(inaudible) vitorio and i am a volunteer organizer with the coalition of concerned professionals based in san francisco. i am here to protest the city's plan to down size the only public library left stand ng san francisco. i want to echo the people that spoke before on behalf of the low income people, all of the people that need probono cases by representative. and because i am of mexican origin and the people that are limited in english are in dire need of support. the state says that they do not have the money to keep the sorts open. but they have been 41 billion each year on tax breaks and incentive to corporations it is an constitutional act to be fund a judicial branch in the resource to a point that they

are (inaudible) effective. the need of thousands of low income people and retired people as well as the (inaudible) and we urge you to do the duty to provide recourse to the people of the city, the city insured that the public law library has sufficient space and funding to continue its valuable work for our community so not only would we like it to be, or that we would even like the expansion, better space and greater possibilities for all of the people, thank you. >> my name is dan snow berg and i am the pastor at the (inaudible) church and my congregation is made up mostly of homeless and disenfranchised and people who have time and time been marked as less than

both cap able or status having access to services. i am deeply disturbed that there is a continuing, almost systemic elimination of services and opportunities for poor people, for those that have been eliminated or have been marginalized and this is just one more step, one more illustration along the way. that the law library, that which, that system that has provided the opportunities for people to advance, even without resources. that becomes an opportunity to be limited and controlled. the real issue here is to control access. to a system and to a process

which is essential for our democracy, and for those folks who support and are part of that democracy to make themselves, to strengthen their positions. you have the opportunity to expand and to provide opportunity for that access to be maintained and not controlled but to maintain it as an open and an option for those folks who are in desperate need. thank you. >> good afternoon, committee members my name is will mquire i am a sole practitioner and as a new attorney like many of our generation we have been a victim of a over saturated legal market that you did not get the job at the big firm and i have started a solo practice and i cannot afford west law

lexus services let alone the extensive collection of books that they have at the san francisco law library. in order that i rely every week on the service and staff that are invaluable. quite simply i could not serve my clients without their help and therefore i urge the committee to adopt the requested relief and on behalf of myself and the clients simply situated and all of the litigants who use the services as well. thank you. >> good afternoon, my name is antonio (inaudible) and here as a resident of san francisco speaking on my behalf to reiterate of what the pastor says i was going to say the same message that we need to have legal services for

homeless and people in need and the people part of the lgbt community, back and brown people, poor people, in general, they need legal services. if you see someone on welfare, or they cannot afford to pay $500 an hour, for an attorney and if he we down size the library, that is going to be a constraint for them. i support bigger library and i support that the library should be 30,000 square feet and current size of the library is too small, there are not enough seats there. not enough books. and we need more staff and more resources for that library. i want to point out one personal example that there is a contract that san francisco as signed on our carry no cash program. and (inaudible) was awarded $82

million and $86,000 since 2010, tac (inaudible) were in control and if you contact the citizens who live in the properties or people who have called for work for pac they will tell you so many stories that are so heart breaking. and those people have no resources they don't have a way of making sure that they get equal access to justice. we need the bigger library and problems 20s at the library and the legal at the library and if it is possible and i understand that the budget committee is concerned about the money, i think. based on san francisco budget. so, $7.1 billion and that is a lot of no money and i think that we can support the library and it is the only library in san francisco. and the land lords they get in

the way because most law firms don't take cases that are $5,000 work, $10,000, $20,000 worth. and so where do you go? you go to rent control board and they say no, the clinic is exempt and so they have no jurisdiction and so we need a jury trial to deal with this situation and to do that, you need, there is legal resources and that is why i am here to support san francisco law library, thank you. >> good morning, my name is albert koon and i have used the library 42 years continuously as a sole practitioner and i use it every week at least once and sometimes twice.

