francisco, first thing they think about is, let's go ♪ meet cathy, who's lived most verywhere, from zanzibar to barclay square. but patty's only seen the sight, a girl can see from brooklyn heights, what a crazy pair! ♪ cathy: oh my, patty. did you find all your files? patty: finally! who knew it would be this much work when richard and i decided to retire! cathy: well, what are you going to do first? patty: we're heading down to brooklyn heights and start in on that social security paperwork. cathy: why would you do that? patty: what do you mean? cathy: it's so much easier to log onto socialsecurity.gov and file online. patty: what if i need to know how much money i'll be getting? cathy: online. patty: what if our address changes? cathy: online. patty: what if i want medicare too? cathy: online. patty: so, how did you get so darn smart anyway?

cathy: online! ♪ when cousins are two of a kind! ♪ [ys>> for further information, o

we want to thank our co-m sponsors, sfgtvwpz and the publc library. n7bthe another candidate has declined to participate. he will have axhn chance to pret his view on issues affecting the cityn4 and answering your questions about those issues. questions, looa volunteer that will be handing out. i wish to remind you of our ground rules. u÷no campaign signs or buttonsy be distributed were posted inside of thisvájáj)p&e%ei no video taping or flash photography is allowed. q taping for broadcast. turn off or3

other íu=electronic devices. it is my great pleasure to introduce our barbara is a board member3rf serving as co-chair of voter services. her career includesh speech and communication at san francisco state university, city jt san francisco, and new york university. she is a4#ñju(uq trainer in public speaking, presentation, and media skills. two&2y candidates for assessor recorder. mr.hne ting is with us this evening and will answer questions you submit1si as wells questions that have been submitted to the league of women voters website. he answers will not be . you have many important

decision@bd make on november 2. this will give you an opportunity to be heard. xçylet's begin. welcome. o8÷first question, what is your which raises real property transfer tax for properties ÷>> i supported proposition just like the supported the proposition two years ago that raised theu a certain level. ,a>> has the department been abe to handle alli=t the requests fr reassessment of property due to falling property values? >>é)q we did a couple of things. 7xnour constitutional goal is to fairly and accurately assess property by the end of the fiscal year. the obligation to reduce

property2y÷ values, to equalize them to what the tax value should be. u0mwe reviewed over 15,000 ñ 15,000 homeowners were reviewed. ódon top of that, we had a 1100 applicationsw%, almost 4000 homeowners, and we did about the same number this year.údcthat nm ofs ago. they actually small relative to other bay area counties. where we willk propositioigy a reductions. 200,000 properties. "+r>> could you explain your "ce the loophole"

>> i started it about a year- and-a-half ago. xwwhat led me to it, i have hao deal=pz with the good and the battle with proposition 13. is influencing every single day. jvñit was sold as a measure to p seniors, specifically, in their homes. ñi-it was a way to make sure tht the homeowner was never taxed. tax reasons. i still think that that reason ó%ñis very good. i'd think the jobless folks understood this. corporate tax loophole in the state history. burdenljw in terms of paying property taxes on commercial property owners to

ho[á)p&e%ei i also see that here in san francisco,j÷ where they paid [unintelligible] over 40%. 6clwe have seen the greatest amt of commercial property developmentp0 -- aú;z few years, it didn't exist. the towers did not exist. "tñmission they did not exist. of those properties#yat were developed for commercial purposes were much smaller buildings. = boom of our time, how is it ossible if the population stayed flat? commercial property owners are now paying a ;sm- tax burden?

>> there6n loopholes -- ó answer is, there are loopholes. 3t2they can hire and much better accountant than you or i can. béqthere is almost no way that a homeowner can escape reassessment because we want to get taken off of theq deep unles we want to give it to our children. ñ property owners, f the corporation could stay the owner and it would take years. thatedñá is happening. we spent the last five years lodwhv hard at every legal way to close as many loopholes as possible. we included provisions to close homeowner always has to pay tax,

2 tax laws that allow corporations to go without. loopholes was the fact that many people felt like they didn't even need to come into our?d' office to report information. the largest÷ transactions that occurred the last 50 years was a hedgez@÷ fud the largest commercial property, they bought them out. went and sold thato morgan stanley. when theym%y purchased those properties in february, they decided they did not need to pay transfer ta already sold to morgan stanley. [ just like anybody in the audience here wouldgah have to y a transfer tax. jz of transfer taxes, the

largest of our kind.axes, the m it, and we settled. we+ of money. if we did not [sy after them, in a general fund. ':÷public transportation, fundi, all of those critical services we rely on. ññit is important to make sure that there isé homeowners -- it is only fair that commercial interest corporations rules. "0í>> do you have any cost-savig samát(áu)es?

