touched on a number of the big themes. but a couple of numbers behind us, as you know, for the last several years, we have had budget deficits in the city government. the reason for this is very clear. when the economy is in trouble, and this has been in trouble for the last few years, this affects the city budget. the tax revenue that we depend on to pay for city services are tied to how well the economy is moving along. when the economy is slow and the businesses are not doing well, they're not paying taxes and make them into the city, they do not use what we used to pay for the services. this has been the case over the last few years. we have a requirement in the city budget as the mayor has said, and we are different from

the federal government in that we cannot borrow money or run the deficit. we are legally required, every year, the balance the budget so that the sources of money coming in are equal to the uses, the money going out. when we look ahead at the projections for the coming year, we can see that these are not in balance. the revenue is coming up a little bit. as the economy begins to level out, we have a long way to go. we have very tough economic times, but compared to the last few years, we're beginning to see a stabilization and a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel. we have a very long way to go. what this means is that next year, there will be an increase in revenue and this will not be as bad as it has been for the last few years.

what we also see is that on the expenditures, if we do not change where we're headed, we have a growth of $344 million in projected spending. the revenue is not coming in fast enough to meet the spending growth, resulting in the $306 million deficit in the general fund. we are beginning to see some signs of good news in the economy, but we also have -- as the mayor has said, we have the state government and the federal government to worry about. they are planning to balance their own budget and they will do this in part by passing off to the local government. we have this with the additional channels. to put this in perspective, the

$306 million budget deficit. why is this a challenge with a $6.6 billion city budget. there are a number of reasons. the main one is that within the $6.5 million budget, we have different pieces of the budget that can be used for different purposes. the biggest distinction is -- is what is in the general fund. outside the general fund, we have departments like the airport and the public utilities commission, that generate their own revenues. within the city general fund, this is a little bit less than half of the budget. this is where tax dollars are coming in, and the space for this service is not generating revenue, by parks and recreation, the health department. this is where the deficit this. within that $3 billion of the

general fund, we also have restrictions on what to do with this money. as the mayor says, we have the obligations to the employees to pay out the health-care costs, and we have approved the restrictions on this money. we have the $6.5 billion budget. a large amount of this is flexible for us to make decisions, making policy choices about what we can change to close the deficit. $306 million in that perspective is almost 25% of the flexible budget. this is a great challenge and that is why we are here tonight. we will be working on this in the mayor's office. we have been working very closely with the board of supervisors to make those decisions.

i will leave it at that and turn its back over, and i'll be happy to answer questions. >> thank you, very much. i am going to start to read a number of questions that we have here, and again, if people want to fill loudspeaker cards, we are more than happy to get through them. i will ask the palace here from the city to be as brief as they can and i will try to read through as many of these statements as they are handed to me. this can be applied to a number of people, multiple people. how can you make certain that the adjustment that the mayor referred to in allocating the budget will not be the same political hostile as the past? would you like to answer this?

did your staff write this? it looks like a soft ball. >> political muscle is not in my dialogue. but i do want to say that i would not be holding some the town hall meetings if i was going to waste their precious time not adjusted accordingly. the adjustments, the reason i use the word adjustments this afternoon, was because i really want to say that we have to do things differently in the city. we have done with the budgets in the past, when i was the head of a department like all of these others, i observed four people had to be marched in to save their programs. and if we agreed on the front end with the board of supervisors, we would not be dragging people to city hall to argue and cry over programs that

we all agree are important. we're trying to change this and bring in some transparency, trying to bring some agreement on the front end of the process with the board of supervisors. the only thing i can say to you is that i am not going anywhere. i am not running for another office. i am just going to stay in the city and take responsibility for the decisions we will make together so that my work with the board of supervisors, i want four things to move more efficiently, and be less damaging to the neighborhoods. this is all but i can say. i hope that you trust this. that is probably why you are out here. this is how we are trying to do this. thank you very much. >> another question that we have, do not hold back or be

shy. these are a couple questions with the same theme,, and there is a wonderful organization that many of you know about -- it was born about four years ago and this was partnered with the public defender's office, and my office, and this receives funding from the city, from many different sources, in particular from the department of youth and family. both of these people are asking what we will do to support this organization, they have done so much for our youth in this area. i will probably hold it -- and this over to the director. >> we support their effort and

without davis -- to be hard to communicate any kind of policy or program development. we definitely leverage all the resources that she brings to the table. we partner closely with the supervisor's office. and although i can say is that these collaborations are highly valued in the department. we encourage a lot of the non- profit partners to leverage, so that we know if a young person needs youth employment services, if they get into the fall -- came to the floor of academic support, we could hand them over to another program and they could receive the services that they need. and every door will be the right door for the children. this is a great program for the city and we should have more of us. several years ago we had more,

and a couple of those programs that were funded did not yield the same level of impact, and quality of services the same way that they have. that is why they are still around. and that is why we will continue to have them around. >> thank you. >> this question comes from plant, what does it take so long. what does it take so long to get any attention or graffiti and the dead trees that surround my condominium. these trees have never been trimmed despite many complaints. instead, they have been killed by the lack of attention and nothing has been accomplished.

