little citizen participation, that is one of the reasons that i started up we stand san francisco it is an on-line society to engage citizen and order people to get more involved in government so that we cannot just have a conversation here, where people could make it, if people could be part of that conversation on-line, just like all of the folks at the richmond senior sen center, so they can participate. i think that what is lacking in government at times is really making sur that citizens have the information, and they are digestable information and so few people when they pay property taxes one of the biggest checks they write every year, most people could never describe where the money goes. we have to make sure that we offer more transparency and more disclosure in giving the citizens more information to make the right decisions. >> thank you. >> mr. bryer what have you done and what would you do to encourage engagement? >> i started a big over ten years ago and really what it is about, it is about applying

innovation or the first public wifi network in the world and we broadcast courtroom proceedings it is about transparently in government and education we. have over 70 law schools and students who have unlimited access to this level. and so in large part, what we are trying to do, or what i have done, is tried to restore faith here in our government institutions by seeing how our court system works. your court system is not perfect, but when people see how our jury system actually works and learn about that, it is one step closer to again, reengaging a citizen in government. and we have to use technology, it is one of those credible tools that while people are disenfranchised in what is going on in sacramento with the lack of transparency, we can have a much more service-oriented government that reengages people.

>> so speaking of service orientation, what do you think that the government should do? and where should the government step aside? >> in terms of... >> what do you think is the role of government? it is a very general question. >> so, the role of government is to provide basic services that the private sector would just not provide. i mean, education, i mean, it is infrastructure, that means social services that means, giving people basic tools that they might not otherwise have. so really giving people in my mind an opportunity to succeed. and when the private sector, which can fall short in many areas are not providing, you know, basic services like food, or housing, or that is the role of government to step in. and we have to, we have to restore faith in our system of government. because if people do not believe that the government

will spend money well, than it will not improve key infrastukt tur projects that the state needs to do. they need to invest in the roads because the private sector is not. >> thank you. >> mr. king. how would you describe your views on the role of government? >> i think that the government provides some of the most critical services that we lie on every day, we walk on the sidewalk and get on a bus and drop our kids off at schools, many of the things that we take for granted. i wake up, i brush my teeth and water is there provided by our incredible water department. these are critical city service and state services that we rely on every day. the government has formed the back bone of our economy like the university of california which i am a proud graduate off. we have been able to grow the tech industry thanks to uc berkeley, and the bio tech thanks to uc sf and san diego.

and we need to continue to invest in our future and investing in education and investing in uc, and making sure that those intaoutions are protected. i think that government needs to step out by making sure that we are not being overly burdensome. i think that we make the citizen and businesses go to too many places at times. i think that there is a significant amount of bureaucracy that could be cut. >> you mentioned that education is one of the things that government has to be responsible for. >> california used to have a education system that was the envy of the system how do we get it back >> we get it back through funding it. from kindergarten to my time at uc berkeley, i just started dropping off my daughter at kindergarten this year and i am concerned about the state of public education. we fund our kids about $8,000 per pupil that feels like a lot of money, compare that to new york, new jersey, massachusetts, and you are

talking anywhere between $14,000 to $15,000. almost double what california is. that is a tra vesty. i think that if you look at the fee increases for uc and higher education it is a absolute crime that we are divesting in our future. we need to make sure that we invest in education. education is the way that we grow our economy. and it is the way that we grow our jobs and to make sure that we invest in all of the future. i was an investment. >> california invested in me and my education. >> mr. bryer, how do we get that great reputation back for great education. >> the first thing is that i agree that we have to fund our schools, first and foremost, that is not enough. we have to improve our school system and my grandfather actually one of the first people that i was told to originate the education code he would be turning over in his

grave to see that it was 5,000 pages more than any other state, texas is next with 3,000. we have to have sacramento stop from tying up our schools from making decisions and i think that we have to encourage good teachers and career paths and higher compensations because there are great, talented teachers. we have to have 100 percent transparency in budget and have the schools that are funded. funding so complicated that no one can explain it simply. we have to do a host of measurements. we have to tell students what they need to take in order, and what classes they need to take in order to qualify for your university, right now we are not doing that. parents should know that every child should have the right or opportunity to go to a four-year university. >> this is a question from the audience that is related. >> do you think that community colleges should focus mainly on practical things like training for unemployed workers and