ógr>> we have to make sure that government works. as departmenørp+e to make sure that the staff is accountable to all of you, the 5u) salaries. the biggest cost-cutting measure now, ie sure that every employee is best as possible. when i walked into the office five= records tracking how much work is being done no one knew how many taxpayers or how many phone calls we are getting. nobody knew how manyqghtransfer taxes we were cutting. it was impossibleco3o baseline performance because we have no record of performance. everythingewo anecdotal, based on what people thought. we÷ developed management reports that identify how much work to

everybody in the office is doing at relative to peers and relative to what other counties are doing.sewe are working very hare sure that?op every staff persons working as effectively and efficiently as possibleis it pe? absolutely not. çvit is significantly better tn it was five years ago. f ñfor example, we used to havea voice mail. s"speople call the switchboard d leave a voicemail. people wouldo[z spend an hour retrieving and a leading voice messages. just increased the number of people whose phones would ring to make sure>#p that someone gea live person. if they can't get anyone li it goes back to 311. the other thing is, we

translated a good portion of our webr7 spanish. speaks chinese or spanish at home. fhpthere is nothing that provids services inr-ñ spanish and chin, absolutely none. banks see it as ae%ñ customer service option. why can't we see that diversity [cp-- why is everything only in english when you walk in the door? enwe need to be servicing our customers the way they deserve to be serviced. ñ@swe did 17,000 in formal revi. we#f& have clear the backlog in half. i sr&lion above the budget this last year. we helped close 20% of the office.

through the hard work of our 20"staff are working very diligently and making sure that we meet expectations. -ríit is not easy. a lot of my staff think i am pushing% to much. but for me, i only ask as much i know expectations are very high, andu,i i carry those every single day. the other thing i wanted to get umi to its closing the loophole because i don't think i completely answered the question. cb÷i want to ask citizens, not t in san francisco,t.m closetheloophole.com is 8krwhere you can go if you believe they should be paying a differentáóx rate than home owners. we want to keep homeowners' subsidized under proposition 13. to#/9 continue the subsidy for

commercial propaganda doesn't make6i[ stand -- makes sense gin the fiscal situation. example, there is a family that has owned a square portion of the park(kw for 40 years. they have on it so long, the original couple has passed away. p benefit of the subsidy. them. they live in massachusetts now. (!óa subsidy of money that woule public safety, public health, it and affluent families in massachusetts. what a $600,000 homeowner would pay. jpeople argue, well, that is a

t means that we as a people benefit. tézwould your cheaper? would you see eggs being cheaper? we d.ú"g produce cheaper? where is the money going? "!they're saving hundreds of thousands of dollarsu7 of propy taxes. where is that money going? it is not going toe us, the people that are subsidizing. we are paying morewzc because -s also unfair because=nk competitive advantage. we have![÷ macy's and neiman mas side-by-side where neiman- development and paid three times as much than macy's. o)ñwhy is that fair? there on the block right across

from each other? ç come to the closing statement. you are not registered to vote,f please do so right away and urge others that you know to register. juothe deadline is october 18, d you will need to register at your newkw. address a few have moved. you have one minute. !jç>> thank you for having me he tonight. i appreciate the wonderful work you do. swéwhen i took over the office,t eputation that the city. we have worked very hard every single day for the last five into the twenty first century. g1÷we have made technology a priority. we 3dfu access to services in other languages, which@ou is why we do chinese and spanish.

that deserved it in this tough market. we have beenqqo active with educating people that are facing foreclosures. and=5÷ we have worked to cut a backlog÷ it was common for people to not get reassessed forymñ over four years. just by cutting that backlog, we brought ingc above our budget. o6>> on behalf ofççç myself, the league of women voters, and partner organizations sfgtv andm the san francisco public for participating. thank you for taking the timeoi to educate y(> thank you.

[applause]

>> the eastern neighborhoods plan is an effort to change the rules and update the rules for the poor neighborhoods. the mission, show place waterfront and it's an effort to look at what should happen in the future what happens to be . the decision has been made. so we assume that's gone. basically looking at the central waterfront on both sides of mission bay. there's a cluster of remains production activities that's one. one of the more interesting ones is the northeast mission. it's basically between potrero

avenue and south van ness. very mixed neighborhood. and thirdly, i would point to show place square. but it basically at the base of potrero hills where the design related businesses are. it's the 3 clusters we look at. the fourth one is bay view's hunter's point. we have recommended to transition about half of the industrial land in those 4 neighborhoods out of industrial and into neighborhoods. it's a finely wrought compromise for the city's need for housing and the imperative to keep some of these larger

rougher businesses able to survive in the city. from catering kitchens to auto repair. furniture wholesaling, a lot of things that need larger, cheaper spaces to occur. those businesses they provide support for the the city's front office economy. the downtown offices, tourist industry. all of those businesses need support for linen washing, printing and what have you. so the idea is to support the economy and secondly the jobs provided are very good stable jobs. some activities that used to be

clearly unindustrial active, because of technology changes take place in a base that looks like an office. printing takes place in some big, industrial places. now a lot of graphic work is done in a space that looks no different than a law office. we struggled in how to define those activities. we are forced to call them offices. yet clearly they should be allowed to go on. we have figured out how to parcel. in come areas, we saw, no we want real true industrial businesses. we need to preserve an amount of production distribution and industrial activities.

we need to do something proactively to change the rules. the market will probably push it out of the city over time. some people, they look at how much industrial land to retain. what should the rules be around affordable housing? we have a proposal. and in those areas, we are asking for a higher percentage. it's been the most expensive process we have done in san francisco. we estimate we have had 50 commission hearings.

we have had dozens and dozens of meetings. we may never have consensus. we will always have different sides of the position. we believe we are a solid, compromised proposals. we will see a bit of a surge in 09 and 2010. what you will see is multi-family developments. condo projects in buildings in some cases 400 units. we will see between 7500 and 10,000 new units. a lot of industrial businesses maintained and some that go bay the way side. the best place to go to see

where the proposed zoning is eastern neighborhoods dot sf planning.org. it's color coded. you can look through the documentation. you know the general area. can you zoom in and find out and there are series of detailed maps that so on