 I'm Sarah Lester, the manager of this beautiful new branch, and thank you all so much for coming. We have a great collection of books, CDs, DVDs, audio books, magazines that we hope you will all enjoy. Thank you to the library, to the community, to the friends of the library for their tremendous support. And it is my pleasure to introduce our city librarian, Luis Herrera. Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, San Francisco. Isn't this a great, glorious day? What a super day. We ordered the weather just for this event. Actually, exactly a year ago to the day, we had the pleasure of the grand reopening for the Excelsior Library. It's a phenomenal event. This event today is extra special as well, because this is the first library in 40 years to open with the San Francisco Public Library. Isn't that great? It's our 27th library, and in 2000, San Franciscan said yes to libraries by passing the Branch Library Improvement Bond Program, which called for the renovation of 19 branch libraries, five new library buildings, really a total makeover for the system. So this is another example. A year from now, we'll have half of the libraries, either completed or under renovations. How's that for a testament for the San Francisco support of our libraries? I want to take a moment to acknowledge Sarah Lester and her staff. Let me tell you about Sarah. She's the one that spearheaded the collection development, buying all the books, getting the library ready, working with the architects. But even before we opened today, she was already involved in the community, having a series of programs connecting with the senior housing here at Mercy Housing. She had a program that dealt with the Medicare prescription program, standing room only. It was really well received, but that's a kind of excitement. That's a kind of community building that we have thanks to Sarah. So I want to acknowledge her and give her a great round of applause. Along with Sarah, we have other staff members that I'd like to acknowledge. We have Melvin White Bull, Schumann, and LJHU. There are the folks that are going to be delivering library services for the residents of Mission Bay. Also, people that have worked behind the scenes with the architects, with the Department of Public Works, library staff, have done a wonderful job. I want to acknowledge two people, Joan Goldman, the Acting Chief of Branches, and Elsie Wong, Chinatown Branch Manager, but wearing another hat as District Manager for the Chief of Branch Office. So where are they? I want to make sure of that. Joan, there you go. Joan Goldman, Elsie Wong. Thank you for the great work that you've done in putting it all together. With us, we also have a partnership with the Redevelopment Agency. This is a true community endeavor, and I want to acknowledge the folks not only from the Redevelopment Agency, Pam Sims, Amy Netsches, and Marsha Rosen. Are they here? Let's see. Let's applaud anyway. Absolutely. Great job. And our other partner, it's very evident. We have a wonderful senior high-rise here, Mercy Housing. We're looking forward to an ongoing, strong relationship with you. And I'd like to also acknowledge folks in attendance, Sharon Christian and Jose Vega. I know they're here. So that's a great job with them. There you go. Thank you for your work. It's now my pleasure to introduce Donna Barrow, who is the Executive Director of the Friends of the Library. And it goes without saying that Community Building is about a partnership, and the Friends through the Neighborhood Library Campaign has done a fabulous job of providing additional support for the bond program. So it's my pleasure to introduce Donna Barrow. Donna? Thanks, Louise. Welcome, everyone. This is just the most phenomenal day, and I don't know how many of you were planning to drop by for a little while for the opening, and now we're thinking, why didn't I bring my lounge chair and a book? So you can get the book inside, but spend the day because it's going to be a gorgeous, gorgeous day here. Friends of the San Francisco Public Library is the private side partner to the library system, and as such, we are raising funds annually for programs and exhibits and other types of services for the library, and we are also raising $16 million to furnish the 24 branches that are being built or renovated around the city. So we worked alongside of Louise and his wonderful staff and the great folks in DPW in making sure that once the library was built, it had tables and chairs and comfortable little nooks and crannies and all of those sorts of things, and so we want to thank everyone that's been involved with that. We have a superb team of folks at Friends of the Library who have been working, doing community outreach and meeting with folks and helping to build the vision around this library, and I especially want to thank Marion Chatfield-Taylor, Elena Engel, Coleman Conroy, and all of the others on my staff. They have just been phenomenal and they continue to do an incredible job in neighborhoods all around the city. So if your library is not online yet, be watching for Marion and her team and they'll be out there and they'll be helping you do the same good stuff for your branches. I want to also talk about the folks that have really stepped forward in this community. This