public servant is not an easy job to take and i thank you all for what you do. i am trying to be advocate for the city with the community. so the second thing that i want to talk about is, around blight that we have a lot. and the first thing is that i want to make sure that you have open pots of money that can be leveraged. we can volunteers to do things but we need resources to do that. planning is an example of that and so i suggest that we continue to do that and the last thing is that i would say that we have mixed results with 311 and suggest that we take a look more closely at what could complete the cases of 311. i would say that 50 percent of the time they are a result verses the times when they are handed off. so thank you again and i appreciate all that you do. >> thank you. [ applause ] . >> and before she goes up i want to call the next five speakers if you want to make your way.

cheryl, and kim, brian, charles, i am sorry i can't read your last night, from inner sunset heights and dik more tan. >> good morning, good morning, mayers and supervisors. representatives from all of our city departments, please say hello to all of our seniors from the district 7 and district 4. and i thank them for coming to the town hall with us every time that we can, thank you for osha for providing language service and now it is easier to get the non-english speakers to come to this town hall because they feel that they can participate as equal citizens as those who speak english, thank you very much mayor and supervisors for supporting the language programs. today, for the elderly ceo i am here to talk about the needs of our seniors as you know, mayor and supervisors, san francisco is a highest number of seniors

over 65. we are already at 19 percent of the population higher than any city near us or near san francisco. i want to talk a little bit about how cpi has really eroded the core of the senior services that through path and the (inaudible) has provided to all of the seniors in san francisco for many years. for example, i am sure that kate and your budget staff have told us that for the cpi increase alone for food, for food items for the past six years the increase for food and gasoline and other cbi increased rises close to 57 percent. and for the past three years, 41 percent. and so mayor even when you make our nutrition program whole, a couple of years ago. but by, being... for the funding for the past five or

six or seven years and with the cost keep escalating and already support for the elderly as we try to serve the 300,000 for the year without finding ourselves staring at 100,000 dollar deficit and so i urge you to take a look at senior services like information referal, the (inaudible) program and the immigration program, the nutrition program, they all need some infusion of extra dollars from you. thank you very much. >> good morning mayor and supervisor and department heads, thank you so much for this opportunity to come before you and speak about the needs of our community. i also want to echo and i am really happy that we have translation available for our residents to be able to part of this process. and my name is kim garcia and my husband and i and our three school age children have been proud and happy residents for

district 7 and i have been in education for the past 20 years, the past six i have run and been the director of an inhome spanish language preschool and also in district seven i want to talk about the important need to be on the forward movement of providing quality, early childhood education from birth to age five and in san francisco, we have done some great innovative programs like preschool for all and we have invested in early childhood education and it is critical for us to continue to do that. it is a win, win, win, situation when we do. first of all when we provide quality early childhood education, from birth to age five, we make sure that our children come into our public school system, and our school system well prepared socially and emotionally and economically to enter our kindergartens, and we will previed the working families the opportunity to be part of the workforce and while making sure that the children are well cared for in the quality programs and as a small

business owner i consider a child care provider as part of our small businesses. we make sure that small business owners and providers and the platform in our district and our cities. and i am able to support and the child education and we all win. thank you. >> okay. so, good morning, city officials, my name is brian chu i and i represent the district on the youth commission and first of all i want to 1,000 jobs for youth and some of which will be firm mate throughout the year, this is accident because it is the youth to help with skills that are necessary for them to be

workers for the next generation and we hope that will become more of a permanent priority and on that note, many of these young people take muni and so what we like is a reliable system and a system that does not (inaudible) halfway through the sun et and be able to depend on through the school and work. and on the issue, is the pedestrian safety, and san francisco names one of the most dangerous cities for the pedestrians and i was using that at a loss for this meeting and whether it is stop signs or visible crosswalk or in forcing of laws i hope that the city can accomplish this in an urgent manner because i don't want to see another memorial before the city does this and some of the issues that will be discussed in the upcoming sunset district which i encourage anyone to attend and these meetings throughout next year and i hope that you will join me in the community to channel the district concerns

