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tv   [untitled]    March 4, 2012 3:30pm-4:00pm PST

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we will have a public hearing on fares, fees, and finds, including all of the items in this presentation. the latter part of the presentation has been number of slides on possible revenue measures. we're not recommending any of them, but we will be holding a public hearing to hear public comment and feedback on all of those ideas. we will be doing a series of town hall meetings in march. we will be taking something similar to this information out to the public and soliciting feedback and we will bring our first proposed budget to the board on april 3. we have a deadline to get the proposed budget to city hall by may 1. so if we do not get a consensus
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on the budget, we would have a second crack at it on april 17. possibly it would be voted on april 3. at the latest, april 17 before it is transmitted to city hall for the may 1 deadline. in the meantime, i believe we're scheduled for the budget committee on april 13. supervisor chu: march 6 is the first public hearing and there'll be a series of town halls and you may have action as early as april 3 or 17th? >> correct. supervisor chu: given we have heard from the director and we would like to defer the item to the sponsor, why don't we entertain a motion to continue it to the call of the chair? we will do that without objection. thank you. are there any other items before
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us? thank you, we are adjourned. >> thank you very much for that kind of deduction. good morning, everyone. i want to thank john, wade, steve, and the entire chamber for the invitation to address you. i know i am the last speaker, and after that panel i am eager to have to go back to work.
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sarah, thank you. cady, and george, very appreciative of the dialogue. as you can tell, when you hear about all of that, i could spend hours going through all of the tech companies what they are trying to do. ultimately, it is about job creation, and i get excited about that. it does keep me getting up very early, murder this of how i get there. if i can create one job every day for somebody here in san francisco, that will satisfy me greatly. guess what? there are hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake. i will continue to make this my mantra because i think it is the right thing to do for a great city. i want to also acknowledge the members of the board of supervisors here today. they were announced earlier. we all work as a team and it has never been about the mayor, him or herself, and i have learned
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that working in concert with the board that we have clear tones of communication, making sure that we speak more and more in the language that is important for this city. language and policies and ideas that create investor confidence in this city. that is what i have been talking about more and more. we have got to have a city that is investment-confident, that one -- that one does not have doubt. if it is your family, small business, someone joining another one's business, we have got to have that level of confidence to see things through for you, so your investment is one that is positively welcome, taking care of, and prosperous. that is how we get to the theme of today's breakfast of prosperity and sharing of that prosperity. i want to take a moment to thank
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my friend john. he has been at the helm of the chamber for the past few years. he has been an important aspect of the work that i have done over the years. as you know, i started at the human rights commission and then i went to purchasing, which was the most fun i have had. who could not have fun buying a billion dollars in supplies every year? then the former mayor brown gave me the heart to work in public works, engage in conversations with everyone about what was wrong with our streets and making them right. it was in that toughest job that i had that i have a lifelong friends, people who care enough about the city that picking up somebody else's trash is nothing when you can work together and dream about how better the city can become.
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i want to recognize john because he is one of those few people who i can properly engage in trash talk and still talk about the city in a positive way. thank you, john, for your wonderful service. [applause] when i came to all of you a year ago, san francisco's on the planet rate was 9.5%. we just heard a fantastic presentation by j.p. morgan and their analyst as to how we come about in making that change. at the time, we faced a $380 million budget deficit, and we were struggling on how to meet the increasing cost of our pension and health-care obligations. remember that discussion about our pension? we have come a long way. it is not even mentioned anymore but it is still prevalent, and so are our health-care obligations. one year later, our city, the
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supervisors, mayor, elected officials have all come together with the help of great city department leaders that are also here today doing everything we can to make sure that we tackle the pension issues and make sure that our budget is balanced. more importantly, we put people back to work. that is the most important thing all of us have joined together in doing. in the last 12 months, guess what we have done? we created jobs for an additional 17,300 san franciscans, bringing our unemployment rate down from 9.5% to 7.6%. that is in just one year. thank you for your help on the [applause] at. -- for your help on that. [applause] two weeks ago, we got another piece of positive information, news on the economy.
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our revenues became $129 million in greater, than projected in the first six months of the fiscal year. that is wonderful data for san francisco because, guess what? for some years now, it has been deficit, deficit, deficit, no increase, no revenue, and all of you know how wonderfully negative that discussion has always been. now we have some positive light. i stand before you today, just a year in office, in my first year as mayor, to say that the economic recovery is under way, it is a real, and economic policies and strategies we have pursued are working, and they are working well.