upgrading skills for new jobs? do you feel it is the states' role to encourage this? >> i certainly think that job training is a critical aspect and obviously transferring to a four-year university as well and that is a great role. if you look at what is happening in city college in san francisco, it is a travesty. almost 85,000 students are being supported by something like 39 administrators. students were not collecting fees for the classes. they have no idea the cost of different campuses and how they operate. and so that is just a case study in how we have to be brave, we have to have people who are willing to be honest and plan ahead. in terms of having community college system which is not only you know, such a critical aspect of san francisco, and almost one in ten people is

taking classes there, but is around and is not threatened by something has horiffic as losing their credentials which are being threatened. >> i think that when governor pat brown designed the education, there were three rungs,. and they were absolutely integral. if you cut off one of those rungs you are cutting off a pathway for people to have a better life. if the community colleges don't offer courses where people can ma trick you late to csu or uc, i think that you are absolutely limiting their options. it is critical to do that. we have 90,000 students at the city college in san francisco. half of them are actually learning english as a second language because san francisco is an entry point for immigrants. and so, often we encourage immigrants to learn english and become citizens and without those courses at the city college they would not have those opportunities. so it is actually critical that we make sure that that institution is funded and that

it is protected and that it is fiscally accountable. and we need to make sure that they are teaching classes like the solar class that i helped to advocate for. we now have classes at the campus to learn how to install solar on people's roofs because of the great system that we have here in san francisco. >> you touched on the immigrant community and this is a question from the audience. governor brown vetoed both the trust act and the domestic workers bill last week, how did you feel about those pieces of legislation. >> i was disappointed. i mean one of the issues that we have debated here in san francisco was directly when to turn, over, juveniles to immigration officials and i have taken the position that, again, they are innocence until proven guilt y so that here in san francisco which is the position of the city that we should not be turning over innocent juveniles to immigration officials regardless of the potential situation. i think that domestic workers,

unfortunately, are in a very challenging situation, i know personally that we have an in-home support services person come and help and work with us to help take care of my grandmother. this person was part of our family and this person was someone who was actually crit tal to maintaining her health. but in a work environment, you need to make sure that the rules are clear. so that legislation, tried to create rules in a work environment for some information and they had protection and they could have breaks and they could have all of the protections that we have when we go to work. >> i think this we are a country that is founded on immigrants and i think that actually my ancestors, many people in the audience have been and they came from around the world and across the world. started in new lifes themselves. so, i just support completely

the important role that immigrants have and i think that clearly, that there should be a path to citizenship and that there should be a great respect in many ways for all of the things that they do. >> state proposition, 35, asks if the definition of human trafficking should be expanded and the penalties for the traffickers be increased and be registered for sex offenders and training be provided for law enforcement officers. i am curious, what is your position on this? >> i support that. i think that obviously, trafficking is a horrific occurrence that happens in areas around the world and it is something that we certainly should have a very strong stand

on. and so i think that we absolutely should support that proposition completely. >> thank you. >> mr. chang?mr. king. >> that was one of the issues that we worked on, many of the women who are in san francisco get trafficked from asia and so this is something that is a very serious issue that we need to take it and create greater enforcement and we have received a time and worked with non-profits in a coalition to make sure that the city and the law enforcement and the da and the local police department actually took much more greater, aggressiveness towards this issue, twiet often, this is happening in your neighborhood, this is happening down the street from your office, this is not something that is happening in some other part of the world. this is happening in san francisco. and it is extremely unfortunate that we have not done everything possible to stamp it out. >> thank you. >> so we are on the last question now. and we are going back to the richmond senior center who is

joining us virtually and they asked very specifically, funding cuts to senior programs and services for adults with disabilities are an unyoual reality. many programs may seize to exist without the help from the state level. how will you advocate for us. >> i would ask the seniors at the richmond senior center to not just depend on me but really find ways that we can all work together which is really the question of going back to citizen engagement. unfortunately the people with the smallest voices in sacramento got cut the last couple of years and those were kids and seniors those were the ones that took the bulk of the cuts. and so there is only a couple of ways to go. and which we can find more revenue to get $20 billion that we can get and get great jobs and we have to go and raise revenue tha, is why prop 38 and the governor's proposal is actually critical to our budget and i think that we have to look at ways that we can cut expenses that are not seniors.

