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the environment. I'd like to say that the
world's consumption is the sum of all local consumption.
And as a consequence, if we're going to deal with global
climate change we need to deal with climate change on a local
level. That's why, san francisco,
we've established a local climate action plan to roll
back our co-2 emissions by 2012, twice as far as the kyoto
protocols. We believe this local climate
action plan is a model to the nation.
We've initiated through a blueprint we call S.F. Forward,
a blueprint to provide a five-year plan to get us to
where we want to go and beyond. but I want to just say this -
so many politicians like me, so many mayors up and down the
state of california, across this country, have been saying
the same things. But so few have been able to
measure their co-2 footprint and their progress as san
francisco has been able to do so.
we recently just submitted our greag emissions footprint to a
third party and we were able to determine that already here in
2008 that we have already rolled back our co-2 emission
levels 6% below 1990 levels here in 2008.
6% below 1990 levels, a city that has a population that's
grown by 100,000, we had a record amount of visitors last
year, 475 new high-tech companies have moved into the
city during the same time, yet we've been able to reduce as
we've grown our economy, reduce our co-2 footprint below 1990
levels already. We're proud of that.
and I say that not to impress you, but impress upon you that
we have been able to do it not by costing the economy again,
but by growing the economy. And I think that so much of
that has been exampled by this plan.
Let's talk about this plan in a little bit more detail.
one of the things we've done in 2008 is led the way not just,
again, with the global vision for the environment, but the
specific initiation environmental programs.
One is our green building program.
We were one of the first cities in america to establish a green
building program for municipally owned building.
i'm standing in one here at the academy of sciences, one of the
highest level of environmental certifications that exist.
In san francisco we say that's great for municipal buildings
like this, privately-funded primarily, but nonetheless,
city owned. What about all those private
We want to meet similar lead certification.
So we have the most aggressive green building standards now in
the united states of america, starting with lead
certification, going up to lead goal by 2012.
Again, an example of a partnership with a private
sector that builds trust, builds the opportunity to have
ingenuity and their innovative practices for the rest of the
state and the country, but that meets our environmental goals
and meets the new standards of environmental stewardship that
we believe can achieve freight results when it's scaled.
I'm most proud of this year as it relates to our advancements
on the environment. Another area is the solar
aggressive city in the united states of america as it relates
rebates for individuals that meet our needs in terms of
you can get solar rebates three, four, five and $6,000
direct rebates to match the state rebates, and they
recently extended federal rebates.
It makes it very inexpensive to put solar on your roofs in san
francisco. But you get only the highest
rebate, $6,000, if you support our workforce training programs
to lock those that have been locked out of the industrial
economy, to lock those into this new green, sustainable
economy. So we are able to twin our
workforce training, our green collar jobs focus, our
environmental justice focus and focus on our environmental
framework and stewardship in a way that I also think is an
example to others to follow. This solar plan, please learn
more about it. I think it's a model to others.
One way to learn more bit is to go to our website,
maps go - if you live in san francisco, go and type in your
address and determine exactly what your solar footprint looks
like, and we'll actually type up where you can get the solar
installed, what the incentive programs are that exist and how
we can price it competitively for you.
Again, a brand-new system that we put together with the city
that we just think is a phenomenal opportunity tke
it as easy as possible for you to put solar on your roof.
Solarmap. Org. Another area where we're trying
to lead by example is recycling.
We have one of the highest rates here, 70% recycling rate.
That's great. We were at 35% in 1996.
No one thought we could do 50%. few people thought we could do
75%. Once you hit 70%, it's
difficult increnement tale to get to 71%, 72%, without
changing the way you do business.
So in an effort to get to that next level, we are going
through a very controversial phase of initiating.
This is something I put to our board of supervisors for
support and consideration. A requirement on recycling that
you do composting. All private residents and
businesses would be forced to compost.
Now, you've been forced to have garbage pickup since the mid
1930's. In fact, 1932 we initiated
requirements. early 1930's, that you have to
have garbage pickups. The idea that we have not
required recycling is actually not necessarily unique, but by
no means something that has not been done.
