currently there's still a significant population of job-seeking young people in our city that are currently unemployed and we hope that the city will collaborate with our -- with the nonprofit organizations and the private sectors in bringing more jobs to young people this summer. last summer, s.f. summer job plus program was extremely successful. we brought over 5,000 jobs to our young population. and this summer we hope to bring 6,000 jobs to our young people. and on behalf of san francisco youth commission and the young people in san francisco, i would like to thank the mayor and all those who have worked and collaborated in bringing jobs to the young people in san francisco. thank you. (applause)

>> thank you. do we have other speakers? all right. with that, i just wanted to also take some time just to layout from here on out the process. so, the mayor, his team, and some of the department representatives will be traveling throughout the next several weeks to hold other budget town hall meetings throughout different districts. i know that the mayor's office as well as supervisor farrell have on their website information about where those next dates and locations will be. so, check those websites for the latest upcoming town halls. in addition to that, just wanted to kick it over to supervisor mark farrell. he's going to show a little about his budget priorities as the budget chair this year. >> thank you, supervisor tang. and i'll keep it brief, but i want to say thank you all for being out here today, especially those who spoke at the podium. you know, from my perspective, we are feeling a lot better as a city of san francisco. as i just mentioned to mayor lee, our unemployment is

actually at 6% right now this month, down from over 9.8% just a few years ago under mayor lee's leadership we've gotten so far down the road. but we do have a challenge in the budget. as was mentioned before, we have a $123 million budget deficit heading into next year. but we're all committed as a budget here to you and everyone in san francisco that we will have an open and transparent process, that we will manage our finances in a very fiscally responsible manner going forward, and that our budget that comes out will reflect the priorities of all people who live here in san francisco. i commit that to you and i look forward to a long process and coming in july having a budget that, again, reflects all of our priorities together. so, thank you for being here today. (applause) >> there are actually a number of other people that i think had signed cards, but i'll make sure that any of the questions and comments that people wrote on the cards are given to kate

howard and leo and the budget office so that they're integrated into the budget process. i also want to thank everyone for the very thoughtful comments. also, if anyone has any questions or comments for the budget process, please fill that out in the cards and we'll make sure it gets integrated. for my role on the budget committee as well, i think supervisor farrell has been doing a great job as a budget chair and we're looking forward to taking as much input in, not only for districts 1 and 4, but for the whole city. i also wanted to say that before i let mayor lee wrap us up today, i wanted to thank all the richmond district folks for coming out and speaking. i also see disability organizations like the fdr club and jonathan lions back there. i see merchants associations david heller and [speaker not understood], and others that are here representing our small businesses as well. and ray holland and nick baloney from the planning association for the richmond.

and i see the director of the richmond area multi-services, which really provides significant and culturally sensitive and multi-cultural mental health services not just for the richmond but throughout the city. also i really appreciate all the senior and youth and family service agencies and child care and organizations that have spoken today. lastly, i wanted to thank the city department heads and reps from all of our departments for spending their beautiful saturday morning in this dark but great auditorium of the washington eagles. and i wanted to say that i hope you have a great weekend and a beautiful saturday and sunday and earth day as well on monday. and thanks so much to victor lim, [speaker not understood] and peter from my staff and supervisor tang's staff as well. but also our mayor's office of neighborhood service staff and our office of civic engaged immigrant and civic engagement and the mayor's budget office for making this first of our series of budget hearings a great one. so, now i'll let mayor ed lee

wrap us up. (applause) >> thank you, supervisors. again, and department heads. this is the first of many town halls. i've given up pretty much my saturday rounds of golf to make sure that we listen, even though my doctor says i need more exercise. but anyway, i'm glad to do it. so, some of you who may have just participated here but didn't really know what question you wanted to ask but you got an issue, you're definitely invited to the other town halls. we have a full schedule. just because we hold it in other districts doesn't mean anyone from anyplace else can join as well. so, please, again, feel comfortable in talking with your elected representatives, your city wide officials as well as your department heads. this is all for you to get us

the feedback in a direction for what we prioritize in the budget. i've heard a lot of things today. we're definitely taking them to heart. i want to note that one of our summer youth job seekers who was very successful in real estate. i'm going to assign him to work with your senior centers rent reduction issue so we have that instantaneous service right there. (applause) >> but i also want to say that with the question that was directed at me for the undocumented youth, first of all, what came to my mind immediately is we have a municipal id card to make sure that those who are undocumented get an official card from city hall. so, please make sure you're aware of that because something that i had worked on with a number of supervisors throughout so many years as our city administrator, and i want to make sure that works for everybody. having said that, we also fund