area, although it feels in some ways like a new neighborhood, has been a community for a long time and there have been some community folks that have been active and have been dedicated and passionate to making this a livable, vibrant place. Some of those folks, one of them is a former board member of ours, Glenn Rumisky. I hope Glenn, are you here? He is an absolutely wonderful guy. Okay, well we'll just give a cheer for Glenn anyway because he's everywhere at once. Karen Knowles Pierce, who you'll get to meet in a little bit and Wendy LaRiviere, they have just been incredible and have been responsible for a lot of the vibrancy that you will see in this library. Community leadership is one of those things that just doesn't happen automatically. Louise said that obviously there are partnerships, sometimes they're not so obvious and teasing those up out of a community sometimes can be a challenge. So when you see someone who's ahead of a committee like this or who has spearheaded something just thank them every time you see them because they're doing phenomenal work on your behalf. I also want to acknowledge some of the donors that have made the furnishing of this library possible. We have some real visionary foundations and individuals among us. The Bernard Ocher Foundation, Farallon Capital Management, Ryan's Community Fund, Andrea and Glenn Ramisky, Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo and with special thanks to Safeway for supporting the opening celebration today. It's always nice to have yummy goodies when you're celebrating. So thank you all so much. Welcome and let's just keep going in celebrating. Thank you very much Donna. And now it's my pleasure to introduce Mayor Gavin Newsom in a few words I think in order. First of all he's extremely supportive of his vision for the city in terms of youth development in terms of education and culture very much touch on our vision for the library. So I really appreciate Mayor your support for the San Francisco Public Library. Thanks Lewis, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you guys. You guys should come with me. I got about five more events today. Why are you there? After someone gets me some sunblock. I apologize, this is Irish skin. I'm sorry to cover you from last week's parade. Let me welcome all of you to this remarkable new library and ultimately this remarkable new community old and new. Of course we do not for a moment suggest that we just got here. Many of you have been here for generations and we appreciate your patience as we begin to revitalize the 303 acres that we are standing in here at the Mission Bay site. This is a remarkable endeavor an effort that has been taking shape over the course of the last few decades to really link San Francisco's proud past to its proud present and most importantly to its vibrant future. You are right here just literally a stone's throw away from what will be very shortly a 43 acre UCSF Mission Bay campus site the Gladstone Institute in Alexandria and all these other incredible institutions. I honestly don't want to overstate this but I don't think we all yet get how lucky we are to be where we are. This is the future. This is the most dynamic area the most dynamic city in the most dynamic state and yes in spite of the leadership in Washington DC the most dynamic country in the world. This is it. I mean this is the heart and soul. And so I just put it in perspective we got that stem cell institute right across the street that promises to offer the discoveries for HIV and AIDS and Parkinson's and diabetes and cancers. You've got Al Gore and I'll say Al Gore proudly current TV right down the block his new television network just down the block. You're going to have some of the most important research being done on the planet just right across the way some of the brightest, smartest most capable human beings in the world that are being recruited for research just right across this way and you've got a world-class library to anchor it all to make it all meaningful and that's why I'm so happy to be here not against the library. And let's just state the obvious this is not your mother or grandmother's library this is not that library you sheepishly walk in and there's an intimidating librarian standing there and you quietly told throughout the entire time you're there no we've figured it out that libraries are more than just a place to quietly read or check out a book they are anchors they're community centers and it's about building community it's about revitalizing community it's about economic development it's about connecting technology to individuals it's about bridging a gap it's about equalization it's about the fact that when you went into a library that it's your library regardless of income, your race or nationality this is your place where you have the freedom to navigate billions and billions of pages of information just a fingertip that is extraordinary and this library behind me is extraordinary because it's the first of its kind for us integrated urban design library with Mission Creek Senior Center the ability to focus on youth needs adolescent needs we're hoping to do a lot with preschool in here we've got teenage space so a little bit more noisy we've reconfigured it with the library and the center so there's