to end with a couple of quick points. tax policy can be progressive or regressive. the justice and community labor organizations that we work with, pushing for progress of revenue and progressive taxation as the real approach to solving the budget crisis that reflects san francisco values. progressive policies are ways to address the state and city's budget crisis without adversely affecting the vast majority of californians and san franciscans. it is fair that people in big corporations, wealthy individuals that have benefited immensely and in many cases obscenely, by the economy and from our economies should pay their fair share to insure that our communities are able to survive and thrive in 2011. so thank you. [applause]

, all right. let's thank everyone once again for their thoughtful presentations. [applause] we will now be beginning our open mike process. if you could submit a speaker card, that would help us stick to our agenda. we will be calling speakers up three at a time. if you could please be courteous and stick to the time limit, we know there are a lot of people here with a lot of things to say, and unfortunately, we probably will not be able to hear all of them. but remember to stay engaged. this is just the beginning of the process. i would like to say that these fine public officials probably did not have to be here today, but they are here, and i think that says a lot. let's be respectful of one another. as we call your name, if you could line up of here.

[reading names] i'm sorry if i mispronounced your name. but the other folks could come up here if i called your name. >> greetings to everyone who is here. nobody can hear you. is that better? in a district 6 resident for the past three years. i have been in the south of market area. i'm here to speak on behalf of my work.

-- my work at lyric. i also want to represent the concerns of the community partnership for lgbtq2 youth. it. lyric, lavender street, market street, bay area positive, lgbt center. district 6 is one of the neighborhoods with the highest number of lgbt youth in san francisco. last year, and is 15% to 20% that reported for our services reported they lived in this district. the number of total the live in the district is unclear because of the lack of comprehensive data in san francisco, but the number is substantial. many that the partnership are working with are facing will double issues, especially transitional age. they are among the most

vulnerable and among the least served populations by mainstream agencies. many have left abuses and a supporter homes, dealing with homelessness and affordable housing issues. they have a real need for comprehensive and culturally competent services, and mental health and substance use. as a result, lgbtqq youth are particularly vulnerable because of the budget cuts likely to happen, both because of a lack of culturally competent services and the lack of access for lgbt youtb at many other agencies across the city. lyric alone is looking at cuts of 50% this year, and that is a 72% overall reduction in our city's funding from 2008 through 2009. i want to encourage you to meet with the community partnership to express our fears about the

current rounds of budget cuts and for us to share with you what the agency and community partnership are doing. [applause] >> thank you. i'm going to call three more names. [reading names] . next up as oscar's mom, isn't it? come on out. >> [speaking spanish] >> good evening, mayor and

department heads and general public. i live in the mission. my son attends a lot of programs. he takes classes for guitar. her son goes to st. peter's, and it is because of generous scholarship programs. he is going to naturalization

classes, and he goes to do his homework at different organizations in the mission. without the assistance of these programs, her son would not be able to be the exceptional student that he is. he has gotten a second honor at school for his academics. i think that the children are the future of this country, and

if we cut the money for this programs, there will be more children in the street because they will not have anything to do. [applause] this is one of her worries about children and another is about seniors, and she wants to see that programs are children and programs for see -- programs for children and seniors are so important to give both of those communities a vibrant and important service. [applause]

she helps you can share and that these programs can have some of the money from the budget. thank you so much. >> i am here from the age of the planning services council. we need to figure out how to make up the cuts because they fund essential services for people with hiv and aids who are uninsured and underinsured. two other concerns, one is

around hepatitis c. the other had the honor of being appointed to previous years, the hepatitis task force. we had a number of things in it that we think funding them will help save us money down the road in terms of preventing new hiv transmissions, insuring that people currently living with it are aware of their status and have access to treatment, and ensuring that the services that the department provides are optimally coordinated so we are not spending too much money and different things and assuring people who are in health the san francisco have access to the full range of treatments that are available. one of the recommendations in particular around preventing new transmissions to the supervised injection facility has the potential to save the city significant money down the road. the last comment is specific to community policing and how we

are deploying police and criminal justice resources. we are spending a lot of money using our criminal justice system to manage public health issues, a mental-health issues, and substance used. [applause] i did not realize that was going to be the applause line. ok. and we need to ensure we have sufficient resources in our public health system so people do not have to go through the criminal justice system in order to access mental health services and criminal justice, and more importantly, they do not end up with a criminal record which serves as such a barrier to housing employment and many other things down the road because of what is a health problem. that is a plea to enter the we are using our resources wisely. we are not using them to arrest and incarcerate people with health problems and to insure that we have sufficient resources in the public health system to take care of their concerns. thank you. [applause] >> alright.

