country. it will not save that type of money. we worked with the city comptroller, we talked to workers, we had major analysis. everybody agrees, this is the way that the city will run better, it will save money and jobs. yes on c commonality. -- no on d. >> the increments they used to determine a contribution are smaller >> is a bogus argument. people claymore during bad times and not so much in good times. it is sensitive to workers that make -- police and fire and up

paying more. it was done with a thorough analysis of different employee organizations in the city. >> thank you so much, mr. paulson. for information about this and other ballot measures, go to the san francisco league of women voters website at sfvotes.com. early voting is available at city hall monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. >> i'm melissa griffin, i write about city politics and a member of the league of women voters. i am here to discuss a proposition g, voters will be faced with on november's valid.

-- ballot. proposition g would increase the sales tax rate by 0.5% for a total tax rate of 9%. this would only happen if the state does not increase the sales tax by either 1% before november 30, 2011 or 0.75% before january 1, 2015. the city would pass a tax increase to pay for public safety programs and the other half for programs for children and seniors. the city will start collecting this additional sales tax on april 1, 2012. it would apply for 10 years. prior to july 1, san francisco had the sales tax rate of 9.5%. the city decreased by 1% when it

allowed to expire. san francisco only gets a fraction of this 8.5% sales tax. 7.25% goes to this day, the city receiving about 1%. -- goes to the state, the city receiving about 1%. i'm here with -- thank you for being here. please tell us why you are in favor of proposition g. >> i believe the low income children, seniors, firefighters, and police officers are worth half a cent. it will restore funding that was cut from these programs. proposition g " restore $30

million so the children will have a better start in life and a better chance of succeeding in high school and college. >> san francisco has one of the highest sales tax rates. are you concerned that the passage will affect our tourism or adversely affect the economics? >> i am not concerned with that at all. tourism accounts for 40% of the revenue. it will still be lower than the sales tax prior to july 1 of this year. >> my understanding is that it will be eliminated if the state raise the sales tax within the next year. in light of that, palace of the city is able to plan, budget, and expect those revenues if it passes. >> that's a good question.

it is about local control. they can decide where their tax dollars go, in light of lack of leadership of politicians in sacramento, but we are not counting on that type of leadership occurring any time soon. it would be helpful that the politicians will listen to the need of san franciscans and act accordingly when they enacted the next sales tax. up next, we will be talking with an opponent. i'm here with howard, former chairman of the san francisco republican party. he is an opponent of proposition g. thank you for being here. why should voters vote against proposition g? >> in this age of high unemployment and high high

unemployment -- of high unemployment, a regressive sales tax will hurt everyone. just to give you an idea, in 2000, the budget was $4.2 billion. in 2010, the 2011 budget is 6.8 $3 billion. that is more than the budget -- $6.83 billion. that is more than the budget of any other states. if you look at the way city hall is, there is over 100 commissions, boards, advisory boards, so on and so forth that overlap. they can combine a lot of them and save a lot of money.

>> in light of the fact that this tax has already been proposed, it recently expired. how can you see consequences as a result of increasing the sales tax just .5%. >> it takes money away from the people that needed them most. if you are an upper-middle-class person, it won't harm you. but on lower end, it does harm you. that is why we should not pass if. >> proponents say that we have to do this to offset the tax at the state level. how do you propose that the city deal with the extraordinary budget cuts that i've come from the state? >> proponent to are mostly public employees and employees of nonprofits will have you believe the sky is falling if

they don't get this raised. if they go back to 0 base budgeting, do good budgeting, good management, they have plenty of money to run the city. >> we hope that that was helpful. for information on ballot measures, visit the web site of the league of women voters at sfvotes.org. early voting is available at city hall monday through friday 8:00 a.m. to 8 5:00 p.m. 8:00 a.m. to 8 5:00 p.m. if you don't vote early, vote on ♪ >> i am mellisa griffin, a columnist and member of the san francisco league of women voters.

i am here is city hall with the league and sfgtv to discuss prop h that will be on this year's november ballot. ♪ >> prop h would make it official city policy to encourage the san francisco unified school district to establish certain priorities for assigning students to specific schools. currently, parents may apply for their children to attend any school in the school district. if a school does not have space for all applicants, the school district and immense students based on certain priorities, such as whether they're older siblings attend the same school, whether the student lives in the schools attendance area, or whether the students elementary school is a designated feeder school for the middle school. prop h when they get city policy to encourage the school district to ensure that all students have the opportunity to attend a quality neighborhood school.

after signing siblings to the same school, the highest priority should be to assign each student to the schools close to their homes. finally, the school district should provide students with the opportunity to attend schools with language immersion rather special programs, even if those schools are not close to their homes. ♪ i am here with kris miller, chairperson of students first, a group that sponsored prop h. ms. miller, thank you for being here. why should voters vote for prop h? >> for starters, the reason that prop h was adopted to begin with is roughly 14,000 signatures from san francisco county voters that also, as i do, feel passionately about children being able to attend schools near their neighborhoods. it makes sense. everyone automatically assumes that the child attends a school near their neighborhood or has that option in san francisco.