In fact, seattle and other parts of the country have
required recycling. But no one's required recycling
that includes composting. we haven't required recycling
in the past. We got to 70% through
incentives and promotions and education.
But mark my words, by 2020, I think it's possible that the
next mayor can raise the par, try to get it to 73%, 75%,
before they kick me out, but we can get to zero by being more
aggressive. But composting will be the
first part of that efforts and that's why we hope in the early
part of next year to get the board of supervisors to support
the composting legislation. But already 70%, that's
something to be proud of in this state and in this city.
Some of the areas we've been getting a lot of attention in
terms of recycling are the bottled water ban.
We are not purchasing bottled water for municipal use.
That's something I advanced with the U.S. Conference of
mayors, blair bloomberg and mayor daley and others are
co-sponsoring legislation to do the same in their cities.
Why are we spending money on water bottles when we get money
- we can put money back in people's pockets and then get
folks to just use their tap water?
Which is some of the cleanest, greenest water that exists,
that comes from 167-mile gravity-fed system, which is
actually more regulated than most of the bottled water you
get, which is indeed, not tap water.
Most of the bottled water in this country comes from new
york state and it's actually tap water that has less
restrictions and regulations and requirements for purity
than tap water does. We spends more money, we ship
it, in some cases overseas. It increases our environmental
frootprint and we spend 10,000 times more than we do if we
would just use the tap. We want to lead this country
and we have in terms of raising the bar and raising awareness
in this country, just as we have plastic bags.
Bans plastic bags. I want to thank the director of
the department of the environment.
he came up with this idea a couple of years ago.
The supervisor picked up on it, to his credit, and the board of
supervisors and advanced this initiative to become the first
city to ban plastic bags. I couldn't be more proud of
this legislation. I know it's frustrating some
folks that go to some of these pharmacies and have paper bags
and not plastic bags. Plastic bags ends up looking
like this off the coast. And recently, incidentally, we
were out in china. China has now banned plastic
bags throughout their entire country.
You actually have to pay a premium if you're going to use
plastic bags. Again.
People say, well, what can a city do?
Well, a city can lead by example and actually make a
much bigger difference when a city program is scaled at a
national level, particularly the country with 1.3-plus
billion people, china. Another area we've led the way
is styrofoam. The President And supervisor
introduced this legislation. Again, I want to thank the
incredible leadership of gerald that came up with the idea at
the department of environment and the great commissioners at
the department of the environment.
This is a way of reducing styrofoam containers that also
ends up in the lands phil, takeout containers.
I hope other cities can do a similar job.
Another area where we're doing a lot, and this is a lot of
fun, is pie yo diesel and biofuels.
We've converted our dies el fleet to b-20.
We have the largest fleet in the united states of america.
We want to do better. And we're not just doing more,
we want to do better in this context.
Do better by not getting into the food debate around
biodiesel, but get into the waste food debate.
We have something called a waste grease program.
541 restaurants are using our grease cycle program.
1.5 million gallons a year are picked up from waste, oil that
comes in vats in the back of restaurants, an we're taking
that and picking it up for free for restaurants and converting
it into biodiesel and putting that biodiesel, again, into our
public transit fleet, as well as, interestingly, some
ambulances and fire engines and people-movers out at the zoo,
etc., and some other trucks, the heavy duty trucks in our
system. We are going to take you it to
the next level. that's 1.5 million gallons to
the grease cycle program and this partnership with
restaurants, this fat, oil and grease program.
We want to do something more next year.
We partnered with darling international and that's to do
10 million gallons of biofuels from fat, oil and grease, as
well as livestock that has passed away.
it's a tough business, the biodiesel business.
But, again, we want a loop system.
This will be a deal that we signed with darling, 10 million
gallons a year of biodiesel that we'll manufacture
internally for ourselves so we have a looped cycle within the
city, and we're going to create green collar jobs for folks out
in the southeast sector and bayview.
Similar to the ones we do for recycling that are also green
collar jobs. You talk about green collar
jobs, go down to pier 96 and the recycling center.
