get answered. they are consolidating some of the bus stops so that they will not be on every block in order to save time and money. there will be other consolidation ideas coming from them. i just talked to nat ford this afternoon. they believe the deficit will be covered with the things they are negotiating for the first time with the labor unions as well as the efficiencies they have been implementing. we should have a muni that is not imbalanced as far as the budget is concerned. we have been in meetings with retirees. we keep them informed. we know our legal obligation to them. we have known that from the start. we have to start to design solutions that will continue our

legal obligations for those already retired and also make sure they are not going to be the people that we resolve everything on the backs of. they deserve better. it is our commitment to do so. >> the general manager for rec and park reminded me we should thank the great staff from the richmond center. >> my name is herbert weiner. i am a retired city employee. if you are not on the bus, you are under the wheel and every writer -- rider left behind. i want to voice my opinion about

pensions. i am concerned about eliminating what affects profit sharing. this will seriously impact city retirees. it will also impact the business community because there will be less money to spend. there is also the elephant in the room. business has not paid its fair share. they are hiding in the shadows. now they are becoming visible and complaining that if they are taxed, they will leave the city. you definitely have to have business pay its fair share. they have an obligation as corporate citizens. i do not mean residential property owners and renters. i mean businesses downtown. let them step up to the plate. it is about time. >> thank you. is there anyone that would like to respond?

>> maybe greg can tzake on the cola issue and i will take on business. let me make sure that you understand. companies will leave the city if we punish them from growing. we have a payroll tax that literally punish thoes them from growing. they're willing to pay a fair share. we have to have a better system for that to happen. i do not want the city to lose a penny of revenue it deserves. we told that to the technology companies and so forth. if they get punished for growing, they will not be here. right next door in brisbane, they have a lot of land. they do not tax them for their employees growing. i am trying to keep jobs in the city. i want you and your sons and daughters to be able to work for

twitter. that is why we gave the payroll exemption for some time. we will try to be smart about it. we have to welcome business in. i do not think we're giving anything away. we're losing business in the city. we're trying to be smart about retaining business and jobs and growing those in the city. >> thank you, mr. mayer. thank you for the feedback on the pension proposal. we're in the process of kicking around ideas. thank you for your thoughts. as the mayor said, the goal is not to punish anybody. the goal is to have a fair pension. we also need to look at some of our policies and think about the changes we need to make. so that when you look out in the future, we have a solvent pension system and have a city

budget that can support all of the services we care about. i appreciate your feedback. i want to let you know that we have a lot of ideas in consideration and that is our goal. >> i am here to address the issue of cutting services for the mentally ill in san francisco. in response to a rash of police shootings of the mentally ill the past few years, the police commission approved the implementation of the memphis model of crisis intervention training for the police department. the model is a community effort in joining the police department and the community together for understanding and service to the mentally ill and their families. the effort being put into the model will not bear fruit if

cuts to mental health services continue. proposed cuts of up to 22,0500 bed days for those in crisis while increasing caseloads and closing clinics will make it impossible for the new program to be successful. please make no further cuts to mental health services. >> thank you. >> my name is greg sass. i am the chief financial officer for the health department. i do most of the work on the budget. to put this into context, the health department is the largest department in the city. we get the largest amount of the general fund. as a consequence, we get the largest budget reduction targets of all the other departments. some people think you should not cut public health services.

there are advocates for every service we provide. the reality is the city cannot close its budget deficit unless the largest department in the city participates and meets our targets. we had a $70 million budget reduction target this year. we have managed to meet $60 million of those reductions without any service cuts whatsoever. we have worked hard to draw down more revenues in terms of federal matching funding. we have worked on a number of deficiencies to get the same work done at lower cost. we're still left with this $10 million difference we need to close. that $10 million is resulting in some service cuts. as we look at where we can make service cuts, the vast majority

of our general fund and realignment funding from tax revenues, the majority of the money is used to draw down federal matching funds. if we make cuts across a wide range of services in our hospitals and elsewhere in primary care, we have to make $2 of cuts to get $1 of savings. we're losing federal funding as well. sad but true, where most of the unmatched department fund is is in community programs. the $10 million in cuts we are proposing are about $5 million in outpatient mental health and substance-abuse services and about $3 million in th-- it maye $4 million now to make this work -- that is in residential treatment.

excuse me? at this point, it looks like it is over $4 million. because there is medical matching, it took more to accomplish that. we send our priorities back to the mayor and board of supervisors. all we have to work with is our budget. we cannot raise taxes. we cannot do anything other than work with the health department's budget. we send our plan to the mayor. the mayor reviews it. we may see changes from his office before it goes to the board. the board obviously will weigh in on this. our hope is that the most serious of our cuts will hopefully be restored as we look

across the entire city to find solutions. step one is to send the budget for were. step two is the mayor and the board. they look at the entire city budget to find solutions. all we can do is look to the health department. i certainly sympathize with your feeling about this. >> thank you. i am happy to say that maria sue from the department of children and families is here as well. next speaker. >> my highest priority in the city is to see that our vulnerable populations are protected. i want to express appreciation to mayor lee for an approach that has been unprecedented this year in holding many meetings with community-based organizations to hear our side of the story and also to have transparency and stop some of the cuts before they happen.

