because that is just an outrage. thank you. [applause] >> i guess i have been asked to respond. parks and rec, like this it, today. there are still four balls and three strikes in softball, as far as i can tell. i am happy to understand what your concerns dark regarding the field permit process. in many respects, our parks have not actually been in better shape, despite serious financial challenges. spurre did a study saying to adequately manage our parks system, we would need to add about $30 billion to our operating budget. my staff has been asked to do much more with less. like other departments, we have experienced a general fund cuts over the years. but i am proud of our efforts to actually increase access and programming. we have more recreational

programming going on at our rec centers than we have ever had. our scholarship fund, which kutcher years ago we gave away subsidized $80,000 worth of free programs for our kids. now, thanks to partnerships with dcyf and the school membership and the housing authority, we have given away more than that. we have fewer burgers than we have ever had, and they are being paid as high as they have ever been. we're lucky to be open up playgrounds and facilities like delors park. but the truth is our park system needs funding. we need to decide whether we are going to invest more public money in that, and there are trade-offs. i have heard a lot of need here with the streets and public safety. or whether we're going to pitch in to the best practices and things that other -- that every other urban park system in the country is doing to stay open.

the revenues are an important part of our budget. that it is for keeping the programs and facilities open. there is a lot of joy out there, and it is a pleasure to be able to steward it. >> thank you, phil. [applause] >> we have now exhausted the pre-submitted questions we had, but we still have a little bit of the mayor's time. are there questions that have come up? wow, that was quick. and we have carmen in the back with a microphone, too. >> well, we know we are living in tough times economically. and as -- and as i got out the city, the seniors seek positive things about the suggestion that maybe you could ride free on the muni. we a part of the family. we have raised families. and when you talk to a group of seniors, they come out positively, most of them, about

this. however, there is a real fear in the senior community that because of our economic situation, if the youth come free, the next thing we know the costs for seniors and disabled it goes up. so what i wanted to know is, mr. mayor, are you monitoring that? >> yes. [laughter] i have had quite a few discussions about the free muni. and as you know, the mta is a voting on their budget tuesday with some form of free muni targeted at, i believe, it is low-income youth. but right now they do not believe they can afford, and i have to agree, with their deficit, they do not have the

funds nor can they get them through the various government grants and programs to support free muni for all of youth at this time. does not mean it that will not go in some direction. but actually, in the discussions, i will be candid with you, too. i know we still have a discussion of the board of supervisors about this, because there are very strong feelings in other ways. some of the discussion also might be a little different than what you heard. some people were suggesting -- well, if muni becomes free for youth, maybe that is just the first phase and down the road we can look at how we can help our seniors. so there is also that kind of thought process going on as we monitor this discussion. of course, any time you use the word free, then people would budget responsibilities in at the city are going to say, where is the money coming from?

even in your parks, there was a lot of things that used to be free. i remember those days when you could use a field for free. where have those days gone, and who pays for that, and had the maintain up kkeep with everythig else? we are monitoring this situation. we want to make sure the conversation is one that we can embrace for generations to come, not just what might be of interest right now. we have to actually take care of the unique system for decades to come. so we cannot afford to have an. -- irresponsible discussion about this moving forward more carefully. but we will engage everybody in the process so that -- the hope is that muni never gets unaffordable and still meets our transit needs throughout every place we need to go in the city. that is where we have to make sure this system is strong

enough to withstand that and to be our muni system, rather than something that might be ok for some, but for the majority either too expensive or cannot get there or cannot get there in time. a lot of complications that we are monitoring very carefully. [applause] >> other questions? yes, carmen, you have someone in the back. >> supervisors and a year, i am annie chung, a sunset resident all my life. a lot of the seniors feel unsafe in the intersection of 31st and noriega where the new church, safeway, and a lot of restaurants are. they have been asking mta to do a study to see if you could install a traffic light for them. and the answer is, oh, it will