a lot of community-based nonprofits to help us with the employers in the city. and this is why we have focused our effort with united way of the bay area because we do have nonprofits who can bridge the child's undocumented status to their ability to get a job. and we specifically fund groups to do that. so, please, if you have those issues, make sure that they talk with our family youth and children services centers as well as united way. as eric said, and i'm going to be very excited about this, because this year we're focused on 6,000 jobs for our youth, focused on the most disadvantaged kids of all different backgrounds, want to get everybody employed. as supervisor farrell says, it's moving even faster down to 6%. so, maybe we'll get down to that 5% pretty soon with the help of united way. and it's going to be a shared

responsibility of departments, but we're going to push really hard on private sector because they're the ones that are experiencing the most success in our city right now. so, we're going to ask them to help pick up this great opportunity to work with our kids. i can't think of anything better than to have our youth experience the summer jobs because it pays for year after year after year if you get an individual to be focused on their careers. and that's going to help all of us focus on a better city. there's a lot of issues that we have documented here. we'll make sure they're incorporated into the priorities that we have. we've heard from seniors, we've heard from ihh -- from your work force, from the experience that you've had. we heard from youth. we've heard from people that need our help and all the gaps that we have and we'll definitely pay attention to that. so, again, thank you for giving

up your saturday to join us. i look forward to seeing some of you in the other hearings. and, again, we appreciate your input and your guidance for our priorities. we have some questions? mr. hal? mr. mayor, i wanted to thank you for being here. [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. >> okay. i'm sorry if we missed some cards.

we meant to get to every single card that was submitted. so, our apologies if that happened. but i will say, david, if there's any question about our commitment to small businesses, you hear from me directly that we are investing in neighborhoods in a very large amount. my budget from last year and this year reflect a very strong consideration for neighborhood small businesses in our city. and i know of not only your leadership, but mr. carnilowitz's leadership. this is why we have an abundance invested in the leadership program. maybe if you have particular issues off line, we can do that after this, or if you want to have one more question, that's fine. [speaker not understood].

>> okay. [speaker not understood]. >> all right. if everybody didn't hear, the question is some businesses that want to operate mobile and that's coming from the mayor's office what the rumor is. i can correct that's not true, but i do believe that people are submitting their ideas for whether or not mobile businesses can be successful here. i think it's a big challenge, to be quite candid with you, because we have a lot of people investing in the brick and

mortar along our neighborhoods. we certainly feel that our investment right now, our priority has been to help them and to help them deal with those vacancies. in fact, i think we have an idea about making sure we, if anything, policy wise, we push ideas into the vacancies. that would be even better than try to operate on that basis. but anyway, we'll pay attention to that as well. again, i'm sorry if there are cards that were submitted that didn't get attention. we meant to get everybody covered. all right. thank you very much, everybody, appreciate it. (applause)

>> good morning, everyone, it is may one, 2013, and i want to thank everybody for taking your time to come celebrate with us. this is the day that we will be launching a month long celebration, for asian pacific heritage month. it is a very special time of the year for some of us because it is really a time that we come together and spend a little bit more time with each other. i was thinking about this when i was driving down to city hall today and i say, mmm, a lot of us see each other during the times of the year. but, just the law of this country, the month of may was

designated every year for the special celebration and heritage of asian pacific americans and i am glad that we in san francisco and it is a time for us to come together and this celebration every year would not have happened if a committee of volunteers did not come together to plan this. i must say, that you know, the volunteers committee met last november and every year we think about what do we do, how do we bring our people together because as you know they are over 30 ethic groups in the family, so we are a very, very diverse group and when you think about heritage month, we don't think of koreas or filipino or all of the rest. we think about the family. that is special about who we are and we are in a city that welcomes that and in a city with the mayor that is some of our own and we cannot be more

proud their mayor lee is here today to have us kick off a whole month of celebration, mayor lee? >> thank you, claudene, thank you for your annual work. you and the committee, i know that you get together with everybody months in advance to pull this off and there is an exciting number of events that we have, but let me say, first of all, thank you, to assess recorder carmen for joining us today and our newest supervisor tang for joining us today they are going to be great partners in helping me run this city. also, again, to the committee that there is going to be so many events happening this month, the month of may, for all of you is a very, very busy month. many, many different events.