a connection to everybody the technology that's being offered here is state of the art and extraordinary and ultimately what we're trying to do with Wies is get to the next level where city services can be more integrated into the libraries we do have the remarkable privilege of your 105.9 million dollars to revitalize our neighborhood library branches we do have the benefit and privilege of using those dollars not just for today four million, incidentally, of your dollars that were used here half a million because of Donna's great work at Friends of the Library leveraging the private sector but with those dollars we're going to extend this next year into the sunset we're going to extend into Westportal areas San Francisco and then we're going to complete this grand vision hopefully by the end of 2009 right? Thank you Charles President of the Library Commission and we're going to do it reasonably on budget did you catch that? See the Phil Ting the assessor recorders here he caught that he understands what reasonably means margin of error and so does Fiona Ma who's an accountant by trade who will be up in Sacramento helping us get more state money thank you very much Fiona for being here and for your help and support and finally let me acknowledge your supervisor Chris Daly who was also instrumental in saying yes I do support the library system and navigated through the finance committee an historic budget for all of us here in San Francisco that allowed this capital campaign to move forward to accept the gifts from Friends of the Library and allows us again all those linkages and resources to connect all of the disparate dots from the redevelopment agency Department of Children Youth and Family the San Francisco Unified School District Community College System SF State all of which we hope will be integrated uniquely and remarkably here down in Mission Bay with that I conclude and I thank you for all your support for this effort I tell you it sure makes it wonderful to be the city librarian when we have a mayor that really supports the library and gets it it's terrific thank you again for your comments it's now my pleasure to introduce supervisor Chris Daly and supervisor Daly you know you boast the May Librarian District now you have another library so welcome and thanks again for your leadership thank you Mr. Librarian Mr. Mayor while I guess I still have seniority for the next five months on Supervisor Ma let me invite the Democratic nominee to the State Assembly from San Francisco's west side Fiona Ma thank you very much and it's so great when we're opening up a new library and libraries have been a major priority for us whether it's renovating them expanding them or building new ones and like the mayor said they are more than just information centers they are now community centers and it will be my job up in Sacramento to fight for more funding for all the libraries since we did not pass the bonds this past election so that is my commitment to all of you and thank you all for coming out and supporting the library thank you Fiona let me thank everybody for coming out to this this is pretty exciting for me the mayor and I we've been kind of hopscotching with each other from groundbreaking to ribbon cutting in the district and as you can tell we are building and so if you are impacted by construction related noise you can call my office or better yet to the California State Assembly or the mayor's office and if you're not impacted by the construction related noise let me just say how outstanding and exciting this is we are building a San Francisco for all of us in a vision where all of our needs are taken care of and really I get some flack sometimes from the mayor sometimes from the old mayor for some of the development deals that I'm involved in but to Mayor Newsom and Mayor Brown you should know that this Mission Bay development agreement is the model on which I base all of my work when developers come into my office asking for approval Mission Bay is the first use of this tool called a development agreement and it's kind of a legal term and not to get into a detailed explanation of what it is but basically the whole development is planned out with the rights in terms of the building envelopes and the building sizes and also in terms of the public benefits and there are significant public benefits in Mission Bay and thank you former Mayor Willie Brown for when you did it 25% affordable housing in the Mission Bay development that was unprecedented at the time that this deal was made and when you made that deal I just I kept trying to go up a little bit higher every time and so the developers probably aren't too happy about it but Mission Bay set the standard and you see it here where we have downstairs the world class library Mayor Newsom talked about and upstairs housing for San Francisco seniors many of whom from various backgrounds I've had the occasion to visit upstairs once but just an amazing building Mercy did an incredible job upstairs and for folks who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to live with dignity the remainder of their years here in San Francisco this is a real opportunity real beautiful convergence of library and housing that is so desperately needed in the city I'm very excited about the intergenerational