closure, not just for residents of district 5, but in the surrounding areas where there is the greatest economic disadvantaged communities? >> hello. i am gregg, the chief finance officer for the health department. let me put this into context. the health department has the largest budget in the city. we have the largest amount of general funds. as a consequence, we are given the largest budget reduction target each year. as much as we would prefer not to have to make any reductions at all, if we don't participate with the mayor and the board of supervisors in finding solutions to the budget deficit, the city cannot close its deficit. we were given a target of $70 million, and a reduction target

of $70 million. i'm happy to report that we have covered 60 million of that. $70 million without any reduction in services at all. we have worked hard to improve our revenue picture. we have looked for efficiencies in the department. we could not close the entire deficit army the full target. $7 million, the last $10 million is going to result in -- we are proposing reductions. in looking at our mental health and substance-abuse services, to begin with, the city of san francisco and the public health department provide far more services on a per capita basis than any other county in california. by a very large factor. most counties don't provide substance abuse services at all

in most counties provide very limited mental health services. we're providing hundreds of millions of dollars in those areas and have done it for many years. it is a priority for us and a priority for the city. the reductions we are proposing constitute about 2% of our total spending for mental health and substance abuse. we are not making deep cuts as a percentage of our total investment. however, these cuts will impact outpatient substance abuse, residential substance abuse services, and mental health services. we have been meeting weekly with our community providers who provide most of those services. we have been meeting with the mayor's office and with members of the board of supervisors. we have been completely transparent about all of the proposals we were making and we are working hard with our

community partners to find the most effective solutions, to find a way to meet our target with the least harm to the public. saying that, we realize that the problems that we are trying to solve with our services don't go away just because we pull funding away. the problems are still there and they manifest themselves in different ways. all we can do is work with our budget within the health department and try and find solutions. once the budget leaves the health department and goes to the board of supervisors, they can look across the options and choices to try to find other savings other ways to provide health services. we are at the point where we are handing back process of to our mayor and the board of supervisors. we are hopeful that some, hopefully all of the cuts we're proposing, can be restored. thanks. >> here is the real supervisor,

my son. he just turned two last week. i have several cards. can you say hello? hello? say hi. no. oh my god. thank you. i have several cards and related to revenue generating strategies to the mayor and the rest of the city. what new revenue-generating strategies or other sources of revenue that may have not been tried or may be retried can we expect to help us get out of this budget hole? a second category of questions, there are a number of businesses in the fillmore and in japan town, small businesses, that are struggling to stay alive and

suffering. what can the city do to help those businesses stay afloat and be able to really endure this economic downturn? what kind of help can they get from the city to turn around some of the depressed times? maybe mr. mayor or mr. wagner. >> thanks. i will touch on the revenue issue and turn it over to the mayor. there are a lot of initiatives that we are pursuing aggressively on the revenue side. some of them are traditional revenues. some of them are revenues you would not necessarily think of when you think of pursuing revenues. as greg from the health department said, we have been very aggressive in pursuing new ways to drawdown state and federal money. over the past two years, this year included, we will be able to say that we generated an additional almost $200 million

in federal money, part of that from the stimulus, part of that through programs in the city, to help prevent cuts to our local services. so, we're being very aggressive on revenues. rec and park has a strategy of pursuing revenue options. some of them are difficult decisions. they prioritize revenue over reductions. we have been working with the supervisors, working with the city family, to look at what options are available. the mayor is working on a general-obligation bond. hopefully for the november ballot, it will save us some general fund street repaving dollars. we are looking at what our other options are that we are allowed to do under state law. there is some limit as to what

we are able to do. we are looking hard at all our options. >> as mentioned, as you may have heard, we relaunched the jobs program just three weeks ago. he can go into detail with anybody here. we wanted to aim it at small businesses. they can take advantage of this jobs now program with funding that is available to help you hire and pay for employees to the tune of some $5,000. that could pay for employees for small businesses up to probably around two or three months in their first three months of working for you.

that is the program we have now. we still have between 300 up to 500 slots of jobs. you have to hire from a qualified working pool. trent can talk with you here tonight if you take advantage of that. we also have a small business commission. regina is not here tonight. we are working closer with other ideas and frankly, we need your input. i don't have all the answers to small-business and what is going to help you not only stay afloat, but help you get more customers here. i do know some basic things. if we keep reducing the homicide rate, as we have done in the last few years, you will have more customers. thanks to the partnership between the police department and all of your involvement, that reduction has been extremely helpful for the business. i would be welcome to engage

folks tonight if you own our business to talk with you specifically about it. i am trying to put some money into the improvement programs, trying to get some of the big businesses in the city to put some funds in to help small businesses create that relationship. other ideas we have, we are very open and i am working with the small business commission to come up with better ideas, something specific to address areas. i will be very open to talk with you after this. >> thank you, mr. mayor. i have a number of cards and related to the recreation and parks department. where we are at right now, the hamilton rec center, we commemorate another rehab of this about a year and a half, two years ago. i was so excited about the swimming pool that i cut the ribbon to the slide and went down it in my suit. it was wonderful. we have the coolest public

