audience members are heard. >> my name is bruce grimes. i am an independent writer and producer of television, going back to "rolling stone." my question will relate to the comment about quality from dr. abraham. specifically about journalists today. 250 people, ranging in age between 25 and 35, pretty frightening. they were new media folks from a content perspective. what i came away with listening to them talk about their audience, reaching out, being writers, was scared me was how selfish the audience seemed to be.

subway breakfasts, your comment about crime and people being tired of reading about it, they were reaching for people like this, this is how they were going to make money. it scares the hell out of me. i brought it back and brought it up, especially in the '60s and '70s, it was a extremely political newspaper magazine that used music to bring in an audience. so, my question, what about the new journalists today reaching out to the 20-year-old and 30- year-old? your comment about the two schools of journalism and reaching out, getting quality journalism to the public, how will we do that? >> we have a couple of issues here. the old school and the new school. i guess the question would be --

is there a standard? a single standard anymore for journalism? >> i do not know who sets that standard anymore. frightening, sometimes, to hear the fact that the most trusted name in news is jon stewart. but who can argue that there is not some good quality reporting and information that goes on on a show like that? i think it will be far reaching. we have young people, both in print and on the internet. it is a wide range of

opportunity. i do not know that there is any one standard today that anyone could point to that would be the single source. >> what about the chronicle right now? reducing $1 million per week, what does that look like right now? >> thank goodness we are not losing $1 million per week today. i am happy to say that. to give you an idea, fourth quarter of last year, in the toughest economic times of this country that we have seen since the great depression, it was a record quarter for us for the decade. now, the bar was awfully low, but it was a profitable quarter. started out at the beginning of the year, in this type of environment, not making money today. but we are on our budget and on our plan. the last six months of the year

looked to be a strong revenue environment for us. we think we will be fine overall for the year. >> we have gone over our time a little bit. one last question. >> this is for mr. frazier. the panel last night, it looks like there is no after the chronicle, so congratulations. we were talking about how people to get them to eat their broccoli with their ice-cream. reading city hall coverage with subway breakfasts. can you talk about ways you are experimenting with getting people to eat them both? making it palatable? concrete experiments that you will try? >> that will -- that sounds terrible. [laughter] >> maybe we can have broccoli with cheese?

i do not think that there is a simple answer. i think that people come to read various news sources. there will be multiple sources. some for entertainment, some for other resources. the key thing about broccoli and in sustaining a democracy, it tells us what we need to know even if we did not need to know it. it is about the role that the journalist plays, telling the community what we did that no we needed to know. cheese, ice cream, it does not matter. that means editors. that means transparency. that means education about media. it means membership of junior journalists. without all of those things, there is no broccoli. no one will tell us what we need to know that we did now know we need to know.

>> on that note we will have to conclude today's town hall forum. we hope that you enjoyed it. it has been presented by the northern california chapter of professional journalism. they've asked me to express thanks to tonight's panelists. thank you for being here today. [applause] thank you to the audience as well. give yourself a clap, making it on the tuesday evening from work or whatever. we would also like to thank the san francisco public library from -- for sharing this facility, the crew from sfgtv, thank you for joining us. we wish you good news in everything that you do. [applause]

>> thank you very much for joining us tonight. i would appreciate it if folks would move into the lobby for conversation.

in the east bay, we were talking about food policy this morning. in -- san francisco has become the first city in the state of california to establish a mission policy that is a well this policy and a prevention policy that i think will pay great dividends in the future. we did it with the secretary of agriculture at west oakland. nonetheless, it kept me very much in line in terms of my

focus with the work that all of you are doing since the issue good nutrition and prevention and wellness are a big part of what holds all of you together today. first and foremost, welcome. thank you for being here at this summit. i want to thank the great leadership of everyone here and our coordinating council that is really focused on the larger issues of our seniors. to focus beyond just skilled nursing facilities, so we are very proud that we are investing in skilled nursing facilities in our city across the state and our nation. but we recognize that is not for everybody, and we want to provide alternatives so people can age in dignity and age in place and make sure we have adequate resources, the

infrastructure, the transportation systems, adult day care that is truly supportive of not only the clients, but their care givers themselves. i guess that is the spirit that brings me downstairs to welcome you. my admiration for all of the care givers in the room and for your sacrifices and for the extraordinarily heroic work that you do. it is not lost on me the incredible challenge that is placed on people that do of their lives -- give up their lives to help their loved ones. where you cannot work the job that you once worked, you cannot continue the hours that you once had, where you are sacrificing financially to sacrifice for someone else. how women are disproportionately being impacted as care givers by that contribution. and the fact that in california,