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our city could not do this without the partnerships of many of you who are here today. san francisco is back on track and but we must stay the course. what i mean is, even though our revenues have surged from the economic growth that our tech companies have provided, a traditional companies that have been here for so many years. by the way, let me do this. i have been known as the attack may year -- tech mayor. how one thing that i have come here with, puget you have always been excited for the city. we come to you. you helped us on a tremendous number of thing last year. i want to thank all the members of the chamber as well. whether it is a wells fargo, a
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pg&e, recology, the numerous sponsors that continue to come here, you have been part of the life blood as we welcome in the clean technology and biotech. you want to make sure that we are growing a family steeped in tradition of people that love this city, that love every neighborhood, and who have experienced all the great positive dialogue, but have also been concern about negative dialogue, sharing in every aspect of the city has. i know many of you have joined with me some weeks ago when we celebrated the 50 years of tony bennett and his wonderful song. we have much more to celebrate in the coming years. i hope you all join the chamber in making sure that we share this prosperity. having said that, knowing that our economy is improving, i want
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to make sure you know i will be at the home with the board, making sure we are not tempted to return to spending habits and short-term choices that got us into trouble in the first place. we have two-year budgets, a renewed sense of obligation and responsibility, talking about our infrastructure, things that allow our tech companies to be successful. we have to solve some serious transportation issues in the city, and that is why at risk in and i spend hours saturday morning at a technology hackathon. not trying to create a new application but try to solve some traditional problems with our taxis, making sure that someone can get a taxi, rather than waiting in being frustrated, another aspect of our transportation issue that we would try to get solutions to. more than ever, we have to
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double down on reform, on innovation, an investment. that is why i will continue to announce we are the innovation center for the whole world, right here in san francisco. soon enough, there will be cited to reflect that in the city. we had to break with some traditional things from announcing that in the most broadway, letting everyone know that this is the center for a lot of things to happen. reebok to keep that innovation strong, keep the dialogue, as the panel has been talking about, keep salesforce growing, twitter growing here, keeping us all engaged as technology helps us to solve many of our problems, and finding solutions that we have not thought about. once and for all, we must treat government and our responsibility as mayors, as families do, find savings where we can, reduce unnecessary
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spending, and importantly, in best. invest in our people and our infrastructure. as said earlier, i will continue to talk about jobs. i do not care if i'm called the most boring guy that got one thing. i will repeat. i come here every day to the office asking whether or not i created another job for somebody else. when you learn about the statistics that sf city is sharing with us, if it is jobs for seven siskins, it is worth to get up early for, sacrificing late-night meetings, working on the weekend -- except my golf. [laughter] we are attracting tec, biotech, clean tech. we are supporting local manufacturing. we are going to be making more things. fashion is coming back.
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technology with passion will be an exciting areas that we can hopefully unleashed soon. i will also tell you this. there are areas that we do not pay attention to that are not only stable, increasing, and wonderful when you hear this, but did you know -- and i got this from the recent reports from our hospital council recently -- did you know that our health care industry in san francisco generates economic impact of over $15 billion a year? our own health care industry. 99,000 jobs. that is a huge contribution to our economy. i do not want them to be silent any more. our health care needs are important, and we will be getting that cpmc job done very shortly, wade. [applause]
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with our elected officials and board, we need to continue to reform the peril tax. we have got to incentivize businesses to create those jobs. -- payroll tax. the conversation in the board has been very good because we have not forgotten those that are not skilled as well as others. we have got to get that employment training center up, we have to invite those who are living in the tenderloin, amid market, south of market, the traditional groups that have struggled, they have identified issues in the past, the digital divide. they were not caught up to the lunch alt -- level of education and technology they needed to be. we have got to help our returning veterans get those skill sets. people who are in the middle of their careers get those skills sets. that is why employment training is so important. we need a stronger training partnership. we also need private and more
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public investment in our schools. i will be talking a lot about that with the new president of our school board norman yi, carlos, organizations at the school board. i will be talking about how our schools can participate in this employment training and make sure there are generations of kids who do not lose hope in this city, do not look elsewhere when the best jobs are created right here. all i have to do is do their part. when they do that and complete their job education, that will be there for them. i want to say one thing about our infrastructure, something that i want you to remember as you leave today. i just want to mention something about hetch hetchy. some people out there are suggesting we can tear down
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that dam and still survive as a city. i want to let you know, as insane as it is, it is, in fact, insane. [applause] there will be some leaders that approach you, others around the city that suggest tearing down hetch hetchy is a good idea. they will start talking about water sustainability issues. but know this. not only do we have the cleanest water, not only have we spent serious amounts of money upgrading seismically the whole system to deliver that clean water, but it is also one of the strongest clean hydroelectric power sources, it infrastructure, that any city across the country has had.
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i want to make sure you know that as this public dialogue begins. do not be misled on the discussions by people who will connect something that we want to have, which is sustainable water, but not by tearing down our dam. finally, i want to end with a discussion on america's cup. yesterday, we made the announcement that pier 30 and 32 are no longer part of it. i think the public discussion and discourse around the investments that we do need to rebuild the piers, including the horrible conditions at 30 and 32, it got away from the focus, which should be on hosting the 34th america's cup, one of the greatest sports event we will see. it will probably be the only international sporting event and all of 2013 in any part of the
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united states, and it is coming here to san francisco. it will be a blend of technology, with boating, will be viewed by new technologies to introduce us to generations of new sailors, and using our waterfront and bay in the right way. i spoke to larry ellison directly for a good few moments. we reiterated our excitement about the race. it is on for this year for the smaller boats, next year for the larger ones, and we do expect hundreds of thousands of people to come to our city. we have figured out, through the work of the event authority and host committees, all the different plans we have to use properly our open space, transportation lines, making sure we create positive then use.