the cuts to organizations will cost us more in prison and hospital costs in the end. we need to fix that. we need to take more of a revenue approach. i realize this is potentially long term. banks caused the mess we're in. banks and large corporations need to do their fair share to get us out of this. yes, we need tax reform. i am not a fan of the piecemeal twitter approach. let's put this on the ballot next year. let's make sure that large corporations are paying their fair share. the third point i want to make is more local in the richmond district. we have an empty storefront on every block. that is something the small business commission should be looking at. we need to get those killed -- filled. i respectfully disagree with your ban on pet stores.

we do not have a pet store in this neighborhood. i hope he will reconsider your position on that. >> we understand vulnerable communities have been a common thing. we will pay attention to that. you are right when it comes to twitter, it is piecemeal. we have that portion going to mid market. it has caused the tech companies in general business community to engage s in the long term solution. we have that under way. we will be proposing a long-term fix to the payroll tax. it will be fair and still allow our revenues to continue. that is under way. i have been talking about the empty storefronts. we will do our best to incubate ideas and make sure these get

some attention. we want to work with people to make sure that if we can have some better ideas, it may be multiple commercial tenants in one place, we will experiment with that and other things being tried throughout the city. we will bring those ideas out as well. >> i want to add to what the mayor said. my office and staff and many of us in the richmond district, the merchant associations are working hard with us to fill the vacant spaces in our neighborhood and support small businesses. next speaker? >> when you visit some countries like italy or spain it does not

matter if you are a resident or not. everybody pays the same price. only one country discriminates against rterrorists. that -- only one country discriminates against tourists. that is russia. you pay different prices in the museum. when you go to the botanic garden, non-residents must pay $7. for residents, is $3. this does not help the reputation of the city. everybody must pay the same, $4 or nobody pays for it. in the golden gate park, there is a strange situation because

there are not enough rangers in the place. my proposition is to install surveillance cameras with online monitoring of golden gate park. it is our treasure in our city and in a very strange situation. thank you. >> thank you. that question is in my subject matter. i am the manager of the park department. i want to welcome you to the richmond center. it is one of the most vibrant recreational facilities we have around the city. we are misplacing some dodge ball tonight. we have fabulous programming here for seniors and kids.

we a lot of wonderful recreational opportunities in the richmond. the question about park safety and fees at the botanical garden. the recreation and parks department budget story is that we have been announce -- asked d cuts to the money we get from the city general fund in the last seven years. we are sensitive to the need that people have to be able to enjoy clean, safe parks' and a lot of recreational programming. our strategy and approach has been to offset rather than cut services to try to increase revenue. that is a principal that we feel strongly about. we want to continue to deliver for you the product that we deliver. i do not have experience in international travel.

here in san francisco, we often have different the structures -- fee structures for residents and non-residence. we would rather prioritize for people who live and work here and pay taxes here. at a number of facilities, including the golf courses, the conservatory, the japanese tea garden, we have different fee structures for residents and non-residence. the botanical garden was a difficult decision. the board of supervisors and our commission grappled with that. we've started charging for non- residents to attend. we do that because of the extraordinary amount of care and maintenance it takes to maintain the facility. i only have 47 gardeners' and all of golden gate park and only one park patrol officer on duty

at any time. because of the nature of the botanical gardens, i have 10 full-time gardeners and a small section because of how much care is required in that specialty garden. that was sort of the rationale for the decision. park safety was another point that you made. we are challenged in golden gate park. it is not immune from the public safety challenges we see throughout the city. it is a balance. i think golden gate park is very safe. we welcome 15 million visitors a year. i also believe that nothing good happens in golden gate park at night. i think we need to take a hard look at saving money, resources, preventing vandalism by thinking about strategy is to restrict people from engaging in bad behavior in golden gate park at night. i feel very fortunate to work

with the richmond district who invests resources. our coordination has never been better in keeping golden gate park safe. with all that, in the past today weeks, we have had some unfortunate incidents of violent crime. our tree vandal is back cutting down trees. this is a public policy issue we struggle with. it is one reason why the parks and recreation department needs resources. thank you. >> mayor lee, i want to salute you. you have been a breath of fresh air. i know you have been meeting with a small business community. i hope that everybody in this room will recognize that small business is critical to the

long-term success of the city. what i asked of you and everybody on this -- in this illustrious group is what assurances you can give us that the decision making process on these difficult decisions are not going to be driven by politics. that has been the force that has driven decisions for so long in the city. greg wagner is a very smart man. i suspect that if we ask him what he would do, he would come up with something -- he would figure out how to fix the situation. the problem is that historically in the city, the decisions have not been driven by sound and rational decision making. they have been driven by politics like organized labor,

