lunch. it is a donation. it's not a requirement. i get phone calls every once in a while from people who ask me if i can help them pay their rent. i think sometimes that people think of the richmond district as asian, russian. at the richmond district senior center, we are people. we are people who speak mandarin, cantonese, tagalog, russian, french, vietnamese and english. we are just people there, a lot of people together. we have some developmentally disabled seniors at the scenier center. one of them plays the conga in our drum circle each month. we get our funding through a community services contract with the city. a third of that contract goes to paying our rent each month, each year, i'm sorry. and that rent a year is $50,000 approximately. i was told that i could ask

mayor lee when i was here, and i would ask you to talk to our landlord. maybe you can get a rent reduction for us. that would be very helpful. thank you. thank you. (applause) >> all right, thank you, linda. so, now i'd like to call up caroline from the jewish family and children services. anyone from jfcs here? okay, all right. so, i guess we'll move on to public comment, then, or summer jobs, actually, here. >> good morning, everyone, mayor lee, supervisors, department heads. eric mcdonald chief operating officer for united way of the bay area. we are thrilled to be partnering again with mayor lee, city departments, and our private sector leaders to provide jobs and internships this summer. last summer mayor lee raised his hand, let the nation, i

should say, raising his hand to say we in san francisco will make a commitment to investing in the lives of our young people in creating jobs and internships that, one, will hopefully inspire them to sofa focused on their educational pursuits and two have them see the vision and the opportunities that are in public sector and public sector jobs. last summer we celebrated over 5200 jobs and internships. 39% of which became permanent jobs. we have a longer term vision that is not simply a summer job program, but a year round program. and ultimately we want to see a pipeline that is connected to our k-12 program, our crick will you have as well as our academies that leads thened to the city college connection of vocational training that leads to our four-year institutions so we have a growing pipeline of young people ready for the kinds of jobs in our economic growth and vitality that is happening in san francisco. and, so, again, if you have young people, have them come our way and match bridge at united way bay area.com. but more importantly, i want you hear today from one of of our 39% that went into a summer

job and became a permanent job. so, please welcome tim shake. (applause) >> thank you, good morning. my name is k remarks ma shake and i'm 18 years old. i go to san francisco state university. ~ and last year i had the pleasure of working with united way and match bridge and i participated in a real estate management program [speaker not understood]. with that i was a six-week internship learning about accounting, learning about the different styles of real estate management, property management, you know, also insurance. a lot of different stuff, budgeting from homeowners association. i had the pleasure of working with that. after the six weeks my supervisor asked me if i wanted to be permanent. and i immediately said yes because, why? it was a chance for me -- because my major is accounting. it's a perfect way for me to link my job and my experience to my education. and i just want to talk today about the importance of youth jobs. because if after college, if you don't have any experience

in our major how are we supposed to get our job? match way united way, thank you for allowing me to have a job that will be useful to me in the future. so, i just wanted to talk about the importance of youth jobs and also -- also i wanted to say that the youth is our future. so, we need to focus on our youth so that when the future, when the older people leave, we're going to take over. so, we need to have those series of jobs that will help us in the future. thank you, mr. shake. have a good day. (applause) ~ thank you, my name is tama shake, have a good day. (applause) >> thank you. we have about 45 minutes for comments and questions from the public. and we've taken a number of cards. we're going to call people up for one minute comments in groups of five. so, supervisor tang and i will be calling people up here. let me start by calling the first five.

we have man lee. kay lee erickson. balton kukox. jen ruhau and kevin chin. and maria. it doesn't have to be in the order. if your name was called, please come forward. and try to keep leo chi up here for the time. hi, good morning. my name is kay lee erickson. i work here at the richmond village. began at washington high school. my question and sort of comment is one about youth workers' rights and my question is to mayor ed lee, do you have a plan regarding undocumented youth and their access to jobs during this budget year? because one of the issues that we come across daily and

annually is the access our youth have to jobs even if they're not documented and legal. so, thank you. >> thank you, kay lee. we're going to have comments towards the end, but people can point -- pose questions or make comments, but thank you. next speaker. hi, my name is jen. i am a student here at george washington high school. i'm a junior. i also work for the beacon at presidio middle school nyca. yeah, i just wanted to mention that, and that funding for us is a really important and it helps people like me and other students who are here today get jobs and be able to work. hello, my name is kevin chin and i am also a at george washington high ask and richmond village. i am in multiple programs in the beacon such as young

workers leadership academy and the beacon leider ship team. in those programs i learnment, many activities ~ and i learn skills, skills that will obviously help me in the future, like learning to speak in public like i'm doing now. [laughter] which is really hard. learning to speak in public, making presentations, conducting counsel. and i would like to thank you for funding the beacon and to continually support the beacon and the youth leadership -- and the youth employment. thank you very much. (applause) >> thank you, kevin. next speaker. hi, good morning, eddie lynn. i was told one minute. i thought it was two minutes so i'm going to be really, really fast. so, listen carefully. hi, good morning. i am in charge of the city

leadership program and self-help for the elderly. as you see today we have a [speaker not understood] seniors come from our agency. and the seniors, we have to go through a lot. the road to be a citizenship, chinese, citizenship is very long and difficult one, especially for those who [speaker not understood]. almost every of our senior [speaker not understood] help with completing the form [speaker not understood] the form to become united states citizens. but we are very grateful for the funding provided to us through the office of [speaker not understood] immigration affairs past. thank you very much. so we can provide [speaker not understood], 2000 seniors each year. we anticipate an increase for the service if the [speaker not understood] pass this year.