i don't think that most people know that our correction budget is $9 billion, and contrast that to our usc which is $10 billion. >> i think that those two priorities should be funded the same. >> thank you. >> i would add to that, that we can't just point out that the present system is costing us $9 billion or more than higher ed. but we have to be willing to reform the system and to find ways to save costs. and when you look at an example of the initiative that is three strikes and you are out. that could save a tremendous amount of money. $47,000 a year to keep someone in prison rather than what we are spending on year for education whereas someone is educated and having a job there they are not going to go to jail, it is very unlikely. so i would say that there might be something like determinive

sentencing which would allow someone who is drug addiction and you could provide the judge with the discretion to actually have them in treatment rather than costing the tax payers thousands of dollars. so we have to save the seniors the services that they need and we have to be willing to make hard reform. >> now we come to the candidate' closing statements if you are not registered to vote, please do so right away and urge your friends and family to register stao. the deadline is october 22nd. if you have moved you need to register again with the new address, if you have changed your name you need to register again with the new name. all right. so we will do the closing statements in reverse, alphabetical order and please remember that you have tr two

minutes >> thank you for organizing our decision and thank you for showing up. >> i am running because we don't need people in sacramento to talk about fixing our problems we need people who know how to fix it. i took over a broke assess or's office and reformed it and made it more efficient and because of that we were able to bring in $3 million of additional revenue without raising taxes people talk about clean jobs but we did something here in san francisco by creating solar sf. we did not just quad droople the number of solar roofs we created 28 companies and created 450 jobs in the city and making san francisco the solar capitol of california. when people were losing their homes here in san francisco in call, there is plenty of talk and discussion about what to do, we commissioned the first report of its kind to make sure that there were facts behind the dialogue, and because of those facts that came out in

our report, looking at foreclosures, finding fraud and finding inappropriate activities that happened by the lenders, action was taken and the home owner's bill of rights and i was proud to be one of the co-sponsors of the piece of legislation in the state. when people talk about fixing education, i first and foremost have that personal experience going into the public schools and going to uc berkeley and seeing my daughter attend a kindergarten every day. and i can tell you that there is no more important issue in our state than education and what we are doing. we need to make sure that it is a priority and it is getting funded and we can't continue to fund higher ed at the same level of that question was being funded and we need to make sure that we have the leadership and the ability to manage that and to turn around. again, if you are looking for a reformer who has a track record of fixing something, people like me and i hope that i have the honor to be able to representative of sacramento.

>> thank you. >> mr. bryer. >> it is a great pleasure to be here and thank you for hosting us. it is a particularly special occasion for me because this stage is where the library commission meets. where i was a member for a long time. so this is it feels like home here. so as i mentioned started a company. we provide innovation to our court system and transparency to government and emphasis on education and those are all priorities. and i want to bring to sacramento. i always have been engaged in civic activities and my first campaign was six and senator kennedy. and i worked on al gore i was an intern in his office and volunteered in his campaign and i volunteered in new hampshire for obama and for nusome and lee. i have been on the library commission and i have a public

service history in my family. my grandfather used to work for the school board. my dad is on the u.s. supreme court and so i believe that the pinnacle of a person's career is to make an impact on public service and when you see faith in our system of government dropping off a cliff, like it has, going from 80 percent to 20 percent, you see, something is wrong. something is not working. and when you have politics as usual, in sacramento, not being honest, not being transparent, not dealing with the problems and challenges of the future, we say that we have to change that. and so i want to bring that independent perspective, and that personal honesty and that willingness to invest in the things that are important for our future and being able to reform, status quo which is dysfunctional. and so i ask you for your vote,

i ask for your support and i ask you to go to www.elect michael bryere.com and we are challenging the politics as usual. so thank you, again. >> i would like to sincerely thank both of you for participating on behalf of myself, the league of women voters of san francisco and our partner organizations the jr. league of san francisco, the university of california, san francisco and the san francisco public library, and our media partner, san francisco government television. thanks to each of you, for taking the time to inform yourself about your choices on november 6th. good evening. [ applause ]

