>> when the new california academy of sciences opened in 2008, it quickly became one of the top tourist magnets in the

city. part of the cal academies' astronomical success is the weekly nightlife party. >> i am joined by helen, who is here to school me on all the nocturnal activities that are getting ready to take place here. tell us a little about what we can expect to see at nightlife. >> we open up the doors every thursday night at the california academy of sciences. there are certain things you can see every week you can go to the museum, visit the planetarium, and we bring in bars and a deejay or band. it is a different feel from during the day, something different every week. tonight , we have beer and music. -- tonight we have great beer and music. it is beer week. we have a dozen local brewers in african hall. we have a deejays to set up throughout the museum and a live performance at 9:00 p.m. tonight.

>> what has been your favorite part as a participant or as an observer? >> my favorite part is to walk around the aquarium in to see people with a drink in their hands, getting to know maybe somebody new, may be looking for a day, or chatting with friends. there jellyfish. i mean, they are beautiful. >> the culmination of the animals. >> it is very impressive. we do not have this at home. >> tell us a little about some of the spider's we see here on display. >> at the california academy of sciences, there is a very large collection of preserved and live specimens, which are the evidence about evolution. we have the assassin spiders, which are spiders that exclusively kill and eat other spiders. they are under the microscope here. research done and the california academy's i rhinology lab

suggests that the assassin spiders have been doing this for over 150 million years. this glassed in room is a real scientific laboratory, and the people in that room are preparing specimens of vertebrate, that is mammals and birds. the way they do this is to remove the skin, sew it together in a relatively lifelike pose, and ensure that it does not decompose. >> i am a really big class actress fan, so i am here to see them, and beer week. >> i wanted to learn something and have fun. >> i always enjoy it. i am not all is well -- always working as i am tonight. sometimes i come to enjoy the music and to dance. ♪

>> culturewire covers the arts in san francisco, and one of my favorite culture artists is here tonight. jason, thank you for being on culturewire. tell us about some of your posters that we have here today. >> most of the posters here are four specific shows or tours. i am hired by the bands or the venue. >> what is the inspiration behind these posters? >> no, disease of the related to the bay and, of course. music -- it is related to the band, of course the musical content or isn't related to the bed. album covers can come from anywhere. ♪ ♪

>> class actress was great. we have been having so much fun. i did not realize how beautiful the cal academy looks than that. what other events take place here? >> we do corporate events that night on a regular basis. but nightlife is your best bet to come in as a regular person pharmacy the academy at night, and visit with friends. calacademy.org/nightlife. we have details for the next few weeks. you can get tickets online in advance or at the door. >> thank you so much. thank you for watching culturewire on sf gov tv.

>> ok. good morning. it's really great to see everyone indoors on our -- working on our budget when we had the beautiful day outside. so thank you for taking time out of your day to discuss our city budget from the perspective of district 10 and district 11. my name is supervisor john avalos and i'm the supervisor for district 11. [applause] and i want to welcome our mayor, mayor ed lee for his presence here. [applause] i also want to welcome

supervisor cohen who is also co-hosting our -- [applause] our budget town hall today. we also have the chair of the budget committee of the board of supervisors, supervisor carmen khu. -- chu. [applause] and after having chaired the budget committee two years in a row in 2009 and 2010, i can honestly say it's one of the most challenging jobs on the board of supervisors and with carmen, you have a great leader, someone who knows the ins and outs of this budget and really will be looking closely at neighborhoods like arson to make -- ours to make sure we can get out of this budget so carmen is a great person to have on our committee. i want to welcome all the seniors and the youths and the families and residents of district 11 and district 10. we have an incredible task

before us on how to balance this budget. even though budget times are looking better, we have hard and difficult choices to make as we do the budget balancing work in the city county of san francisco. our budget is really a statement about our priorities as a city. we have lots of priorities as off our complement each other but sometimes compete against each other and we have to make hard decisions about what gets budgeted first and foremost. over the past few years, as your supervisor for district 11, i've invested small amounts of money in community development efforts of how we can create more resources for people in our district, we have a committee grant making program supporting seniors, young people. it's making sure that leaders can actually come about in our neighborhood street.

there's a report on telling us now make employment work in this part of san francisco. right now, we do not have any major workforce development dollars that come directly for employment where in the city, we want to be able to change that. this report points us in that direction so in the future, we'll be -- [applause] thank you. so in the future, we'll be pointing in the direction for jobs for youth, jobs for adults, in this part of san francisco and ways that we can support communities that don't get employment if our traditional sectors. so we'll be hearing from people about that today. i want to hear from everyone and i'll stay as long as it takes to hear from public comments and thank you for being here. i want to pass the mike on to supervisor cohen. [applause] >> thank you.