everybody wants to get reelected. we need to believe that there will be sound and rational decision making with your breath of fresh air and this smart group of people. what assurance can you give us that is the decision making process that will be used to address the deficit? >> that is a big question. as you know, i am not a politician myself. my desire is that the board of supervisors return meat to the city administrator's job so that i can have five years of higher pay. i also will say that my colleagues here are not politicians either. they are trying to the best job they can. they have many years of experience. i have been very fortunate to work with my colleagues because they have taught me quite a bit

of how they get things done. you have already seen changes. you have seen that i have been working with the supervisors as closely as i can. uc we are not political egos making decisions already. one of my major decisions today was to pick your new police chief, someone who spent 31 years doing the best job he could as captain of different stations in the city. i think we have a renewed effort to depoliticize the city. i am not making new promises. we're trying to fulfil old ones that you have been a part of for many years. it is exciting to work at this level with my colleagues. if you ask them, they will say the same thing. i know them. i know what they're working on. in herington, -- ed harrington,

greg, maria, all of them have spent quality years. i think he will see a lot of action being done. they are already into projects that you will be able to see. our whole water system is being rebuilt with a lot of local attention. and they're building that system with a lot of hope and people and giving them jobs. you will see public works not only being responsible when i was here but with a local contractor by the way. all of this was built by local efforts. and that to me is the best signal. we're embracing that localism. we're embracing hiring people here. this is not the politics of past years, so i would say we have many examples.

we can talk all night about that but i'm very confident you will see many examples come out that continue to be nonpolitical and very much pro-san francisco. >> thank you. >> i would just like to respond that as one elected official up here, i know often the department heads and others have to respond to diverse constituencies with differences of opinion. i wish it was easy that mr. wagner and others could make decisions based on formulas and numbers but often we have to govern with our hearts and really about social concerns of neighborhoods. so 80,000 people in the richmond district have sometimes different needs than people in the mission district or baby hunter's point area. so of on those of us that are elected officials, along with department heads and hard working staff, have to make tough decisions and they are political in nature in many ways. even though some people may deny they're political. but all of us at times are politicians but we try to govern with our hearts for the best interest of everybody in our neighborhoods and whole city. but thank you for the great question. next question?

>> hi, my name is heidi. have i been in san francisco since i came to america. and for years i did not realize what has been going on until last year. i finally learned the name of direct energy weapons and i want to ask everybody here, do you know how much does the weapon cost -- does the health care cost in san francisco? do any of you know about -- >> i'm not sure if i understand the question. >> direct energy weapons. don't tell me you never heard about. that's the other question i want do ask you guys because everybody probably heard about -- the voice you haur in your heads but how many of you know it's not a mental disease.

it's those people are the victims of direct weapons which use microhearing technology or the -- some people say it's a radio magnetic wave thing and sensors, those weapons and send those voices in your head. so if you guys know anything about it and doctors don't know anything about of it, a lot of you has been misdiagnosed. that cost a lot of money of the health care. it's not just c.t., which usually pays low income but other insurance companies have to pay very high premiums. that cost a lot of money for the insurance company and the rest have to pay a lot of high premiums. so i want you guys really to understand. and teach people about direct enemy weapons. >> thank you.

is there anyone who would like to respond? next question. thank you. >> hello, my name is arian aroy. i'm a psychologist at richmond area services outpatient department. thank you for coming today and joining with all of us. and i want to acknowledge my appreciation for healthy san francisco, which is an insurance program that provides something close to single payer benefits for people who would otherwise be uncovered. the downside of that is that our clinics are being flooded with clients and defunded and there's only so much these outpatient clinics can bear without falling into crisis themselves or without compromising health care for our most vulnerable citizens. recently we've seen increasingly on the federal or perhaps on a more local level tendency for the government to go after most vulnerable citizens, includeing

the aging, people who work for benefits. what i'm wanting to suggest today is that we may need to rethink who is privileged and who is not privileged and who is important in our society? sometimes businesses and corporations or individuals are prized at levels that supersede the more vulnerable people in our society, whether mentally ill are children or aging. california is the seventh richest economy in the world, compared to many, many nations. we need to think differently and open our views. we need to close tax loopholes tpwheend to ask the wealthy corporations to pay their fair share from profitting from society which we all participate in. i would ask that there be no rebates and no loopholes without giving -- asking for something in return. and that includes job programs

and a move towards sustainable energy systems and a civilization that we all want to be part of because otherwise we're really asking ourselves in the future, do we want to be part of this society. some people can buy their way out of this and everyone needs money and everyone needs water and air and care. without caring for each other, we don't have much of a civilization. >> thank you. >> thank you. i'm going to read a couple questions from the audience that filled out cards, and then we have another of other speakers at 7:15 now so we have 15 minutes. if people can keep their comments short. there's a question from the senior activist from the richmond district. how can you save senior meals? i will give this to ann hinton. >> thank you, vera sofment we are in the process -- many people know here that it's part of our budget reduction plan, we're needing tdu