This is an exciting area and one that we will continue to do
more into the future. i hate to keep saying leading
the way, but in this one we're raising the bar.
I hope other cities will follow and do even more.
We're also doing it in our public transit fleet.
We're already there. The number one public transit
fleet with biodiesel in the country.
Something else we've done is we've decided to reconcile
these carbon funds. you know, you feel guilty.
You're driving that combustion engine, internal combustion
engine and you're flying around the world and you're flying to
visit a friend during thanksgiving or christmas or
the holiday season, and you feel guilty and you try to buy
some ar bone offsets. But sometimes those offsets go
to rain forests in other countries or go to offset
someone else's carbon emissions by putting a tree in some other
country and some other community.
What about a local carbon offset plan so they go right
back into our own community? We also have examples, I think,
first in the nation, local carbon fund to offset
greenhouse gas gas emissions locally.
an we're doing it in biodiesel and solar.
It's something that citizens of san francisco can purchase.
We're starting with city employees first, so every time
someone travels on city business, you have to buy an
offset of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with that
travel. Then it goes into this local
fund to plant trees locally and do biodiesel here locally.
Again, we're going to scale it to the private sector next
year, and I look forward to sharing more with others into
the new year, something to look forward to.
Wind power is another area where we're trying to lead the
way. I don't know if people know
this. We have urban wind farms in san
francisco in the mission district.
We actually have localized wind.
You can see there's three vertical axis turbines in the
homes there, and one in the mission area, one up there by
the museum. We're also going to be doing a
lot more in the civic center sustainable district, which I'm
going to talk about in a moment, in addition to treasure
island which I'll talk about in this section, to do more winds
generation. So wind farms are not just
these farms you see in the slide, but they're components
of our backyards, components of our gront yards, components of
our buildings in an urban environment.
We have this great task force that we've convened, this wind
power task force and they're going to come up with more
recommendations in the new year.
This is something I'm pretty excited about.
Rethinking, reimagining wind power generation.
Wave generation is another area.
We've got a buoy, a doppler system, about five miles off
ocean beach. It's been out there for a
couple of months now. it's going to be back in
February of 2009. We're going to pull this system
out. We're going to determine the
capacity to generate energy from waves.
Talk about green renewable energy source.
People are always talking about drill, baby, drill, not out
here in san francisco. I look forward are to the day
we get rid of those oil platforms off the coast of
california and we've converted them all to wave-general rating
technology. We want to lead the way and
we've got a big project we hope the early part of next year.
In addition, we want to do the same thing for title.
I talked a lot about this, even more than I talked about the
wave generation. We want to put at the mouth of
the golden gate bridge in, the northern section of the bridge,
we've identified, through doppler radar, about 150-foot
ridge that goes underwater, and the wall of pressure goes right
above that ridge. And that seems to be the ideal
part, right again on the northern part of the mouth of
the bay on the northern span of the golden gate bridge, right
below it. And we look to do a
demonstration project sometime next year as well.
We've already identified, again, that ridge.
We've already done a lot of studies - boy, all kinds of
studies on this. And we're looking to do this
first phase pilot that can generate enough energy to power
1,000 to 2,000 homes, just this one source of renewable energy.
Thinking differently, looking at different technologies, wind
as well as wave, as well as tidal.
Another area is energy efficiency.
we have power-savers program, power watch program.
A lot of things we do, including banning t-12's.
We've moved away from the incandescent to fluorescent
issue. Now we're talking about what
kind of bulbs we're banning, t-12, those thicker long bulbs.
There's new legislation pending approval.
i hope the board of supervisors will support it.
Our energy-efficient programs we think are a model for the
rest of the state. Great partnerships with pegues,
free energy audits. Just call 311 and ask for free
energy audits, and if you're eligible you can get all those
bulbs free to be swapped, reduce your energy bills,
reduce your greenhouse gas emissions, help us reduce our
c- o-2 emissions for our city. A lot of good things happening
here. And we have something next
year, I can't talk about it now.