we support more care givers than any other state in our nation, and we are going to rely on you even more in the future because we in san francisco are not completely dissimilar to the larger statistics. we have a disproportionate number of seniors in our city, and we have rather tragically a disproportionate number of seniors living alone in our city. the highest percentages in both categories in the state of california, and we want to prepare for that. we want to invest in that. we do not want to react 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. the statistics are rather alarming. by 2013, over 1.1 billion people will be suffering from alzheimer's and dimension. the numbers are staggering, and they are impacting disproportionately hispanic and asian populations, and we need

to make sure that cultural competency is a big part of the narrative of that investment as well. so we initiated, i guess six months ago, a very complicated process. we funded a complicated process to really investigate and invest and identify best practices, identify resources, identify gaps in terms of our integrated system of care. next month, i am eager, very eager -- in august, i will finally receive this report, which i believe maybe the only report of its type that has been initiated. i'm rather mesmerized by this. we hope it is not just a blueprint for the city and county of san francisco. we hope it is something that can be shared across the state of california and again across the rest of this country.

so that is what we are doing here. this is a city that prides itself on its investment in people's health and wellness. this is a city, for those of you that may not be familiar, that is the only city in the united states of america with a universal health care plan, regardless of your ability to pay. [applause] we are proud of that. you may not know this, but now, over 70 percent -- 70% of people that did not have access to basic health care are now enrolled in our basic health care plan. and it is a public plan. i say that because so much of the debate nationally is around public plans, government-run health care. in san francisco, no one is jumping off the roof complaining about government-run health care. in fact, quite the contrary.

they are rushing down to city hall to get that health care. interestingly, and just a final footnote, three weeks ago, the largest hmo in california joined our plan. they are partnering with san francisco pose a public plan and will be providing health care to thousands. i say that not to impress you, but to impress upon you that we can do better, that we can do more, that the work you are fighting for, that you are arguing for in this room can be made real, that there are pockets of success. you have led the way all across the state in the nation. it is all about our ability to scale it, and it is about our ability to right wrongs and

support the most vulnerable among our community, and that is the spirit, i think, of our great city, the spirit of our state, and i believe it is the spirit that permeates this summit. >> my name is anne hinton, and i'm the executive director of the department of aging and home services. i mentioned that for a reason. bill cannot be with us today. if it had not been for the staffing bill had provided as well as the editing and all the support, we would not be here. the office on aging is also part of the department of aging and adult services, and it was true

dollars from that part of our department, working with the california department of aging that we were able to use one time only money to put this investment together today. so a big thank-you to both of those groups. [applause] there's a couple of other people that i wanted to mention. bill also staff of the coordinating council and provided help to the work group, and the leadership for the long- term care quarter native council -- coordinating council, could you two stand and stay standing, please? [applause] the two chairs for the

behavioral health committee, of which one of their recommendations was that this report be put together, would you stand, please? [applause] what i will tell you about these four women is that they embody two facts about the long-term care coordinating council, and that is that day are tenacious, -- they are tenacious, and they are experts. the truth is without their leadership, we also would not have this report today, so thank you, ladies. [applause] as is so often the case with me, i find that my professional and personal life converge an awful lot these days, and one place

that they converge is when any discussion of dimension comes to the fore. my father began his journey with memory loss 20 years ago. -- two years ago. when i think about the expert panel that was formed, for the purposes of this report, i think about the expert panels that i enjoyed over those 20 years. my father says that exercise helps and the walking make something better, and what do you think about that? for the geriatrician that i found in south dakota, which taught me if you can find a geriatrician in south dakota, you can find one anywhere. he did a terrific assessment on my father and got us to an early diagnosis, and his team 15 years later came up with a second diagnosis. the researcher of that uc, when

my father was not sleeping, i was determined that there had to be research out there that would tell us something that would really help my father out. and the social worker that i work with to figure out how to make support for my mother and father work better. over and over again, those conversations would end with, " and we just do not know." now, it is 20 years later, and we do not know all the answers to all those whys, but we know a lot more. and this expert panel, for me, for the head of this department, but also as a daughter, this was a pretty exciting adventure, a pretty exciting opportunity, and to think that in august, the final report will be issued, and