and supervisor tang's office. thank you. >> good morning, everyone, my name is chyrl and i am the administrator for (inaudible) and for the services and a social service agency that provides a full range of services from the cradle to the grave and the majority of the services are located in the what is attorney western part of san francisco. and we serve medically frail (inaudible) seniors around 86 is our average age and the clients attend our center two to three times a week and we are one of the largest centers in northern california. we provide medical services, nursing physical therapy,

occupational, therapy. and without our center, our clients will most likely be forced to live in a nursing home and possibly far away from the communities that they really would from their homes and their communities. and as you know, healthcare has taken a hit in the last several years and the state level and in fact the program was eliminated from the state as a medical option and due to a class action lawsuit and with hundreds of advocates from the state, it came back and we really appreciate the support of the mayor and the board of supervisors and the department of adult and aging services in providing for the funds and allow many clients to continue attending the center during this time. and to identify and to continue to help us for identify to cover the true cost of this critical and to support our

center as the year continues and additionally, we really strongly want to thank you for helping us with the ooa grant which is case management money and also to support and get the care that love that we get our seniors, thank you. good morning, my name is dick norton and i am going to speak on the disasters. i am responding with the red cross to help the people in those types of incidents and i am also chair of the disaster planning committee and i work with chief sur to develop a new first responder program for the police department. and i am focusing on what this

committee that i have worked with is how do you drill down, disaster to the neighborhood level? often it is at that level, our first responders police, fire and emergency, are going to be overwhelmed, so what do we have? we have an accident program headed by a wonderful person, lieutenant erica (inaudible) and she has thousands of existing (inaudible), multiple training sessions and (inaudible). she is an additional staff person, we need to increase the budget funding and we need to really institute advanced training, we are trained to use 2 by fours and it is a big difference to go up to the dbi and have to lift a ton of concrete and also we need to consider the neighborhood passes, so that we can have equipment, supplies where they are. and my second issue is on the

weather supply system. you can't really see it. but the red chart, by the former neighborhoods in this city, not served by a water supply system. we need to appropriate again at funds through a critical water supply systems and we all know that those are because we saw the photographs in the muni district of the people pulled out of bars and pulling hose. that is for the water supply system and we need those distributed around this neighborhood. thank you. >> thank you. >> before the next speaker i am going to call (inaudible) jennifer welch. robin (inaudible), (inaudible) and (inaudible). >> thanks. >> good morning, supervisors

department heads thank you for coming here this morning, my name is charles head and i am the president of the association of responsible people and i would like to echo the concern previously made by the mission association, about a temporary loss of parking as it may be two or four times, but what i am concerned about is a larger more permanent, what we, think of as a war on (inaudible) that seems to be going on. and this is several forms and what is the reduction of parking places due to the increased number of supply claims and other traffic calming measures. and it takes, you know, place with increased meetings. and... and it takes place with the collection of the parking on sundays and holidays that were normally not enforced. and i think for my point of view, i live close enough to a golden gate park to walk there and use muni all of the time.

but what is going on is that areas of the neighborhood basically are very congested on the weekend with the people taking our neighborhood parking places and it happens, consistently every weekend now. and let's see, we would like to be simple for the people who want to drive in the city and the tourism is an important component of what is the budget and we can't (inaudible) for the drivers or prevent them from coming into the city and the money that we would like to see them spend thank you very much. >> good morning. my name is jennifer welch and i

am the connector for the community living campaign and i want to share some of the highlights of our being connected through the community and the world through technology and (inaudible) hospital. and we begin and work around to give something to look forward to. and they will get together and we discovered to have a reliable way to contact your family. a place in the hands, our a home and world open (inaudible). we started through (inaudible) interested in technology. living in an institution that you have isolated and we don't feel why you can't contribute anything. and we (inaudible) need people from all over the world. (inaudible) and wanted to be able to the residents to have

the same liberating experience. now the talks about how wonderful it is that he could be in the hospital and travel the world, by giving a couple of (inaudible) key board. (inaudible) having a bad day, but something that he likes might change (inaudible). this is how he is contributing to the outside world from the hospital. and a year ago, with the support of the community and living campaign, the residents (inaudible) got together to create and run a computer club and i have seen the members (inaudible) where they learned. [ applause ]