so, many more asians will be applying for legal status as well as citizenship. [speaker not understood]. and we help prepare seniors for their roi exams. we are very proud of our success of 95%. that's why many seniors come to us for help from us. we need your help in providing more citizenship service to our community, especially for those who live in the richmond and sunset district. thank you tov. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker, marie. thank you, my name is marie jobling and i work with the community living campaign and our goal is to keep people from -- to age in place and to not be isolated as they get older. and today i'm here as part of

the keep us connected campaign. as many of you know, over three years ago, the san francisco was awarded a b-top grant, a large federal grant that over the last few years has put over 275 accessible computers in 54 sites across the city. together the trainers of which we are a part have provided over 400,000 hours of student trainers -- of training to seniors, people with disabilities and their caregivers. but that grant will end in september. and without it, while the computers will stay, there will be nobody to maintain them or keep them connected to the internet. there will be no one to train and recruit students or volunteers. there will be no more paid lab coordinators, computer trainers or 101 tutors to help people feel more comfortable in this digital age. with that that means there's fewer less part-time jobs that are available. many of these jobs have gone to people who are bilingual and can help people access the internet. we know that san francisco strives to be in the forefront

of innovation and is slated to spend over $375 million on technological -- on information technology over the next five years. and a portion of that is really to give the public access to information like the open data project that you heard about. and it's there to help people apply for services, communicate with their elected officials, learn about their neighborhood, everything from crime statistics to how to report a pothole or graffiti. but if we spend more and more on technological innovation without funding the training to help people, we just have a wider digital divide that we had before. so, we would ask you today if you're prepared to support continued funding for the now called s.f. connected program, and enjoin us in being a part of the campaign. some of you have computers in your pocket and you know how to do this. so, please like the community keep us connected campaign, and join efforts to get more folks involved in technology. thank you. (applause)

>> we're going to call up the next five speakers here. amber carol. rariko ruby he espinosa. [speaker not understood]. and one more, vera hale. hi, everybody. it's really nice to see such a good turnout of community members and community collaboraters. my name is amber carol. i'm here representing the aging and disability resource center as part of a community services of san francisco. i'm here on behalf of both district 1 and 4. we provide information, referral and a sis tabtion to seniors and adults with disabilities throughout san francisco. ~ assistance we have a very small staff of 7 people who go to different senior centers and community organizations and provide these

services for the community. we serve nearly 10,000 individuals each year. what i'm asking for is continued support of this program. we provide translation support. we help people with housing applications and give them really any information that they need. we're really doing our best to reach out to communities that are not as reachable. we're bringing in a lot of volunteers right now to reach communities whose languages are not represented very well in organizations throughout the city. so, i ask for your continued support and thank you very much. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker, please. i'm peter war field, director of library users association. we're an independent group working for better libraries. and i want to alert the supervisors and the public to what looks like further book dee emphasis at the library,

which is most unfortunate in this very important research -- resource which is city wide. two years ago the san francisco public library administration said that its top priorities are books and open hours. those were the top two priorities. yet with its budget increasing more than $2 million, they proposed a book budget cut of $500,000 and there hadn't been an hour's increase in years. this is an example of the library's ongoing de emphasis of books. library users association and our allies made a big noise about this ~ including at the board of supervisors, the library commission, and at the library citizens advisory committee which was then in existence as a creation of the board of supervisors where we got a unanimous vote to alert the supervisors to this -- these poor priorities.

so, it looks like at the last library commission the book budget is frozen, while huge increases are scheduled for electronic resources, unclear what those mean. and again, we want to alert the public and the supervisors to check closely the library's what appears this ongoing book de emphasis and to rearrange the priorities in a more correct way for books and hours. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker, please. [speaking through interpreter]

my name is [speaker not understood]. i am with seiu [speaker not understood] also an ihhs worker. right now i am a residents of district 4. i am currently taking care of my mother that is 78 years old and she is a resident of district 1.

and for all the workers here today and not here today, i wanted to let all the department heads know that currently we're earning at 11.54 an hour. that was the same wage five years ago and it is the same rate right now. and there has been a lot of inflation and, so, their standard of living has gone down. and there's been a reduction of 3.6% for the work hours. they want to see another 4.4% reduction in work hours. so, we hope that more services and resources could be placed for ihhs workers.

