. And through the years we have realized, if we needed 10, all we got from that was two sense. It was just really inadequate. One of the things i looked at was to increase what we call the childcare fees for development and that helped a little bit. It wasnt enough. That wasnt enough. And in mayor breeds budget this year, we actually put in more funding for childcare facilities and that is why we are able to afford to build these facilities for our children. On the board, every developer knows, any developers here . Every developer knows by now or at least many years ago, if you come into the office about a new development, that they better have the response to how they would address the childcare shortage in San Francisco, otherwise dont come into my office. I hope to see more ceremonies like this and i am also hopeful that the initiative will finally be implemented so that families are provided subsidies to cover the high cost of Early Education it is something we are waiting for. I am sure we will win in the courts. We will get every low income family off the waiting list. About 2500. We also will help another 2500. I am really, really excited that the dream of having universal Early Education will eventually happen. Right, mimi . Yes. This is about investing in the future. What people often dont realize is how much investing in early years of a childs life is really the best way for us to address the social inequities so many that so many of our communities are facing. If you are talking about working upstream, then we must urgently show parental care or prenatal care. Our future really depends on it in this city. This is why the child and Youth Friendly Initiative that everyone is talking about is so critical. It is about thinking differently about the way we grow our city. And if we design what with children in mind, we truly design something that is universal universally safe and vibrant for everyone. Imagine early care and education being a basic service for every family regardless of income. Imagine child friendly spaces on every block so youth can safely explore the city . Imagine streets are designed so even a preschooler can go across imagine Housing Units like the ones above us, and every development so that families can expand and adapt with their changing needs. The opportunities are endless and i am ecstatic to join mayor breed and organizing the 2020 child and youth summit so to bring together our best partners from the Business Community of philanthropy, youth, advocates, parents, and residents to reimagine what San Francisco can and should be for the children, youth, and families. Thank you very much. [applause] now i would like to bring up your best supervisor in this district, best just best supervisor, matt haney. Thank you. First of all, speaking of the best, i dont think there has ever been a bigger, more effective champion for Early Childhood education then president norman g. Can we give him one more round of applause we from before he was on the school board to when he was on the school board, and now as a supervisor this has been such a huge priority for him. He had about three more pages of things to say. That shows how much leadership he has shown on this. Thank you for your leadership, mayor breed. Not just for the center, but for the larger initiative. Thank you to all of you. Thank you to all of the staff and educators who are here. Thank you for not just this center, but for all of the children that you serve and families that you serve across the south of market neighborhood i am deeply appreciative and know how high quality the services are that you provide to kids and families. I want to thank the families who are here and the kids who are here who are already enjoying what is just a wonderful, beautiful, colorful home for children and families. I cant wait to come in here and see 60 plus kids running around, having fun, learning, being supported and valued and loved. This is what it is all about. This is what every child in our city deserves and i want to put a myth to rest right now, which is when you look around this neighborhood, a lot of what people see are lots of highrises and New Buildings and law firms and Tech Companies and when you see that, sometimes you dont recognize that this is also a neighborhood of families. This is also a neighborhood of children. This is a residential neighborhood. And in order to have a neighborhood of families and children and residents, you need Early Childhood education. And so we believe that we dont only need this center, we need the next building that goes out also have Early Childhood education and its building, and we need to plan in a way that plans for families and for kids. So that means not only Early Childhood education, we need a an Elementary School in this neighborhood as well. We need to start to plan for the future where families are truly valued and that starts with Early Education and what were doing here. Soma, transbay, east cut, the hill, whatever you call it is a family neighborhood. It is a neighborhood that values and welcomes children and this is the best possible sign of our collective commitment to doing that. I also want to shout out to the stabilization fund. I also know we are a big part of funding the center and prioritizing Early Childhood education. I see my friends from the Community Benefit district here as well. As your supervisor, there is nothing more that we can do together with the mayor, with all the Community Partners here then think about our youngest, our littlest, and our future. That is what were doing here today. