health station out there. they can see the veteran's right there. it is an issue. going out to the va is a roadblock. we continue to work well with the city. lots of different areas. we appreciate your support. thank you. >> we estimate in san francisco -- again, this is an estimate -- and the reason we are building this collaborative. there are anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000 living in san francisco. again, just estimates. we are trying to work through the technological challenges to connect people in a way where we can get a better sense of that community. one of the real leaders in helping us with that is leon winston, the coo of swords to

plowshares. he deals with the challenges, acute and not so acute, every day. we talk about exporting models, swords to plowshares is certainly one of them. >> thank you. it is true, the amount of city support that we get. the resources that the va brings to the table in concert with that, with community-based organizations. i became homeless in the early 1990's, came to san francisco, and through court -- resources given to me by the city, of swords to plowshares, i was able to get back on my feet. san francisco gets a bit of a bum rap because we are a liberal city, but as far as support for

veterans, there is no city that does a better job. this goes back to the feinstein administration, every mayor since then. everyone has done a wonderful job supporting the veterans. san francisco is the only city we know of in the country that pays for mental health care for veterans out of the city budget. we have been doing that for 25 years. we have housing on a treasure island that is a no cost police for veterans. -- lease for veterans. in the presidio, 102 units of supportive housing. the city provides rehab funding there. veterans with disabilities.

more recently, the city made available a landmark building that has revived substantial rehab funding. in 2012, 75 senior hamas veteran will be able to live out their lives in dignity. i just cannot say enough about the job the city does of stepping up to the plate. it is not just about platitudes and waving banners, it is about getting the job done. we are great -- we are very grateful. >> randy martina's is the president of the city college. randolph will explain, through the gi bill, how they are now funding the gi bill. it is not about where you are from but where you are going to school. because of the high cost of living, they provide more than

just about any other city college in the state. >> thank you. but i am also a marine, [inaudible] thank you, mayor. policy advisers. thank you for having us here. i served seven years in the marine corps. i am here as the president of veterans alliance. our mission has been to create a home where veterans can come in and have a school that can offer so many things to them. one of the things that we've pushed the last semester was the better the resource center. dr. griffin made that happen along with walter newman. this veteran the resource center has brought a lot of good things to veterans, such as the va

right next door, the chance for veterans who do not feel comfortable going to a hospital, they feel comfortable at school, so we matched both of them. we are getting a lot of good turnaround. our mission also is to bring the veterans together in one home where we can have an easier transition from service to the higher education institutes. also, like the mayor said, we are trying to make sure all veterans coming to see the college are taken care of because it will be multiplying for time to come. the gi bill has been so great, making things happen, where today it can establish the economy -- to focus on the economy, giving veterans a chance to go to school by providing the highest gi bill

assistance we have had so far. we had an increase of 1000 veterans since last semester. last semester we had 200 veterans. that is a good initiative. this is allowing more people to go to school. i am also here because a lot of veterans have problems bringing their issues to the va, problems with learning. but they are so grateful for this city which takes care of them. this is another step forward to make sure that we continue that. i want to thank san francisco for really helping us veterans.

thank you. >> thank you all, very much. we are here to answer any question that you may have. >> can you tell us more how 311 works? my personal experience is, i often get another phone number. >> nancy, you can explain the website that is up. >> i am not a veteran but i believe in providing help to people, so we have designed a comprehensive web site with information in terms of general resources, job and education training, housing, social services, mental health. just a vast array of resources you can find in one place. in most cases, when people call 311, we can provide language

assistance and give you the resources available, depending on the need of the veteran. we can provide them a link to the information, service, whether it is sorts to plowshares or anything else. we would provide that information to them. we would not provide the phone number unless they ask for it, but we would deliver those services, based on their request. >> so it is mostly referring them to the website? >> if they won general resource information, but if there is specific information, then we would respond to that specific question. so we would provide the information it to the person at that time, as well as additional links to any sort of information that they might need. >> that can be a pretty time- consuming process.

[inaudible] >> all of our staff is cross train, so they will be ready to help. >> it is one of the initiatives they are having right now, drilling down on this specialty. the backbone of 311 was generic, but we are building these backbones to have more specific concentration of on certain things. >> so if i called and i said i was a home was a veteran, can you find me a place to live? >> we would not find you a place to live but we would go to the resource which provides homeless assistance. we would provide you the resources to that. >> so again, are you just going to say, we have this program, you should call. will that person actually be the

lead person who gets to the housing? >> we would provide the resource to the agency, but again, we would provide you the information of what is required. it is not just saying "colorado here." it is more of a conversation, is this what your looking for? >> any other questions?