programming and the possibilities for that in this building and it's an incredibly exciting day now Mr. Mayor maybe if we can employ the help of former Mayor Brown to fix the four street bridge we'll have the light rail we'll have the light rail coming through and the vision will be almost complete January I think is what we're talking about April so every time I ask it's a couple of months it's that bridge so anybody has any ideas on that bridge come and petition us libraries certainly are much more than accessing books or accessing information they are real community centers I've been to political meetings at branch libraries I've been to cultural events I've been to readings in Russian at branch libraries I've been to issue warrant meetings I know that I've attended a meeting out in the Bayview branch on violence issues there are places where communities can come together and either find a book to relax and to pick up some information or really to come together on the issues of the day that's in part what makes this exciting another thing that makes this exciting is the influx of money in this budget I do have to also acknowledge our assessor Phil Ting who through a creative creative and aggressive stance in his department is going out to access more property tax dollars which is important for the library and their baseline and it's going to make the library have the ability to bring back some of the hours that we lost over the last couple of years in the library so in terms of this building being open Sunday in your library and there's some money included in the budget for a librarian to consider additional hours and I think that's a good thing so with that said this is an exciting day thank you Mission Bay thank you to the neighbors and Mission Creek and let's get a little bit closer to the ribbon cutting thank you let me take a moment to acknowledge one of my colleagues I really appreciate her being here Fire Chief Joanna Hayes White back here thank you for being here and also I'd like to invite to the podium former Mayor Willie Brown thank you Willie where is Marsha Rosen? is she? that explains did you? that explains her absence I ask the question because every time I convened a meeting at City Hall about Mission Bay I had to have Marsha Rosen in the room I had to have her in the room because she was the constant reminder of those kinds of community benefits that Chris Daly spoke so eloquently about that ultimately became Mission Bay and became very much part of Mission Bay and I must tell you nothing is more to the monstrive of her importance to this project than this ribbon cutting that we're engaging in today and the intergenerational housing in which this measure is presently placed Mission Bay has frankly been a project that we are all involved in whether it was the ballpark part of the project whether it was the very first component of this project was not the 43 acre UC campus for building purposes but the Rick Sorrell Community Housing Cotellus had the good judgment to accept an opportunity to demonstrate its real commitment by making that space first available in that important piece of prime real estate and then to have a measure built there in which people can really live and people that can afford it a combination of government the private sector the non-profit sector a quality builder and the nibby brothers all produce that symbol and now the most recent symbol is this one and Mr. Mayor it will be probably for the remainder of your term and your next term as Mayor the goal is to always upstage him at every event he's so damn popular but in all seriousness this Mission Bay neighborhood is a neighborhood that will be ongoing on and on and on and the changes that will take place will only reflect the great quality and the commitment that your administration the Board of Supervisors the State of California and the private sector entities that are involved in particularly the University of California to help make this the kind of new San Francisco neighborhood that will be the incertinent neighborhood for the south of market community development I am just delighted that we finally got this library done and in San Francisco if people looked at San Francisco they would never vote for another library bond because it's clear at the local level we can cleverly do it on our own we are a bad example for the rest of the state they got a bond pass but you are to be congratulated because friends of the library and all of the other people who've been involved plus the private sector plus your own recognized leadership at City Hall those combinations have produced one new library one upgraded library after another here in San Francisco and this is just the latest in libraries to be unfolding and I hope I sincerely hope that you invite me to everyone because I don't want to have to take credit from afar thank you thank you Willie the library commission has been very visionary and wonderful in monitoring the branch library improvement program we have quite a few commissioners here but it's not my pleasure to welcome and introduce the president of the library commission Charles to get us Charles? well welcome to the first great public venue in the Mission Bay Area now of course when I say that I'm clearly biased but where else can the community