>> good morning, i'm robin (inaudible) and i live in district 7. but, i also serve on the city's pedestrian safety advisory committee and i understand the comments of some of the previous speakers, we are faced with that, when we hear the terrible statistics of people who are killed in this city. yearly, the numbers are enormous, but i want to speak to you about a program called the bicycle and (inaudible) program. this program exists in many cities across the country, and i would like to see the program with the (inaudible) new york city implemented in san francisco. as they have increased, although the coalition does teach bicycle safety, many of them are running red lights, not stopping at stop signs and

failing to yield to pedestrians. and although, i am a child advocate, i do belong to many senior organizations and have told me that they are more afraid of bicyclists than they are of cars. so this is a program where you train bicyclists, and they wear a special shirt that says bicycle ambassador program on them. and they carry pamphlets with the information of the rules of the road. you stop at stop signs, you don't run red lights and you yield to pedestrians and this program only costs $47,000 in new york city, i run the program by the retired captain of traffic, (inaudible) and he likes the program because it is an education program. the ambassadors are trained to be polite. and they speak very nicely to people on the street. and it was, it would compliment the program of bicycle safety that is taught at the coalition. and i think that we could be

very successful and they would take a pledge when they give them the information on the rules of the road. and they would wear a little patch that says, yes, i will follow the rules of the road. it is a step between doing nothing about enforcement and the police. thank you very much. >> my name is frank noto. and i am with the golden gate heights neighborhood association but i am here not to speak so much about a local neighborhood issue but one that effects all of us in san francisco. and that is you hear there is a request for services here. and that is virtually everything that we have heard so far from the public. but we get services from san francisco, because we pay for them. we get one of our state and most of the money comes from the tax payers and so, we need to be concerned about costs,

and productivity and efficiency. and the productivity will be that the city has been doing things to increase productivity and for them i thank the department heads and mayor lee. but i think that we need to look at costs. the issues of healthcare, pensions, and health for recoveries are something that we can't say that is done, because that is going to effect us over time not just this year but five years from now and ten years from now. please don't leave us a legacy where we have to cut services drasically in the future because you have not done those things. so, that is really important for you supervisors, as well as for the mayor, i think. in terms of efficiency, i just want to take one small program, supervisor chin has legislation on sequa that will be less efficient and cost us more

money, small projects in this case, they are all small, small projects. and (inaudible) and we are going to have more appeals, and you are going to have them later in the process, that means that when you are doing street improvements for the small and parks and you got to go through the process and then at the end they say, no, you are going to have another appeal here and that is expressed to us as the taxpayers and to the city and so thank you for listening. [ applause ] >> hi, my name is (inaudible) and i am hear as a resident of district seven. and my son is graduating from (inaudible) and going to (inaudible) next year. and i am also the executive director of an organization called intersection for the arts which is a 50-year-old art and community organization that is located downtown and does work all over the city. we support a member of important art project and workshops in these district and

neighborhoods. and a significant number of the artists that we work with leave in these neighborhoods. before redistricting, as far as i can tell, we are in 7, and another item, i looked really closely with it and the action committee and the cvd and the merchant's association and supervisor avalos's office and a bunch of non-profits to launch the festivals on mission street and (inaudible) avenue. these things (inaudible) and they have lives of their own and they are beautiful examples of how arts and committee collaboration can really enlifen the streets and i am here to urge you to consider the immense power of the arts. more and more of these artists are called on to bring the people together to instigate more in our neighborhood by activating quiet place and working with the youth and going into the schools and community center and working with cvos this is really important. i am also here because our

agencis in san francisco, commission and for the arts have taken significant hits in the last couple of years, the commission grants program has not been increased for years and grants for the arts took a 25 percent cut and i just want us to understand what is at stake. the arts are a central development component in this city and without the arts, bridging gaps and helping to educate our children and working in our neighborhoods and, plus we run the risk of how kind of an change that would be unimaginable. if you could do that, consider the agency and the role that they play in every issue that we talked about today, thank you. >> thank you. >> and now i am going to call up the last group of five. glen rogers and moody, carroll. thomas (inaudible) and aubrie freeman.