We call it green building 2.0. A version of what we're doing
on the green building construction standards now
trying to get the operation of buildings.
not a carbon tax, but a version - a hybrid version of reducing
emissions coming out of existing buildings, which is an
area we must do more with in energy efficiency and we want
to lead the way and something in the new year that I look
forward to talking more about, as well as doing more on
alternative fuel vehicles. you all know that mayor
bloomberg in new york city is going to get rid of its
taxicabs and convert it to an alternative fleet.
We codified that through legislation recently.
We should have our entire taxicab fleet converted by
2011. I conservatively say 75% by
2011, but I think we'll be all the way there by the ends of
2010. These cabs convert.
They only last a few years. And as they convert, we now
automatically have to have alternative-fueled vehicles as
part of our taxi fleet. This is area where san
francisco has led the way and we can work with other cities
to do even more. electric vehicles generally
speaking, we just had bobby kennedy Jr. And others talking
about a $1 billion investment into the san francisco bay area
region to become the epicenter for electric vehicles in the
united states of america, arguably the world.
We're talking about going to a gas station and not just having
to fill up a tank of gas, but actually going to a gas station
called now switch stations, where you can literally open up
a trunk of your hood and flip out the battery, an within the
same time it takes you to pump a tank of gas with oil,
petroleum-based products or just some kind of processed
gasoline, you can do the same thing to recharge your car by
simply replacing the old battery with a recharged
battery and actually getting out of there in the same or a
shorter period of time. These switching stations, we're
talking about putting in 100 or 200 of these throughout the bay
area, so that addresses the range issue or the lack of it
for electric vehicles. We have also worked with all
kinds of other private sector organizations that want to do
similar electric grid strategies or electrification
strategies or do charging stations throughout our cities,
in parking meters, where you can charge parking meters, you
can get priority parking spaces, parking garages, you
can get discounts in terms of your monthly parking
privileges, you can potentially get tax breaks for doing
electric vehicles. You can use utility poles,
lighting poles in the city, and you can actually plug in your
car there. This is all part of our
initiative and evident to become, again, the epicenter in
the united states for electric vehicles by 2010.
A program that we're very, very proud of.
In addition to that, we're trying to do more with car
share. You know, for every car that
car share provides, this car right here, it represents 15
cars off the road, meaning you have that many people that
would need their car that now don't need their car if they
share this car. We have 35,000 plus unique car
share programs. We want to scale this to the
next level. It's been a great success
story. In 2006, 2007, 2008.
2009 we want to get more city employees using a car share
program as well. Our bike plans are starting to
take shape. But the problem is we can't do
anything with them because of this injunction.
And with all due respect to the person that forced us to the
injunction, we are not deviating from our commitment
to do more with bicycling in our city.
As the old adage goes, God's delays are not God's denials,
and in the mid part of next year we will be lifted from
that, because we'll have done the environmental work.
We have 60 specific projects. We're going to double the total
number of striped bike lanes in our city.
We're going to add more free bikes through our transit
shelter program. And I'm going to talk about
that in the transportation section.
We're going to be doing a lot more in terms of safety
initiatives. All of that just waiting, ready
to go, all to initiate the 2010 goal and date to have completed
this effort. 43% increase in the last year
we've seen of people commuting with their bicycles.
Even though we haven't been able to do all what we wanted
to do. We've still seen that kinds of
increase. This is an exciting area of
growth in our city and we're absolutely committed and
they're a big part of our environmental initiatives, as
is investment in the private sector.
Clean tech. This is the heart and soul of
clean tech investment in the united states of america, which
makes it the heart and soul of investment in the world,
northern california. We have 118 now clean tech
companies in our city. We had suntech, which is the
largest tank manufacturer, trying to locate their
headquarters here in san francisco.
We have tax incentives, tax breaks for green tech
companies. We just came back from china
and we just announced our next solar installer-manufacturer,
trina solar is also going to be moving into the city.
These are the types of announcements we want more of.
we talk about green collar jobs.