take a long time. bottom line, it is probably not going to be possible. can you make it possible? because a lot of seniors use those streets, and they filled very unsafe. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. we like to see the kind of energy, especially so early. unfortunately, the mta is not here. we had asked them to come. to try to respond, we will follow up with that question. generally whenever we talk about traffic lights, the cost a lot of money. it costs almost $300,000 for one traffic light, so it is not easy for the state to put one in. particularly with one lane of traffic in both directions. the mta is installing four traffic lights along sunset boulevard. that is a situation where you have three lanes of traffic and directions. so we are prioritizing some of that. especially where self help is, that intersection, we see a lot

of seniors passing through on sunset boulevard all the time. so we want to prioritize those big areas where people have to cross the street before some of the smaller areas. on at noriega, we have worked on traffic islands among other things, so we can ask mta to look at it again and see if there are other alternatives. in terms of a traffic light, we know that our resources are limited and the concentration is on sunset boulevard and some of the very large streets that need that help. so i want to thank you for the question, and we will follow-up. [applause] >> go giants. hello. i am a city hall fellow. i must admit that i am not a resident of four or seven, but i would like to be. i am here today on my birthday to emphasize the importance of increasing housing affordability in the city, particularly for low and middle-income families. as a young person who works in

the city and commutes from outside the city, i would -- i so much love the city and am in the process of trying to move here. i think that discussions of housing affordability must be intimately integrated with discussions of transportation, particularly for the western side of the city. i appreciate the city's focus over the last few weeks, particularly at the board of supervisors, about this issue. i hope i can call myself a district four or seven resident with your support. thank you. [applause] >> we would love to have you. thank you. >> hello. i am nancy, a lifelong resident of district 7 and a member of the board of direction of the lakeshore acres improvement club. my question is about the funding that we get from the state and federal government. how soon do you find out about that? and how does that play into this whole budget? because we saw in the newspaper

today that they are cutting grants to the folks that are in graduate school at the california state university assistant. that portends a very dark future for our youth. if we cannot educate our youth, where is the future of our city and our state. if it is cutting it the state level, which is where we pay the majority of our taxes, and we're not getting our fair share of revenues, how soon are we going to know? thanks. [applause] >> it is a very difficult question. i can say that our deficit projections to assume a $50 million reserve for state and federal cuts, which is larger than we have had in a number of years. there is a difference between federal and state cutting vs services that the city already provides, which is mostly in health and social services, and it is where we see a lot of cuts

in terms of reimbursement rates at the department of public health and some of the long-term care money we get at the department of social services. there are also stay consider having to our communities that the city does not actually pay for at the moment that we need to decide as a city how much we can afford to backfill. for example, there are a lot of cuts this year being proposed to hiv services that the city has actually never paid for before, and we're getting a lot of requests to pay for things that the city has never paid for before. they have been state and federal responsibilities in the past. we will have more information as the state completes their budget and estimates there may revise. we do have a fairly large stake reserve this year. it becomes part of the trade-off conversation that the board of supervisors and the mayor's office and the community need to have. but how much we can prioritize this.

you know, we definitely need the help of you and the rest of the community to go back to the state and the federal government and make your voice is heard to ensure that that funding stays as high as possible for our city and we do not wind up in a situation where we are making trade-offs between hiv services and streets and parks. we rely on your help to solve that. we do our best, and we will be -- you know, we are cognizant of this and constantly monitoring what is going on and deciding how we can deal with those. [applause] >> hello. merrill loma park improvements club. i have a question for the administrator. you mentioned in your budget presentation that our city expenses are increasing a lot faster than our revenues, more significantly.

could you identify the main cause of the main expense lines going up and that is responsible for that situation? thank you. >> again, i think there are many pressures that the city is facing. about half of our expenditures, just so you know, are spent on salaries and benefits for our city employees. and we're seeing significant pressures in that area. our employees have not taken raisins -- races for the most part in several years now and have actually taken pay cuts. however, as all of your very well aware, health benefit costs for our employees continue to rise at a quick pace, and our pension costs continue to rise. again, because of the downturn in the economy that the city is now having to deal with. our pension fund is still sort of reeling from the impacts of