the average hours necessary for an elder is about 80 hours a month earning about $900 a month. and what we do is we help alleviate the burden for convalescent homes and senior homes. so, we hope the city can make

sure you under the importance of ihhs workers for a lot of seniors. oftentimes it's very hard because the seniors may have behavioral issues or they may be frustrated and we take up a slot of the slack when we try to work and serve the needed seniors. >> thank you. (applause) we want all the workers to thank you. you can allocate more funding to allow us to have an increase with our pay. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'll call up the next group. irena from s.f. safe.

bradley weed meyer. she wow lee from home care. brian mark who is our community advisory committee member for transportation for the richmond. and eric wu. go ahead, irena. good morning, mr. mayor, supervisors, department heads. my name is irena [speaker not understood]. i am a program director for san francisco safe. it's a program that stand for safety awareness for everyone, and we are a small nonprofit sponsored by the [speaker not understood] department. what we do, we are going to neighborhood watch groups. we conduct security assessments. we give safety presentations. in a nutshell, we try our hardest to make sure that

everyone who lives and works in san francisco knows how to protect themselves, their houses, their businesses, and we conduct our services in five languages, only 10 of us. i'm going to give you some numbers. only in 10 months in district 4 and 1, we facilitated 30 neighborhood watch meetings. we give more than 20 safety presentations. organized five merchant walks and, of course, not to mention the new year press conference organized by safe, david chen who is in the audience. so, needless to say we are very, very passionate about what we do, but we are also

very, very fortunate that we have the support that we do. we know nothing would have been possible without the support from the building department. thank you very much. and it's so good to see captain long and captain here in the audience. thank you. again, we don't take it for granted. and, of course, supervisor mar, supervisor tang, supervisor farrell board of directors, thank you so very much. supervisor mar, we just started a new and exciting program with your office, bike registry to address a growing problem with bike theft in the city. we're looking forward to many, many new projects. and again, many, many thanks. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker, please. supervisors and mayor lee and city officers, i want to

speak today as an ihhs home care worker who serves seniors and disabled. points have been made, but let me just state we're not coming to ask for a raise. we're asking for the city to backfill a state cut to keep us where we're at. right now we are facing this 8% cut. you know, our clients have had assessments where a certain amount of work is required to meet their needs, and we'll still have to do this work after the 8% hours cut, one way or another. and year after year, you know, we've phased these cuts. we appreciate the board of supervisors stepping in and not reducing our or making our members pay more for health premiums in a recent budget process. but right now we're not asking for a raise overall, but we are

asking for the city to help backfill. and from the state cuts we have this reduction. but from the federal government we have help that has come to the city in the form of a new face for home care funding that the city has to send to the state. and you've already budgeted a higher figure that it's now been reduced. so, we're asking that that difference be contributed to help backfill the cut that our members are facing. and i know that sometimes for people who make less, 11.54 doesn't sound like such a bad deal. but in san francisco, the livable minimum wage for a 40-hour week is $12.43. so, our members are not making that. and our average members work only 21-1/2 hours, so that 11.54 has to be stretched out.

when you take that 6, 21-1/2 hours and stretch it to a 40 week, that's like $6 an hour. so, help us help our seniors and disabled, keep them at home, keep the costs down, keep them out of our institutions, and keep them happy and flourishing. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker, please. good morning, city staffers, elected officials. i'm brian larkin, larkin like the street. i'm here to request that we underground our utilities out here in the richmond district. pg&e has a schedule to do it, we're not even on it. we've heard about senior citizens and the number of us in san francisco -- i'm over 60 -- so there is a certain sense of urgency to get them done so i can see it before i die. also, speaking of transportation, eric mentioned that i'm an advocate for that. i'd like to see us build a subway, lrt system out here, extend the central subway out to our neighborhood. no one has ever built a subway

in any community and regretted it later on. is that on the time? thanks very much. (applause) >> thank you. [speaking through interpreter] my name is shu wow lee. [speaker not understood]. i'm a district resident, ihhs, and seiu. i currently take care of an elderly person in district 4.

the person i currently take care of, his son is away from home and so it's very important for us to make sure they take their medication on time, that their needs are met. with the limited income that we have, we really hope that there's more funding to our income. there hasn't been an increase for six years and it's really

important that bemake sure we serve all the needy seniors and disabled individuals. please let us to live a good and quality mannered life in the city and county of san francisco. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. do we have any other folks here from [speaker not understood]? good morning, city officials. my name is eric wu. i am a member of the san francisco youth commission. the youth commission is a body of 17 young people ages 12 to 23, that advises the mayor and the board of supervisors on issues that affect the young people in san francisco. one of our priorities is actually the summer job plus program and supporting that and expanding that. 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.