>> good morning, san francisco. i'm glad to see you this morning. do we have anyone here from d-10? all right. good morning. do we have anyone here from d-11? whoa! do we have anyone here from the city family? [laughter] do we have anyone here from the city family? [applause] we are fired up and happy to be here today because we are going to be talking about the number issue that has an effect and connects all neighborhoods, awe races of people, all classes of people and that's our budget. we are here to begin the conversation about our budget priorities and hear from you, from your perspective, from our first line of defense, our service providers, our constituent, our friends, our neighborhood leaders, our democratic clubs. all of you on here have an opinion on what our priorities

should be and we have come to humbly receive that information. humbly receive that information so they're going to be very few speeches today. we're going to be putting on our ears today and we are going to be listening. and we're going to be listening in chinese. we're going to be listening in spanish. we're going to be listening in every language that you speak. if you're speaking, we're listening. and our priorities, our budget priorities at the end of this process will most likely hopefully and will reflect what we have heard in other budget town hall meetings and all around the city. so i want you guys to put a warm welcome to a man that has changed this budget town hall process. not only under the leadership of supervisor carmen chu but mayor ed lee who began last year implementing budget town hall meetings. this is what i understand one of the few -- one of a new way that we begin to discuss budget

priorities. so please welcome your mayor, our mayor, our friend, ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. >> tough. good morning, everybody. and i want to thank the city art and technology school for hosting us here. yes. [applause] principal daniel allen. thank you so much for this lovely location. [applause] so as supervisor avalos and supervisor cohen and we're joined by supervisor carmen chu as well. you know, i've had the pleasure of working with our whole board of supervisors and i'll tell you, all of them have been very dedicated. and you have heard the new tone at city hall. no calling names. no wasting time. we are on your business.

and that's why we enjoy coming out so the neighborhood. we enjoy holding budget town hall meetings because the most important thing that we should be doing is listening to the needs, not making decisions in isolation, and then respecting our communities. that's what i want to do. you know me. i've been picking up trash for a lot of you in this district for many years. we've been out in mccarron park cleaning that place up. we've been down in sunny dale trying to keep things clean, safe. we know these neighborhoods but we also want to make sure we honor a tradition that has been long held in the city. we make decisions with our community. never in isolation. that's why it's important that we be out here. that's why it's important i tell you we haven't made any decisions yet on our budget. but we are heading in a particular direction. and that direction has to be recovery. it has to be job creating. it has to be about positive

investments in our communities. and in our city. because i really have to tell you the truth. i'm not going to head up a city that's dependant upon the state government that keeps failing us. i can't depend upon a federal government that can't have a decent conversation in both houses to put forward transportation and parks and environment and schools. every time we listen to state and national political discussions, i get so disappointed. so i'm turning to the only hope i got. that's our neighborhood leaders. you've got the answers. you're positive about where you live. you're not giving up. you're picture assistant. -- percent. that's what -- persistent. that's what i love about san francisco. so we're here to get energized. we get energized at city hall. yes, you're going to tell us about problems. yes, you're going to challenge us.

but when we go to work and we get things done and we feel that much better. that's why when we team one the board of supervisors, we get local hires done and done better. san franciscans need that job. when we say to you that we're going to create jobs for our youth, 5,000 of them this summer, we ain't messing around. we go to cooperations -- corporations like wells fargo and bank of america. get your hands up. jamba juice. how many are you going to hire? we go to every corporation. and i want to thank eric mcdonald from united way. thank you, eric, for helping us lead 5,000 jobs this summer. [applause] he's working really well with our school district, with our families and children of youth and families departments, with all the city departments to make this commitment true, 5,000 summer jobs. and we've got a website for those of you who are asking i