as we know, from previous policies in different things with in government here, san francisco is special. san francisco is definitely special in this respect, that we have not followed suit with many of the major metropolitan cities and allow parents the right to automatically opt into their neighborhood schools. san francisco has been having issues with this policy for years. there are thousands of parents who have left the city, over 5000 since the 2000 census. since the mid-1960s, we have lost a little under half of our student population. this is one of the major reasons why. prop h is basically simply proposing that parents or children within certain neighborhood school areas are given the option of sending their children to the school in closest proximity to their home. that is all we are proposing, nothing more. just that within the current citywide lottery system, that

parents are given the option of sending their children to school near their home, as opposed to being bussed across town, where were the district decides the children will go. that is basically the premise of prop h. >> opponents have argued that the current school assignment system does give substantial weight to a child's geographic location when deciding -- one assigning the to a school. how do you respond? it's very simply, one, that comment is not factually based. roughly 30% of parents in the city, according to the school district -- we're not sure if these are accurate numbers, a roughly 30% of the parents in the san francisco unified school district are opting to send their children to their neighborhood schools. for some reason, they're not able to honor that. a seemingly small number of parents. the fourth consideration -- out

of four considerations for the placement system, never the proximity is the fourth. in most cases, within many different school districts, it does not come into consideration because the schools are full of the time to get to that proximity consideration. not only that, but that is only for elementary school placement. in middle school and high school, this consideration has been completely taken away. there's absolutely no consideration whatsoever. it is a citywide lottery system period. so that statement is not true. i just gave you the facts. if you want to look it up on iran, it is right on the website -- if you want to look it up on your own. >> it is argued that keeping children in their neighborhoods will lead to gentrification in san francisco. how do you respond? >> i will tell you what it will actually lead to from the actual perspective, not from a hypothetical perspective that is not based on this a big numbers.

if you look at the statistics, from the current policies, they do not focus heavily on a neighborhood school-based placement system. in the last 10 years, we have moved further and further towards segregation within our school district. the interesting thing is, the current system does not focus heavily on neighborhood school proximity, and the reason for that is to keep the school ever spent to give children more opportunity in areas and better performing schools that would not otherwise have the opportunity to go to a higher performing schools. right now, we actually have a huge issue with schools re segregating in the last 10 years. if the current policies are re segregating the schools in san francisco, one would assume that parents and voters in the city would vote to change that policy. if we are asking for the opposite of what they are, presumably we are going to be either improving the situation, are in the worst-case scenario

it will stay the same. so that allegation makes no sense from a fact-based perspective. >> thank you so much, ms. miller. next, we will hear from an opponent of prop h. ♪ i am now with rachel from the san francisco board of education. the board of education recently voted unanimously to oppose prop h. thank you for being here. why do you oppose prop h? >> for several reasons. first, it is not well-written, and has a lot of unintended consequences. primarily, i oppose it because it is a very simplistic way of dealing with a very complex problem. i have been working on student assignment, but as a parent -- for many years, i put my kids through the process. i have talked to parents across the city as a candidate for public office. since i was elected to the board, the board has been the last two years working on a news

to defend a policy. it is the most complex problem i have ever worked on in my personal or professional life. and i do not think that is the kind of thing that can be resolved by a voter checking a yes or no on the ballot box. >> recent census numbers show that families with small children have been leaving the city in record numbers because of people would argue that the current school assignment system has something to do with that. do you believe the current system is working? >> i do the the current system is working. we spend a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of resources, redesigning the system, because we knew we had a problem. one of the things we try to address was balancing the needs of parents. there are parents in parts of the city that feel they do not have access to high performing schools. while we work on the schools across the city, we want to give everybody access to all schools. in addition, a lot of families said they wanted more predictability in the school assignments. i do think that the

predictability issue is something that may frighten parents of young children. so we revised it and added a proximity component and a predictability component that i think as address those concerns while still giving parents access to high performing schools wherever they want them to be. >> prop h is merely a statement of policy. what you think that the actual practical effect if prop h passes? >> honestly, i do not think there's going to be much of a practical effect, because the school board has been very clear, and i am being very clear what the voters now, that this is the direction that we are going. that we have spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, going through data, talking to people, looking at what other district do, looking at our census data, having demographic projections, and we think, as we monitor the system going forward, that is

flexible and we can make changes and respond to trends. but we think we're moving in the right direction. >> even proponents of this ballot measure and said we're going in the right direction. >> thank you so much. we hope this has been informative. for additional affirmation about this or other measures, visit the san francisco league of women voters website. early voting is available at city hall monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. if you do not bode early, be sure to vote on november 8. thank you. ♪