my speech will argue differently. if i did get everybody to do their best, thank you for taking your time to be here. i will try to be as brief as possible, but i of so much to say that i recognize in may be a challenge. i have never sat in the front. maxwell knows this. sit in the back. i want to thank you all for coming down here. as you can see, this may not have been the obvious place for a budget presentation, but in every respect is an obvious place. i spent a lot of time down here,

because this is my equilibrium. i walk down the tender line and the civic center. when i think i am doing a good job, and when i think things are not going so well and that we have not made much impact, i come down here as well, because i meet people all the time whose lives have changed dramatically. i am very bless that you took the time to be here, and i am very grateful that so many elected officials are here, and over the course of the presentation, i will appropriately acknowledge all of you for the work you have been doing and the input you have put into our efforts. we are also here because we are at a remarkable crossroads in the city's history. i remember many moons ago

meeting kevin when he was a supervisor, and he was reminded me the first real job he took aside from in association with his father who served as mayor for many years was working for then mayor dianne feinstein, who made a choice to clean up the central market area, too clean of the tenderloin, and i say that because it is a reminder that this is hardly a new place. this is hardly the first time the mayor has said we are going to do better, and i would imagine everyone will say, i pledge to clean up fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh streets. i have strategic plans to build on the success and failure alike. it has been a challenge for a lot of different reasons. in january we decided after really analyzing the work that had been done, that we needed to

do something dramatically different, that we have established the central market partnership, and it really builds upon the legacy of the previous mayor and community leaders that have been out here for decades passing batons on to one another to strengthen the community, and that partnership was event with a lot of people in the room, and i am grateful you took the time to be here. with some renewed vigor, some renewed enthusiasm that may be just this time, maybe this time things can change with a multi agency approach, not just with the redevelopment agency, but building on our capacity within the city's families and leveraging resources, really the spirit of our time, not just now accepting the we do not have the

resources to make an impact. the framework of the partnership was a framework in recognizing that one of the greatest strengths of the city is our artistic integrity that really is the foundation for what is so good in life about san francisco and how that is fully expressed in each of verse neighborhood by the contributions -- diverse neighborhoods by the contributions of people that live here, that make their home here and make their lives in the context of their contribution to the cultural heritage and history of our city and that artistic expression, and as the centerpiece of any successful economic revitalization in cities across the country, it is a vibrant art form. it is a real commitment.

[applause] so we have spent a great deal of time really analyzing how we can build on that and analyzing how we can make appropriate investments, and i will talk about the arts budget, and i will give you a sense of what we are valuing in this budget and how we believe we can aspire to the framework of economic growth and revitalization. this multi agency effort has been advanced not just by city departments representatives but by community leaders. so many wonderful things have happened that we are starting to pull them together. one of them is the remarkable effort under way is through the better market street project, where there is a real commitment to a improving the realm, a focus on more reliable transit.

to remove at least 150 cars. it turns out that was the number of cars every hour or so that has been redirected, particularly going eastbound into the market quarter -- corridor, and the numbers bear out that we are moving in the right direction. there has been a chance to enhance our biking efforts and new pylons that are out there and all the other enhancements that are under way. and commitment that is represented by this budget to completely repave market street. that is about the size of some states budget. this is not your average repaving project with all that heavy transit that needs to be included, so we have to make an

investment so we are ready to go in making sure we wisely appropriate are dollars so in 2013 the project is fully complete. we focus on small businesses and investing in small businesses. we put together a small business revolving loan fund, which to the extent people do not know about it is beyond me, provides micro loans. we have a dozen companies taking advantage of it. we want to enhance the revolving loan fund with the new and $11 million cultural loan fund that we are going to target in this community, up to $2 million in loans that will be made available in literally two weeks to the mayor's office that will focus on the tender line and the central market area. these are loans you can get at 3% to 6% interest rates.