These are just examples of where we can do more and do
better, again, all supported by these statistics you see above,
all these V.C. Firms, venture capital firms, all clustered in
the san francisco bay area. This is what the next President
Will be talking about, barack obama, this is what governor
schwarzenegger, to his credit, has been talking a lot about,
and the next governor will be talking more about.
This is an opportunity for us to truly lead the renaissance
in terms of our economic conditions and the changes we
want to see in terms of our climate.
And to twin the two in a meaningful way and focus on
environmental justice at the same time, focus on poverty
eradication and focus on the issues of race and the
inquealts the same. This is the tech sector that,
again, is now taking shape in our city.
We're not just talking about it, we're finally doing
something about it. And this is just an example of
some of these companies that are already in the city, just
proving that this is not just some pipe dream, this is not
something that doesn't exist, this is something that
absolutely exist in our own backyard, san francisco.
We've also built partnerships with the region.
We do something called bc-3. This is a partnership with
private sector, from google, pg & e, the gap.
He's partnered with us on this business council.
We're working with the united nations on this business
council, again, building more capacity, building more
partners in terms of the business community being part
of the solution to environmental stewardship.
Another area is a partnership that we did with cisco, another
bay area firm. John chambers said we want to
help you work through the clinton foundation.
seoul, korea, the two principal areas.
They did this connected bus which has 95% reduction in fuel
emissions. It actually has a counter on
there where you can actually read out in real time the
environmental footprint of the bus.
It has the technology so you know exactly where you are
vis-a-vis the next stop and how long you're going to be delayed
and how long it's going to take to get to your new stop.
It also has free wi-fi capacity on these buses.
This is the next generation of buses, twinning technology and
the environment areas where we're building these
partnerships. We're doing the same, by the
way, for our convention and visitors bureau.
The convention and visitors bureau is one of these green
businesses that deserves a lot of recognition for leading the
way. You go down to the mosconi
convention center, and there's compostable wares that they
use. You get your napkins, your
forks, knives, all compostable. even the cups that you use for
your coffee and water, etc. Again, just examples where the
private sector comes together and connects with our tourist
community to do more and do better.
We have this website through the conventions bureau called
green S.F., and we talk about the hybrid taxis, solar-powered
convention facility. in fact, the largest mune is
pale owned project is on the most conny convention center,
again, leading by example. Joe and others are doing a
magnificent job. I'm very, very proud of them
and we all have a lot to be proud of about them.
another area is these. This is another area where
people say, well, what can a city do?
We brought up plastic bags, plastic water bottles.
This is about plastic toys. In 1999 europe banned the use
of phalites in the production of toys and plastics.
And the united states didn't do anything for years and years
and years. San francisco decided to lead
the way. Our board of supervisors, to
their credit, we led the way here in the city, and then they
took it to the state level and actually passed a ban modeled
after san francisco for the state of california and then
senator feinstein, the former mayor of san francisco, decided
to introduce that ban nationally.
This country, nowhere to be found on the issue.
San francisco, leading the way. California, moving forward.
Then the rest of the nation. It's just an example of
something that I thought I would highlight, because it
gives you some sense of confidence that sometimes you
wonder if people are noticing what you're doing.
Sometimes they actually really are.
Again, not just plastic bags and water bottles, but with
this very important area that is made - has made our
children safer. Another area of the
environment, again, is streets, and our greening initiatives.
Planting more trees. 25,000 mature or adolescent
trees, not just seedlings, but real trees that we're planting,
and they make our streets more attractive.
Median strips, gateways, hanging baskets you'll see all
around the city. There's the median strips that
are being redone in our city. Here's the $14 million of
federal dollars that we've received for new median strips
and now investments so san bruno avenue, polk, leyland,
caesar chavez. I hope people are noticing that
when they drive around the city, the greenish tiffs of our
city. You have not seen anything
compared to what you'll see in the next few years.
But we've made a lot of progress.
I talked about the trees on the streets and how many we've
planted. Here's just in front of kaiser
there at gary boulevard, if you saw that before it was an ugly
old fence, cyclone fence. Now it's a beautiful new median
strip. You can see other areas.
it's just amazing to see all the changes there.
