i would ask for those on the budget could talk more about the need and what we could do. if the mayor would make a commitment to study this problem, and how can we get more resources applied so that budgets -- the budgets of all of the department are not so impacted? >> i'll try. it's a great question, a huge question. i mean, i welcome anybody else who wants to chip in to do so by all means. i think one thing that does of on get lost in our budget discussions is that locally san francisco, despite the focus being on cuts, san francisco does actually do a pretty fantastic job of maximizing its revenues in a lot of cases. and this doesn't necessarily get to the question of the gap between rich and poor but if you

look at, for example, what the health department is doing in this year's budget, we asked in order to close this gap the health department to find about $68 million of ways to replace general fund spending. and what they've done is they've developed a program to go out and figure out how to maximize the amount of money they're drawing from the federal government and use that to support programs that are essentially for the neediest people in the city. so we're talking about programs for at the general hospital, which is serving people who have no other social safety net, to protect against reductions to our community programs that serve some homeless people. and all of those programs the health department is doing,

they're being very aggressive and we're pushing them to be very aggressive to figure out how we can bring in revenue to support some of those programs as a first resort and then the balance, when we need to balance our budget, we need to make some cuts and there are some programs we can't afford. and that's reality and there are difficult decisions. but i think often lost in the discussions about everything that we're cutting are some stories about situations where we've been very aggressive at bringing in money from outside the city from the state and federal government and from maximizing our -- our collection of our own revenues that we've been able to have some great management stories about how we can support programs without necessarily going to the voters and saying, please increase your taxes. or else we have to cut these programs. so i don't think that answers

sort of philosophical question about what sort of the right structure we have, but there are a lot of efforts that a lot of us are spending our time on trying to figure out how we can -- how we can maximize revenues and protect programs. the other part of the answer, and phil ginsburg's looking at me because he's doing the same thing. he's been front and center trying to figure out how to bring in revenues and protect programs at the parks department. the other part of the answer is there are some limits on what we as a city are able to do. as you know, there are certain things we have the option of taxing. we can't do an income tax. we can't do a gas tax. there are constraints what you can do locally but those are legal objections. so i think my best answer is we're trying where we can. >> thanks.

i think this might be a great time, phil ginsburg, who runs our park and rec creation department i think does an amazing job, has been very innovate niv thinking about these revenue-generating measures about the park and rec department to balance the budget so we don't cut a number of our services we rely on. certainly i remember growing up using in the marina district. phil, maybe you want to take a minute to talk to everyone. >> good evening, everybody. phil ginsburg, general manager of the rec and park department. it is a pleasure to be here. it's a pleasure to be in district two. i want to thank supervisor ferrell for his leadership on park issues. we have a lot of good things happening in district two compen the completion of the fine arts project and marina renovation, repair and plaza and renovation at lafayette park. there's good news on the rather bleak budget discussion but we have been challenged on the

operating side. we have been asked to cut our funds the last six, seven years out of an operating budget that averages $110 million to $115 million a year. we've been facing for a number of years, 10, 11, 12 million dollar budget targets where we either have to cut it or raise it. we really fundamentally believe parks are too important to the quality of life of san franciscoans and recreational programs is too fundamental to the health and public safety of our communities to cut anymore. every dollar we've been asked to reduce and what's been happening in san francisco, by the way is no different than what's been happening in a lot of major cities with parks and generally, obviously. we've been focused on preserving vital services for those who need it most. by increasing the amount of revenues that we earn. and for those of you that art has been a leader in the park

community and i want to thank you, art, for all of your involvement with the neighborhood parks council and there are other park advocates here. you have been following some of the noise and the noise is because we don't want to cut anymore. we want to earn revenue. we're open to partnerships. we've been working closely with the philanthropic community. not to support the fine arts but we have philanthropic support for some of our operating programs. literally we have a gift from a family foundation that is keeping the jolie rec center open an extra week in the bay view. we have a school supporting half of a full-time gardener do an extra bit of work to keep our kids safe playing sports. we fundamentally believe in preserving services and whether it's through philanthropy, extra special events in our parks, many of you have had the pleasure and hopefully joy of buying an ice cream cone from twirl and dip at the marina

green, that's all going to keep our gardeners and parks and rec centers open. that's some of the things we have been doing. thank you. you can clap. [applause] >> bill? >> thank you. i'll take an odd segue from the last question to the pension question. nationally, there's a growing awareness, people waking up to the pension liability of public employees to the tune of trillions of dollars often using unrealistic return assumptions and early retirement ages and whatever. jeff adoche here locally, who is the public defender and probably nobody in the city more interested in helping people who need help than jeff, he took this cause up a few years ago on

