couple of years in terms of states and local governments. labor contracts that we will be discussing in coming months are almost entirely closed for the coming fiscal year. it was a significant part of last year's budget solution. the savings will continue. additionally, we are working in a year where if a tax measure is part of the solution for the budget picture, those measures will be higher in the electorate. unless an emergency is declared by the city. this is the constitutional amendment that creates various

new restrictions on the ability of the mayor and the board of supervisors to increase or adopt new fees. it should -- a solution. lastly, this year, it is clear there is a need for ongoing changes and ongoing expenses and revenues. approximately, just north of 1/3 of the deficit is due to the loss of one-time solutions. the cash position continues to deteriorated. we continue to spend through reserves. this will make balancing more challenging and will require real discipline.

this time next year, for the first time, the city will be shifting to a two-year budget process. we will be in the process of preparing a two-year balanced budget. cahoon some general observations as -- so some general observations. supervisor chu: thank you for that gloomy picture. supervisor chiu? supervisor chiu: thank you. i appreciate the comments you have just made. i think you have made clear how many of the tools we have used in the past are not available to us this year.

this is my first time on the budget committee. in prior years, i have been intimately involved with the former chairperson, i am hopeful we ill hav -- will have a bit of a different budget process this year. i hope over the next couple of months is that rather than going through a typical kabuki style process, we don't have a good sense of the options and we will be able to have much more open and transparent conversations about that before the budget is presented on june 1. once we get to a budget, we will have a clear sense of what the hard choices are. i am hopeful that given what i think of as a bit of a difference in the relationship between the legislative branch and the executive-branch, we

will be able to do that. one question about the presentation, on page 14, you talked about the one-time solutions that will be in the same place next year. you referred to fees, federal stimulus funds. we know that we will not be able to rely on these next year. it is the intent that you are looking for multi-tiered solutions. -- multi-year solutions. >> excellent question. im not -- i'm not necessarily suggesting that it is the way we

will have to handle this. it is essentially an observation of a fact that has confronted us for many years. we look at the joint projections, especially last year's the joint report when we do a projection of budget deficits. you can see that the reality is that the gap grows. the goal of that statement, i think it will be a statement that i will be reemphasized in continually -- reemphasizing continually, we have a multi- year picture. it will be a discipline that we truly enforced starting next year when we go to the budget cycle where the one-time

solutions will only help us for the first part of the budget process. it is something that i think we will all have to confront when we address in the five-year financial plan over the next couple of months. it is essentially the same picture, when you look out into the future, assuming the economy recovers, there is no realistic scenario under which revenue can grow fast enough to keep pace with expenditures. we will face substantial deficits for the foreseeable future driven by growth. to the extent that we are going to want to and have to begin to plan for long term and

deficits, we will keep reminding ourselves to the extent that we can balance the budget with ongoing solutions, it doesn't add a problem in the future. i think it will be a very important one and a very important policy discussion that we will have to deal with fundamentally as part of the budget over the longer term. supervisor chiu: there was referenced two-to theyear -- to the two-year budget ting. are you participating to proposed new financial policies to consider as we move into this prop a world? i think having these

controls in place a are important for long-term physical health. i was wondering what your thoughts are in that area. >> last year, the board of supervisors adopted the city's reserve policy. the board unanimously adopted a reserve policy last year. proposition a creates a window that we will bring forward policies for your consideration. i am certain we will bring some forward. i will discuss this as we get deeper into the financial best practices. the city and the county doesn't have an official adopted a policy.

supervisor chiu: i look forward to that conversation. supervisor chu: 80 to my colleagues for sitting through the first meeting. i appreciate the controller's office comments. we are in a situation where many of the tools that the president talked about has been exhausted. we will likely see significant cuts. one of the things i am committed to help make sure that we fully understand the options before us is to bring information to this committee. some of the other components really help the driver costs. other things that really helped add to that picture, i am hoping those topics will be of interest so that we will have a full understanding. i do ask for the support of this

committee to work together to talk about what your options are and what your best ideas are going forward. to the best extent that we want to evaluate options when the budget comes, we need to engage in those conversations now. to my committee members, if you have things you think can be done better, let's start hearing them. with that, we have these items that are before us. i would ask the committee if we could file item number one and continue to the call of the chair item number two. can we do that without objection? are there any other items before us? >> no items left on the budget and finance committee. supervisor chu: we are adjourned.

