tv [untitled] June 2, 2011 11:00am-11:30am PDT
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with unmatched -- maxing out with a matched contribution from the city. this is only a minimum. the city and negotiate. -- the city can negotiate. there are certain retiree health benefits that were improved after people left city service, and the city will be making -- the amendment makes changes to ensure that any windfalls or benefit improvements that came after someone was no longer in city service will not be in effect. benefit improvements will be restricted to those who have not yet retired -- they will not receive benefits that were not in effect when they left. and that is pretty much my summary. i would like to thank everyone for working on it. thank you to the people who calculated all of it. [laughter] thank you, micki.
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mayor lee: very comprehensive. we began with people asking, why should we sacrifice? what do we get for ourselves? and that great leap, i think, started very early to "what can we do to help to make sure our pension is solvent?" that is the changing role that labor has made. i was pretty excited from the beginning where we were making a lot of proposals. where we started having union representatives make their proposals, then we knew we were on our road to ultimately thinking together how we could solve this problem. again, i want to attribute, really, where the cost of this matter lies. and that is with our labor unions and labour representatives working together with us to build consensus so we all sacrifice to make our system
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work better. with that, i would like to introduce rebecca ryan. [applause] >> thank you so much. i want to acknowledge my colleagues standing beside me and behind me. i think it is important to understand what a difficult process consensus is. it is always preferable, but what it requires is a balancing of many different interests. people stayed in the room when things get difficult. people continued the hard work. we did not allow ourselves to get sidetracked or splintered. i think there is a myth out there about public employees, and what i am here to say is public employees are the solution in san francisco. they always step forward. after the election in november, where they said to the voters,
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if there is a problem, we will figure it out and we will not shy away from it. they came together. based upon the facts, they found a fair and equitable solution. and i think the message is, the employee -- coppell -- the public employees step forward and the right thing in the right way. that is what this measure represents. that is what we should be celebrating. these are real human beings that have to make real sacrifices. but we understand why. and believe me, nobody has a better interest in the financial health of the city and the programs and services it provides then the workers who provide them. so, thank you for the opportunity to do the right thing, and i hope that the message that is shared from this is that the workers in san
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francisco did do the right thing. thank you. [applause] mayor lee: i also noticed from the san francisco labor council, we began with a lot of the union reps saying, "please just talk to was." after a few months, it was "ok, talk with us. " tim paulsen, from our labor council. >> thank you, mr. mayor. as you say, this is historic. i speak to my colleagues all over the country, and there has never been a partnership with a city family that we have seen like we have seen in san francisco. usually, someone has to run good idea or they're doing it unilaterally. and there's all kinds of friction.
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here in san francisco, we really have done it as a good way. where do we get business, labor, progressives, and moderates coming together for solutions to save jobs and city services? here. in san francisco. by the way, this has also been done with the account of the impact on working men and women in town. this is done deliberately. this is done smartly. during those long, long meetings during which we crafted this proposal -- i want to thank warren hellman for helping lead this charge. i want to thank all the sector unions. the public safety, the lawyers. everyone was at the table. i want to give an extra shot out to the chair of our public employees union from local 21.
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i am surprised his marriage is still together, the amount of hours he has spent on this. i want to knowledge everyone surrounding us today. some of the other people working. i know tommy o'connor from the firefighters. the police representatives. along with the board of supervisors. there was a lot of number crunching to people were fully prepared when the move to the table. this is historic. i am really proud of both the public sector and the private sector that we can craft this kind of resolution. thank you. [applause] mayor lee: i also said the transparency was well beyond the labor unions as well, as well as our city workers. so, i know this transparency was reflected in the san francisco chamber of commerce and their ongoing participation. they listened very quickly to our efforts.
