>> happy arbor day, everyone. we have a lot of volunteers from the richmond district center. i grew up in the california area, ended up at uc-davis. i made my way out to san francisco in 1984 when i was a college student. i remember growing up on clement street. i have always lived around in richmond area, just being around a unique area of the richmond, discovering san francisco in the 1980's. >> i am hoping we can not support small businesses like this because they are the unique character that makes neighborhoods like this so rich and lively to live in. >> i have also been active as a community organizer. i worked at the chinese

progressive association. i also worked at the mental health center in the richmond district. i have always been passionate about civil rights, equality for everyone. i have a 10-year-old daughter, so having a girl has made me much more sensitive to gender equality issues. i guess i have always been vocal about my politics, but as a supervisor, i have to listen to other perspectives and making decisions. >> very soon there will be of much more seniors in that area. we are trying to focus on whether a stop sign or stoplight might help. >> tried to look at issues of senior nutrition programs, alzheimer's research, even housing policies that allowed our buildings to become more senior-friendly. also looking at how to support senior services, neighborhood- by-neighborhood programs that allow aging in place.

people who are getting older helping each other stay in their homes and communities longer so that they can contribute as long as possible, as opposed to institutionalizing them. >> i support working families, livable communities, definite drawn support for the small business. even in my district, there are pockets of poverty and many people of work. so it is also about supporting those under employed people, small businesses in this difficult economy. >> there are a lot of vacant storefronts, so we are trying to find people to read these spaces. there is a bookstore over there. this way there are a lot of businesses that have been closing. >> i support the small businesses versus more chain stores that seem to be coming in to some of the vacant storefronts. i am trying to be sensitive to the local merchants because they

make up the unique character and diversity of our neighborhoods. you go to lafayette. i was just there reading to a bunch of kids. i think i was reading to fifth graders. what grade are you in? >> as a member of the school board, i know strong schools in the richmond is key. also, from the birth to 5 commission -- each commission has an organization to oversee pre-kindergarten kids. i want to ensure that the state level that we advocate strong support for young children and their families, good parenting support as well. >> often, we have to govern with our hearts. 80,000 people in the richmond district sometimes have different needs than people in the mission district or bayview hunters point. so often, elected officials and other hard working staff have to

make tough decisions. they are political in nature, in many ways, even though people denied that, but at times, many of us are politicians, but we always try to govern with our hearts. >> i have always considered myself having progressive politics. i believe in a vision of people having their needs met. i believe in equity. when people have special needs, we should be considered of that. i also feel that working families in the lowest income population should have a safety net. we should have civil-rights and equality rights for people as well. if that is being a progressive, then i am proud of being a progressive.

>> i just want to make a public statement to acknowledge that appointments to the police commission and any commission which is a policy-making body is very important. i want to encourage about keep in front of our minds the importance of not only to elect women, but to work to get more women appointed to these bodies that help make legislative decisions for our city and county of san francisco. >> i am from san francisco. i grew up in the local neighborhood. i did my under deprad wait work at fisk university, where i studied political science with a concentration in public administration and worked eight years largely in the public sector. then i earned a master's degree from carnegie melon in pittsburg, pennsylvania. i spent some time as assistant executive director for a

non-profit. we did work if a lot of kids in the neighborhood. i have done fundraising for candidates and issues. i have experience with the federal reserve bank of san francisco. when i look around my neighborhood and see the changes that are happening, i so there is no neighborhood grocery store. i see that small businesses in particular are coming and going, and they haven't been able to really sustain themselves. from my work experience in working for the city in the mayor's office as well as in the non-profit, i had a good sense as to what some of the challenges were. when i look in the future, i could see more challenges coming. i thought i had a set of experiences and more importantly a passion and desire to serve. >> i understand that no one wants to have their programs cut. of course not. i also want everyone here to understand that no one up here wants to cut programs because they don't care about the population being served. there are no value ains here. we are all on the same team. it is a tough situation, as we

are here so that we can begin the work together. >> i am actually more forward thinking. for me it is less about being left or right, or in this town, moderate or progressive. it is really about the issues and about creating policies that will have a sustainable and lasting positive impact on the families that live here. it is very costly and difficult to do business in sfrinls, to raise your children in san francisco, and i would like to have a voice at that table to really create policies that will minimize that san francisco is not a big business-friendly city. i think we started to go in the wrong direction. the reason why we started walking down that path largely was because of political ideology. when you deal with me, you are dealing with facts, less than politics. i really want to have a positive impact on the city overall. >> good afternoon, everyone. how are you? >> good. >> it's a nice day today. thank you for coming out to our community event. please give a round of