it will focus on fifth street to 10th street and also focus on the tender line on areas around larken. the only criteria is that for every $50,000 you take out in a small business loan, we need to measure that you would have a please created one job, which seems incredibly modest, so it is not a very high bar in terms of eligibility, get to make a commitment you simply have to demonstrate you are -- yet to make a commitment, you simply have to demonstrate your commitment. this will be on line in a couple weeks and will build on the other loan program that has successfully been advanced that needs to be marketed. we are also committing to a series of new art fairs, a weekly art market, new arts

festival that will be advancing the summer concert series, which i think is going to be a huge success and the immediate arab. -- area. we are going to have feared the new officers. they are going to be housed full time, so rather than having police officers come from the district station, they will be coming right from the community. we are talking about the ultimate community policing. 30 new beat officers. we are ready to roll the out in the next few months. we have some new community districts safety officers, and we are going to build on some of the great work that has been done. he is doing great work on the tenderloin with the of town tenderloin historic district -- uptown tenderloin historic

district. gooit is an incredible history t should be shared with the rest of the world. as well as the new history museum that will be built in the tenderloin. these are some of the things that happened again. it is everything i believe remains challenging about the city, the conditions that are going to be affected by decisions. we are not going to accept the conditions as our future, because we are going to build on community activism and trying to get these things done. i hope to see support from the planning commission for a retail development just down the block

between fifth street and sixth street at city place, and i see a couple of planning commissioners. i want you to take a a good look of that project, and hopefully you will be supported. all of some of the good things that are taking place, improve -- including taking advantage of the store front, this extraordinary program that i think has made a real impact, it has been replicated across the city, the new community districts that have taken place. all these programs that are going to make real enhancements in the neighborhood. now to the task at hand the biggest budget deficit in our history. we had $2.2 million when we started. we held off the temptation to spend more money and to radar

rainy day reserve, and we worked at a deliberate to witter that budget deficit down to $482.7 million, so what i will offer today is against the backdrop of a $483 million shortfall. the worst economic recession since the great depression, state cuts the likes of which we could not imagine, let alone have struggled to even relate to, and the federal government that is still working through what it is going to do next, and a lot of uncertainty around some of the federal stimulus money and a lot of uncertainty about whether or not those commitments can continue in the years to come, so that required a new approach, a different kind of relationship in terms of seeking advice and being inspired by the will of ingenuity and

willingness to find solutions. these town hall meetings were very different from a lot of once in the past. you can do have a pretty good sense of where they are in terms of the issues. instead, we decided to go out and randomly sampled folks like you would of public opinion poll and get folks to show up for a town hall meeting we had in february, and we did and online interactive town hall where people would vote, and we got a lot of feedback from that, and then we did the first online budget we have ever done. we got 24,000 people. rachel gordon was kind enough to host that town hall. i think it was 2 plus hours of unfiltered dialogue with real folks engaging in a different

approach. i did another series of town halls down in west portal to get feedback from folks, and we put together an employee site which calls for improvements, and we got over 500 specific recommendations, and just briefly, there were a couple of wonderful ones, and this is a budget where there are no grand ideas, and there is no idea that just solves the problem. there are hundreds of ideas, including an idea from dave. you are right in front of me. this poor guy has been struggling for years to be recognized, and finally through

this interactive web site, he alone is responsible, because those wages and benefits do not necessarily add up to savings, but they are close. when he said, why do we spend this money on car washing we never thought about our car washing contract, -- this money on car washing? we never thought about our car washing contract, and we cut that in half. just because of his one idea, we saved $75,000. [applause] i do not know if johnson is here, but now he goes, what is up with all this music, and who plays the music gets somebody somebody has not thought of. it turns out we spend money to be placed on hold, which is not

an enjoyable experience, and his idea is modest, but it is not insignificant, it saves $10,800. we have others that promoted selling off surplus equipment, all kinds of ideas -- hundreds of recommendations, and others said, it is about time we change our public transit. somebody said, i was in new york, and they are selling t- shirts. they wanted to sell some t- shirts and get the city in that business. we loved that idea. this just gives you a sense of some of the