the premise you can do what you can on the income side. you can make your policy decisions on how you're going to help people on the output side but if the guy is in the middle who are the public employees take too big a slice of it, there's nothing left for anybody on the back end. the reality is in the city of san francisco, in a few years, if things continue on the path they're on, the amount of money you talk about as being discretionary budget, will all public employees. it may be 100 million short fall this year but a few years down the road, it's 500 million, 800 million. so there's nothing left for everybody else. so as a jeff adache fan, i asked a question of the mayor, you can go after the earned benefits of the people who already earned probably illegally, very difficult to do, even the people in the most aggressive midwest states aren't doing that. you can put in a new set of

earnings for new hires. no opening currently has their benefits reduced. won't have any effect forever because we won't be hiring forever. so what you really have is the issue of the benefits -- current employees who show up for work tomorrow, what happens to them tomorrow going forward? it's a question of pensions and all of the mechanics of how you manage pensions and question of health care and how you manage health care for them. my understanding is we have hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded liability on health care. i don't know how many billions or tens of billions the unfunded liability son pensions. i don't know what our earnings assumption is. it's probably not very realistic. so the question is, you are working on an effort to to do this. jeff got slaughtered by the establishment when he tried to do it.

what is different than what you're trying to do? is it greater awareness. anything the citizens of the city can do to help you get this over the hump? you got the full scope of employees. are we dealing with fire and police as well as bus drivers, people in parks and rec? can you put a little bit of flesh on the bones on what you intend to do with pensions and how the public can help you get there. >> let me just say that obviously pension reform is one of the biggest topics in city hall right now and something i think we're all focused on, not only on the board but particularly mayor lee. that is one of the things he talked about in first coming into the office. thanks for the question. it's on top of everybody's minds. with that, mayor? >> thank you. it's a very complicated system that has evolved over many, many decades.

it's a privilege for me being the nonpolitical mayor who's not running for office to say we're going to fix it for the long term. i get to do that. i get to let the numbers speak as to what is necessary to make that system solvent. so that's exactly what i'm doing. you're right on point. first of all, i've actually kept in touch with jeff adache. i have not left him alone. these though he is ridiculed by all of the labor unions because of proposition b last year, and it was sounded defeated not so much because of what he was trying to do. i understand what he was try doing. he was trying to give a serious effort. it was the way in which he was doing it. the san francisco way of getting things done is you engage people. you don't tell them what the ultimate thing is. and tell them the right thing. we never accept that. if came into your neighborhood and told you what was right and wrong, you'd probably run me

out. but if i came here and i respected you and got your input, you would welcome me a little bit more. that's the major difference because the numbers are not that far off from jeff's proposal and from the proposal that we have initiated and now we have the unions countering that proposal in a fairly decent way. they're not that far off from our numbers as well. they're covering all the categories. and you're absolutely right, the biggest challenge is what are our current 26,000 employees willing to give to make the system solvent? because we have all of the other things covered. we're not in disagreement with new classes of hires w. their contributions that are needed. we're going to collect all of the old bad cola formulas that resulted in some $100 million being given to retirees that should not have been because they weren't linked to the solvency of the system. we're going to correct all of that. we're going to put spiking away.

no one will be able to benefit from spiking. we have issues of people having two jobs and two pensions. we'll correct those things. if you add those small things up, they don't even come close to the need to have current employees make a significant contribution so that we can in the next five years when this system is really costing us, that's where we need to do really the critical part of the solvency of the system is anything we can do to lower our city contribution within the next five years and that's what we're doing, asking current employees to contribute. that is why we spent so much time in the last two solid months working with warren hellmann and all of the labor groups to get them to recognize what that need is. and everybody is still under the tent with us. i have begun, i have proposed what we need to do.