>> hi, i'm jane konig, a member of the league of women voters. along with the league and sfgovtv, i'm here to discuss proposition a, a ballot measure that will be before the voters on november 6th. city college of san francisco has 9 campuses in the city and serves approximately 100,000 students each year. the state has reduced funding to ccsf by

core academic courses, provide work force training, provide an education that prepares students for 4 year universities, keep city college libraries and student support services open, keep technology and instructional support up to date, and offset state budget cuts. i'm here with alyssa messer, an english teacher at city college of san francisco. she's the ppt of aft2121, the

faculty union, and a proponent of proposition a. also joining us is starchild, a local activist with the libertarian party of san francisco and a former candidate for the san francisco school board. he's an opponent of the measure. thank you both for taking the time to be with us today. >> thank you. >> alyssa, i'd like to give you the opportunity it share the thoughts of your position. >> so proposition a is a temporary 8-year, $79 parcel tax on properties in san francisco. and that money would go directly to supporting city college of san francisco. city college is the largest work force training center in san francisco. we train students. we also help students learn english as a second language and then of course one of our primary missions is to help students, particularly low income and underserved students, move on to 4 year institutions. we

serve nearly 100,000 students in san francisco and are a tremendous resource, we think, for san francisco. the last couple years the state budget cuts we faced, $53 million in the last 3 years alone, have really made it a challenge for us to keep our doors open for san francisco students and this proposition a would make a tremendous difference in addressing our fiscal problems right now. >> understood. thank you. starchild, can you present some of the thoughts around the opposition? >> sure. we all believe in people getting an education and having those opportunities be affordable and accessible to them, but city college's financial problems, we believe, are not due to state budget cuts primarily but due to fiscal mismanagement. the accreditation report that came out recently found city college to be one of the 3 worst-performing schools in the

112 community colleges in california and as evidenced by the $276,000 salary of the head of city college, we blaefrb there's plenty of money they can find without going to the taxpayers. >> i understand there were 700 classes, a reduction in 700 classes, which from the reporting indicates that people have to be on longer wait lists. can you speak to that and how this would facilitate, if this proposition was passed, how that would be facilitated? >> well, it's true. we faced tremendous budget cuts in the last several years. in fact, for the last several years running all of the employees of city college, even our chancellor, have taken pay cuts in order to keep the college open. but we've also seen closure of classes, we lost 700 classes this year, we canceled summer school a couple years ago, and these are measures we have had to take that have caused students to suffer and have caused all of city college to

suffer. so that's why we're looking for an opportunity to bring in some funding from the city that we think san francisco taxpayers will support and that the state can't take away so that we can continue to serve san franciscoans. >> understood. i know there's a relationship with proposition 30 as well, of course, from the tax base and it's all connected and --. >> that's right. >> the tax is $79 per household. can you talk about that and how that would be an impact in your view? it's an 8-year tax. it's a finite tax. >> well, you know they say the only things permanent are death and taxes. once a new tax is implemented we often find even though it's called temporary when it gets passed, it ends up bking permanent or longer term than was discussed. i would love for my colleague here to

tell us that she won't support extending that tax beyond the 8 years if it were to pass, but i believe that there's other ways that city college can stay afloat and continue to serve a declining student population. they might close some of the new campuses they've opened recently and consolidate facilities. >> thank you. do you want to offer comments to starchild's opposition? >> i think the, one of the primary things we need to remember is that city college of san francisco, which is an institution that san francisco really counts on, i think, for both our economy and for all of the community, has been operating under duress for a number of years. we can and we will make the smart reforms, we already are making the smart reforms that need to be made around scheduling, around

addressing the needs of our various communities and of our students and i think that's already well underway. we'll meet our accreditation and work to make the college more fiscally sound. but proposition a is really a component of that. it's not everything that needs to happen at san francisco city college right now, but it is a huge component and it will make a tremendous difference in ensuring that city college is here for san franciscoans in the future. >> thank you. is there any further response you have, starchild? >> every time we take more money from the taxpayers remember that's cutting into the budgets of families and individuals of san francisco who have to pay for their own education. outside city college they have to pay for housing and health care and food and other family needs, so it's a little bit misleading when we talk in terms of, well, what's going to happen to city college? we also need to think about what's going to happen to the people, hundreds of thousands of san franciscoans which have to pay this little

bit of extra tax every year, which could be a lot for some of them, $80 a year. city college is spending 92 percent of their budget on staff when realistic budget is 85 percent. there's room for improvement there and city college can tighten its belt a little bit without coming back to the community which has borne multiple tax measures in the past. >> i thank you both for being here again. we hope this discussion was informative. for more information on this and other measures on this ballot please visit the san francisco league of women voters web site at sfvote.org. remember early voting is available monday through friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm if you don't vote early, be sure to vote on no