the downturn and the hit to our benefit trust from a few years ago. so benefits are one of the significant pressures on our budget right now. other pressures are just from the fact that over the last few years, we have sort of, because it has been such a bad situation and we have had to make cuts and not fund things that the level that we want to, we are seeing pressures from normal things that we have not been able to find that the right level in years past. ford's of all, capital. you know, streets, our buildings. so now we are getting to a point where we need to be cognizant of the fact that we have not been funding those things at the right level to maintain them in the last few years. if we do not pay attention to that, it will become a problem in the long term. that is sort of the biggest pressure. saturday -- salaries and benefits is one of the biggest

ones. but others is just trying to make sure we get back to the level of services and infrastructure that we were at nine years passed before, before the downturn hit us. >> thank you. any other questions? >> good morning, mayor lee, supervisors. thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of job-seekers in san francisco. i am the center manager for the chinatown one-stop career links center, operated by self help for the charity. we provide many resources for job-seekers looking for work, as well as a free assistance to small businesses looking for workers. in district four and district 7, we were wondering of supervisors and the mayor to look for resources for job-seekers who were looking for work, because there is a lack of job training programs, as well as for english learners to learn english.

because we are seeing job- seekers and seniors coming into the chinatown area and using services there, and there is a need. it would be great if you could consider that. thank you for the opportunity. [applause] >> any other questions? george. i was surprised he waited this long, george. [laughter] >> thank you. george, district 7. a question for mayor lee. i wanted to ask him if he felt extending parking meter hours, increasing parking meters, adding parking on sundays, increasing traffic tickets is going to help create jobs in san francisco for small businesses? >> wow, you really waited a long

time for that one, huh, george? i have had several discussions with the mta. some years ago, and a little bit on you, the voters made sure that we did not mess around with mta's budget. at least take things out and put things in in the way it did in years past. the board has to vote up or down on the whole budget. having said that, we did talk a little bed about, you know, our general resistance to putting meters on sundays. it is $2.5 million revenue source for them. they believe that times have changed where there are a lot of tourists and visitors that come in too many of our sections throughout the city on its sundays to enjoy, of course, all the things that we have. so we believe that revenue they need to have to balance their

deficits. we have like a $26 million deficit when we started going through all of these things. i will say that we also talked about this parking increase of the penalties. one of the things that they told me that a good portion, three- quarters of that increase the they are proposing in their budget on the parking tickets as exactly to do with the state grabbing more of their revenue from those tickets but not of them wanting more revenue as our mta. they obviously needed, but there were not going to put it on the backs of the parking tickets, so they have to recover that. otherwise they will be in a bigger deficit. so that is the answer on that one. the debate that i have had around the sun. meters probably have to accept some kind of a compromise and there. they did not want to -- they did

start out with the regular 9:00 to 6:00, and we said, gosh, that is going to be too hard. we at least get them to compromise to 12 noon. i know that is not satisfactory for those who believe you should not touch parking meters or not have parking meters all sunday, but they did make at least that compromise, and that is what they're voting on on tuesday. >> [inaudible] >> ok. so the question is -- how does that impact jobs? you know, i probably will have to say it does not necessarily immediately help jobs.

it is an effort to make sure that the muni budget is balanced in all of the jurisdictions that they have. it does keep jobs for some pto's on sundays, i have to say. but apart from that -- you know, the small businesses, and i know we had a conversation here earlier, some of the -- not all, but some small businesses have always felt that if the parking control officers are not doing their jobs, you're going to have people part inappropriately all day long in those spaces. we get complaints about that from even folks who claim they have legitimate for the blue placards and things like that, and we have got some abuses there. but some of the small businesses are saying that if you do not keep people moving around, their businesses suffered. particularly in those very

successful merchant corridors. so in a way, keeping, you know, the parking meters active or keeping the space is exchanging out is supposed to come in at the erie, helping those small businesses with their jobs. >> and that first block of west portal. come with me tomorrow at 2:00 p.m., and you can watch the people who park their and then get on it muni and head down for hours. they do not shop on west portal. they shop downtown. and they go to the giants game. and they do not pay for their parking. >> [inaudible] >> but if they filled their meter for 20 minutes, that is all you have to do. they can avoid the ticket. ok. all right, this will be our very last question. >> i think the problem is

