growth in housing we should do that. there's always being to be tension of don't do it here. i'll listen to folks is this too much, too little and still be part of the solution. part of it you allow for some growth and have you have to be smart. how do you work with the community. it's important for me that my you type of development to ask this is what we're envisioning what adjustments do we need to make? i've seen that on ocean avenue forensic they built a

supermarket and by the time you - they went through a process where the community was satisfying but it - and i think i'm supportive of last year's proposition where we're going to be able to have more funding that's part of the solution. can we make sure there's other housing stock in san francisco so we want to keep the university here. almost everybody wants i don't care where you are people want a diverse society in san francisco that's not just begin about affordable housing >> and what are your plans on

park merced. >> there was a lot of discussions and i could have gotten engaged in a hypothetical. there's also a lawsuit that's pending so let's play that out because i have no influence, you know, under any decision or lawsuit that the court is hearing. so my commitment to the residents out there as i look at the agreement and there were some promises to the occurring residents and i said my commitment is i said i will do everything in my power to make

sure those commitments are made. they could have been skeptical but a lot of the residents believed me and there's been - been asked to leave several times over the last 2 decades and each time i've stepped in and working in partnership with the school itself to help it stay there. that example was very powerful for the residents there >> i mentioned a little bit about your district what are some of the other issues. >> it's interesting there's going to be many, many issues but when i look back at what i did in terms of what my platform

was about. equivalent when i heard enough peoples concerns it was about safety in general. of course, there's crime there's crime all over the place but the major thing is pedestrian safety. another issue i choose to focus on would be to help as much as possible small businesses in the neighborhoods. so i define it as in the neighborhood. sometimes we're talking about 1 hundred employees or less that's not our neighborhood business. so for pedestrian safety the first thing i did do the first meeting i asked for a meeting. it was very timely. it's really unfortunate that i

have to say that thought fatalities in san francisco 3 of them were in district 7. so i feel the time is right to talk about that and what are some of the solutions. we found that we have thirty or 40 people in district 7 to come out and testify. i told people i'm very commented to this to get something done >> what else do you hear from your constituents about the transportation situation. the vast majority of people in district 7 are cabins their leaders. in terms of having it operate on sunday's and increasing the rates. so if i had the power i would probably turn it back a that's in the my jurisdiction i'm not

under the board of supervisors jurisdiction. and some of the sunday issues i - right now there's a lot of confusion. there's other places i've gone where sunday you pay so part of it i'm glad that at least mta backed off of having sunday in the morning and it doesn't toward until 12 so the chur churchgoers don't have to worry about that. if you don't live out there but because you're out there and there's so many hills the issues are different. if you take away a bus stop 3 blocks away you're talking about a fourteen percent incline are

where you're walking up this hill or something and if you have issues from being in a wheeler or your 70 years old it's going to be a lot. and there's the issue of the mooney is great then they shot off in their own direction but the m line forensic is a major complaint in my district payroll one of my staff went out there and that was not late evening you have to wait 67 manipulates >> oh, wow. that's a while. >> so that's an issue. >> so there could be more mooney service. >> yes, it's a big concern.

i stood out there many moerngz and late afternoon i saw people crossing the street >> do you feel we're on the right track for economics. >> yes. i looked at some stats today that are relative to california and the united states. we're doing real well, of course, we could do better. employment is coming down. the number of jobs are going up. what i would like us to do, you know, we've had a major focus on the technical destroy. i also feel like there's some opportunities for us to bring back some manufacturing jobs. again to keep the diversity of

the touching people and the job opportunities i would support that. way about the role of sports are you supportive of the imply warriors stadium. the warriors starred in san francisco. they plated at the pacific auditorium. and when it was there i went to the sports activities. i'm sort of a basketball junky i'd like to see the warriors come back. this is definitely going to be some economic benefits >> to what degree do you feel the city should subsidize the team. >> well, if one of the game

plans is for them to be at pier thirty and 32 i believe which is not very fundamental right now we're not generating anything from those piers. if they were to build there we would then provide some savings for them going down the road. to offset the cost of the rental. is that subsidies you could call that subsidies but what would you have any revenues. one has to be carefully what talking about that and a we've out of time but are there any issues that i want to talk about or any issues you want to

concentrate as supervisor and a well, my concentration is on pedestrian safety. i'm hoping i can take the process on developing district 7 into the citywide process and again anywhere i can help with small businesses because i know their the driving engine in san francisco >> great we'll be looking forward to seeing what happens. well, we're out of time thank you for meeting our district supervisor >> thank you. >> watch for the next session when we're back with on the one of your 11 city supervisors thank you from