swimming pool, one of the coolest in the whole city. it is a fantastic tool. what has made hamilton so successful at is the people who work here and the community that has swelled around it. there have been some staff changes. according to some citizens out there, they're concerned about some of the staff changes, in particular, a gentleman, jerry jack, and others, who you might want to talk about. some of the changes -- 1 card that i pulled out is people are very excited about the improvements in campbell, but with those improvements have come a new regulation of the fields. some of the teams and some of the activities do not seem to reflect district 5 activities. they seem to me more regulated for teams that, elsewhere. some people feel a bit of a loss of that relationship to that particular field. maybe you could speak a little

to that, please. [applause] >> thank you, supervisor. good evening. acting superintendent of recreation and community services for rec and park. first question, our department went through a total change of how we offer recreation programs here in the city. that happened august 14 of 2010. with that, we actually had to lay off approximately 74 recreation directors. we were able to hire back a number of folks as coordinators'. they were facility-side and programming city-wide side. any plan that you have, and i believe it has been a successful plan, but where you have to lay off that many people, it is not a perfect plan. i was a kid who grew up in the excelsior district. i counted on a recreation director to be my father.

it meant everything to me. when we had to lay off folks that are the common faces in your facilities that you can relate to on a daily basis, we understand that impact. what we are trying to do is hire some folks back as our budget recovers a little bit. we have been able to generate a lot of revenue. we have prioritized revenue over cuts. we are looking to hire, and faces again. jerry jack came up. he was a recreation director here. we are looking to hire him in a different capacity so that he can be back here at the center. i know that we are waiting for some position authority in order to have an after-school position here. he would be one of those folks we would be looking at to fill that position. he has been a recreation leader, which is a part-time position, which i understand people want to see his face. there were other folks who were here. victor jones is in the back.

i spoke to him earlier. a lot of folks have a lot of value in this community and we understand that. we will do everything we can to get those faces seem more and have more of a positive impact on our community. kimball field. renee strong as year, the new facility coordinator here in hamilton. she's terrific and an icon in this city and apartment. the community is fortunate to have here. i was thrilled when she accepted that position. she is welcomed here and she is doing a terrific job. the city field foundation came in and spent $3.3 million on a new field. it changed the way that field was used to dramatically. all of us can agree that it has activated that field tenfold. the key is that we make sure it is the correct activation, right? it is not folks coming from all over the city or outside the city to be able to use it. it is a destination field with a

real value to the people in the community. we need to make sure that the seahawks and other folks that are common users feel comfortable and have appropriate space. i am dedicated to making sure that happens. we will continue to work with folks to make sure the field is still appropriately and that we hold back our recreation programs that will ultimately, out of the center as well. that is important to me. we will have it here at hamilton rec center as well as the aquatics center. they will help us dictate how much of the field should be held for community use and the programs their respective to hamilton recreation center. i look forward to working with the community and it is a priority of ours. thanks. >> a number of cards that we have referred to both public safety, economic empowerment, and reentry. "japantown and the fillmore and

the lower hate and upper hate -- lower haight and upper haight have benefited from beat officers. once the community, merchants and residents, get a taste of it, they hate when they go away. there have been long relationships between communities, such as the ones i mentioned, and beat officers. they keep feeling that they keep getting yanked. it is making people very frustrated. the second question is that there has been a great amount of emphasis, as well as you and i know, and try to help our youth of this part of our city. suggestions have been made that we are missing the point of young adults, especially over the age of 21, maybe 25.

there's a population of young adults were the city and city services is just missing them altogether. there's an overemphasis of youth in this area. what can we do to expand our particular reach? beat officers, and talking about that population of people who are not getting the attention they should be reaching mr. mayor, you want to start? >> i have -- we have been here

all day in district 5. first of all, i don't think that we can over emphasize the need to make sure we support our youth. there's never enough to do enough of that. are we neglecting adults? we are paying attention to them. i want to make sure you saw ron the simmons here. she is the head of our workforce and development. she is in charge of a program called city built, where we are trying to make sure that people who want jobs get into programs that get the job ready, and then as city funded projects get started, whether it is for public utilities commission, the public works department, or parts of iraq, even muni, we are able to hire -- or park and rec,

even muni, we're able to hire folks. i embrace local hires. the folks that are standing out on the streets as we observe today in fillmore and other places, we are not sure whether they are job-ready. we have to get an assessment of what it means for them to get job-ready. that is part of the reason why we invest in our workforce development and the programs we are investing in our training and pre-apprenticeship training programs. we are working with unions in addressing that. we do have some programs to address it. those individuals, as of today, we are paying attention to the more. we will get some assessment going about those individuals and try to get an engagement process going to find out why they're hanging out in corners and what we can do to engage them, whether it is jobs, training, or education.