Now it's about maintaining them.
But, again, real investment that's paying dividends and
increases property values, slows down traffic, increases
pedestrians safety. I don't make these things up.
This is what these investments are doing, as well as obviously
helping the environment. You can see another initiative
we're about to go. Go down market street in san
francisco. You see these ugly old stop -
these things that were supposed to deal with traffic accidents,
so they didn't run into the larger platforms, the muni
platforms. They're rubber tires, old,
ugly, there's all kinds of garbage inside.
we're going to get rid of them and put these new safety
barriers that are these new medians that create these urban
gardens. We're going to put this all up
and down market street into the new year.
Something I hope people look to.
I hope you've noticed the gateways coming into the city.
They're not all where they need to be.
I know they can be much better. about they're at least a down
payment on what can be done in the next few years.
Here's some examples of these gateway investments.
Another investment is connecting the dots in the
southeast sector of our city in particular, by creating a
similar bay trail to the stereotype we have by the
golden gate bridge. You walk down into the marina
district. A revitalized area.
They deserve the same thing and we deserve as citizens of this
great city the same thing in the southeast sector of our
city. The new parks bond we just
passed earlier this year, which is another triumph for the
year. And I couldn't be more proud of
that. more on that in a minute.
Including money for this blue-greenway.
The neighborhood parks council, the supervisor sophie maxwell
and atses have done a magnificent job championing
this. We've gone through this long
planning process. We've already seen work done in
mission bay park, which already, a big portion of
mission bay park is done. You can see the photographs
here. We're doing kayaking.
We've got great basketball courts and volleyball courts
under a freeway overpass, but it's remarkably nice.
We have this new lighting that goes and lights up the
underbelly of the freeway and it's actually attractive, a new
version or a new vision of an urban park.
But we also have been investing in other parts of mission bay,
so that will be done in 2009. And these expanded parks.
Pier 43 promenade is part of this.
Brandon street wharf is part of this.
Again, this is connecting basically from at&t park where
the giants play to candlestick park where the 49ers play and
we hope continue to play for many, many years and creating
this bay trail, this blue-green way.
Here's other examples of what it does look like in terms of
its revitalization and what it will look like in larger parts
as we expands it out. We've also done something to
connect a different narrative in terms of quality.
And you saw some of the quality here represented.
This is beautiful landscaping. In the past we've done some not
very attractive landscaping. We now have this new
landscaping ordinance that creates what we call san
francisco standard. i stole this from mayor daley
in chicago. And we also stole his greening
director from chicago. So she came in and she created
a san francisco standard. The board, planning commission
and others, community groups, have supported this standard,
and it basically says the type of trees, the type of look, the
type of organization, trells, so that if you're going to
build a parking lot, you can't build a parking lot out to the
sidewalks without creating a setback that actually greens
the space between the sidewalk and the parking lot.
You actually have to do some basic work around gas stations
and car washes, etc. there's storm water guidelines,
etc. It's a new thing we just got
passed. Something that got no
attention, but I think deserves a little bit and something I'm
proud of as it relates to the state of the city.
I mentioned parks. I mentioned that $185 million
parks bond. I'm also very proud that we've
invested an historic amount in general fund capital in our
parks. in the old days we were
investing about $10 million to $15 million a year in parks.
Now we're investing $30-plus million in general funds into
our neighborhood parks and recreation facilities.
We've completed 90 parks. This is an amazing thing.
Again, there needs to be more recognition about this.
with that park bond, that first one, the $10 million parks
bonds which I was proud to sponsor as a member of the
board of supervisors, and then the new parks bond, as I
mentioned, the $185 million this year, that will allow us
to complete these parks. Again, this is part of the 90
that are done and get these other 18 active parks complete.
So this is a huge and historic investment in the neighborhood
parks and recreational facilities in our city, and
that's, again, part of the state of the city that I'm very
proud of and that I hope that people recognize and are
supportive of. Another area is this victory
garden. We decided to put a garden in
front of city hall. This garden would have existed
in 1943. It was a garden not dissimilar
to the one that was there during world war ii, where we
had victory gardens throughout the city and council of san
francisco. Hundreds, in fact, in golden
gate park, harvesting vegetables.