[applause] to them. we have a lot of development going on. you see how lovely leland street looks. do you like it? >> yes. >> beautiful, isn't it? we are going to continue. we have a library that is going to be opening up in june. that's right. so i will see you all there at the library. there is a lot of activity going on. it is important we remain connected and engaged. >> would you mind if we were to pull the seniors together and translate for me in a mini meeting? >> yes, sir. >> what we are going ready to do is we are going to have a quick little mini meeting to -- because we didn't translate my short message before. >> i just want to say i want to welcome everyone to the event. >> we have folks in visitation valley only talking with visitation valley. we have folks in bayview again

only talking in a very small corridor of 3rd straight and the merchant corridor. we don't have people talking to the hill merchant association, doing patch. all these fragrmented conversations are happening, largely talking about the same thing, crime, keeping the streets clean, supporting sbaubs. that is something i made a concerted effort on the campaign to build bridges. >> along third street, dog patch, and everyone along the cord door has the same complaint. >> i have the same complaint. >> we have the third street merchant corridor and an opportunity to revite lies what i consider to be the main artery of the business district. it is a pretty long street. there is a lot of opportunity there. let's not squander that. when we recruit businesses, we want it to be a healthy mix that reflects the cultural

history of the southeast part of the city. we are all human, and how to connect with that human spirit, whether you are in public housing, own your own property, or if your asian, african-american, male or female, we are really a community. when we start to realize and move in the direction of being humans and having this human experience and connecting together, really if you will, being each other's keeper, then san francisco really begins to continue to thrive. >> hello, welcome to meet your district supervisor. i'm linda melkonian and we're here with supervisor london breed from district 5 which

includes the inner sunset, haight/ashbury, lower hate, japantown and part of hayes valley. she was one of two supervisors in 2012. we'll talk to her about the tougher issues facing the city. welcome, supervisor. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you for having me. >> let's start by talking a little about your background, where you grew up, went to school and what of jobs you've had in the past. >> i grew up in the heart of the western addition, i grew up in public housing. my grandmother raised me and my brothers and i went to public schools here in the city. ended up at u.c. davis and graduated and immediately returned back to the community and started working for the mayor's office of neighborhood services and worked on treasure island and eventually became the executive director of the african-american art and culture complex located in the western addition community, a place that i participated in programs in the arts as a kid. and, so, it was really an honor to be able to work directly in

the community to impact so many lives. and i really thoroughly enjoy that experience. >> you lived most of your life in san francisco. why did you choose to live in the city? >> i chose because it's my home. it's just a place i love the most. i pretty much only lived outside the city when i went to college, and i came home almost every weekend on the greyhound bus. i just love san francisco. it's an amazing place. it's a beautiful city. it's nothing like coming across that bridge and seeing the city and feeling like, i'm home. or coming from any part of anywhere, whether you're on a plane, whether you're on a bus, whether you're in a car, just to see the skyline of the city, it's just always made me feel at peace. and, so, i can't imagine myself living anyplace else. >> what motivated you to get involved in politics? >> well, as i said, i grew up in public housing and i experienced a lot of sad times,

as some people are still experiencing. whether it's crime and violence, issues of despair, issues of hopelessness. i mean, that still continues to plague many of our public housing residents today. and, so, it's really challenging when this is the way that i pretty much spent most of my life. and when i think about the challenges people are still going through, i know that the only way to make changes to those type of issues is to actually be a part of the decision making body of this city. and, so, what motivated me in the past has always been about making sure that i wasn't the only one that had an incredible opportunity to participate in the city, to have a great life in the city. i felt like there were too many of my peers that should have had the same opportunity. and, so, it's a big reason why i decided to participate in politics. >> you mentioned you were the executive director of the african-american arts and

culture complex. how has that experience as well as the experience of serving on two commissions prepared you for the board of supervisors? >> well, i did serve on the san francisco redevelopment agency commission and the fire commission, and i was really fortunate to run this great center. and all of those experiences, running a nonprofit, being on a commission, working for the city, responding to constituents, doing the kinds of things that many folks are doing every single day to make our city better, i mean, i don't see a better preparation than that for becoming a city supervisor. the nonprofit world is a very challenging community to work in because of the fund-raising involved, because of the needs for such great programs. so, to be in the middle of that and to advocate for an incredible community asset, to work with city departments, to obtain funding, i mean, the list goes on and on. so, over the years i've been fortunate to develop some incredible relationships with city department heads and other