[reading names] big evening. in the tenderloin clubhouse's director. i am also a resident of district 6. i want to thank honored guests for being here tonight to hear from people. in district 6, we have two clubhouses for boys and girls clubs of san francisco, the tenderloin clubhouse, and the treasure island club house. we serve between both clubhouses 1500 kids a year from all ethnicities. i thought it would be really important to hear from the young people, and if there are some other teams or children in the audience, could you please stand

up? [applause] >> hello. i'm troy. i go to boys and girls club, and i am part of keystone, vice president, and i'm also youth leader for the tenderloin clubhouse. growing up in the tenderloin, i see a lot of homelessness, violence, and drug use, and i have a lot of friends and family members that died of violence and drug use, and most of them are high-school dropouts. i feel that a lot of programs in the tenderloin -- they really support youth to go to schools, and they just do good. i feel that if we take money out of programs like this, kids are not going to have a place to go. they are going to go to the streets and be exposed to the violence, the drugs, and the homelessness. [applause]

and basically, i just feel that instead of spending money on things that stop people from doing that stuff, i feel like it should be put into schools and youth programs because that is what really keeps the youth -- and we are a people that is going to be the future. [applause] [applause] >> good evening, fellow citizens. thanks for your time. i am a muni drivers. i was born in san francisco, 1947.

i still live here. the economic crisis is a scam. to me, i union, my pension, my salary, or any other public service worker is the problem. the problem, as this gentleman so alice tully said, is lack of revenue. this time says at a time when san franciscans are facing an economic crisis -- well, they are not. in san francisco, there are 18 billion is, including the heavyweight democratic party. they control san francisco. sf has the 10 highest gdp of all american cities, 18th in the world. there is extreme wealth here. go down to union square. there is 100 companies that are located here. earlier, an african man was crying here, and a latino woman was crying here. that is a crime, a travesty.

that they are crying of here, and these people are pandering to larry ellison. he is worth $18 billion. right? he got the city to give him all kinds of tax breaks, property, everything else. that is who they pandered to and try to tell us we are the problem. it is a crime. these police officers should be addressing them -- for arresting them. san francisco is controlled by the white, the wealthy, and their businesses and corporations. they do not come to a town hall meeting and get two minutes to a top. larry ellison had his ear right away. they stuffed the agenda. they profit from san francisco, and i will tell you -- their agenda is not our agenda. me? i do not give a fuck about race. fat is not my agenda. we need health care. we need services. we do not need more rich white

men and their agenda. [applause] >> before our next speaker, the next three people i would like to call up. [reading names] >> i am director of shelters for episcopal community services. i am here to plead on behalf of the people that we serve, on the cutting the contingency but it is closing the next or shelter during the day along with the resource centers. i would encourage decision makers to think about homelessness and folks on the street. it is never just homelessness. folks that we serve, it is homeless and mental illness,

homelessness and being seen and not having family. homelessness and unemployment in an economy that is really difficult for the best of us to compete in. homelessness in so many other issues, and what we are asking with these budget cuts is 334 people to now -- do not now have a resource center to go to, to not be able to use restrooms at the shelter to be able to rest. if you are in a wheelchair. this is what the budget cut will do. again, it is resident impact. also, staffing impact. you see us at the shelters. we employ 25% of our staff are formerly homeless. we are employing formerly homeless at $12.13 an hour. we will lay off -- we will have to lay off some of our staff. again, these are the working poor, and we ask that they not be penalized by these cuts. finally, the neighborhood impact.

again, i say that having the shelter opened, having a place for them to watch tv, to rest, to be with each other instead of being on the street is going to save on police calls, save on emergency calls, and in the long run, save money for the city. again, i plead that we consider these cuts and not make them on the backs of the homeless. thank you. >> good evening. my name is connie ford, and i happen to live in district 5, but many of the members that are represented by union works in soma. i am also vice-president of the labor council, and i just wanted to let you know if you do not already that many of the workers who provide the

services that are continually on the chopping block here are represented by union and our working poor, trying to make ends meet. many of these workers come from the communities in which they serve, whether it is homeless, mentally ill, drug addiction, all these things. these workers have done the really hard work to get up there every morning and do the work that is required of them to carry out the mission of the services that we all care for. these are living wage workers with health benefits. as you have heard, there have been cuts and cuts and cuts. these contractors have not had an increase in money since 2007. so when you are thinking about making additional cuts, when you say 10% and 10% more, it does not sound like much, but when these contracts for most of these cbo's , about that have not been raised since 2007 and