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>> thank you, mayor lee. the chamber of commerce and the entire business community of san francisco want to thank you for your leadership, and supervisor tells burns -- supervisor tells burns -- supervisor elsbernd, for your leadership. businesses have had to reduce their work forces. we have 40,000 unemployed san franciscans. it was time that we faced the reality of helping the city of just -- i just needed pension reforms. we're pleased to be part of this process. again, the best kind of reform is consensus reform. there are many times when you see in front of you city leaders, labor leaders, business leaders agreeing this is the
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right solution of the right time. thank you, mayor, again for your leadership, and we look forward to balancing the city budget and getting a raw economy back on track. thank you. [applause] mayor lee: by the way, if you are keeping count, i counted nine supervisors here. the other two who could not make it, i believe it was because they could not get here on time. we also have with us david metcalf from spur. we had a representative from the labor foundation. i also want to emphasize tim paulsen stood up for working families. that included rebecca ryan, roxanne sanchez, tom o'connor,
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tim paulsen, and we are joined by the fire chief joann hayes- white. i want to make sure i recognize throughout the process that our city attorney contributed to all the legal questions that came up. knowing how difficult these aspects were, they stepped up to help us review all these proposals. with that, this press conference is concluded, and we will move forward. yes, we will take questions. >> [unintelligible] >> first of all -- [unintelligible] in this proposal, we're talking about 35%.
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how can we afford that? mayor lee: it does, but obviously we have a long-term view on this. our talks relations indicates -- our copulations indicate this over 10 years. a lot will depend on how -- our calculations indicate the server 10 years. a lot will depend on how our investments do. we've always said employee contributions would be the major part and for a lot of current sacrifices are reflected. >> 35% -- it never gets to 35%. [unintelligible] mayor lee: it is a safety net. we have made the calculations just in case. >> [unintelligible]
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mayor lee: the very first year this takes effect, we anticipate $60 million in year 2013. in addition to that, all the new hires will begin contributing in a different way beginning january of next year. that is the savings. there is no smoothing in this process, because there is no smoothing in the economics of what we are facing. so we did not consider that a dog. >> the 10-year plan will not get going before a couple of years. mayor lee: we do have labor contracts in place right now that we have to honor. we currently have a lot of obligations that we have to honor with current retirees. so we did not touch that the
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legal obligation. so we had to start making significant changes as of nest -- next fiscal year. >> [unintelligible] mayor lee: the service employees are right here. they are right here among us. >> [unintelligible] can you talk about how they came on board? >> i would just say, we are happy to be here today. [laughter] i am the staff director in san francisco for the service employees. i am joined by members of our bargaining team. we are pleased to be here. we are especially thankful to warren hellman for his guidance and participation. we do have meetings with the mayor, issues we will be discussing.
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it is a healthy process and we're happy to participate. >> [unintelligible] >> we will be discussing with the mayor. >> analysis negotiation different from previous years? >> negotiation is always a difficult process. both sides come in with their interests and ideas. what was different is we spent a great deal of time at the beginning and got beat up from the press because of the time that we did take because -- so that we fully understood what was going into the discussions. >> there is a particular elected official not ammonia. [unintelligible] mayor lee: i did meet with him yesterday. we explained our proposals. we will leave it to him whether he wants to present those or not. we to believe that our consensus approach is the right thing to do.
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it signals that if you do want a sacrifice, you have to work directly with people who will offer that sacrifice and will do it in a way which is comprehensive and reflective of the values of san francisco. that is what we have done. i leave mr. adachi to his viewpoint. i am sure he has to recognize this is the official city family and he does not represent that. >> [unintelligible] do you think that was in his interest? mayor lee: i do not. the city attorney has been giving us advice. there is no doubt in my mind that that advice has been completely apart from anything that is political. we have kept politics out of this and focused on the numbers and the legality of the proposals we presented, and we are extremely confident this
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will pass before the board of supervisors and the public in november. mayor lee: >> lee: thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. i'm with the department of building inspection. we are approaching the sixth year of our brown bag lunch series here at the department of building inspection where we talk about topics related to
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construction in san francisco. we invite you to join us on the third thursday of every month here at the building department. we have an exciting lineup of shows this year. and one of them, today, is going to be really exciting because we have a terrific guest today. mr. woody labounty. >> thank you. >> woody is the founder of the outside lands? >> the western neighborhoods project. we'll talk more about that. >> excellent. and the author of a recently published book, which i have a copy of and it's really fascinating and wonderful. he's going to talk about "carville by the sea" today. we'll look at slides. he'll tell us about the history of the outerlands, previously uninhabitable area of the city. we will invite your questions. so, please, you in the audience if you have questions, let us