>> welcome to "culture wire." i'm here with james lee, and exhibiting artist, and we will have a chat today about the body of work you are presenting. after you left the military, what prompted you to go back to a place where the u.s. is engaged in military action? >> it is interesting.

the population of afghanistan is around 29 million, and there's probably no more than 80,000 u.s. soldiers serving in afghanistan right now, but if you look at the stories that come out, you think the numbers are completely reversed. all the stories are about americans, and you see almost no images of stories about the afghan people themselves, so if you look at the dominant representational paradigm uc today, it is all about foreign soldiers. my idea was to try incurred counted to that a popularized narrative and focus on images and stories that really reflect that lived experience of conflict through the eyes of the afghan people. >> you are exhibiting with three other photographers. it is true all three of them have really focused in the areas where a lot of u.s. and allied forces are seeing action, are

actually involved in combat, so your story is different than theirs. what does it mean to show your body of work along side of the stories that probably are more familiar? what kind of juxtaposition does that create for you as an artist? >> i think the strength of bringing the two different stories together is i think there is a real danger in focusing only on surface similarities between conflicts. when people look at a body of work and say that they see in this conflict photography, and it reminds them of somalia or iraq, i think that is dangerous because i think there are very unique elements to each conflict, and if you do not focus on the distinctions, you start to create a broader, watered-down topic, which is armed conflict, so i think it is important that when we focus on conflict, we make sure we do not just generalize, but we allow specific places and voices and people to be heard and we do not make these generalized assumptions about what conflict is like.

>> the other photographers in the show, what is local, and the others are from new york and new delhi. what do you like about some of their work? >> in a big fan of the fact that he approaches photography from a non-traditional point of view. he also cunner has a mixed view of cameras themselves. he calls them toys. >> he uses these cameras that one might assume our toys, but he also says all the toy cameras are cameras, so it does not really matter to him what he is using to take the images as long as he is getting the images he wants. and because they are taken with these film cameras, they have a very different feel than the other pictures in the show. one of the things i want to talk about is that lindsey's body of work is running down one side of

the hall, and it is all about women in afghanistan and how they serve and their special interactions with civilian women and communities, which is the special role that women soldiers play in afghanistan. across from eric copeland's work, which is extremely masculine and black and white and very aggressive -- what do you think about that juxtaposition between their two bodies of work? >> i like lindsey's contribution to the exhibit. she shoots in color, like i do, so it is great to see more color. she has a gift for capturing distinct moments that balance the conflict that these women are facing did today, but also very intimate, very feminine moments. she has one where a female soldier is shaving her legs at the beginning of her day, and it is kind of an odd thing to consider, but, obviously, it happens every day, but most people do not think about the challenges that face women in

these types of environments where they continue to be feminine, continue to be women, but they also serve a vital role in afghanistan. she allows viewers to come in and see those kinds of intimate moments you might not normally think about. >> to our viewers, and actually the curator of the show. one of the things i was interested in with your work and with the other bodies of work i selected was that you are presenting a real human perspective. each of you zeroes in on individuals, and the kind of sensitive, intimate, or private moments. >> if you look at most people's lives today and the way they spend their lives, it is probably not that different from what goes on on some of these larger for an operating basis. they have cafeterias. they have internet cafes. they have laundromats. they have their own spaces where they read, play video games. it is really like a small, microcosm of what they might find back in the united states. >> what do you hope that viewers

take away from seeing your body of work or the exhibition as a whole? >> i think it is important for people to question how much we do or do not know about afghanistan, but conflict in general. too often today, i think we see one or two images and we think we understand what is going on in a part of the world, and we should try to get away from that. we should question what we know about a conflict, where we got the information, and always look for new perspectives and new focus is on topics that we think we already understand. >> james, thank you for spending time with us, and congratulations on the exhibition and letting san francisco see this big body of work of yours. >> thanks.