city commissioners who helped me to do some of the great work i've been able to do in the community. so, it's somewhat of a natural progression and i think all of that entails -- really helped me to be -- it's going to help me in my role as supervisor and it help me to actually get here. >> district 5 race for supervisor was an especially eventful one this time around. what did you learn amidst all that controversy and all that competition? >> i think that what i learned is that we have an incredible district of people who can see what's genuine, who can see when someone really cares and has the heart for the community. and i think that was demonstrated in who they decided to elect. regardless of personalitieses or ideology, or what have you, people know when you really care. and i think that came across in my campaign. so, what i learned is to respect the voters and respect how they feel about candidates, whether it's me or anyone else. i want to make sure that they

are given the options and they are able to make the choice that they choose. and that once the election is over, we move on and do what we need to do to make our city better. >> where do you place yourself on the political spectrum? are you more progressive, centrist or on the conservative side? >> that's a really challenging question because, i mean, throughout the campaign i made sure that i didn't define myself as either because i think that what it does is in a lot of ways it divides our city. i think clearly when you have a desire to run, you have a desire to serve. you really care about what happens in san francisco. you just have a different way in which you believe we should go about doing that. and i just think that i don't necessarily see myself in one particular category because i have different feelings about different situations based on my various experiences of growing up in the city. and, so, my, my, my commitment to san francisco trumps any ideaology i might have.

i mean, i'm going to need to make decisions that impact people's lives so i have to make sure that i'm being responsible in those decisions. i can't let ideology get in the way of that. >> i think the city is always dealing with complicated issues as you mentioned. what do you feel are some of the biggest issues facing san francisco right now? >> i think there are a few big issues, but in particular, my priority is public housing. the fact that it's a neglected community is really a problem for me. the fact that they're still dealing with rodent infestation and some of the challenges of job opportunities. i think this city is a wealthy city. we spend a lot of money on social services in our city, but why are these social services not impacting people's lives in the way that it's changing people's lives for the better? so, i want to make sure that we work with residents and we work to help them grow within public housing and to not be priced out of the city as a result. i think that's one of the big issues. the other issue is connecting

people to job opportunities, long-term employment, stable employment, employment that gives people dignity, that gives them pride. i mean, everyone wants to take care of their family. and sadly, people are sometimes pushed into a life of crime because that's the easy route to obtaining money. i mean, it was really easy for me as a kid to choose to sell drugs because everyone around me was selling drugs. wasn't easy for me to get a job because i didn't have a lot of examples of people working other than my grandmother who was working as a maid, or other folks i saw working at the grocery store. for me, i felt like well, drugs is easier, you can easily go out on the corner and stand and sell drugs. but luckily, because of the mayor's youth employment and training program, i got a job at age 14, started work at the family school, working with some incredible people and because of that opportunity i'm here today. and i think we need to make these opportunities more readily available to folks in

public housing. >> you mentioned working on the redevelopment commission for five years. now that the state has eliminated redevelopment agency, do you think the mayor and the board of supervisors is doing enough to serve the city's housing needs? >> well, i think you can never do enough. there are still a lot of folks who are homeless. but i do think that san francisco is leading the way to innovative policies that can really help change things for the better post redevelopment. i think the affordable housing trust fund is a step in the right direction. and it's something that no one else is doing all over the state. i think that the fact that san francisco is so committed to affordable housing, we already had resources where we were invested in affordable housing in the city, but more importantly, we're looking at revamping public housing and how that fits into the bigger picture of affordable housing long term for san francisco. we're looking at public-private partnerships. i just think san francisco is

really leading the way. and could we do enough? you know, you can never do enough until everyone has a decent, clean, respectable place to live. but i think san francisco is clearly leading the way to that. >> oftentimes city issues and district issues are not one and the same. what are some of the biggest issues you feel are impacting your district? >> well, the challenges of homelessness, of folks that are in the kind of upper haight community, making sure that we are providing resources to this population, more aggressively than we have, making sure that we are cracking down on folks who might be breaking the law and making it really challenging for not just other homeless people, but for folks who live in the community, making sure they're activating that area so families feel safe being a part of that community. i think that's a huge challenge. the other challenge, one that i dealt with even before i became supervisor, are the access to

job opportunities, access to long-term job opportunities, and how do we prepare people who have never worked a job before in their entire lives for a long-term job opportunity? what does it mean to show up on time? what does it mean to keep your pants pulled up and take off your hat and not talk back to your boss? what does all that mean? i think what we have done as a city is focus too much on, okay, where the opportunities, local hire, which are all great programs, but the part that's missing is how do we get people prepared and how do we keep them employed. what is the long-term plan of job opportunities in san francisco look like for local san franciscans. so, i think those are probably two of the most pressing issues. and the city overall of course is housing and it's one that we've all taken a lot of steps to try and deal with. >> just reese entitlesly enacted a two-year budget. it seems the city is always dealing with a lot of complicated issues whether or not to raise fees and taxes and where to make cuts.