don't know how to get those jobs. well, we're aiming those jobs this summer at disconnected youth. and for you not to be disconnected, the website, hiresfyouth.org. get on that youth. we are serious about this. we've got jobs from all of the great companies in san francisco joined with all of the departments that you see here. we've got a lot of departments here today as well. they're here to listen. and we can answer some of the questions that you have today, we'll do that. but most importantly, we're here to listen to what you believe the priorities for district 11 and district 10 are, what you think the issues in san francisco have to be paid attention to. and we want to make sure that we get this input right. and so i want to thank all of the department representatives here. we've got departments that you

know. departments that you seen day to day. we're all working together to make sure that we manage your city well, manage your taxes well. i know a lot of people, d-10 and d-11 pay a lot of taxes. you want to make sure we're doing the right thing to them. we'll be listening carefully. we'll be challenging you to tell us what those priorities are. having said that, i want to let you know the budget is not as difficult, perhaps, as challenging as it was a year ago, a year ago, we're staring at a budget deficit of over $350 million. -- for this next year. now, it's looking like about $170 million deficit for the next fiscal year. the following year, it's about $312 million. and as you may have heard, we're no longer doing one-year budgetting. we're doing two-year budgetting.

we want to put in a lot more fiscal disciplining so when you see that we make investments, hopefully, you'll see the programs come out. many times, there's been years where there are problems made but you never saw the programs. you never saw the brick and mor tor come up. we need to do better fiscal planning and that's been where i've been emphasizing and doing a better planning job with the board of supervisors and with all the different agencies. you know me. we introduced a 10-year capital plan. put in a lot more discipline so when your property taxes are at work, whether it's rebuilding a general hospital or playgrounds, you can see when they're supposed to get done. and then we promised not to raise your property taxes when we use the bond program to fund other things that you care about and you tell us that you care about. same thing with our budget. we have $175 million deficit. we are going to buy law, but also by our very commitment to

you, balance that budget and when we do that, we will balance it with your interest in mind. but it is still a deficit. so please make sure you don't use the word surplus here. there's no surplus yet. that doesn't exist in my textbook of words yet. but i hope to get there with you in a matter of years. i hope to help create a new challenge one of these days where we do have revenues that exceed expenditures. but we're not there yet. we're not there because we still got some expenditures that are far exceeding our revenues. but you hear probably three or four months, how the revenues are increasing. you hear jobs are being created. you hear businesses making private investments in our city moving back in to mid market. hopefully, filling some of the vacancies out here in outer mission and in the mission along third street.

you see people making investments here creating jobs. so i'm going to end speech making because the valuable time that we want to have today is listening to all of you. and so with your help, we'll do our job and do it better. and again, thank you for welcoming us here. thank you for spending your valuable saturday morning. and of course after this, it's go giants. [laughter] [applause] thank you. >> thank you, mayor lee. and thank you for your great work and san francisco and helping to move this city forward. and we are all committed to working with you to help make that happen. i want to introduce some of the folks who will be doing that work. our department head. and if you could just raise your head when your name is called. we have henry alvarez from the housing authority. [applause] olsen lee from the mayor's

office of housing. adrian pond from the office of -- i'm drawing a blank here. she's here. she's in the city administrator's office. c. barcelona from the human services agency. muhammad neru from the department of public works. our neuly-appointed city administrator naomi kelly. [applause] maria sue from the department of children youth and their families. [applause] carla johnson from the mayor's office on disability. denny kern from the rebecca and park department. john haley from the san francisco municipal transportation agency. young lee from the san francisco unified school district.

greg wagner from the department of public health. [applause] william lee from the department of emergency management. [applause] regina dickey from the office of small business. charean mcspagen. and we have daniel allen, principal of city of parts and technology. thank you again for opening up your auditorium for us. chief joanne hayes white from the fire department. and chief greg serb from the police department. [applause] and we have from the san francisco public library jill bourn. [applause] and anyone we may have left out, we have hodges mendosa from the mayor's office on education. i knew it. and also our cool board