i often go back to that nice musical that i watched many years when i was young camelot and they always referred to the lusty month of may there is so much going on, it is spring and a lot of things and the warriors are winning and the giants are winning and so much going on. again, this whole month we get to celebrate all of the things that we do in the city that celebrate diversity in general and focus on our broad, deepening asian community and as she said, even though i am chinese, i love the fact that i can celebrate with the vietnamese and the korean and learn all of the subgroups that are forming that have come here, not only in san francisco, the whole bay area. and we come together, i know, we have a very special event

coming up on monday, at the jazz center. which is going to be i think for everybody a first to visit that. and to celebrate and i want to thank, the people who have been judging for our themes because it is not just cultural celebrations, they are actually focused this year on the asia contribution to the performing arts. and hopefully that gets me closer to hollywood. because we have a lot of stars in our communities and i know that in this era where we have grown up, certainly my parents did not necessarily put a great focus on the arts. but i know that as families starts establishments and certainly for me and anita, we wanted to make sure that our kids had an appreciate of the arts. we actually forced them to do

piano lessons. but then as we grew up, they really appreciated it. because they play and they enjoy it. that is why, my daughters got into the youth for asian art at loyal high school yfat and they gave them exposure and i know that katie knows that because she was introduced to it at the same time where the drama and performance complicated their education. and so now arts has become part of the education and because the appreciation of that means that you are even more well rounded in the things that we do. and for many of you who have worked with me in the last couple of years, you know that arts is leading the effort to revitalize market street. the tenderloin, south of market. it is the rising of that and i know that nobody in this room knows better than dr. lisa stevens of the academy of art

university, because we look at her business, and it is going because people appreciate the roll of arts in all of our lives. it enriches us. but it is also a great profession to become a part of. it is a great point of education the arts is now become a critical partner with technology. and you can't sell products without designing them for people who want to use them. you can't enliven people's enthusiasm without roles in arts. and so, it is part of our business as well. and so, i think that this great contribution of the arts is going to be wonderful and i want to thank dr. stevens and i want to thank richards and wo ng from bay cat from being the three wonderful judges that had the very difficult tasks of selecting these wonderful

contributers to our arts programs in the bay area. that will be announced on monday, i believe. so, they don't get to put the pressure on the mayor any more to make those decisions. because we always lose, you know, support when we don't have one winner, so we are depending on them. any way, again, that is just one aspect. come, may 18th. we have, of course, the annual 9th street fair asian heritage street fair and that will be here at civic center and again a wonderful celebration of bringing together multicultural asian participation. and those are, that is a lovely, lovely street there because it is one of the largest ones that just keeps building every year and i know that ted fang and the wonderful contributions of his committee is going to be helpful for that. there will be many other events

during this month, that again, celebrate asian heritage, cultural arts, performing arts. we have a lot that we are contributing to the whole art scene and all of the united states and i know that this is going on not only in our city. but across the country. and i want to take a moment to also give my personal thanks to the corporate sponsors because we could not, we are doing this without government funds, and it becomes invaluable to us. these public, private partnership and i want to give a mean thanks to the target stores to their lead contribution for the third year. and of course, we will work with them on the fourth year because this keeps going and so thank you, target. but there are so many others, of course, art university, and at&t. pg&e. mcdonalds. thank you, cici for being here and of course wells fargo bank are all great contributers to

this growing celebration. i also wanted to say that it is not just a celebration, we have a lot of work to do in this country. that is why part of my work, in visiting washington, d.c. last week was to work with mayor and represent the mayers of this country to push our country to make sure this month if not the next month, we get comprehensive immigration reform done, because that is part of why immigrants came to this country. we have established ourselves. immigrants from all of the different backgrounds. we have made san francisco one of the most special homes for immigrants. but we need to see our country modernized its immigration laws. we need to see that comprehensive immigration reform done and we need to celebrate more family unification and we need to get the dreamers here so they don't live in the shadows but live full lives. they earn the living that they have because we know, that if

people live in shadows they are going to have to be forced to accept the worse conditions for their jobs for their families. but we also know that as soon as someone has a pathway to citizenship their check powers and their ability to earn and contribute to the communities grows exponentially and this is part of the work that we need to do as mayers and senator and let's get this done in our life times. if does not happen this year it will not happen in your lifetime. we got to get it done, that is why we were there in washington, d.c. advocating with our partners to do that. that should be part of the way that we celebrate is we work harder to earn the passport for everybody else. i did not become mayor just to celebrate. i also became mayor to keep the doors of opportunity open for future generations. and it means a lot for the