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know. woody can help. thank you, woody, for being here. >> thank you. so we're going to talk a little bit about carville by the sea today. carville was a unique community out on the edge of san francisco. as you can see by the slide, it was made up of old street cars and horse cars that people used for residences, bars, restaurants, clubhouses. it had its peak in the 1890's, around the turn of the century. i should mention that you see this is a color shot. none of these photos were originally colorized. i essentially put color in there for the book just to make it pop a little bit. so don't be fooled. before we get started i'd like to talk about the organization that i helped found 10 years ago, the western neighborhoods project dedicated to the history of western san francisco. we have a very popular website, outsidelands.org where we have
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old photos, stories, over 15,000 messages put up by people remembering their time in the richmond district, the sunset district, west of twin peaks. i couldn't fit everything into a book so i decided to have a little companion website. so if there's new things that come up, if there's corrections, god forbid, it will show up on this website. old photos that i maybe couldn't fit in so visit that you if can. that's carvillebook.com. how do we start with carville? well, we start with the building material, essentially. how does carville get started? it starts with when old forms of public transportation become obsolete. now, the earliest forms of public transportation were omnibuses, which were really large coaches pulled by horses. but in the 1860's people came
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up with the new idea, the horse car. a horse car was essentially a little car that horses could pull but it used rails, on the ground. rails reduced traction. so horses could pull larger loads. horse cars really started taking over all across the united states in the 1860's, but they had some draw backs as you might imagine. can anybody think of something that could be a bit of a problem with horses pulling cars? yes. well, for one thing, horses were living animals and they could get sick. so some industries, some companies, lost thousands of horses to disease, which was just terrible for business. the other thing is a horse can drop up to 10 pounds of fecal matter on the street every day. so you're talking about up and down market street, tons of these cars going back and forth every day. it was just a public noose -- nuissance, you might say, and pratches a health hazard. so people were excited to find new forms of transportation.
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and they came up with one we're all familiar with, the cable car. so here on the left you'll see a cable car next to the horse car on the right. the cable car was a great leap forward because it cut the horses out of the equation. cable cars were a lot more energy efficient. they were very popular in cities all across the united states, including chicago. and they really took over in san francisco because cable cars could climb hills were horses couldn't, opening up development in parts of the city where before there hadn't been any. but cable cars had their drawbacks, too. a cablecar can only go nine miles an hour, as fast as the cable under the street pulling it. cables have a hard time pulling backwards, changing direction, investing in the infrastructure to put the cable in the street is very costly. so you have a lot of upfront costs. if a company wanted to run just one cable car, they had to start up the power house to get the cable car rung through the street. so it energy efficient issues as well. this is an interest street car. that was the new modern, exciting form of transportation.
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it was very energy efficient. each street car only used enough energy from the wires that it needed. it didn't have to run a power house. people were a little scared of them at first. the technology was a little heywire in the beginning -- haywire in the beginning. they could go very fast, but people thought they were too dangerous. but eventually trolley cars starting taking over. and in the early 1890's, the railway company started buying up transit companies across the city. wherever they could, they tried to replace the old forms of technology, horse cars and cable cars, with these cheaper, more energy-efficient electric trolley cars. the question was what to do with all the old cars. they had an idea. they took an ad out in the paper. they said the market street railway had all of these old cars. you could buy one without seats for $10 or with seats for $20. they had some suggestions with what people could do with the old horse cars and cable cars. they could be used for news
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stands, fruit stands, lunch stands, play houses, poultry houses, tool houses, coal sheds, conservatories and polling booths, etc. and it really is a testament to the market street railway's imagination that these cars essentially got used for all of these different purposes. here's a shoemaker in oakland. he opened up his little cobbler shop in an old horse car in his backyard. he locked it up at night with a long nail going through. he said, who's going to steal old shoes? a little bit more dramatic, a man named james mcneal took four old horse cars and put them on a pontoon to make a house boat near bell very deer. he called it the nautilus. he rent it out to people, tricked it all up in the inside for rich people to come have a little summer vacation in a very novel setting. and a watch maker. there was a realtor who used a car as a real estate office. we'll talk more about him in a
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second. charles stall took three and put them in the sun dunes of the -- the sandunes of the sunset district, created a little ouse -- house out there. and this guy on the bottom left, charles daley opened a place called the annex. he really called it a coffee saloon. you might call it a cafe of its time. does anybody here know where the sunset district is? a couple of people. good. over there. well, on the map you can see the sunset district is this big block south of golden gate park. this big grid pattern. it's very large. it's one of the largest districts in san francisco. this map, this grid pattern was actually created way back in the 1860's with the streets going -- crossing each other at right angles. we have numbered streets and lettered streets. but, even though this map was created in the 1860's, if you went out to the sunset district as late as the 1890's, you wouldn't see these nice grid streets. what you would see is something like this.