access a place nearly every day of the week throughout the day and into the evening year round and best of all for free this is that place now when we broke ground on this branch sometime ago it was a that day was particularly rainy and pretty nasty actually we were waiting for Mayor Brown to arrive as this was sometimes the case not always certainly but sometimes when he arrives his car pulled up suddenly the rain stopped the clouds parted and the sun shown now may I don't know if you have anything to do with the weather today but thank you if you did I appreciate it now the fact is as Louise mentioned the mayor got it after truth be told the mayor was the impetus for our successful bond library improvement program that the voters you all voted in November of 2000 because he single-handedly created enabled the ocean view library branch previously that neighborhood had been frankly underserved by a temporary facility Mayor Brown found the money to enable the construction of that new branch and so that success and it was a success because it opened in the early part of 2000 and I think you voters were probably encouraged by that success and you supported the bond library program bond that came later that year so Mayor Brown got it everyone gets it certainly Mayor Newsom great supporter of this system each and every supervisor as well they all get it they get the fact that these libraries are as has been mentioned a community center but they bring vitality and livability to every neighborhood across this city now there's an expression in Texas that don't mess with Texas well we've learned don't mess with library branches we've got 24 projects we've got over to expectation now that's no small task you know we're aided by an excellent array of folks now we've talked a little bit about some of the collaborations the partnerships that have made this branch possible those exist throughout the city and what we have and I have to you know divulge that I'm an architect and so I have a special appreciation for the team that designs and builds these facilities now this particular project was designed by a firm called Prescott I want to get it right Prescott Santos now do we have a representative from from that firm here you got to give this gentleman a hand and actually Adele would probably appreciate if I said Santos Prescott but you are here so I started with Prescott at any rate you know this commission is really four square behind delivering every one of our projects according to that expectation and has been alluded here that's not going to be easy but we're looking forward to the continued support across the spectrum of government certainly but also across this entire city because we all know that you love your libraries and you're very passionate about them and you get it too you understand how very important they are to your respective communities now I want to recognize in that same breath the commission dedicated itself to one meeting a month to scrutinize to provide oversight to that bond program to ensure that the expectations are met and we have two commissioners at least two commissioners here this morning my vice president Stephen Coulter Steve and my commissioner Jules Gomez you know this is actually my 10th year as a commissioner and it's longer than I would have imagined certainly but I wouldn't be here but for the fact that I have an excellent array of commissioners who join me in providing the oversight to the system I wouldn't be here as well if I hadn't been able to move from the excellent stewardship of Susan Hildreth who you know gave birth in large part to this program to our new library and city librarian Louise Herrera we're sometimes confused to Garris Herrera similar we're really fortunate to have Louise here and we hope to have him here throughout certainly the life of this program and it's going to wear on him a little but I think he's in for the long haul so with that said thank you very much have heart there are only four more speakers thank you alright we'll pick up the pace thank you Charles and again thank you to the commission for their wonderful support and leadership we have some proclamations from Senator Jackie Spears office as well as Assemblyman Mark Leno and I'd like to recognize Rhys Isbell who's here from Assemblyperson's office thank you for being here the proclamations are on display inside the library so please take a look at them any venture such as a new library and this partnership with the redevelopment agency Mercy Housing and the entire branch library improvement program requires a true partnership among city agencies and it's been a pleasure to work with the Department of Public Works who are in essence doing the actual work of building these libraries for public works Fred Abadi he's been a great partner in this and I'd like to ask him to invite him to the podium to see a few comments thank you I'll be very short we at the Department of Public Works are very excited to be a part of the largest building campaign in San Francisco Public Library and being in the position to work on the $105 million implementation program as Luis mentioned the library improvement program calls for 19 libraries to be with major renovation and four least facilities to be replaced with new facilities under owned city owned