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tv   [untitled]    June 21, 2013 7:30pm-8:01pm PDT

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>> thank you for hearing your comments tonight. it's great to hear from the community. and sorry if not everyone got a chance to speak tonight. wanted to give you a quick time frame in terms of the budget process and city hall. over the next two months we will have different departments and finance committee, it's open to the public. you are welcome to attend the the mayor and the staff will present the budget to the board of supervisors in early june. and we will review for a month. and we will hold hearings in city hall, again open to the public. and we aim to present to the board of supervisors and have it signed by middle of the year. please come and let your voices be heard. and thank you again for all of your comments tonight. thank you. >> and now we will hear from
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supervisor cohen and supervisor avalos and mayor lee. >> all right, i know there are some people in the audience that still want an opportunity to speak. i want to let you know, i will speak on behalf for you mr. avalos. but it's an opportunity that we welcome everyone that wants to meet with us, can come and talk to us about the budget. i want to appreciate everyone that came out. everyone that came out, it's important to be a part of this conversation. that's about it. there you go. >> thank you for being here, i will stay longer, we have to get home kids have homework. but i will stay longer. our process as a city needs to
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reflect the great needs we have here in district 10 and 11. and one thing we have is lots of senior and young people. and we have higher levels of poverty in this district. that our city needs to respond to. something that i am committed to work on and hear from more you on how i can be supportive. thank you. >> rather than listen to me, i will yield my time to you. please go up there now and give us your two minutes, okay. i got these two in front of me. let them finish. go ahead. >> my name is robert woods. i have been working in this community since 1972. working with avallo when he was mayor of san francisco. when i worked in the community, i saw the community working and making money.
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and not on their knees like they are now. and for anybody to be less than human, and you don't recognize that. the community is crippled and they need help. they need help. they don't need no promises, they need help. and i say to you that i didn't just get off the tomato truck today. this is something that we have been dealing with for a long time. and for you to come here and to deny us a chance to speak to this group. i am sorry that -- i do not like being ignored. especially when the community need help. and i say to you, whatever this community needs, give it to them. because number one i come out
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here every day and i teach a ged math class for adu. i ain't making no money. but i tell you what, it's something that i know that the community needs. we got six people who passed the ged test and no one really expected us to have that many people. so i come here every day to put in my time. because i look for the community that need my help. i am an architect by education. i spent time in the neighborhood. i director of housing for the city of atlanta empowerment agency. i been around. i been around. so i do not like what i see when i drive down third street.
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it don't make me feel good. if any of y'all drive third street and feel good? i say this is not the place for you. thank you. >> i want to thank you mayor. you know this is my community. espinola jackson, dr. espinola jackson's community. and when i raise my hand for them to pick up if one wants to have something to say. i had my hand in the air first, i don't know how i got behind. i ran behind for the speakers, they don't know the services we have in this building here in this community college. we have second language here, and no one should be ignored. everything was talked about
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except aids prevalent here in bayview hunter's point. we want to see a change in that and also in education, transportation. we have turk out in this community. our young people cannot go to school unless they are jumped upon. this needs to be stopped. and only you can stop this, and help our young people get an education each across town. someone spoke about the transportation. i want to say this, when that third street rail was built. they didn't finish it. they started it. it was supposed to go all the way to city college, but it didn't go there. mr. mayor, i want to say this to you, and i be finished because i can talk to you later ----okay,
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i will take you with me. i want you to stop using the te term war-time housing, there is no war-time housing in san francisco. they were all torn down in 1954 when the integration law was passed where we blacks can live next door to white folks. the public housing, san francisco redevelopment agency, they became public housing after 1954 for black folks. thank you very much, you need to know, and i want to give you the history of my community. because i have been here 70 years. thank you. >> all right, first of all those who spoke and sat through this and all the departments and elected officials. i want to thank everyone. it's been an intense night. we got a lot of feedback and a lot of viewpoints.
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we have to continue working hard. we will be doing our best. and please again feel welcome to give us your input and keep working with us. that's the most important thing of these town hall meetings, we need your input and we will do our best. and keep working with us. thank you very much. good night. i'm nicole and lindsey, i like the fresh air. when we sign up, it's always so
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gratifying. we want to be here. so i'm very excite ied to be here today. >> your volunteerism is appreciated most definitely. >> last year we were able to do 6,000 hours volunteering. without that we can't survive. volunteering is really important because we can't do this. it's important to understand and a concept of learning how to take care of this park. we have almost a 160
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acres in the district 10 area. >> it's fun to come out here. >> we have a park. it's better to take some of the stuff off the fences so people can look at the park. >> the street, every time, our friends. >> i think everybody should give back. we are very fortunate. we are successful with the company and it's time to give back. it's a great place for us. the weather is nice. no rain. beautiful san francisco. >> it's a great way to be able to have fun and give back and
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walk away with a great feeling. for more opportunities we have volunteering every single day of the week. get in touch with the parks and recreation center so come >> good morning. thank you for joining me here at the board chambers, and thank you to board president david chiu, budget chair mark farrell, members of the board of supervisors, our elected officials, our commissioners, and our department heads. and welcome, members of the public who joined us this morning. this year's budget reflects a lot of hard work between city government and the people that we serve. we've met in every district of the city. we've worked with our elected city family. we listened to hundreds of community leaders and providers who help us deliver services to the people of san francisco.