this is a great question for the department of public works. >> thank you and good evening. i am at my own town hall meeting here and i will ask a question. there were couple of questions there. with graffiti, the goal -- and this is on public property, from the time we receive this, the goal that we have is to remove this within 48 hours. this is a goal that we are meeting 75% of the time and we want to get up to 90%. for the most part, when this has been reported, this is the district with the highest number of reports of graffiti. we will get there within a couple of days. if you call this in, and this is

not addressed, within a few days, you should let me know. we generally have the capability to do this. when this is private property, we cannot just remove the graffiti. we initially give the property owner 30 days, which is what the ordinance requires, and if this is not removed we can send somebody to the property and we will build them. the ability to do this was strengthened by legislation a couple of years ago. this is the ordnance that allows us to recover the cost to the taxpayer dollars that have been spent. with regard to the street trees, this is the situation. most of the trees that lined the streets in san francisco, that are the responsibility of the property owner.

i have a couple of trees and of my house and it is my job to keep them well maintained. some streets in san francisco -- for no reason, the city maintains those trees. i am responsible to maintain my trees, my neighbor -- the responsibility is done by the city. we have three crews responsible for maintaining tens of thousands of street trees in san francisco. the three of them cover the whole city and this is an adequate for us to do this. we are supposed to do this every three-five years but with the resources that we have an only do this every 10-12 years. these go on to the backlog west, and this can take us years to get to those trees. we prioritize the safety issues

first and we may not have the resources to do this. we want to relinquish this responsibility back to private property owners, this would be more equitable and more fiscally sustainable. there is a long answer to a short question. >> if anybody has questions that they would like task, we have speaker cards. i will do my best to get the mayor -- >> this is for community partners, united. four times of tight budgets with unified school district, how can the city in the san francisco unified school district elaborate partnerships for services such as family health and mental health services. in this area, when i came into office, the board of education was contemplating shutting down or consolidating six of the

eight schools in the area. if it was not for the people in this room and others, who came to the defense of the schools, they would have been shut down. i want to say how proud i am of the people in this area. to provide a community and community support system that had grown thin over the years. many of these schools -- they have rebounded because of the partnerships that are exhibited by many people here. i thought i would ask her -- >> the question is, how do we support more after-school programs in schools? last year -- and reduce the duplication of services. last year, the department went through a very competitive process of selecting agencies to

provide after-school programs and services. we did this with the school districts. we went to the school district and we said that all of these after-school programs receiving state funding, we want to leverage enhance these programs. what had happened is that you would have a couple of after- school programs. one of them was run by the school district and the other by community partners. last year, we said this did not make sense. and that this was not efficient. we figure out a way to just have one after-school program, where they would see the state funding, and they would bring in the money to expand the capacity, and increase the quality of the after-school program. this is the first year that we did this. we believe that this increased opportunities for families wanting afterschool services.

we were able to free up some money, for these programs. the cultural enrichment programs and other services for those schools. >> if there are any other members of the city who want to weigh in, please signal. just let me know. this is a question, how can we make certain that the gains that we have made in the fifth district on public safety, with economic vitality and policing, that this continues despite the budget cuts. it would be a good idea to have the representatives of the police department, the captain, along with others. >> i think the captain is a great job at the northern station. she will not go anywhere. there are efficiencies that we

could use to make up for what we may lose to retirements. this is a major issue but i met with the mayor just yesterday in making certain that the public safety does not suffer in any way as we go through the budget crunch. we will do whatever we have to do. she would like to say a couple of things. she has a lot of great initiatives that are planned. >> recently, we put together an emergency -- an emerging neighborhood group -- you can give me your e-mail and i will send you the actual invitation. it is through these partnerships that we will continue these efforts. we cannot do this alone, and the police cannot maintain the public safety alone. we need the public family, all in the fold and reducing crime,

i cannot emphasize this enough. this is the partnership and working together. forming cohesive neighborhood groups. and if you live in a neighborhood like this and you are not involved in some kind of neighborhood group, reached out to your neighbors. i am certain that they are involved. >> i want to go ahead and invite the housing authority, and human services agency. district 5 is home to one of the largest populations with public housing and housing cooperatives. this is because of the era of redevelopment, and some of this is because of economic challenge. with regard to issues of public safety, and impoverishment, neglect of this area, we should hear from other parties as well.