In fact, 41% of the nation's vegetables were harvested in
similar gardens during world war ii.
We are bringing them back in the context of the next great
challenge of our time, and that is a planet apparel, not
because of war per se, though that's always at risk, but the
issue of the environment. So we put it in front of city
hall and now we have just taken it down, in fact, this week.
but now we want to extend 15 new neighborhood gardens and
take people's backyards and front yards and take their
planter boxes and take their roofs and convert it into areas
to produce food and connect our urban and rural communities in
a much different way, which i'll mention in just a second.
We've gone from three farmers markets to nine in the last few
years. We had the first farmers market
in the state of california of the we're going to make some
improvements at the farmers market.
We are establishing a new food policy in the city that is
something to look forward to in 2009.
I don't want to talk too much about it yet, because we're
still establishing the parameters of what that food
policy will mean. But, again, a greater
connection to our rural and suburban partners and the
regional food shed that is around us.
Again, urban/rural partnerships that we need to connect in
terms of that greater food shed.
Another thing that we're focused on is cleaning up
sections of our city have - that have been polluted.
We shut down the bayview hunters point power plant near
candlestick, which was shut down last year.
We now have converted a lot of the federal efforts into actual
money that has gone into cleaning up that site in and
around that power plant and that bayview hunters point
area. I think this deserves some
attention. We have already generated some
$340 million of federal money just in the last few years.
Look at this. To clean up the toxics in the
bay view hunters point area, including $76.3 million this
year. Just new federal money.
Thank you, speaker nancy pelosi, senator dianne
feinstein, senator boxer, thank you for your efforts and thank
you for your efforts to lobby the federal government to get
these dollars. This is real money.
$340 million to clean up that shipyard that has come in.
This is more money than we have seen in decades in the last few
years. You ask me what I'm most proud
of as mayor in the last four years.
It's probably this slide in terms of that work that we all
did together with, again, that leadership of those people that
I just exampled that have actually generated real money
to clean up those toxins and deal with the injustice out
there, and the asthma rates and breast cancer rate that are two
to four times the state and federal average.
This is the reason why. it's the lack of investment in
that cleanup. Now we're making it in historic
ways. It's taking shape.
An because of that, because of the closure of that power
plant, we've got this new heron's head park living
classroom, which is completely off the grid.
The first building of its kind that's totally off the grid,
the greenest of the green sustainable buildings that's
ever been done. You can see in this schematic
the living roof. There's other components of
this. This thing will be done very
shortly. And again, it's an example of
converting from an industrial economy to a green, more
sustainable economy, as we shut down these power plants and we
move in a different direction. The next big one is the petrel
power plant, the last remaining polluting power plant.
Good people disagree on this. I would not like to see us
replace this power plant with four smaller power plants.
Some members of the board of supervisors disagree with me.
I'm intensely opposed to putting more power plants, even
if they're cleaner power plants, in the city.
Let's get out of the power plant business.
Let's retrofit this in the interim and let's move forward
to shutting it down permanently by advancing all of the
previous slides and the initiatives in the previous
slides. We can do that.
Let's work together. I look forward to working with
supervisor maxwell in particular and the new board to
get us there. Again, good people can
disagree. but big mistake would be made
by shutting this down, only to build four new peaker plants,
three in the city, one at the airport.
I don't think that's the right decision.
We can do more and do better. Let's work together.
Here's some of the key steps. The retrofitting, and then we
can shut down unit three and petrel.
that's the direction I'd like to go.
And it's the spirit of the environment that I'm very, very
proud of. As we move forward, though,
into the new year we want to elevate and raised bar with the
civic center. This is probably one of the
most exciting plans that I've been associated with as it
relates to the environment since I've been in elected
office. The idea of taking the entire
civic center, connecting all of these buildings together, you
can see solar on the top of city hall, you can see solar on
top of war memorial, on top of the library, the main, the
asian art museum, the state and federal buildings.