i gave a little extra there. unions got nervous. they couldn't come up with thall of that. they countered with something, a little bit less than what we're asking for. in the next three weeks, we're going to bring that together closely so we can agree. it will be a significant contribution to the pension so it doesn't hurt us in future years. it will make up for the increases that we all know will be there in the next three years that will hit us, you're absolutely right, $500 million to $600 million in three years t will be the increase. it will make our deficit look so silly today in comparison. so we have as you say meat on the bone already. we got the proposals out and delivered to the unions. they're coming back in about three weeks. in about three weeks, we will know whether our method has reached an agreement with the unions and simultaneously

because my responsibility to present to the board of supervisors a persuasive number and contribution from all elements of the city so that we can get at least six votes and we anticipate more, and place it on the november ballot for all of you to see and vote. before we get it to the ballot, i'm going to compare the final results, with jeff's six different proposals, by the way, with his methodology and then i'm going to say, jeff, we are reaching agreement here. we have proposals that we will solve this issue. have i been serious about doing this for the long term, not just the short term. a politician might just do it short templet i'm not one. i will do it long term, correct this problem. i will sit down with jeff and i will say, you want city b or do you want to work with us as one city? i want you to be un-confused in november.

you will be confused if you have more than one ballot measure whfment we come forward with you, we will be able to explain in no uncertain terms how our proposals will correct our system. that's what i want for you for your consideration in november and we will absolutely need your help. we will vote on this and we will make sure we've done the right thing. and i have everybody so far. the next three weeks some might peel out. they'll try to get more out of it or less obligation. we'll do our best to keep everybody in play. but our obligation ultimately is to present the board of supervisors with a proposal so that six f. not more of them agree, can put it on the ballot and we think we will have the united family with us and it will be spreving a dignified pension and one that we could afford and one that will not hurt her general fund as we've

been doing. that's what we have is our goal. [applause] >> so the next three -- tina moreland, barry livingston and jim maxwell. >> can you hear me? good evening. my question is directed at phil ginsburg. firstly, thank you very much for being attentive. i'm with russian hill neighbors so we're part of district two, part of district three, and we've been blessed with four parks in our neighborhood. and two of them have clubhouses, dimaggio and helen wells. and we have liaisons to the parks. and last monday -- i'm sure -- i think it got to your office by monday afternoon, one of our --

helen wills person showed up to help clean the toys and they weren't allowed in. they lugged up the hill all of their cleaning supplies and got there and were told they couldn't clean the play room for the children because they needed to be fingerprinted. so i understand if you're dealing with children and everything. but the little things, i would really like to see us all work together. everybody on our board and other neighborhood boards around us want to be able to use the clubhouses for other things, to raise money, to get parents' days out there and we have facebook followers on friends of the park, friends of joe dimaggio park. they would be willing to go out there once a month and d.p.w. is great. i think if we can get this done and start it as a small seed and go around the city, neighborhood by neighborhood and mary ann

bert chely is the bomb, she's awesom. she connects on every level and everyone throughout the city. but i think we can help because we can even raise money and charge for those hot dogs to the people who are actually using it. but i really see neighbors working, and we don't charge. we want to do it for -- and to see a clubhouse, beautiful clubhouses charge people who want to have meetings or have classes. anything to bring in so that the people can do it. we don't need a gardener. we need the parents out there working that.s0 would be my suggestion. i thank you for what you're doing but it's also the parks that don't have the clubhouses with the game players smoking weed and drinking all day long. it's not a good influence for the teenagers. so it hits every part of our

society and we are so willing to work with whomever we have to in a collaborative way. i really think we can help you frpblt -- help you, so -- >> [applause] >> thank you for the question. the answer is yes, resounding, emphatic yes. and, please, we want your help. don't think any of my colleagues would disagree but the government in the 21st century cannot do it alone. we need to leverage the support of our communities and volunteers. this is not the old rec and park. this is a recreation and park department from the top to bottom and from bottom to top wants to cultivate support from the community, wants volunteer help, wants people active and engaged in stewarding and involved in your parks. it's the only way for our park system to survive, quite frankly. and i'm not aware of the pacific

circumstance about somebody who wanted to help at helen wills, which is a clubhouse that actually is open and programmed. if that nern needed to be fingerprinted, if there were children in the room at the time , it's possible that was a requirement. it's possible whoever from my staff responded that way was conservatively applying a rule that they thought but that is not bleam matek of the culture of our department which very much wants neighborhood help. every weekend i go to two or three or four volunteer events and last year we had 134,000 hours on the both the park time and recreation time in our system and that has an economic value of us to about $3 million. and at a time when we're scrapping for every penny, i can't tell you how important it is to keep our parks clean and safe and rec centers open. we have people volunteering in both our recreational programming and park side. please volunteer.