>> i am from the housing authority. let me be brief. we have a directed police force operating within the public housing. i do not expect for this to change. we have a great relationship with them an i am asking for more resources to do more of this. we want to make certain that this happens. we want the communities to be safe and i see no change in any of that in the immediate future or near future. >> this is working. >> one of the biggest concerns that we have -- is the impact at the state level for families in san francisco. we see some reductions in sacramento. some people may see the grant

cut in half, others by 25%. this will be heading in july. we were successful with federal money, getting a lot of families into the work force with a jobs program. we had over 12,000 families paid with federal money. we will continue the program. we have a target of 1000 families, targeted for the same source of jobs in the private and public sector. and we will partner with agencies throughout the city, as well as reaching out to the public housing residents to get them engaged. >> and is there anyone else who wants to weigh in? this is from rose hill soon. this is the plan for japan town.

since the agency funding has been disintegrating, completely for the project area, there has been an ongoing planning process -- and neighborhood planning process to envision what the next iteration of what this will look like, in the world of the redevelopment. this is an important area plan to the community, and of course around the district. we have to make certain that there will actually be follow- through and delivery for this particular plan. sure the city departments will be held accountable? would you like to take a shot at this? >> i will stand up here with paul from planning as well. first off, i sat in to get

updated on that very plan several weeks ago. in between, it is not an excuse, but the reality is the year earthquake in japan happened, the tsunami happened, and we got interrupted because we have not had time to come back. i did commit to supervisor mirkarimi and members of the planning committee that i would be back. i am reviewing that plan and the objectives that were stated. following up with our planning department, as well as our office of economic development, to put together a more disciplined response so that we cannot suffer some interruptions we have had before and keep that process going. i don't have all the details because we have been responding to some of the issues that have occurred. and so out of the time considerations, we have not been able to connect up with the next steps we have.

we are committed to doing so. >> thank you, mr. mayor. i just wanted to say that one of the themes you have heard thus far tonight is partnership. what is going on in japantown in terms of the ongoing planning process is truly a partnership. the community is largely taking the lead in that partnership right now. on the tables behind, when you signed in, there was a pink flyer that was handed out. we will be engaging with the greater community about the future of japan town and responses to that better neighborhoods plan. i can assure you that the plan we are working closely with the dead -- the community to development will have implementation as one of its central considerations. we will do everything we can to make sure that planning supports it with appropriate zoning and controls to ensure the success

the mayor has talked about and the economic vitality for japantown into the future. i wanted to stress that this could not be done without a true city partnership with the community itself. >> ok. there are a number of cards are received where people want to make statements. i am going to leave some minutes toward the end of the meeting for people to make statements themselves. i will not read the statement. you can do that yourself. this is from a concerned citizen. the executive director of the housing authority has been laying off union labor laws sanitary conditions suffered greatly as a direct result of these layoffs. it is known that more are coming. are you aware of how bad conditions are for the tenants in this present state? i am sure both a director alvarez and mr. mayor would like to respond.

>> well, i have actually been looking at a lot of housing authority properties that have been improving. we have been working closely together with our department. there are many weeks where dtw, the police department, and the housing authority are working closer together than the whole history of that relationship has been. some of you know, my history in the past, i have been paying focused attention. from the businesses i have had, they have improved. not only have they improved, they have improved to the point where hud recognizes the problems they sought two years ago, before we came aboard, were corrected. i am committed to doing that. we may have a difference of opinion about the conditions.

i would be glad to talk with you about that. i am working closely with mr. alvarez on this and making sure all the sites improve while we go into an improvement and a rebuilding mode on many of the sites. >> thank you very much. the mayor is being modest. let me say that the mayor and i, when we first met, we went into the site so i would have a clearer understanding of what conditions were with a shovel and a trash bag. he assisted me in cleaning it out. we did that with everyone. let me mention to you that our property has improved by approximately 15%. as many of you are aware, the federal budget, which is where these 99: 9% of our funding comes from, is being constrained or being cut. for the housing authority, that is about $6 million for us.

even though we have received those kinds of cuts, we have been able to improve the quality of our public housing properties by more than 15%. we have done it enough where hud agreed to relieve us of the status of our housing. in terms of are represented labor, and some point, we have to ask for concessions everywhere we can get them. we have to save paper clips and pencils and paper and do things more efficiently and better. at some point, we have to look at the overall cost of our labor. to some extent, that will require that we make some adjustment to our labour force. it does not appear that those will be large numbers. but, it likely, if these broad cuts from the federal level continue to come down, we will have to make some minor

adjustments in our labour force. >> there are several questions hear from people, several different people, apart -- regarding public health concerns. one is from ms. hanson, one from larry nelson. one of the themes is about substance abuse and treatment centers. the city has done a solid job of providing substance-abuse treatment centers. these seem to be on the chopping block due to budget cuts. their concerns that the gains that have been made in helping people turn around the lives, especially in the sector, will now be undermined. how can the department of public health and the city justify these cuts? next, with regard to the "-- closure of community health centers, what is the plan to compensate for that health care need