Getting all of these buildings to connect together, a system
to change the environmental stewardship and paradigm.
So we're not just dealing with a building in isolation, but a
building whose waste water is connected and storm water is
connected an facilities are connected with one another, a
system that includes a complete reimagination of activating a
civic space as well. You can see some large screens
for outdoor activities and showing movies during the
evenings. You can see the farmers
markets, and pulling them into the civic center area.
you can see some other components, free wi-fi will be
part of it, organic gardening, nighttime activity, cultural
activities, to programmatically engage the space.
Here's a schematic of how it would work.
80% reduction in water use. 45% reduction in wastewater
use. 35% increase in energy
efficiency in the area. we would be an incubator space
for new technologies, including this one, which is an actual
wind turbine with a solar site that's on top of the wind
turbine itself. You can see water functions and
features that would be part of this.
And we would be shutting down the road right in front of the
library and the asian art museum as well, again,
reenvisioning this entire space, electrical charging
station, more on that later, but this is an exciting vision
and it's all about getting us to the next level.
Final two points. Adaptation.
I think it was darwin who said it wasn't just the strongest
that survived and it's not just the smartest, it's those who
are able to adapt the quickest that survive and thrive.
The reality is we're surrounded by water on three sides in san
francisco. I don't know if we're going to
do everything we need to do in this country, even with our new
President, in time for things to go back to the way they were
as it relates to climate, as it relates to ocean levels, as it
relates to ice caps, as it relates to the air we breathe.
We need to be focusing on adaptation, not just
prevention, and san francisco wants to lead the way in
adaptation. Here's a horrific slide.
This is the airport underwater and this is the baseline
expectations of water and sea level rise in this region and
what it would do for the areas, the lower areas around the bay.
This is real life and we need to take it seriously and we
need to start investing today in adaptation strategies, and
this is something you're going to hear a lot more about into
the new year. Again, quickly, areas in the
environment, I think, matter. Quality of life matters.
Litter matters. We have a goal to reduce our
litter on the city streets. I think it's an environmental
issue. 50% by 2012.
The streets of san francisco are still too dirty.
I agree with you. But we made a lot of progress.
In fact, we hired a third party that actually has shown last
year an independent third party that analyzed the dirtiness of
our streets that showed a reduction of 19% in terms of
the garbage out on the city streets and sidewalks.
It's not 100%, but it's 19%. It's a step in the right
direction. You'll see the types of litter
that are most problematic out there.
We call them the dirty dozen. you've got mcdonald's wrappers
everywhere, marlboro, the brands of choice for cigarette
smokers, with respect, starbucks, the A.T.M. Machine
cards, taco bell, safeway. We're working with all of those
private sector partners to help reduce litter and waste and
hold them more accountable. by the way, we're number 10,
muni. Muni transfers.
We were high on the list last year, we're low on the list
this year, but wee still got to do better in terms of
reducing the amount of litter on the streets that we're
responsible for. We're also focused on these key
streets. These are 200 blocks, 35 key
corridors, that we're doing saturation work, seven days a
week. We're doing long, extended
hours of cleaning, graffiti removal and the like.
This community corridors program has been a big success.
We want to continue to move forward in this direction.
Graffiti, as I said, a big part of that.
We made a lot of progress this last year of the it May not
feel like it if you're out in excelsior and other parts of
the mission, etc., but we have made a lot of progress on gra
fighty this year. I want to thank the department
of public works and our community partners on this task
force that have been pushing us on this.
We're making some progress. we've removed 25,000 tags for
public structures. We've got new notices to hold
private property owners accountable for cleaning up
their own graffiti off their private buildings.
We've got this reward fund that's part of it.
As I mentioned, this corridors program is connected with this
graffiti program as well and this partnership.
So that's, in a nutshell, what we're doing on the environment
as it relates to graffiti and litter removal.
We add that on to the environmental part of the plan.
We're continuing to think outside the box, continuing to
try new things. We recognize we don't have all
the answers, but we're willing to try new things, continuing
to lead the way and I'm looking forward to an even more
exciting 2009.