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you for opening this center. Thank you. And now i would like to bring up mimi haas who is the president of the mimi and peter hoss fund for a few remarks. Their generous support made it possible to get this place sooner rather than later. Come on up, mimi. [applause] i am definitely not a public speaker and it wasnt clear that i really was going to make some remarks, but i am honored. We have been involved in Early Childhood quality childhood education in San Francisco since 1994 and i admit that we keep pushing ahead. We know where we still what we still have to attain in San Francisco, but we should take all of you all of you should take credit that it still is one of the best cities in the country for Early Childhood education, quality Early Childhood education. We always have to add that to it congratulations to all of you. [applause] congratulations to you and your staff. You worked on this for five years. Sometimes it is worth waiting for. This place certainly is and at the same time, keeping the quality at your other two sites which are always some of my favourites to visit. One of the things that we really cant say enough is the commitment that the teachers and the parents make. We cant think the mayor mayor and the supervisors enough to pay our teachers what they deserve. We are a long way from it, but it is just crucial. We cant thank them enough for their commitment and the passion that they gave in this area. So we want to move ahead. Everybody wants to look around, but i think all of you and i think all of you and the mayor for leading us to a better place for quality Early Childhood education in San Francisco. And thank you for having me here today. I think we are getting more credit than we deserve really. Thank you. [applause] thank you. We really appreciate your support and our familys legacy for giving back so much to San Francisco. It really does mean a lot. Not only to have you here, but to have you at the forefront of the fight for Early Childhood education. Thank you so much for being here and now i would like to introduce the executive director come on up. [applause] thank you so much. It is really a privilege to be here today with the mayor, matt haney, supervisor norming he, all of you. We are excited, we are thankful. It took us i made this speech five pages but i decided not to say it. It took us five years to build this beautiful school. We applied for and r. S. P. They were reviewing our r. S. P. We are very fortunate that they selected us. This is our dream. It does take a village to build a Child Development center. But it does take massive amounts of funding. For the past five years, many of our staff have been writing grants and collecting funds from everywhere that we could to build these beautiful schools. And then our architects. They were experts in building the rooms and regulations of the city. We had several fire inspections. Every inspection was different than the other one. So either delaying the opening of the site. But we are fortunate that we are in San Francisco. Norman, mayor, mrs. Hoss, this is a very unique place. One of i have been in here for 40 years. It is our teachers and their wages. We are planning to open the site much earlier but we were not able to find the teachers. We are still not going to be at full capacity. This site has license for 60 children. We were not able to hire the staff that we needed. They are so lucky that they have been with the agency for many years and she came and paid for it. Otherwise we were not here to do this. It was our dream to build a facility like this. And our architect really listened to us, listen to our dreams and hopes for children and they came up with this design and planned it. We are so proud. Sixty children. The majority of them will be here. We will provide quality Early Education services. Our staff have already been engaging several weeks with professional Development Even before starting. We really care about the quality of our services. We will provide comprehensive Family Resources programs so families will have access to various services that our staff provide. I still have to think several people that we are engaging in this process and help us to build this. First off, i already said ingrid and graham. Thank you for trusting us. Thank you for the office of community of investment and infrastructure. This was supposed to be a parking space and the commissioners decided that, well , they will try a development. We are very thankful. Mayors office of housing and Community Development, john harris, stephen, and brian true. Thank you for all the paperwork that you had to do and you helped us with all of them. Stabilization fund, they were so supportive throughout the process and specially with claudine. The low Income Investment fund, they helped us with licensing. That was the last nightmare that we had to deal with to get the license. They helped us a lot. I have to think i know mimi says that they are not much involved, but they are they are very, very involved. To mimi and peter, the charity foundation, the Fremont Group foundation for their support and encouragement. Thank you. And thank you to our architects. We couldnt have done this. Thank you for making our dreams possible. Thank you to our staff you have been our support throughout this year to build this facility. Thank you to that board of directors for being there for us as a strong presence and thank you. Thank you. I think i covered everything. It does take a village to build a Child Development center. It does take tonnes of money to build a quality Child Development center. Thank you tenormin, thank you to match. I want to say one last thing. We are