>> hi, members of the audience, your honor, dignitaries here. i am up here and i am coming here from the park coalition. and it is in the upcoming neighborhood in the city and i believe that it is going to be a star neighborhood for the city and working closely with the department of public works and to work with the parks department and the mta and your honor, and the supervisors and we have a wonderful new supervisor and including tang over here and but, i did not come here to address that. what i wanted to do was to address something that i believe effects all of the whole city. and rather than it is not a criticism, it is a suggestion. this is a facility for example, if it was offered, it is not always being used it is not being used now, so we are using it during the summer and other times throughout the year it is not being used. our city has fought with what i

call the assets and in other words, the assets that could be utilized to increase our revenues for the city of san francisco. and i happen to be in a particularly unique situation having visited all of the schools because i have been working with the schools for over ten years and all of the schools since i am retired from the newspaper and i am a substitute teacher at this point and i am also retired from the teacher's association and i know that there are facilities and for example, washington high school has a view that overlooks golden gate park as a tremendous view of golden gate park and there was all of these, and lincoln right over here and has tremendous views looking over the pacific ocean and down, and going off of the auditor ums and going over, the kitchens... so what i am suggesting is that i feel that that is not just true with

the school system. i suspect, that in other areas that we have these same what i will call unused assets. and what i am recommending is that we should do an inventory of these assets and see if what we can't offer some of these assets to our cooperate community, and so that for example, when conventions come in, we could offer these assets and then, have a new revenue stream coming into the city to maybe get, okay, i'm being asked to stop. to being..., any way you understand what i am driving at. and i hope that the mayor will see the advantage of... [ applause ] >> mayor, supervisors, and fellow san franciscoans, i wanted to discuss the budget

out look, and i am sure that this is something that you folks all know about the major problem with the budget is pensions are paid and in healthcare costs. one of the (inaudible) bring to the mayor's attention and i hope that he would encourage san franciscoans to be able to vote for a bill that is going to become available in the near future. which would be able to monitor the cost of healthcare. presently healthcare, you know, is running out of control. and the... at the one point had paid $20 million to their ceo just before they gave her the boot. also, the healthcare raised their rates 17 percent, which was too high obviously.

so this new healthcare watch dog is approved it would make-up california be monitored the same way that other insurance is not insured. and california has the lowest rates for auto insurance in the united states. because of this watch dog agency. and so this particular bill would be a great boone to the budget. in terms of a pension reform, i think that any of these items would probably be too contentious to be discussed here in an open forum. however i will e-mail to supervisor yee, the informative website that i found on that subject and i would hope that someone would consider the suggestions in this e-mail from me. thank you.

good morning, my name is clarise moody and i live at (inaudible) and today i want to talk about something that will not cost any more money but involves code enforcement and pedestrian safety and quality of life issues in the sunset. along the (inaudible) corridor, some of the shop owners have ex-expanded their wares practically covering the sidewalk and you can't walk through. (inaudible) the produce, department so now out there, although there is some meat out there too. pedestrian safety also includes cars that are parked in driveways consistently, trucks. and once i stopped a metered person and said you know there is a guy that has his pick up out there with the term headache bar whatever that thing is on the pop of the pick up and it is extended clear into the street. sxim a walker my husband is a

walker, we walk daily from 34th to 19th, and also, the trash along that area, i am so glad the city has sponsored whatever department it is with those (inaudible) volunteers who have (inaudible) and they are cleaning, i mean that we have the cigarette butts and all of that. okay, i am not just a cranky old senior, but i just like code enforcement and so that our quality of life can be really good. this is a great city and we want it clean and safe for walkers and bless you all for coming out. [ applause ] >> good morning, my name is tom sulpert and i have been a resident for the sunset for 30 years, at least. and i am an architect by profession and i am here also to speak on behalf of our newly formed residents association and the sunset residents

association. and i wish to also echo the many comments in regards to the quality of life in our streets and the sunset. and we were engaged in the process of designing prototype street scaped signs within our own local community and we are here not to ask for something but to offer our services of my architectural firm to anyone in the audience that is interested in these sorts of problems. the city has a wonderful document, called the better streets of san francisco and there are many, wonderful things in that document that we should also learn from and implement. and we would like to help offer our services to help anyone in the community that is in need of this. i will be available after the meeting if anyone wishes to talk with me. thank you. [ applause ]