♪ ♪ hello, welcome to meet your district supervisor. i'm nona melkonian and we're here with supervisor london breed from district 5 which includes the inner sunset, haight/ashbury, lower haight, western addition, japantown, and part of hayes valley. supervisor breed is one of two new supervisors elected in 2012. today we'll get to know her and talk about the toughest issues facing the city. welcome, supervisor. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you is for having me. >> let's start talking a little about your background, where you drogue up, went to school and what kind of jobs you had in the past. >> well, i grew up in the heart of the western addition. i grew up in public housing in the western addition. 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, a place i participated in programs in the arts as a kid. so, it was really an honor to be able to work directly in the community, to impact so many lives. and i really thoroughly enjoyed that experience. >> you've 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. and 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 still are going through, i know that the only way to make changes to those types 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 this 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 kind of things 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 need 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 attain 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 actually helped me get here. >> the 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 a heart for the community. and i think that's -- that was demonstrated in who they decided to elect. i mean, regardless of personalities or ideology, what have you, people know when you really care. and i think that came across in my campaign. and, 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 more 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 of 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. i have to make sure that i'm being responsible in those decisions and i can't let ideology get in the way of that. >> it seems the city is dealing with complicated issues. what do you feel are the issues facing san francisco right now? >> i think there are a few big issues 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 infest asian 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 the way it's changing people's lives for the better? i want to make sure that we work with residents and we work to help them grow within public housing and to not be plitioned 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. so, for me i just felt like, okay, 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 working at the family store, 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 agencies, do you think that the board of supervisors and the mayor is really doing enough to serve the city's housing needs? >> well, i think you can never do enough. i mean, there's still a lot of folks that 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 that the affordable housing trust fund is a step in

the right direction and is 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 is a 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, i mean, you can never do enough until everyone has a decent, clean, respectable place to live. i think san francisco is clearly leading the way to it 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 folk who live in the community, making sure we're activating that area so that families feel safe and 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 life for long-term job opportunities? 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 are 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. >> the city just recently enacted a two-year budget and itals seems the city is dealing with a lot of complicated issues including 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 first-hand 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's to be the partners, where 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 a first-hand experience. so, i think it's going to be a tough budget process, but i think working together and looking at everything, whether it be site visits to programs or digging deep into folks' 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 decisions and so i'm up for the challenge. >> speaking of well rounded approaches, how will 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, my family lives all over the city. i can't do something that

positively impacts district 5, but i can make it impact san francisco as a whole. so, whatever decisions i make, 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 caught -- i mean, we caught muni -- when i was growing up in the city, i mean, that's how you got around. and there were some real problems with muni. i've 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 m 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 the 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 off certificates 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. 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 sf faith which helps people learn to take care of themselves and each other as neighbors. we have to make sure we're providing opportunities to perpetrators of these crimes and making sure 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 -- i mean, 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 then you move on. it's something that you continue to work with. i mean, san francisco is an attractive place to people in general so we're going to get folks from all over, homeless, nonhomeless. and i think part of the balance is making sure that social service agencies that provide support to homeless individuals are available, that they have the resources they need, that they are held accountable to be out there and working and talking to folks who are interested in services. and the other issue is that, you know, we do have sadly an increase in crime and the area as a result of an increase in the homeless population. so, having a police presence which we've had, park station

has been really active and not only being out there and enforcing the law, but doing what police are not required to do, offering opportunities for services. and, so, i think san francisco is an incredibly compassionate city. and i think our police department has been compassionate. i think our fire department has been compassionate. but also we have to make sure that we are really aggressively making sure that folks are not breaking the law in terms of selling drugs, in terms of using drugs, in terms of just the kinds of things that happen when you break the law. i mean, people who are hanging out, they're just hanging out. there is a.m. nothing wrong with hanging out. i hung out a lot. kids hang out. young people hang out. homeless people hang out. the question is when someone makes it, you know, more than just hanging out and it messes it up for everyone else. so, we have to make sure as a city that we deal with those things appropriately, but we also offer alternatives so that we're not just pushing the homeless issue from one place to the next.