whole asian community to be a part of this as well. because, you know what opportunities we seize upon it and then we work it and we open the doors for everybody else. and that is how a city becomes successful. because we keep those opportunities opened. so it means, much more than just cultural celebrations. you put in the light of history, and you work it with all of the elected officials and the appointed officials whether they are commissioners and department heads. and we have even more to work in to celebrate and to bring a lot more people involved in it. so, claudine and the committee and all of you who are here to celebrate. let's begin this month and celebrate the fashion and keep the work going and keep the opportunities going and make the month of may to be the greatest month and by the way, i get to celebrate my birthday at the same time. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you, mayor lee. so today's press conference is about thanking our sponsors and the exciting announcement of the heritage this year. and before i bring up the elected official to address you, i just wanted to take a moment to thank again all serving on the community to put this together especially the team co-chairs. thank you so much for your leadership. and the members of the committee, and we are very small group but you know i think that we come together and we make things happen and that is the most important. so without further adieu, i would like to invite supervisor katie tang. and followed by carmen chiu. >> i just wanted to take this opportunity to thank claudine and all of the hard working

volunteers to put the celebrations together. i know how hard you work, as mayor lee was talking about his experience and his daughter taking piano lessons especially with the theme this year in honoring at chiefments in the performing arts i was part of the band. and i played the nraout in middle school and high school and at that time it was very cool. and we actually got to the point where we got to perform at carnege hall. and it was a great experience and i don't know what my life would have been without having that in my background. as we are celebrating the performing arts, i want to encourage everyone to incorporate that into their lives and hope that many more generations of people will consider that a part of their childhood growing up as well. and again, i want to thank everybody and we are so lucky to be here in san francisco where we embrace the diversity and accept all sorts of people from all different cultures. so, hopefully, this month will be a great time as many of us

are so busy in our lives and i think that having a month where we dedicated to celebrating things such as women history month or asian pacific historiage month or small business month, it takes a moment to stop and think about the achievements and celebrate our different culture sos so thank you everybody. >> carmen chiu. >> good afternoon, everybody, san francisco's new assess er. and today i am honored to be with you and i want to thank all of the corporate sponsor and the many volunteers who have helped, year in and year out to put this event together and i want to appreciate you. but i also want to say that i know that this year's theme is about arts, i was not a young person who really did much in terms of arts. i did not play any instruments, probably played the recorder when i was in the second grade and it has not expanded beyond that very much but i think that

we can all appreciate what art does and the people who can actually carry that forward and what that really brings and how it enriches all of our lives. i think that in all of our lives we see how the art plays into it. when i negotiate with my husband is who is cooking i think that is a little bit more art. when i think about the work that our assessor's office does, it is more art than science in terms of valuing properties and so even in the places where you least expect art and creativity to exist, it does exist. of course we appreciate all of the arts community has to bring. i think that mayor ed lee's point is not only celebrating our accomplishments but thinking about the work that we have to do is an important one. the fact that we have the first mayor who is asian american and let's think about the folks who need advocacy and the folks that are immigrant and need

services and still have the rights not yet fully upon them. let's take this month to celebrate and do one other thing, call a senator or call someone in congress and say what do you think about immigration policy? let's do something and take one extra step and action this month, to not only recognize what we have done and the people who have done all of the work beforehand to give us these opportunities now. but what we can do to help the next generation forward. so today i just wanted to thank you and ask you to do one other thing to really help promote the asian american community and just the cultural diversity in this country. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, katie. so, at this point i would like to invite our major sponsors to give their remarks and we want to support this and already invited you to continue to support us. so, without further adieu, i am presenting and i appreciate it,

tiffany meyer is here representing target today. >> tiffany? >> thank you. good morning, everyone, i am both privileged and honored to be a part of this annual celebration. and recognition of apa heritage month. i just love the way that san francisco continues to celebrate its rich cultural, multicultural diversity. i am excited to say that the new storm manager for the soon to be second city target store in san francisco, this october, located on geary. and as a san francisco native i am proud to represent target and be a part of a company who has a legacy of giving back to the local communities. and even before target opens its doors, we were giving back 5 percent of our income. which today equals more than 4 million dollars a week to local communities. target is pp