sometimes you may go down irving street or west portal, you're going for lunch, so you're going into a restaurant and maybe you are going to do your banking at the same time. what happens is you may have a meter for one hour two hours and that may not be enough. it is four hours or longer, at least do not get a ticket. that seems to be the problem. you're getting tickets. if you go a couple streets over, it may be two-hour parking, the it is very hard to get. you have to go two streets over to get four-hour parking. but it is a hike. >> ok. i am holding, and we're working hard on this. i am hoping that there is some technological solution to this. because, as you know, we're changing out all these meters into meters that can not only use your credit card, but you can pay with your cell phone. you would register in and

literally almost tapped it or some mid end in a so that the meter tells her cell phone when your time is up, so you get a buzz. we are getting there. there are experience -- experiments going on as we speak. hopefully that technology convenience will prevent people from getting ticketed inappropriately when they're trying to do the right thing and have that notice and cannot run back out. but they will get the notice like five minutes before the thing happens. we're going for that. because we believe that that better technology with the areas we have experimented in, we did have less to get. we had more people paying the meter. there is some good behavior going on with the modern meters that we have in the city. >> [inaudible] >> no, you can actually feed the

meter from your phone. oh. >> [inaudible] a photo of the license plate? [inaudible] >> ok. >> that is why it is a longer time frame. >> ok, we will talk to the mta about that. yes, yes. cards. >> [inaudible] >> you can buy them online and they will come directly to your house. sure. sfgov.org, you can buy them and have them mailed to your house. >> [inaudible] >> the one department that does not show up it's the biggest one. [laughter] is that how it works? department heads, tell them that is how it works. very good. listen, we would like to thank you all very, very much for

coming out and sharing your thoughts. that me reiterate the point from the beginning, this is just one opportunity. you will have many opportunities. there are other town hall meetings, a number of public hearings at city hall, and beyond that, carmen and i are always available to take your calls, take your e-mails, read your letters. you have a lot of opportunity, and please take advantage of it. it is your thoughts that will shape our decisions over the next few months. >> again, i want to say thank you very much for spending your saturday morning here with us. i know it is not easy. we appreciate your thoughts. we all benefit from hearing your comments today. sometimes in city hall we hear only one perspective, and we do not necessarily here the perspective of your database citizens or running your business or who have frustrations with parking meters or he wants to bsee recreation and parks services be better. thank you for that. one plug.

we had the sunday streets event this week in our district. it starts at 10:00 and i believe it goes to 3:00 on the great highway. please come out with your family with your bikes and walking shoes. >> i want to thank again our office of immigration affairs and civic engagement for translation for people who are here. obviously we have a rich diversity and the city. i am glad we can get people who speak different languages and tell us what they need as well. thank you, everybody, for being here, and giants. -- go giants. [applause]

>> thank you for joining us tonight. i am the government policy director at spur. it is my distinct pleasure to welcome such an amazing panel as well as the mayor of our fine city. this is the innovation mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. can everyone here me? welcome to spur.

i enjoy being here because every time i come here, some part of my brain wakes up that has not been woken up before. i am here to welcome you. earlier, i had a wonderful opportunity to exchange with our panel members about what they are doing and how they're doing it. . i think these panel members are here as part of their own entrepreneurial spirit. they own companies but love the city. they know the spirit of the city is one of innovation, that invites peoples and views, and smashes them -- meshes them together to see if we can make an even better san francisco. we have two other supervisors who may be coming later. we're all part of the initial group of policymakers at city

hall who want to hear news views and ideas on the new collaborative economy. we're interested in it because it has aspects that have piqued our interest, about hoour environment, how to improve life for more people, how to make an expensive city more affordable to more people, how to utilize the strengths of the city as a great tourist city. how we can get more folks to come and experience the wonders of the city. maybe they will make their stake here. these panel members have decided to make their stake here. they risked reputation, may be small amounts of money. if they had a lot of money, they may not have had to start this. they have also done it for the right reasons.