how would you approach these tough choices? >> well, fortunately i've been in the nonprofit world. i've been actively engaged in the community. i know the programs that are actually effective in serving residents. i understand what the need is from firsthand experience. and, so, i just would want to make sure that i'm paying very close attention to detail, knowing exactly what these programs provide, knowing exactly what city department, where is the wasteful spending, how we can cutback so we can make sure we are funding the programs and the departments that need the money the most. so, it's going to be a really delicate balance. i know i have a really challenging job ahead of me, but fortunately there are other supervisors on the budget committee that also have firsthand experience. so, i think it's going to be a tough budget process, but i think working together and looking at everything, will it be visits, visits to programs, digging deep into folk's budget

and talking to their -- the people that they serve and a number of other things. it's going to take a well rounded approach at making these kinds of decision. and, so, i'm up for the challenge. >> speaking of well rounded approaches, do you attempt to balance the needs of the district versus the needs of the city as a whole? >> for me that's easy because san francisco, the entire city is my home. i grew up here. i know -- i went to galileo in the marina, hung out at bayview hunters point, my family lives all over the city. i mean, i can't do something that positively impacts district 5, but also negatively impacts san francisco as a whole. so, whatever decisions i make, i mean, it's a no-brainer. i have to make sure that it's going to positively impact the city as a whole and that's just how i view every decision that i make through that particular lens. >> let's talk a little about your district in particular. what do you hear about transportation from your constituents? is there adequate muni service?

>> well, it's funny that you mention muni. [laughter] >> and let me just say this. as someone who -- i mean, we caught muni -- when i was growing up in the city, that's how you got around. and there were some real problems with muni. i'm talking about just -- i mean, the buses were always dirty. they were always packed. there was just always some challenges and the city is growing clearly. and we need to look at all modes of transportation and how we allow people to move around the city safely. and part of that is making sure that muni is running well. and i know in particular the m-judah has been a real challenge. and we have come very close to securing revenue for an additional in judah train as well as looking at express options and place where the most heavily used bus stops are. ~ so, looking at express trains and other alternatives to make sure that we're moving people around in a more efficient way, so that they feel comfortable

with using public transportation as their source of transportation. i think everyone in this city is prepared to bike, to use public transportation, to walk, to ride share, but we have to make it a lot more convenient for people. and it's going to be an ongoing improvement process because we're building more housing units. we're bringing more people into the city for job opportunities. but we're not increasing the needs around public transportation and transportation in general as significantly as we are doing those other things. so, we're going to have to take a really hard look at our priorities around transportation and really aggressively deal with those things. >> and speaking of safety, what do you hear about crime in your district? and are you happy with what the police department is doing and how the city is dealing with crime? >> well, fortunately, because of the new academy classes, we actually got a number of additional officers in district 5. that has definitely had -- it's

had a big impact on the district. i mean, we are way past the point of what we used to be, and that is a place where homicides were happening regularly. sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. and sadly, we've lost a lot of young people not only to that sort of violence, but to the criminal justice system. and it's a different district. and now we're dealing with iphone thefts and other quality of life issues, home invasions and things like that. and i think with the additional police officers and also the foot patrols and some of the things that seem to be happening, especially in the high-crime areas like the lower haight, it's really changed things. it's more of a deterrent when you see police officers walking around, engaged with residents, engaged with business owners. it really helps to change the environment overall. so, yes, we do have issues of

crime just like any part -- any other part of the city. i'm just really happy that it's not what it used to be and i think it's a manageable thing. and we just have to deal with it more and add some more academy classes, but also look at programs like s.f. faith which helps people learn to take care of themselves and as neighbors. we have to make sure we're providing opportunities to the perpetrators of these crimes and making sure, of course, we're prosecuting people who are committing crimes. but more importantly, that we provide these opportunities before they get to the point where they are committing crimes. >> you mentioned the issue of homelessness as a big issue in your district. how will you deal with the folks that hang out on haight street and the issue of homelessness? >> well, i think that's a real -- it's a city-wide issue and i think part of what we have to do is work together to deal with it, just like public safety. it's a work in progress. it's not something that you fix and you move on. it's something that you continue to work with. i mean, san francisco is an attractive place to