nominated. that is the only piece of controversy that i think a small group of retirees are really arguing about. there are some misconceptions. there are not for people that the mayor appoints. >> we will be discussing this measure with a proponent. and now, we are here with jerry, the vice chair of a group calle d pob, it stands for protect our benefits. >> i am actually representing about 3700 retirees. they come from the san francisco unified school district, of the city, the court system. we have one thing in common,

that is the health services system. nobody knows very much about. our health services handle the health services system. we see a change being proposed that would change how the health service and system is run. the comptroller has said that it would not. it would change who is on the board. it will take away one that is elected by the san francisco school system. we don't like that. since reform was passed by the voters, it has been an effective model.

we can go back to the past where we have problems with political influence, attempts to change things, bringing political favoritism in to the department. we like the status quo in this case, and we feel very concerned that the change will not be positive. >> what changes are you fearful of happening? >> that there will be a change in the health service board, the composition will be changed from four elected people and three appointees to be for appointees and if reelected. -- four appointees and three elected. and elected by the system.

then you have five people. at this point, it has worked extremely well. most decisions are unanimous. it will be an artificially induced split that will be a change in the composition. that is the major reaction. >> what we spoke with the executive director of the labor council the claim that the seventh appointee would come from the comptroller's office. how do you not believe that that provides protection for your membership? >> where were the appointee comes from as a little bit different from being able to elect the person. the comptroller is himself an appointee of the mayor.

so you have an appointee of the appointee, and a 60 day limit before they have to decide on who the person will be. otherwise, the appointee becomes the person automatically. it seems little unfair. the of us who are retirees were ever involved in any of these discussions. >> we hope that that was informative. please visit the web site at the league of women voters. and remember, early voting is available at city hall monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m..

>> i am ellis said griffin, a columnist the rights of the san francisco city politics. i am also a member of the league of women voters. i am here to have a discussion of proposition d on november's ballot. proposition d is a charter

amendment that would change the way that the city, current and future employees share in funding. it will also require an elected officials to pay the same contribution rates as a city employees. it would increase retirement contribution rates for most current city employees based on city cost. for future city employees, and prohibit the city from paying any employee contributions. proposition c and d, if voters approve of measures, only the one with the most votes will become law. >> i am here with the treasurer of the campaign and a former member -- why should voters vote

for proposition d? >> it had its origin a year ago. the origin of proposition b started with a grand jury investigation of the retirement system in san francisco. i was a member and during those years, i worked with other members of the grand jury. we issued reports in 2010 and 2009 with the expectation that public officials to propose legislation. there is only one public official that approached us and was willing to work on crafting legislation.

and that was a public defender. 115,000 voted yes last year. a very strong constituency. we hope they will be back. the difference between proposition c and d is basically cost savings. d will save over $400 million over the next 10 years. prop d was crafted with exempting lowest paid city workers from any increase in contribution, at the rates that are part of proposition d are progressive.

proposition d is also a disruptive force in city politics. there is a very strong special- interest group that has fought against any pension reform in san francisco. that is later. we hope that they will look at it in a positive way. >> opponents argue that it was done not in a collaborative lateway. that it was done unilaterally. how do you address concerns? >> the origin of proposition b and d was a civil grand jury investigation, a group of 19 residents of san francisco, who

had a very diversified group of people representing unions, representing retired people, representing middle-class and minority groups. the fact that this is a criticism is not valid and the collaboration of the opposition talked about who was a collaboration for special interest groups. >> opponents have alleged that even if it is passed, it will be held up in court and perhaps not even implemented. how do you respond to concerns about proposition d? >> i read about prop c, 8225 page document that was totally incomprehensible to me. i am familiar with legal documents. the d measure is 25 pages,

simple to understand. i fully expec tboth me -- expect both measures will be challenging. especially those that oppose proposition c, and there are many, it will be brought forward. >> up next, we will talk to an opponent of proposition d. i am here with the executive director of the san francisco labor council and an opponent of proposition d. why should voters voted against proposition d? >> i was telling people why they should vote yes on measure c. d is the opposite way of the way people should be doing business.