that today, we are fortunate enough to be discussing this strategic plan is pretty amazing, so it is my honor now to introduce you to the two co- chairs, people that i have a long history with. they were not on my team at the time, but if i had known them back then, there would have been. -- they would have been. kathleen kelly is the director of the care giver of lyons, who does both local, regional, and national work in this area. -- the family caregiver alliance. if you do not know about that, that is the one thing you will take away today. this is an extraordinary organization, and kathy is an extraordinary person. there's probably nothing she does not know about this subject, and she can talk about demographics and interesting information that swirl around all of us all the time and that

we are trying to grapple with and get our hands on, and she just has been such a support and a person with the enormous inflammation and integrity to have cochaired this committee. we were very fortunate to get hurt. along with her is jay, and i did not know that the two of them go back, although it would figure that they had these things in common. he is the geriatrician i would have picked for my father if he had lived in san francisco and was in practice at the time. jay is an extraordinary geriatrician. if you ever have a chance to hear him in a lecture format, i encourage you to sign up for that. i have often learn so much from

listening to him. i would say that these two people are people that i have learned a lot from. i think they were enormous gifts to this expert panel, and with that, i am going to turn over to the two of you. [applause] >> thank you. as a geriatrician, i have a deep respect for tradition, and our health care system has a long and well-entrenched tradition of labyrinthine complexity, of overlap, and areas of inadequate service. and i have personal experience as a family member of several

people with alzheimer's, and i know that all of the skills that anne brought to providing a package of services for her dad are a testament to end -- to anne, but not everybody can do that. really, i was quite surprised when i got a phone call or letter -- i did not remember. that is scary. [laughter] to help put together a plan for the logical provision of service for this chronic illness. my first reaction was -- this is not the right environment. everybody is going broke. how can we possibly propose an all encompassing system of care

for as complex and devastating and illness as this is? once we met as an expert panel, we were told, "let's step back from the current financial catastrophe. we want your expert opinion as to what the best system would be. let's hope that over the time course, that we're looking at, over a 10-year time frame, that the present economic hard times will end, and we will have the opportunity with perhaps a national health plan, perhaps the impetus to eliminate some of the redundancy, some of the illogic from our current system. tell us what you, as experts,

think the best system would be." so i want to explain perhaps the greatest sacrifice that the members of the expert panel did. all of us took up cigar smoking -- [laughter] just so in the long tradition of governmental groups, we could make decisions in cigar smoke filled rooms. not everyone began smoking, but, anyway, what today is intended to be is your opportunity to provide feedback. although we were not literally in smoke-filled rooms, this was a relatively small group of people, admittedly with great collective expertise, but nonetheless, there is lots of room in a document such as the

one we intend to present today, for improvement from the consumer, improvement from people who have lived through the process, who may have greater insights, and the intention of today's summit, at least in part, it is to give you that opportunity. to hear our proposals presented very briefly, but also to give you a copy in much greater detail, but to leave lots of open time to hear from you. i know as the date proceeds, we will have technological assistance -- that is, people walking around with microphones -- and we will hear from you. with this, i am going to ask kathy to take over. [applause] >> thanks, jay.

i had the opportunity yesterday to do an interview kqed on their california profile segment, and the question that was asked was -- why would you want to do something like this? really, after being in the field for this long, as all of the different panel members on the expert panels and other members that were involved in this, it was kind of a question of we really do need to move ahead and do some planning, regardless of where the circumstances take us in our current economic situation because we know we have the highest percentage of seniors of any county in california and we know that coping with alzheimer's disease places very special stresses, unlike those other chronic care kinds of conditions, and that those kind of care conditions can be intensive and stressful and prolonged.

but also because san francisco has a history of innovation in terms of long-term care and assistance and support to the community for persons with chronic care conditions. fta got its start here and really recognize family caregivers. on what has been a leader in terms of integrating different services into one whole package of services. networks like the adult day health care network, the response to aids -- i could go on and on. we have a culture and community of innovation, and we wanted to build on that, but what is more important is that we have an abundance of professionals who are very highly skilled, experienced, and it has been working not only on a local level, but on a day-to-day basis with individuals with

alzheimer's disease and their families, but many of us have the opportunity and the good fortune to be able to work on the state and national level as well. we have a wonderful expert panel and others that were involved in the subcommittees that i would like to acknowledge, and i'm just going to read their names because to give all their attributes would take the rest of the morning. i apologize in advance for butchering your name, but i do want to recognize these 16 individuals that came from across the health and social service system, the advocates, the consumers. everybody was a around the table. it was most unusual to have so many people joined together.