>> as far as the foot beat, i generally speak citywide, all 10 district stations have foot beats. in the northern district, we have run some permanent foot beats. we run our violence reduction foot beats as well for public housing. we have the continuity of the same patrol officers in the same sectors that are required as part of their driving the to to walk along lowerhaight and japantown area. right now, i don't have the resources to devote a foot be to those areas. again, we run a lot of foot beats a citywide every day. on the numbers in front of me -- in the northern district every day, we run no less than six. i agree.

it is a great interaction that the officer does have with the residents and the merchants of the community. you cannot beat it. i get out and walk. i really cherish that time that i am out there. it is invaluable. it is a win-win for all of us. there are positive relations between all of us. again, as staffing allows, we will increase the foot beats a citywide. in the northern district, we run no less than six. that is replicated citywide. >> in my first meeting yesterday, it is my job to make sure the staffing levels don't decrease. i had a meeting with the assembled command staff today. i want there to be a net positive from the first day that i started, going forward, as far as the officers in patrol.

i will be pushing officers out of the halls of justice. we will put deficiency in place and keep those officers in the field so they don't have to come back to the station as often to write the reports, with the entire goal of being a more visible police presence, which i know everybody enjoys, more than having them driving by in cars. >> i know that this is on the minds of a number of people here. with the census data that has been released, there are a few facts that have traveled throughout the city and have been well reported. we're seeing quite an increase in population of seniors in san francisco over the age of 60. they happen to be living in this area. we are also seeing a significant hemorrhaging of the black population, the african-american population, in this area, as

well. that signifies an important milestone in a city that has had once a will that populist african-american population and japanese american population is also thinning out quite a bit as well. this is not an easy answer and it would be hard to get into a profound topic like this. it is on the minds of a few people. there has been a study done commissioned by mayor newsom. there has been no hearing on this particular -- it is the out-migration report of the population in san francisco. can we get followthrough by any one of the agencies, potentially? mr. mayor, perhaps, or the other departments? >> i do know that most, if not all the departments here have

actually had a copy of that report and read through it, like i did. we have to reverse that trend of out-migration. it is challenging because it goes through a history of things we did not do well. we've done things right as a city and there are things we have to correct. i am working with your local naacp to forge an implementation plan and take note of all the things we have to do from education to job training. there are issues like recidivism as well, and also to support families. there are a lot of things in there that cross all of our different departments. it has to do with all the things we're doing tonight, to make sure we do them better and to

make sure we have in our minds and in our plans of how people leave the city and why. housing is extremely difficult right now. i understand what people went through when forced with foreclosures. it has made life harder. it has caused people to move to oakland and other areas. we understand what that has been about. there is a combination of these things. we need to have money available for those who needed, making sure city is working in a coordinated fashion with all our programs. we have to do better. i know it begins with us making sure we are sensitive to this. i know, because i work with all my colleagues, that they have

read this report. we will be working with all of you about implementing the various aspects of this. if it takes a hearing supervisor, we can report on the process we are making. we have a part of that responsibility in the way we handle our day-to-day business here in everything we do. it begins with all of you making sure you have a dialogue with us about preventing out-migration. that is the invaluable tool. i have read it twice and i have reread it since i have become mayor. i need to make sure it is reflected in everything i do, whether it is appointing commissioners, making appointments, looking at our job emphasis, all of that. [applause] >> this is real quickly, for the redevelopment agency, redevelopment has been in governments of this area for about 45 years. the term expired in january of

2009. i was asked to commission an audit from some years back. from about 15, 20 years, getting some handle on how those were expended. i got a couple of cards here about the status of that particular audit. we will hear from read -- redevelopment. anybody? do we have anybody from redevelopment? i promise, i will get back to focus on that. mayor, i have a card here. are you going to run for mayor? >> that is like asking the president where his birth certificate is. i want to ask you honestly. i accepted this historic

assignment from the board of supervisors, and i thought i could do it for a year. i have been committing myself to do this for a year. i do not have plans for an intention to run for mayor. what i do want to tell you, though, is something that i have been feeling strongly about. this comes from ed lee, not a politician or mayor, someone who has been working in the government for 21 years. i really love this city and i love the people in this city, and everybody who lives here and participate here. i am working my rear end off to restore your confidence in your government. we need you to participate in everything we do. i know that things like community policing, all of those things we talked about, cannot work without you really believing they can work, and then you helping us do the right

things. i can never do that. i don't want to run for mayor because i want to just focus on what i can do as a citizen, what i can do here for this moment. i think i have been making good decisions on behalf of the residents. i don't want that distracted by the mayor's race or any other office. i will continue doing this work, continue being focused. if i am lucky, the board of supervisors will help me get my other job back and i will live up to all of the promises i have been making as an administrator. thank you. [applause] >> very nice for us to segue from that high note. as i promised, i wanted to leave time for people to make some statement. i have cards from people. i will call a couple of you out. but very brief, because we are on a short window of time. mr. hooker?

please try to make it no more than 30 seconds. it would be great if you could make it a question. a statement is fine. there is a microphone right over here. i'm going to please ask you to be as brief as possible. >> i will try to be brief. i think it is important for us in the community to let the city officials know that we have planned. we have ideas. we have concepts to solve our problems. what we would like to do is have access to you, to you, trent, resources. we have ideas on how we can employ our young people. the police and everything. don't be little was when you tell us that you are not going anywhere when you transfer heads of departments every six months. we are not foolish about that. we know there have been