>> i work with the department of environment and we are recycling oil. thank you. we can go into a refinery and we can use it again. they do oil changes and sell it anyway, so now they know when a ticket to a. hal>> to you have something you want to get rid of? >> why throw it away when you can reuse it? >> it can be filtered out and used for other products.

>> [speaking spanish] >> it is going to be a good thing for us to take used motor oil from customers. we have a 75-gallon tank that we used and we have someone take it from here to recycle. >> so far, we have 35 people. we have collected 78 gallons, if not more. these are other locations that you can go. it is absolutely free. you just need to have the location open. you are set to go.

>> we're ready to get started. good evening and welcome. i'm karen clausen, president of the league of women voters of san francisco. the league is a non-partisan, but political organization dedicated to the active and informed participation of all citizens in government. we never support or oppose candidates. however, we do take stands on issues, and so for further information about candidates and election issues, visit our

website, www.sf job votes.org. we want to thank our co-sponsors for tonight's forum. the pa trer row boosters. the dog patch neighborhood association. the university of california san francisco. and media son supervisors nbc bay area, san francisco government television, sfgtv, and educational access tv, e.a. tv. you will hear from candidates for supervisor for district 10, malia cohen, christine inea, chris jackson, tony kelly, dewitt lacey, jeffrey morris, steve moss, eric smith, lynette

sweet, and diane wesley smith. they will have a chance to present their views upon issues affecting the district and the city, and to answer your questions about those issues. to submit questions for the candidates, look for a league volunteer who will be handing out index cards. we will collect all questions by 6:30. i have a few housekeeping items that i'm sure you've been hearing about since you came in the door. that is no literature, campaign signs, or buttons may be distributed or posted inside of this meeting room. if you have them in your lap, put them face down on the floor or in the seat. candidates and their supporters are expected to be respectful of

our candidates and the audience and to help maintain quiet during the forum. candidates are asked to make no personal attacks on other individuals. no flash photography is allowed due to the fact that that forum is being taped for broadcast by san francisco government television, sfgtv, and educational access tv, e.a. tv. finally, we would ask all in the audience and onstage to mute their cell phones and pagers. it is my great pleasure to introduce our moderator this evening, nbc bay area news anchor, calling san francisco home since 1990, tom brings decades of experience to the nbc bay area news team. among the stories he has covered are the nuclear accident at

three-mile island, hurricanes hugo and agnes, the explosion of the space shuttle challenger, the los angeles riots, and the oakland hills fire storm. tom also has extensive experience covering politics. he reported live from al gore's campaign headquarters in nashville on the infamous election night of 2000 and provided coverage for the bay area from the democratic national convention in 2008 when barack obama made his historic nomination acceptance speech in denver. he has been awarded three regional emmy awards, along with numerous other awards for writing and reporting. tom lives in san francisco with his wife and two children and we are deeply honored to welcome tom. [applause]

>> thank you, everybody. thank you, karen. good evening, everybody. this evening, we have 10 candidates for district tensor president. the candidates are going to have only one minute to answer questions because we have a rot of questions we want to move through tonight. you in the audience will submit all of our questions virtually, as well as questions that have been submitted to the league of women voters website at www .sfvotes.org. every candidate will have the opportunity to answer every question. because of the of candidates, unfortunately, we will not have time for rebutles. any rebutles may be included, however, in the candidates' closing statement. now, the timekeepers, they're very important. they're right here in the front row. one is a yellow card. which means, of course, take

your foot off the accelerator. because the next card you'll see is the red card, which means that your minute is up. all candidates have agreed to ask their supporters to be respectful of our candidates and to maintain quiet during this forum. every aspect of the forum is going to be equally fair to all participating candidates. we know that everyone out here has a very important decision to make on november 2, so today's forum, we certainly hope will give you an opportunity to be heard. and now liths begin. and we have in the last few minutes collected some of the questions from the audience members, and i will say as we begin our discussion tonight that they are very practical in nature. so let's begin tonight by asking ms. cohen this following question. from my house, the nearest full service grocery is four miles

away. even a fresh piece of produce is over two miles away. what idea do you have to bring fresh food to hunter's point? >> good evening, everyone. thank you for coming tonight. recently, over by the -- ke cal palace, a partnership between fiona's office and members of the city council and daily city. i use this as an example to help bridge the gap that we live in. we live in a food desert. we have very little access to good quality, healthy food. one of the things that i'm interested in bringing is with the development in universal paragon, the southern-most part of the city, there's an opportunity for us to first sustain the businesses that have been providing some food supplies as well asfh4jl- parth developers that understand our