are doing the hard work that everybody up here has been talking about, an additional cut is called starvation. i am urging you to look for other places to take the cuts. the people in this community are the most vulnerable. the workers in this community are ready to, you know, keep continuing the work. we are not asking for a raise this year, although of course, that is what our members would like. we are asking you to maintain these services and the work being provided as a whole unit. i wanted to give you a brief lead with -- leaflet. i'm done, thanks. >> thank you. we have time for a couple more over here, and then we are going to call two more names. >> about three years ago, i

moved here because they were cutting a lot of hiv services and taxes. i figured i would be able to get better. it is really frustrating because we do not have enough economic opportunities. disabled people in general cannot work the eight hours a day that a lot of people are able to. there's just not the economic opportunity, and we have all these cuts that we're talking about here, and one thing about revenue, and i think that for each of these cuts, we need to have something producing revenue, whether it be organizations employing hiv- positive people or disabled people that work within the facilities -- we need to come up with some kind of innovative thinking like we are doing with the cuts for revenue because it is not going to fly just cutting things. we are going to continue to see people flooding in throughout the country to san francisco because they are still making

cuts out there, what little they have, and we kind of ignore that fact, but people are going to still come here, and there is nothing -- this is the only place that gay people have to come to live and be free. i spent years and years in texas trying to be employed, and it does not work, so i come here, and there's no economic opportunity for us, so we need to think about that. thanks. [applause] >> hello. i am here representing the treasure island community. i'm here -- mayor, thank you for being here this evening. just to support the catholic charities and development center. we really need funding for that. and to reestablish the muni link that helps our families to the grocery store.

there are no grocery stores on the island. population consists of a transitional community. we used to have about 180 kids to provide academic success, job readiness, healthy lifestyles, and we're taking from the children that are the future of our generation. so please reconsider budget cuts, and i just want to say hello to maria and thank you for all the work you do. please do not cut our children funds. thank you. [applause] >> i am just a parent on treasure island. my kids go to treasure island boys and girls club. they need that clubhouse, just like i need my kids to do their homework. [applause] one more question for the mayor and supervisor -- i just want to

know what are you guys doing with the money from the number one cash crop in california, which is cannabis? i know you guys are charging cannabis club a large tax. i want to know where that tax money is going and why we are having a budget crisis when you're getting that much money from each club in san francisco. [applause] >> hello. in the coordinator of the friends of but never part. the reason i'm speaking today is particularly for our rec and park department and our clubhouses. the park is in the tenderloin at the corner of jones and eddie. it is only open three hours a day five days a week, and it is the only park in the north of market tender one that is open to all ages. seniors, kids, and adults.

the other parks are for young people. so it is very urgent for us to have our park open more often. also, i do not know if you are aware that all the clubhouses in san francisco are not staff now. it is really urgent that we have more staffing at our club houses in san francisco. they mainly have to be rented out to private organizations to provide the programming. even though that might be necessary, i feel and i think many others feel that we should have our own city staff at the club houses providing programming. it is a funding issue, of course, but i think it is really urgent to be able to have our own staff for representative and park department in our clubhouses and recreation centers, particularly for our own part in our own district 6

in the tenderloin. we need more staffing. thank you very much. fosdic-- >> hello. my name is susan bryant. i live in district 6 in the heart of the tenderloin. i want to say to the elected officials, the decision makers of san francisco -- do not give away the store with tax cuts. do you remember the dot-com situation? we could not do enough for those guys. we were building lofts and not charging any taxes for schools. we were so happy that they were here and they were going to generate all that money for us. you know what happened -- those guys went back to live in their

parents' basement. [laughter] san francisco -- everything starts here. where is our pride? they should be happy to be here and not have us give them tax cuts all the time. we gave the fisher family $30 billion a while back. where did that go? what good does that do us? anyway, our muni, our bart brings these employees to the doors of where they have to work. we service them. that money has to come from somewhere, and it should not come from us. they should pay the freight. i mean, because, where is our pride? we have all the good ideas. anybody moves away, what is going to happen is they are going to die on the vine. thank you. [applause]

>> [inaudible] you know, we want you all you allsro -- let sro people know what is going on. we did not feel we get a fair representation. we want to have a better city. an earthquake should not have to come before we all come together. it is time that everyone in this city that brings money to the city and loves this city is a fear it will want to know what is going on at city hall. we need to let people know what is going on. people do not know what is going on. we want people to know that is not free shelter. thank you.