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the sunset district was almost completely sandunes with little patches of scrub here or there. it was thought to be uninhabitable by a lot of people. some people actually put that on the map, called the great sand waste or the great sand bank. it was cold, foggy. there was no infrastructure out there, of course, in the 1890's. no gas no. real good transportation. no sidewalks. people didn't want to live out there. however, what it did have is a steamtrain line that ran out lincoln way to the beach. it was basically built to bring picnicers, who wanted to get away for the weekend, to go to the beach for a sunday. right here at the end of the sunset district, at the northwest corner, is where carville gets its start, on a little strip of land, a little block that the mayor at the time owned. and that's where colonel daley put up his little coffee sal yoon -- saloon, using that old
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car. that's where carville takes off. so who's responsible for carville? we said the mayor of san francisco at the time. very wealthy land owner. owned at one point i think they say 1/12 of san francisco in land. most of it was in the west side of the city. robert fitzgerald was called the king of carville. he was an early settler to carville. jacob heyman that realtor, started being called the father of carville. we'll see why in a second. and this guy on the left, colonel daley, was often called the pioneer father of carville. he really gets a lot of the credit. here's colonel daley in his little shed. how do we describe him? he's sort of a 1890's bohemian, a bit of a herm yit. most importantly, he was a friend of adolph sutro's. and sutro had a real estate shack on the northwest corner of the sunset.
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he let colonel daley squat in there essentially. he went out every morning, walked along the beach. whatever washed up he brought back to his shed and created quite a large little compound of old bottles, shoes, anything that washed up. a ship wreck. provided a bunch of lumber. he made a sleeping loft in his cabin. for a while he had a wife. she didn't wash up in the waves. but she did eventually wash out. she couldn't handle cooking in the sandunes every night, creating a fire. so she left him sometime in the late 18920 -- 1890's. but daley took one of those cars we were talking about and opened this little coffee saloon where he sold sandwiches, doughnuts, and little items to the picnicers who came out to the beach on the weekends. and soon other people, they kind of were charmed by this little old horse car that was
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being used as a store. and they asked if it was possible that they could rent a car on his land. and he said, ok, $5 a month you can have a little car clubhouse in the land that he owned at the beach. so you see off in the distance that white shed. that's the colonel's shaq. the little car in the distance in the middle is his coffee saloon. and this red car is one of the first cottages rented by a bunch of lady bicyclists. you like the lady bicyclists, huh? lice cling was a raging fad in the 1890's. all of united states, newspapers, magazines were agast about it. they were just talking about it back and forth. was it healthy? was it unhealthy? are they taking over the roads, hazards to health and traffic? and most importantly everybody was very excited about the idea
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that women were bicycling. they were worried that women might perspire and that was an unhealthy and unfeminine thing. and a lot of women were wearing bloomers, these sort of blousey trousers to help them bicycle. that was thought to be scandalous. but the lady falcons, they didn't care. they were a group of seven married women who went bicycling. they would finish their ride, rest in the long seats there in the clubhouse. they started having dinner parties there. they became quite fashionable. and they sort of tricked it out with all the victorian fill debris they could cox up -- filigri they could come up with, japanese fans, curtains, cushions it became sort of a fashionable, bohemian thing to do that other people took up the idea, rented these clubhouses from sutro, and many of them were -- there were superior court judges, clerks
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who rented these. it was sort of a weekend get away. there were all sorts of cars lined up on the great highway. again, these people were renting. so they can't do too much to the cars. they can kind of fix up the inside. but the outside pretty much has to stay the same so they do look like old horse cars or street cars on the great highway. this car in the center was mrs. gun's. mrs. gun ran a restaurant there with permission. she was sort of like the soup nazi on "seinfeld." she kind of served you if she liked you. if she didn't like your face, you were out and banned from the place for life. she was a character that everybody kind of had a soft spot for. she was there until the 1920's when she passed away. now, the other thing that's kind of funny is -- remember, this is all empty
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