here in the tech capital of San Francisco. Salesforce is here, facebook, i dont know, they are opening up a campaign a campus. I hope that there will be a day that our staff will have equal wages and whatever their name is thank you. [applause] thank you. And now for a few words about her experience with her child, clearly who will be a student here at this place. Come on up. She is one of the parents here. Hi, everybody. I am a mom of two and i am thrilled to be here. This is the dream, like everybody else. It is a dream come true. I have been dreaming of this place since i moved here. Since weve become a resident over there, they told me that preschool will going to be here. We have been waiting for this for a long time. It feels like i have been waiting all my life. I have been calling melinda, she is somewhere here. I have been bugging her almost every day. I was calling her and saying, what is happening with the civic opening . I want to know because i want to go back to work, i want to know everything is safe. The next day they said october, and today it is december. I have been calling her so many times and this is so nice. I cant believe i have a second one now. Our older son, after we enrolled him in the same school and different location. You will be transferring here as well. My two boys will be here and i live next door. It could not be any better than this. [applause] thank you so much. Thank you for everybody who worked so hard to open. I am really glad, i hope i am not the only one who is living in this wonderful life. I hope everybody can live in our building and enrolled their child and go back to their work, their regular life as everybody else. As a parent, this is the best thing we can wish for. Thank you to everybody. [applause] thank you. And last before we cut this ribbon and get this place open so we can get out of the way of these kids who need more room to play, i just wanted to do a special presentation to you for your work for the past 15 years, your dedication. [applause] your dedication to being an advocate for Early Childhood education, working to support kids and be on the front lines for this. This is often times thankless work. It requires a lot of patience and a lot of hard work to hire people, to review contracts, to apply for dollars, to turn in the paperwork on time. You name it and she does it. She has been doing it with them for the past 15 years and we are so grateful for your service and the work that you have done in the south of market community, but the work we know you will continue to do to be such a blessing to so many people who need childcare that is going to help make a difference in the childs life. So thank you on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco [applause] all right. Supervisor haney, president yee, mrs. Haas, and all the others, i think we will cut the ribbon. Will we cut the ribbon . We will cut the ribbon and then we are going to let our kids get back to playing and having a good time. Okay, kids . Yes. Do you want us to get out of your hair . Okay. [laughter] thank you, everyone, for coming. Five, four, three, two, one. [cheers and applause]. Neighborhood in San Francisco are also diverse and fascist as the people that inhabitable them were in north beach about supervisor peskin will give us a tour and introduce is to what think of i i his favorite district 5 e 3 is in the northwest surrounded by the San Francisco bay the district is the boosting chinatown oar embarcadero financial district Fishermans Wharf exhibit no. North beach Telegraph Hill and part of union square. All of San Francisco districts are remarkable im honored and delighted to represent really whereas with an the most intact district got chinatown, north beach Fishermans Wharf russian hill and knob hill and the northwest waterfront some of the most wealthier and inning e impoverished people in San Francisco obgyn siding it is ethically exists a bunch of tightknit neighborhoods people know he each other by name a wonderful placed physically and socially to be all of the neighborhoods north beach and chinatown the i try to be out in the community as much as and i think, being a the cafe eating at the neighborhood lunch place people come up and talk to you, you never have time alone but really it is fun hi, im one the owners and is ceo of cafe trespassing in north beach many people refer to cafe trees as a the living room of north beach most of the clients are local and living up the hill come and meet with each other just the way the United States been since 1956 opposed by the grandfather a big people person people had people coming since the day we opened. It is of is first place on the west that that exposito 6 years ago but anyone was doing that starbucks exists and it created a really welcoming pot. It is truly a legacy business but more importantly it really at the take care of their community my father from it was formally italy a fisherman and that town very rich in culture and music was a big part of it guitars and sank and combart in the evening that tradition they brought this to the cafe so many characters around here everything has incredible stories by famous folks last week the cafe that paul carr tennessee take care from the Jefferson Starship hung out the cafe are the famous poet Lawrence William getty and jack herb man go hung out. They work worked at a play with the god fathers and photos he had his typewriter i wish i were here back there it theres a lot of moving parts the meeting spot rich in culture and artists and musicians epic people would talk with you and youd getetetetetetetetetett
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