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]

>> in keeping with the university of san francisco tradition to invite the mayor to speak, we are honored to have in our presence today, the mayor of the city and county of san francisco, the honorable edwin m. lee. mayor lee received his law degree from the university of california-berkeley. for more than 20 years, he has contributed to san francisco in numerous capacities, including as director of public works and the director of the public rights commission. in january 2007, mayor lee answered the call to complete the remaining year of former mayor gavin newsome.

during that time, a groundswell of support in the boisterous campaign, and he was finally persuaded to pursue elected office. in november, he was overwhelmingly elected mayor of san francisco. he is the first asian-american to serve as mayor of san francisco. please join me in welcoming the honorable edwin m. lee. [applause] mayor lee: thank you. members of the board of trustees, faculty and staff of the university of san francisco, family and friends -- good morning class of 2012.

[cheering] thank you for that very kind introduction. also, thank you -- alex, you are valedictorian. something tells me we might see alex later. and perhaps he will be running for office some day. we could lose it -- we could use your leadership in government today. a man of a wonderful sense of humor never fails to reflect. i'm going to try to avoid controversy today. many of you may not realize, i, too, and quite a comedian. just ask my daughters and my

wife. they'll laugh at every single one of my jokes. really. and then there is that entertaining reality tv show i am a part of, that brings to help the -- healthy dose of comedy, sometimes trauma -- drama on a regular basis. it is called city hall. being mayor is a job i love. they have given me the opportunity. it is a privilege to wake up each morning and work for you, the people of san francisco, and do everything i can to help you succeed and grow in your lives. class of 2012, that is what your date is about. it is growing in your lives for yourselves, your family, and as

your mayor, i will selfishly say, for your city. in whatever community you go to from here. i have been thinking lately -- you know, i have done some good things in my generation. here in san francisco, we raised our voices against war, whether the it, or elsewhere -- whether vietnam or elsewhere. we have blazed trails in social justice. so that all of our people -- women, african-americans, asian- americans, gay, lesbian, latino -- but have equal rights. we were the first city in america ought to have universal health care for all residents. when i was not much older than you, when i graduated from

bowdoin college, i wanted to raise all little heck to make the world a better place. i work to prevent the eviction of elderly chinese and filipino residents. we sued the san francisco fire department to give women and people of color a chance to be a firefighter. and i think we made a difference. today, the city hired a woman to lead our fire department. i could never have imagined in my lifetime, the city would -- the country and the city would elect an african-american president or an asian american mayor. we also screwed up a few things along the way, from the economy to the environment and social

justice. and now, class of 2012, the challenges and the promise of the world are your challenges and promises. your next assignment -- your homework for the rest of your life -- i can do that because i am mayor -- is to run the ball a little further down the field and get us to a better place. i know, many of you are thinking "mayor, i have got to get a job. i have to repay my student loans. i have to prepare for my family." yes, you do. i know going out into the world to fend for yourself in this economy is difficult. it is survival of the fittest, like something out of "the hunter games."

-- "the hunger games." but you are not on your own. is more like -- it is more like "the avengers." while it may not always be evident and while you may face many challenges throughout your life, always remember you are surrounded by a not so secret society of people who want to help you. these are people in business, and governments, sports, entertainment, health care, education. people who have achieved some measure of success or wisdom in there own lives. the greatest gift they can ever give is to pass on a little bit of that wisdom to you and help you succeed to an even greater degree. don't get me wrong.

you and you alone decide what you were going to do with that education and this opportunity and do not waste it. don't ever be afraid to ask for help. whether it is your boss, your family, your mayor. look to your own communities and ask yourself "how can i give back? how can i use my education to help my community and add to the valuable work within my neighborhood or my city?" because if there's one thing i see in this economy that is emerging, clean tech and biotech that are adding some new jobs to our city, is that success does not come from going it alone. success comes from

collaboration. bringing diverse backgrounds together to a common goal. new companies, out incubators in the market. they do not offices. they have a big open tables. they have whiteboards everywhere. the building is built around the notion of collaboration, the idea that success comes from sharing ideas and goals. because that is how we get innovation. that is how you, class of 2012, will lead the world a better place and fix things my generation did not quite get to. that is not just innovation in technology and our economy, but innovative approaches in the health field, curing diseases,

cleaning the air and water, and dealing with social justice. there is no better start than here. we are the gateway to the pacific rim and asia. to the west, the booming economies of latin america and brazil. we are the international destination are rhumba world -- around the world. you, class of 2012, are part of what makes san francisco brand. you represent new ideas, new frontiers, new beginnings. that innovation is perfected in your university's new marketing campaign. "change the world from here." some of them definitely make you smile.

academics covering the world from north beach? funny. the one that struck me the most -- "there is no moral compass app." so, i say to you as well, don't lose yourself and your values. don't forget where you came from, even amid the success you may achieve. some of you know the chinese zodiac for 2012 is the year of the dragon. dragon is the only mythical animal in the chinese zodiac and the most powerful. the year of the dragon is fittingly a time for risk- taking, bold decision, and innovation. class of 2012, san francisco and the world need your risk-taking.

sees the year of the dragon for yourselves, your families, for the rest of us. -- seize the year of the dragon. you are graduating at a time of immense promise. i know i am a little biased, but there is no better place to spend the rest of your lives. we are so proud to you. we are counting on you and we are here to help you realize your greatest objectives. thank you and congratulations, class of 2012. [applause]