commissioner. thank you so much for being -- i've got to pass this on to our emcee shaman walton and is now the district 11 resident as well. shaman. [applause] >> good morning, everybody. i'm going to try this again. good morning, everybody. thank you. it's a privilege and honor to be here to moderate this great discussion. i have the privilege of living in district 11 and working in district 10. so these priorities are important to me. and as a leader of the community, i'm going to be very objective today. so i need you all to stay focused on the task at hand so we can have a great and productive conversation while we're here this morning. can everybody do that? all right. so a couple of housekeeping things. when we get to the open mike part and i'm going to stay urn my two minutes during my conversation as well. just to be a good model for what we want to see in the

conversation. but when we get so the open mike part of the conversation, we're going to allow for two minutes. whatever you would like to say, you need to keep it into two minutes and be mindful of the times so that everybody will have an opportunity and we'll get more people with the opportunity to speak. ok? so two minutes. we're going to keep it to two minutes. you can either ask a question. give a speech, give a show. but it's going to have to be in two minutes. second thing is we're going to alternate two districts so we're fair that both districts get ample opportunities to address their concerns. everyone can't speak at the same time. so we're going to let the speaker be heard. we're going to be respectful and mindful of the fact that only one person can talk so they can be heard and they can be clear so the proper questions can also be answered. housekeeping. there are headsets up front for translations when you come in. we have captions for the hearing-impaired. so we want to make sure that

everybody gets a chance to whether heard as well as are accommodated so they can communicate very well. so with that said, i think we get an understanding of the flow of the conversation when we get to the open mike. i'm going to bring up the mayor of budget director. >> good morning. good morning, everybody. thank you. so -- can you guys hear me? good. so i'm just going to speak very briefly about the budget. just a few highlights since i think you've heard a lot from everybody else already. and really our purpose today is to listen to you. so san francisco's budget as you've heard is really a statement of our priorities. it's what we invest our money in to deliver services to all the residents and people who live and work in san francisco. our budget is about $6.8 billion every year. and about half of that is in what we call the general fund. and that's really the place where we have the conversation about a budget shortfall.

what do we spend that general fund money on? we spend it on things like public safety, police and fire. we spend it on health. we spend it on programs for children, youth and families. and we spend it on things like rec and park. we also have -- we're also the biggest employer in the city and county. we have about 26,000 employees who work for the city every day. i have some charts up here. i'm not going to go through them all, but basically, one of the tasks that i have every year is to balance our budget shortfall. and you heard the mayor say he would like to be in a place where we have a budget surplus but we're not there yet. and one way of thinking about that is we get our revenues. those are from property taxes, from sales tax, from the hotel tax. and all of those revenues together aren't sufficient to pay for all of the expenses that we have.

one way of thinking about it is, you know, over the past few years, because of the economy, many people have experienced having income that is platt or -- flat or declining. maybe your rent is more expensive. the price of gas is more expensive. so you have to figure out what do i trade off? you know, how i can afford to continue to do the things i need to do? and we're in the same situation. so our goals as the mayor said, we have to have a two-year balance budget. we want to hear from you about where should we be investing? what kinds of things can we improve? and what should we be paying attention to as we think about making those trade-offs? i really appreciate everybody being here and that's all i have to say. [applause] >> thank you, kate. so as you could see, the city much like some of our own households, they have some real scenario where is they have deal

with and they have to prioritize and i'm glad to hear the mayor say that we're not as at a surplus. i have to remind staff and board members of that all the time. increased revenue does not necessarily equal surplus. so the city has to prioritize and make sure that they focus on the most important needs and the values of the city to make sure that we get what we want and get what we need but at the same time, they have to do it with the fact that we don't have a surplus in the budget. they have a hard job up here and we want to let them know that we appreciate the hard work that they do working on this budget so with that said, i'm going to introduce a couple of speakers. first, we're going to have speakers come from district 10. we have neil who is with you a on thea and the human rights commission advisory board and mr. al norman with the baby emergence. if you could both line up right here and we'll have neil go

first. >> good morning. i have two minutes. so this is my "american idol." are you guys ready? yeah. first of all, i would like to thank the mayor and our supervisors for coming out and everybody for showing up. the last time i was here was in the seventh grade in the production of hare. -- "hair." i'm 54. so this is really a trip. redevelopment. it's gone. our street is a ghost town. if you've seen leyland avenue, it's beautiful. we have a green way. it's beautiful. but we have a lot of empty storefronts. and with the redevelopment gone, it's probably going to get worse. how many here in district 11 has ever come down and spent