ownership and one brand new library we feel very fortunate to be part of the program and helping with the design and construction management services and I would like to thank the leadership of Luis Herraro and Commission President Charles Degueres for their leadership thank you and I also would like to acknowledge a few people our program manager Marilyn Thompson who is not here today he's off but he she is really the one who is managing the whole program and I would like to thank Mindy Linsky who is the bond program manager I also want to acknowledge the architects for the project the Hardison Kamutsu Ivillich and Tucker and also the construction contractor Cahill and their subcontractors thank you very much I mentioned a little bit earlier that there was a lot of community process in this library together and I mentioned that there have been some real champions and heroes in doing that and you're about to meet one of them she is a long time resident of the area she is a community activist par excellence and a real force of nature and I'd like you to welcome Karen Noles-Piers well thank you Donna I didn't know I was a force of nature thank you I want to reiterate what others have said and isn't this just the most perfect day I think the only thing that we have that's missing is sunscreen but that's okay welcome to the newest branch of the San Francisco Public Library here at Mission Bay it is really amazing Charles talked about the groundbreaking and that is a true story I was going to tell you that the sun literally burst out as former Mayor Brown in his red fedora and for the period of our groundbreaking ceremony it was sunny and lovely and when it was over the rains returned as we all scampered back to our cars so that really is a true story and I'm sure Mayor Brown had something to do with that sunshine the other thing I wanted to mention is I came across an old newspaper article a couple days ago it was from 2000 or 2001 and it was a picture of the first building going up in the UCSF Mission Bay campus the Genentech building that was only five or six years ago it's pretty amazing how this neighborhood has been transformed in such a short period of time and we certainly have the administration of San Francisco to thank for that and so thank you to everyone involved I wanted to acknowledge the other members of the campaign committee everybody worked very hard on this so we thank you I'd particularly like to acknowledge my co-chair Wendy La Riviere who unfortunately is out of town today and couldn't make it I also want to say that without the work and of the friends and particular Marion Chatfield Taylor we probably would not have done this in the two and a half years that we did it in so I want to thank everyone welcome everyone please come into the library and enjoy also remember these are pledge cards we may be open but it doesn't mean we don't still need more money so look for your pledge cards inside thank you to all of you thank you so much thank you very much Karen and now it's my pleasure to introduce a dear friend and colleague my predecessor Susan Hildreth who is now the state librarian it was quite really her vision for the branch library improvement program that got us off to a great start in renovating and really a total makeover for the branch system so it's my pleasure she's also by the way I need to mention current president of the public library association Susan Hildreth I know you've had lots of speech to find and you want to get into that library I know that's what you want but I have to just thank everybody for being here and I also have to make a comment as former mayor Brown mentioned the redevelopment agency and all of our city fathers and mothers were really involved in this and it's a unique urban development and I can tell you that the library folks the redevelopment folks, the mercy folks we all sat at tables and we really negotiated to get you the best service you can ever imagine and we're a mother's librarian we're out there, we're community building we're serving you and it just makes me proud to see this building now I have to say I have to thank San Francisco for being the highest county once again when we had our prop 81 election you did it sorry it didn't make it but I know, I know for San Francisco the local support is going to make wonderful things happen here that we started and I just can't thank you all enough you know this building is your building you're out there no matter how many talking heads you have up here we wouldn't be doing this so thank you, it's your library and thanks to you thank you Susan, we're almost done so I'm going to ask Sarah to come back and join us Sarah are you ready to give some closure to this and introduce your child this is my son William who's very anxious to get in the libraries I'm sure all of you are but I hope you will enjoy the library today we have some special programs we have four bands here throughout the day a clown and a puppet show and lots of food all day so I'll turn it back to Louise thank you again Sarah alright, we're ready now I'd like to thank all of you for being very patient I know it's hot out there so we're ready to go I'm going to ask, we have some lion dancers and I'm going to ask the dignitaries to follow the lions and let's do the ribbon cutting