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i want to let you know about the change in investment and topic this course is a very key reminder of how sensitive we have to be to this whole dialogue about investment. it can go different ways. the thing that i need to make sure we do at the board of supervisors, mayor's office, keep a strong foundation for economic growth in this city, keep talking to audiences like you and others who can help us, talking to neighborhoods, making sure the dialogue understands and job creation is still in the misdirection. this whole theme today, prosperity together, sharing it, is consistent with what i have been saying throughout the city. we are the city for the 100%. we will work together. i will make sure the city's
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discourse is positive. we will not prevent the foundation that provides us with economic growth. let's move forward together. thank you very much. [applause] >> welcome to "culturewire." today we are at recology. they are celebrate 20 years of one of the most incredibly unique artist residency programs. we are here to learn more from one of the resident artists.
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welcome to the show, deborah. tell us how this program began 20 years ago. >> the program began 20 years ago. our founder was an environmentalist and an activist and an artist in the 1970's. she started these street sweeping campaigns in the city. she started with kids. they had an exhibition at city hall. city officials heard about her efforts and they invited her to this facility. we thought it would coincide with our efforts to get folks to recycle, it is a great educational tool. since then, we have had 95 professional artists come through. >> how has the program changed over the years? how has the program -- what can the public has an artist engage with? >> for the most part, we worked
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with metal and wood, what you would expect from a program like ours. over the years, we tried to include artists and all types of mediums. conceptual artists, at installation, photographers, videographers. >> that has really expanded the program out. it is becoming so dynamic right now with your vision of interesting artists in gauging here. why would an artist when to come here? >> mainly, access to the materials. we also give them a lot of support. when they start, it is an empty studio. they go out to the public area and -- we call it the big store. they go out shopping, take the materials that, and get to work. it is kind of like a reprieve, so they can really focus on their body of work. >> when you are talking about recology, do you have the only
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sculpture garden at the top? >> it is based on work that was done many years ago in new york. it is the only kind of structured, artist program. weit is beautiful. a lot of the plants you see were pulled out of the garbage, and we use our compost to transplant them. the pathway is lined with rubble from the earthquake from the freeways we tour about 5000 people a year to our facility, adults and children. we talk about recycling and conservation. they can meet the artists. >> fantastic. let's go meet some of your current artists. here we are with lauren. can you tell us how long have been here so far and what you're working on? >> we started our residency on
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june 1, so we came into the studio then and spent most of the first couple weeks just digging around in the trash. i am continuing my body of work, kind of making these hand- embroidered objects from our day-to-day life. >> can you describe some of the things you have been making here? this is amazing. >> i think i started a lot of my work about the qualities of light is in the weight. i have been thinking a lot about things floating through the air. it is also very windy down here. there is a piece of sheet music up there that i have embroidered third. there is a pamphlet about hearing dea -- nearing death. this is a dead rabbit. this is what i am working on now. this is a greeting card that i found, making it embroidered. it is for a very special friend.
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>> while we were looking at this, i glanced down and this is amazing, and it is on top of a book, it is ridiculous and amazing. >> i am interested in the serendipity of these still life compositions. when he got to the garbage and to see the arrangement of objects that is completely spontaneous. it is probably one of the least thought of compositions. people are getting rid of this stuff. it holds no real value to them, because they're disposing of it. >> we're here in another recology studio with abel. what attracted you to apply for this special program? >> who would not want to come to the dump? but is the first question. for me, being in a situation that you're not comfortable in has always been the best. >> what materials were you immediately attracted to when you started and so what was
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available here? >> there are a lot of books. that is one of the thing that hits me the most. books are good for understanding, language, and art in general. also being a graphic designer, going straight to the magazines and seeing all this printed material being discarded has also been part of my work. of course, always wood or any kind of plastic form or anything like that. >> job mr. some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. -- taught me through some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. >> the first thing that attracted me to this was the printed surface. it was actually a poster. it was a silk screen watercolor, about 8 feet long. in terms of the flatwork, i work with a lot of cloddish. so being able to cut into it come at into it, removed parts, it is part of the process of negotiating the final form. >> how do you jump from the two
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dimensional work that you create to the three-dimensional? maybe going back from the 3f to 2d. >> everything is in the process of becoming. things are never said or settled. the sculptures are being made while i am doing the collages, and vice versa. it becomes a part of something else. there's always this figuring out of where things belong or where they could parapets something else. at the end goal is to possibly see one of these collage plans be built out and create a structure that reflects back into the flat work. >> thank you so much for allowing "culturewire" to visit this amazing facility and to learn more about the artists in residence program. is there anything you like our viewers to know? >> we have art exhibitions every four months, and a win by the
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public to come out. everybody is welcome to come out. we have food. sometimes we have gains and bands. it is great time. from june to september, we accept applications from bay area artists. we encouraged artists from all mediums to apply. we want as many artists from the bay area out here so they can have the same experience. >> how many artists to do your host here? >> 6 artist a year, and we receive about 108 applications. very competitive. >> but everyone should be encouraged to apply. thank you again for hosting us. >> thank you for including us in "culturewire." ♪