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and it's because of this consensus approach that i'm proud to propose a responsible and balanced two-year budget that reflects the core values that we share in san francisco, values of fiscal responsibility, social responsibility, and investing in our city's future. when we began this year's budget, we began like many years before, trying to reduce significant budget deficits. but because we have pursued policies to control costs, grow our economy, create jobs and stabilize our fiscal health, this year i'm proposing a budget that protects our social safety net, one that increases public safety, and one that invests in our city's infrastructure at unprecedented levels. and it is a budget that significantly grows our city's reserves. this budget is being delivered
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as san francisco's economy is recovering, going, and moving in the right direction. and san franciscans are getting back to work. in fact, our unemployment rate has dropped, as you all know, from 9.5% in january of 2011 to an astounding 5.4% just last month. (applause) >> i know, i know it has -- it has not been easy. we've had to work hard with our health services system, our care -- our health care providers, and labor to reduce employee health care costs. and because of our collaboration, we will now save $52 million over the next two years. and we've made tough but necessary choices on everything from escalating pension costs to reforming our unfair job punishing business tax. we've injected a healthy dose
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of fiscal discipline with two-year budgeting, five-year financial planning, and a 10-year capital plan to get to us this point. but it's been worth it. san francisco's credit ratings have been upgraded by every rating agency in the past year, making our tax dollars go further when we deliver capital projects, and giving our city even more investor confidence. so, now it is not the time to take our eyes off the ball. we have to continue reforms to protect our city's economic recovery and make our city safe, solvent, and successful. like taking meaningful action to address our $4.4 billion of unfunded retiree health care liability. thank you, supervisor mark farrell, for taking this on. you have my full support on this important issue. (applause)
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>> while reforms and sacrifices have spared us deep cuts we've experienced during the deepest part of our economic downturn, we still have much work to do. this year's projected $123.6 million general fund shortfall and next year's $256 million shortfall requires strategic choices and strategic investment. so, in this budget you will see fiscal prudence, a high level of services to our residents, investments that protect our social safety net, increased public safety support for our neighborhoods, support for our critical infrastructure, and investments in our economy and job creation. one thing we agreed on early was that in the time of state and federal cuts, protecting our social safety net is more important than ever. so, therefore, i have rejected all proposed year-one mental
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health and substance abuse reductions from public health department and i have restored $4 million in federal cuts to programs serving people with aids and hiv. (applause) >> and, and we will continue our efforts to be a healthier city. the affordable care act will extend health insurance to 35,000 san franciscans and our department of public health and human services agency will implement our nation's health care reform. but on our streets there are still too many people, families without a place to call home. and that's why we are extending a dedicated emergency family shelter to provide year round services, adding 25 more units of family supportive housing and supporting a new approach to housing transitional aids youth and getting them connected to work.
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(applause) >> to offset the state's deep cuts to our school district, this proposed budget includes an unprecedented $110 million in education support over the next two years, and we are taking on additional responsibilities at our school districts where we will see new support from the private sector for middle schools, and new support with our federal partners with promised neighborhoods grants. and thanks to our city librarian, we will be extending library hours throughout our city. (applause) >> we are going to make san francisco an even safer city. we developed a six-year police staff and fire staffing plan to train san francisco's first
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responders. over the next two years ~ san francisco will hire 300 new sworn police officers with six new academy classes. and we will add 120 firefighters with three new fire academy classes. with with 35 construction cranes across our skyline, you can see public and private construction jobs being created every day. in fact, an estimated 223,000 jobs will be created over the next 10 years from city projects alone. for our part, we're making a sound investment of $25.1 billion in capital projects over the next 10 years through our city's ten-year capital plan. this proposed budget includes unprecedented levels of general fund sub poderth for these smart capital investments. ~ support $72 million in year one and $105 million in year two.
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thank you, president david chiu, for your collaboration on our city's 10 year capital plan that will ensure we strategically invest in our city's infrastructure. (applause) >> now, this budget will fully fund the street repaving program to improve streets and sidewalks and continue construction and planning on critical projects such as the water and sewer system improvement programs, our new general hospital, the bayview opera house, and improvements to muni. and thanks to the 195 million dollar voter approved parks bond, we will continue to invest in our parks and open spaces. (applause) ~ >> last year, together with the support of voters, we passed the housing trust fund, a $1.5 billion stream of funding over the next 30 years for
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affordable housing and assistance to first-time home buyers. over the next two years we have budgeted $42.8 million for new affordable housing development for helping first-time homeowners including first responders with down payment assistance and preserving and stabilizing existing housing. here's a fact. every public dollar for new affordable housing development will be leveraged with two private dollars. all of these investments are needed to protect the housing stock in our city and to make sure san francisco can be affordable. and we are doing it smartly with some of the strongest tenant protectionses in place. the small businesses are at the heart and soul of our local economy. my proposed budget includes funding for an online business portal to cut through bureaucratic red tape and make it easier for an entrepreneur to start and operate a business in san francisco.