please get involved. our website is sfrecpark.org. it is very easy. one click can give you all of the information about volunteering in our parks and rec centers that you would want. as for just a touch on the couple of other points, as for smoking pot, no, that's not a good thing in our parks. i actually just left -- mr. mayor, i don't know if you know this, today is april 20th and it's 4/20 on 4/20 there's a little party with sharon meadow. i was with a few of your colleagues and still getting texts. statewide phenomena apparently where a lot of people get the munchies at around 4:30 or 4:40. we want to keep our parks safe for all of our park users. it's amazing, we actually comprise about 12% of all of the city's land. that gets to the resource

question. it's really difficult to cover pan trol every nook and cranny and every neighborhood park in our system. which gets back to your first point, why we need the help. so yes, yes, and please. thank you. [applause] >> barry? >> excuse me. >> in order to create jobs we need the help of small and start-up businesses open in san francisco. i know we've done some work. i wonder what else is going on and what your plans are. >> thank you. you're absolutely right. we have a number of programs that we're aiming help to small businesses to establish. we have a facade, improvement program, that we're aiming particularly at low-income neighborhoods like third street and mission and other growing

neighborhoods. i want to actually get corporate sponsorships for the facade program for the larger businesses. i know that's going to be a very good thing because many of the businesses say i'll locate here but what's next door to me? they're usually small businesses. we have a very good small business loan program with the small business commission and they have extended a lot of the federal funds that were given to us with loan programs. to help small businesses start, help them do training and then we recently signed in the jobs now too program, which allows what we started last year. do you remember the jobs now program. the jobs now program allows employers to hire persons that have been identified through our human services agency that were -- that have been trained and they're job ready. if you hire from a qualified pool of people that we identified, we will pay,

historically it's been $2,500 of your salary. jobs now too we will pay the first $5,000 of their salary to the small business that's hire them. that's fantastic offer because you can hire somebody in the first three months of their job to help you establish your business is on the government's hand. that's a great opportunity. and we still have some -- up to 300 slots available. we announced that last week. and that's aimed at small businesses. we've got other tools, depending upon the location of the small businesses that we can be of help because some of them are redevelopment areas or economic development areas that we've designated where we need some extra help, those tools are available. and there are questions in the neighborhood where you see a lot of vacancies and store fronts and you want to do something with that, please call our office. we have an economic workforce development office. we would be very willing to help

with the planning department and the office of economic development to focus on certain neighborhoods where you might be experiencing some long-term vacancies, we would love to work with the neighborhoods and find out what the preference is there and see if we can find incentives for certain neighbors, certain parts of the corridor to be activated with small business attractions. >> thanks, mayor. and also we've just been joined by martin grand, who is with our department of human resources, who is our department and city hall that's been front and center and our pension negotiations. so i know it's been asked already and we will try to move on to different topics. but if another one comes up, martin, it's coming your way. jim? >> hold on. the next three i have, rose hillsen, gabby and richard johnson. and patricia, you're last. so you can wrap up. you wanted that. it's all yours. when we get closer, it's all you.

>> mayor lee and supervisor farrell, thanks again. i think we're pretty much excited about america's cup and what it can do for the city. already we know part of that is the infrastructure development that's been done and funded through that, which will be great. but as far as the boon that this might bring to business, i sort of have a two-part question. you may have already answered part of that with the last question you had, which was how are we going to help the small business community sort of ramp up and be prepared for that, this being such a huge benefit to the city and small business being the engine that drives our economy. the second part of my question is any ideas, thoughts, how we're going to sustain that beyond 2013, ideas how to put that infrastructure to work and just continue that -- our sort of world champions feel-good

movement we're having now after 2/13? >> well, absolutely. america's cup is going to mean so many things to so many different parts of our city. we have established through the board of supervisors an agreement how we go about making sure the benefits come to our city for the long term. in the area of frain structure and improvements, we want to make sure and we unveiled this in the very first plan we announced a few weeks ago, the transportation plan, the people plan, where we're looking at transportation ideas that that have to be permanent through the long run continue will take care -- if we're lucky, this may not be the only time to host america's cup. it's unique to be the first one

but let's say mrs. ellison's vote wins again, there is the possibility it comes back here if we've done everything right. if it doesn't come back here, we want the improvements that we make benefiting the city in the long run and that's how we're looking at transportation. we look, for example, we have had this jefferson street realm around fisherman's wharf that we've been planning for a long time. we didn't have any money to fund it. we're going to be able to fund that for the first time. it's a pedestrian-oriented improvement right along, around the fisherman wharf's area, all of them small businesses that are going to be improved with a pedestrian-oriented transportation system that gets you very efficiently all around the whole place. a lot of landscaping. more open space around that area. we're going to be able to perform that with a combination of america's cup, funds and also