this is a scott walker wisconsin initiative. it was done with no input from the workers. it was financed by a key party republicans that have financed the this and got $5 a signature to put this on the ballot. none of the city workers were involved, it was unilaterally put on. it is the wisconsin way of doing things. it does not accomplish what is supposed to do. it is legally challengeable. i am asking everyone to vote because there will be legal challenges with what it purports to do. >> proponents say it will save $400 million more than a proposition c. why should they not go with a measure that is going to save

more money? >> the process was done without any input on those numbers. they are way over bloated in terms of the numbers, it probably does a little bit more money than what we did, but it was done by the same type of republicans that are attacking public workers and wisconsin, san jose, other areas around the country. it will not save that type of money. we worked with the city comptroller, we talked to workers, we had major analysis. everybody agrees, this is the way that the city will run better, it will save money and jobs. yes on c commonality. -- no on d. >> the increments they used to determine a contribution are

smaller >> is a bogus argument. people claymore during bad times and not so much in good times. it is sensitive to workers that make -- police and fire and up paying more. it was done with a thorough analysis of different employee organizations in the city. >> thank you so much, mr. paulson. for information about this and other ballot measures, go to the san francisco league of women voters website at sfvotes.com. early voting is available at city hall monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

♪ >> i am mellisa griffin, a columnist and member of the san francisco league of women voters. i am here is city hall with the league and sfgtv to discuss prop h that will be on this year's november ballot. ♪ >> prop h would make it official city policy to encourage the san francisco unified school district to establish certain priorities for assigning students to specific schools. currently, parents may apply for their children to attend any school in the school district.

if a school does not have space for all applicants, the school district and immense students based on certain priorities, such as whether they're older siblings attend the same school, whether the student lives in the schools attendance area, or whether the students elementary school is a designated feeder school for the middle school. prop h when they get city policy to encourage the school district to ensure that all students have the opportunity to attend a quality neighborhood school. after signing siblings to the same school, the highest priority should be to assign each student to the schools close to their homes. finally, the school district should provide students with the opportunity to attend schools with language immersion rather special programs, even if those schools are not close to their homes. ♪ i am here with kris miller, chairperson of students first, a group that sponsored prop h.

ms. miller, thank you for being here. why should voters vote for prop h? >> for starters, the reason that prop h was adopted to begin with is roughly 14,000 signatures from san francisco county voters that also, as i do, feel passionately about children being able to attend schools near their neighborhoods. it makes sense. everyone automatically assumes that the child attends a school near their neighborhood or has that option in san francisco. as we know, from previous policies in different things with in government here, san francisco is special. san francisco is definitely special in this respect, that we have not followed suit with many of the major metropolitan cities and allow parents the right to automatically opt into their neighborhood schools. san francisco has been having issues with this policy for years. there are thousands of parents who have left the city, over 5000 since the 2000 census. since the mid-1960s, we have

lost a little under half of our student population. this is one of the major reasons why. prop h is basically simply proposing that parents or children within certain neighborhood school areas are given the option of sending their children to the school in closest proximity to their home. that is all we are proposing, nothing more. just that within the current citywide lottery system, that parents are given the option of sending their children to school near their home, as opposed to being bussed across town, where were the district decides the children will go. that is basically the premise of prop h. >> opponents have argued that the current school assignment system does give substantial weight to a child's geographic location when deciding -- one assigning the to a school. how do you respond? it's very simply, one, that

comment is not factually based. roughly 30% of parents in the city, according to the school district -- we're not sure if these are accurate numbers, a roughly 30% of the parents in the san francisco unified school district are opting to send their children to their neighborhood schools. for some reason, they're not able to honor that. a seemingly small number of parents. the fourth consideration -- out of four considerations for the placement system, never the proximity is the fourth. in most cases, within many different school districts, it does not come into consideration because the schools are full of the time to get to that proximity consideration. not only that, but that is only for elementary school placement. in middle school and high school, this consideration has been completely taken away. there's absolutely no consideration whatsoever. it is a citywide lottery system period.