challenges and that are willing to bring healthy food options to the southeast part of san francisco. so to answer the question on bay vurek i'd like to see a farmer's market specifically designated on the hill. thank you. >> thank you very much. that minute is tough, we know. >> thank you. i'm christine inea. my ideas for bringing fresh produce into district 10 are as follows. one, support the opening of the fresh and easy market in third street on bay view. two, continue to support the redevelopment, which i believe will include a full service grocery store in visitation valley. third, i would like to support the redevelopment agency's efforts of the southeast food access group to remodel the super save on third street in bay view. we have a very motivated owner. the project that i'm most excited about is we are working with several partners to apply

for grant funds to acquire some property to create an urban farm. this could be a community-led farm. it would go through a exunety process to determine the last model. this would be fresh food in the lute worst food desert, where we have about 99% housing and one liquor store. those are my ideas. thanks. >> thank you. mr. jackson? >> yes. it's true that we live this a food desert. and these are because of decisions that our leadership has made over the decades. it's time that we actually work our hardest to prioritize district 10 as a place where we will grow healthy food and we'll place healthy food options. first of all, we've talked about how many liquor stores are in our exunety. i actually want to work on liquor store reform. i think it's very important. other groups have worked on this before and require a certain level of certain square footage being dedicated to fresh produce.

i also want to bring back urban gardening. slug was a wonderful program that employed people in the community to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. that also takes care of our public safety issues. also, we have many, many school sites in our community. we should be using these school sites on the weekends to actually impact the families and children that have farmers markets on the school sites, where successful people know how to get there and it's actually make use of existing space. thank you. >> mr. kelly? >> this kind of issue is where land use gets real. land use determines who lives here and who works here and how they do it, so it really is the number one issue in this race. it's where i've done a lot of my work over the last decade, educating myself and our neighborhoods about land use with the neighborhood association. specifically on this issue, ms. inie a has the right ideas, supporting opportunities in the development areas. we can finance. we can provide some help for

fresh produce along third street. we need to bring back more redevelopth resources to do that. we used to have 11 greenhouses in the district. now we have one and it's falling apart. bring back more people powered green economy urban agriculture. thanks. >> mr. lacey? >> thank you. dewitt lacey. there's a few things that i think we could do to alleviate so. the problems around fresh produce. one, i do believe we do need to promote a farmer's market within the bay view hunter's point area, as well as have local farms, and opportunities like farms that i helped restore out off of alameda boulevard. those are types of thing we could do within our public housing development. not only give people a resource to their own freshly grown

products, but also give kids some knowledge about growing plants and our vegetation. things they so desperately need. as well, i think we should support community developments that have food marts within them as well. >> ms. morris? >> hi, in the bay view, we did have a farmer's market, but it didn't go so well and it wasn't really participated. but we have community-based organizations like hunter's point that are going to get a juice bar. so maybe working with our current non-profits like hunter's point family gardens and creating a juice bar, making our major train, have more edible, desirable food in the neighborhood, as well as supporting the fresh and easy in

the other developth. but immediately, we need to make the major changes, which is holding foods accountable for giving our community quality food in the bay view area. >> mr. moss? >> i'm steve moss. i think first we need to understand that a lack of a grocery is an indication of a community that has larger needs. when you have a wealthy community that has jobs, there are grocery stores. so here we have a community that is deficit in jobs and public transportation and all kinds of things, and the supermarket and access to grocery store is just one indication of that. now, my non-profit san francisco community power that i founded 10 years ago started working with super save eight years ago to help put them on the track of providing fresh fruits and vegetables. we provided refrigeration as part of our project in order to help them do that. we've also been working with the san francisco wholesale produce mart for the last 10 years to help them also expand access to fresh fruits and vegetables. that's actually a central place where almost all the fruits and

vegetables come through to the city and are disbursed to the other neighborhoods. we should bring home school lunch money and buy our fresh fruits and vegetables from local producers that can be made and produced in district 10. thanks very much. >> and we appreciate the energy and the excitement about the issues tonight from the league of women voters. they have asked that the candidates remain seated. mr. smith. >> thank you, tom. eric smith. fresh and easy is a company from england. what i'd like to see them do is first become a union, which would be great, and also to hire from the community. that should be first and foremost. it is a food desert. we need a lot of different options and opportunities. you've heard about using our schools as a hub for farmers markets and the like. i do a lot of urban farming myself. we have some 85 geets out --

goats out there that we use. i think it's very important to do that. we'll see what happens. i'd like to encourage that. i'd like to see a supermarket there. it is a food desert and we need to do something about that and change that. thank you. >> now, ms. sweep? >> i'd like to say that right now there is a grocery store. it's inadequate in its current capacity. the redevelopment agency, in conjunction with our current sitting supervisor sophie maxwell, have worked out a deal to expand that footprint and turn it into a kroger. that's going to be a major impact on on what goes on in our district because we will have a full service grocery store. fresh and easy is going to be a wonderful complement to that store because it will give us those fresh fruits and vegetables that we're looking for, but in addition, the community