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this budget continues my invest in neighborhoods initiative that is creating customized plans in 25 different neighborhood commercial districts and providing job squad and providing a job squad that brings city hall to our neighborhood businesses. and because san francisco's truly a global city, we're going to build on the success of china s.f. and expand our outreach to latin america and asian market street, not just to attract businesses to come here, but i'd like for us to really begin to introduce "made in san francisco" products to these growing market street. (applause) ~ markets >> while the worst of the economic crisis may be behind us, we cannot deviate from our commitment to fiscal responsibility and reform. we will continue to invest in
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our neighborhoods, in our infrastructure, and most importantly, in our people. i want to recognize budget chair supervisor mark farrell again for leading the budget effort and making this a very collaborative process. i want to thank my staff led by steve kava, and to my budget office led by kate howard. and also a great thanks to ben rosenfield, our city controller and his staff, and then an anticipated thanks in advance to budget analyst harvey rose for his anticipated cooperation. [laughter] >> so, i know this is short, but i think you look at the budget. to me it's quite a sweet budget. so, let's roll up our sleeves. let's get this budget done collaboratively. and then let's spend our time making sure that we get 6,000 jobs for our youth this summer. thank you very much. (applause)
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when a resident of san
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francisco is looking for health care, you look in your neighborhood first. what is closest to you? if you come to a neighborhood health center or a clinic, you then have access it a system of care in the community health network. we are a system of care that was probably based on the family practice model, but it was really clear that there are special populations with special needs. the cole street clinic is a youth clinic in the heart of the haight ashbury and they target youth. tom woodell takes care of many of the central city residents and they have great expertise in providing services for many of the homeless. potrero hill and southeast health centers are health centers in those particular communities that are family health centers, so they provide health care to patients across
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the age span. . >> many of our clients are working poor. they pay their taxes. they may run into a rough patch now and then and what we're able to provide is a bridge towards getting them back on their feet. the center averages about 14,000 visits a year in the health clinic alone. one of the areas that we specialize in is family medicine, but the additional focus of that is is to provide care to women and children. women find out they're pregnant, we talk to them about the importance of getting good prenatal care which takes many visits. we initially will see them for their full physical to determine their base line health, and then enroll them in prenatal care which occurs over the next 9 months. group prenatal care is designed to give women the opportunity to bond during their pregnancy with other women that have
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similar due dates. our doctors here are family doctors. they are able to help these women deliver their babies at the hospital, at general hospital. we also have the wic program, which is a program that provides food vouchers for our families after they have their children, up to age 5 they are able to receive food vouchers to get milk and cereal for their children. >> it's for the city, not only our clinic, but the city. we have all our children in san francisco should have insurance now because if they are low income enough, they get medical. if they actually have a little more assets, a little more income, they can get happy family. we do have family who come outside of our neighborhood to come on our clinic. one thing i learn from our clients, no matter how old they are, no matter how little english they know, they know
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how to get to chinatown, meaning they know how to get to our clinic. 85 percent of our staff is bilingual because we are serving many monolingual chinese patients. they can be child care providers so our clients can go out and work. >> we found more and more women of child bearing age come down with cancer and they have kids and the kids were having a horrible time and parents were having a horrible time. how do parents tell their kids they may not be here? what we do is provide a place and the material and support and then they figure out their own truth, what it means to them. i see the behavior change in front of my eyes. maybe they have never been able to go out of boundaries, their lives have been so rigid to
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sort of expressing that makes tremendous changes. because we did what we did, it is now sort of a nationwide model. >> i think you would be surprised if you come to these clinics. many of them i think would be your neighbors if you knew that. often times we just don't discuss that. we treat husband and wife and they bring in their kids or we treat the grandparents and then the next generation. there are people who come in who need treatment for their heart disease or for their diabetes or their high blood pressure or their cholesterol or their hepatitis b. we actually provide group medical visits and group education classes and meeting people who have similar chronic illnesses as you do really helps you understand that you are not alone in dealing with this. and it validates the experiences that you have and so you learn from each other.
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>> i think it's very important to try to be in tune with the needs of the community and a lot of our patients have -- a lot of our patients are actually immigrants who have a lot of competing priorities, family issues, child care issues, maybe not being able to find work or finding work and not being insured and health care sometimes isn't the top priority for them. we need to understand that so that we can help them take care of themselves physically and emotionally to deal with all these other things. they also have to be working through with people living longer and living with more chronic conditions i think we're going to see more patients coming through. >> starting next year, every day 10,000 people will hit the age of 60 until 2020. . >> the needs of the patients that we see at kerr senior center often have to do with
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the consequences of long standing substance abuse and mental illness, linked to their chronic diseases. heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, stroke, those kinds of chronic illnesses. when you get them in your 30's and 40's and you have them into your aging process, you are not going to have a comfortable old age. you are also seeing in terms of epidemics, an increase in alzheimer's and it is going to increase as the population increases. there are quite a few seniors who have mental health problems but they are also, the majority of seniors, who are hard-working, who had minimum wage jobs their whole lives, who paid social security. think about living on $889