so that statement is not true. i just gave you the facts. if you want to look it up on iran, it is right on the website -- if you want to look it up on your own. >> it is argued that keeping children in their neighborhoods will lead to gentrification in san francisco. how do you respond? >> i will tell you what it will actually lead to from the actual perspective, not from a hypothetical perspective that is not based on this a big numbers. if you look at the statistics, from the current policies, they do not focus heavily on a neighborhood school-based placement system. in the last 10 years, we have moved further and further towards segregation within our school district. the interesting thing is, the current system does not focus heavily on neighborhood school proximity, and the reason for that is to keep the school ever spent to give children more opportunity in areas and better performing schools that would

not otherwise have the opportunity to go to a higher performing schools. right now, we actually have a huge issue with schools re segregating in the last 10 years. if the current policies are re segregating the schools in san francisco, one would assume that parents and voters in the city would vote to change that policy. if we are asking for the opposite of what they are, presumably we are going to be either improving the situation, are in the worst-case scenario it will stay the same. so that allegation makes no sense from a fact-based perspective. >> thank you so much, ms. miller. next, we will hear from an opponent of prop h. ♪ i am now with rachel from the san francisco board of education. the board of education recently voted unanimously to oppose prop h. thank you for being here. why do you oppose prop h?

>> for several reasons. first, it is not well-written, and has a lot of unintended consequences. primarily, i oppose it because it is a very simplistic way of dealing with a very complex problem. i have been working on student assignment, but as a parent -- for many years, i put my kids through the process. i have talked to parents across the city as a candidate for public office. since i was elected to the board, the board has been the last two years working on a news to defend a policy. it is the most complex problem i have ever worked on in my personal or professional life. and i do not think that is the kind of thing that can be resolved by a voter checking a yes or no on the ballot box. >> recent census numbers show that families with small children have been leaving the city in record numbers because of people would argue that the current school assignment system has something to do with that. do you believe the current system is working? >> i do the the current system

is working. we spend a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of resources, redesigning the system, because we knew we had a problem. one of the things we try to address was balancing the needs of parents. there are parents in parts of the city that feel they do not have access to high performing schools. while we work on the schools across the city, we want to give everybody access to all schools. in addition, a lot of families said they wanted more predictability in the school assignments. i do think that the predictability issue is something that may frighten parents of young children. so we revised it and added a proximity component and a predictability component that i think as address those concerns while still giving parents access to high performing schools wherever they want them to be. >> prop h is merely a statement of policy. what you think that the actual practical effect if prop h passes? >> honestly, i do not think there's going to be much of a practical effect, because the

school board has been very clear, and i am being very clear what the voters now, that this is the direction that we are going. that we have spent a lot of time, a lot of effort, going through data, talking to people, looking at what other district do, looking at our census data, having demographic projections, and we think, as we monitor the system going forward, that is flexible and we can make changes and respond to trends. but we think we're moving in the right direction. >> even proponents of this ballot measure and said we're going in the right direction. >> thank you so much. we hope this has been informative. for additional affirmation about this or other measures, visit the san francisco league of women voters website. early voting is available at city hall monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. if you do not bode early, be sure to vote on november 8. thank you. ♪

♪ >> prop f we change the registration, filing, and fee requirements for campaign consultants. under the city's campaign consultants ordinance, campaign consultants working on local campaigns must register with the city's ethics commission and file periodic reports. prop f would redefine a campaign consultant to mean any individual who earns at least $5,000, instead of the current $1,000, for campaign consulting services within a 12-month time span. require that campaign consultants file reports monthly, instead of quarterly reports. other is the commission to require electronic filing of all required information instead of

paper reports. and finally, and the fees payable to the city for they no longer depend on the number of clients. it would also allow the city to change any of the campaign consultant ordinances requirements without further voter approval. ♪ ♪ impossible. announcer: when you open a book, you can explore new lands... [bird screeches] meet new friends, and discover new adventures. there are amazing possibilities when you open your mind to reading. [roar] you can log onto he library of congress website and let the journey begin.

>> about four years ago, [inaudible] look at how beautiful this was. there is our relationship to the planet. these regions are the wealthiest, the most powerful. that really has impacted the planet. it is almost impossible now to go anywhere and had it really be completely dark. there are very few locations

that you can find. that means our relationship to the sky, there is a way where we dominate the sky. we cannot see anything really. we are blinding ourselves in a way. >> you can look at the images, they are beautiful. when i started four years ago, there was a conversation about en