occasionally three times. the size of light braer as it is right now is too small. and we are using all of the books that are there, and anybody who does his own research like i do, both the state and the federal courts, it is necessary to have that minimum 30,000 square feet. and i urge you to maintain that level and i would like to remind you that just kennedy was also a user of this law library before he went on the supreme court. thank you. >> my name is cathy kusher and i have been a lawyer since 1976 and most of that time at a big firm and now at my small, firm of my own. but most important for today, i am a trustee of the board of the law library and have been for the past 15 years and i

could say that i only hope that you are as moved by the testimony that is given today as i am as a trustee of the library about the extent to which the mall and diminishing space and resources that they have been able to offer for 15 years on my tenure, 18 years after we were removed from city hall and we have been able to serve so many people so well. >> and i am also shamed that in the 18 years that we have had to work with the city. 15 on my watch, that we have not been able to come up with a solution to the true space needs of the library as the need for services has gotten greater. and i feel like my role as a trustee has not been honored given that it is my duty and my

fiduciary duty to make sure that there is adequate space for that library. as you know, i as one of the trustees were forced to sue the library over the amount of space this year. i would only ask that you review that record, which justifies the full amount of 30,000 to 35,000 square feet, that the city itself recommended in 2010. you know, before you vote on this resolution. thank you. >> my name is kay lucas and come to be a member of the board not because of a election because i was so concerned about what was happening to the law library, when it moved out of city hall, half of the

collection was put in under brooks hall where it has suffered tremendous damage, water damage, there is a leaky conditions and it is well documented, and i became so concerned about the outstanding collection that was being wasted by the city that i was appalled, and when i contacted the board, trustees they actually asked me to join, which i did. and we have spent the last number of years working with the city trying to do, or come to every kind of solution, we have spent money, trying to have feesbility studies done, we have had experts come in, to have a first class law library they have told us that it is somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 it is astonishing that we are in the position of discussinging if it should be only 30,000 we have no choice, because, it is the only public

library of citizens. they have to go out to find out why the board of supervisors pass the regulation and what does it mean when they did it? 1970. there is no other way for the citizens to find out the information that they need. we urge you to recognize the leadership of this city and to go forward and have a first class law library, thank you. >> good morning honor board members my name is dennis rice. i have been a lawyer here in the city since 1959. i am not going to give you a lecture on the law. i have been a county supervisor myself. and as a matter of fact barbara and i went on the board the same day and i know that you supervisors have to rely on staff to give you the input. i just want to site one aspect

of the information that you have gotten from staff. if you read all of the materials that have been furnished to the board, you would get the impression that city and county's real estate company found the property at 1200 van ness and they have been by themselves secured the rights to get 22,000 or gross feet or 20,000 net feet. the real estate department had nothing to do with locating 1200 van ness and that was done by the law library. we brought in our real estate person and we are negotiating with the owner who had 22,000 gross feet, square feet on one floor and 8,000 gross square feet on another floor and had

some additional square footage and wanted the law library in there. the county real estate department took over the negotiation and shut the law library's real estate people out. they took it over themselves and the next thing you knew, they came up with just 20,000 net, square feet. and then they went out and found somebody and took them down and say that the appropriate amount of pace was 20,000. >> so this was the kind of information that has been furnished to you and i think that it was suspect the way that it was done and i urge you to reject this resolution and send it back to the executive branch and call for a real study to be done about what this really needed and what is available. thank you very much. >> good morning, supervisors my

name is trevon machan and i am an attorney and i practice over in (inaudible) as well as here in san francisco. i see that the only issue here today is your recommendation of 20,000 square feet verses the recommendation of the librarians of 30,000 square feet for space. and currently, west law is 253 dollars a month and lexus is 240 a month and bloomberg law is $350 a month. and with those subscriptions those are bare bones and without access to textbooks and practice guides and trestuses and law journals or the books that most of us practicing lawyers find in the law that we need. so when i need something i go to the law library that is where i find it.

recently i heard a congressman speaking about this sequestration in washington. that for every citizen that speaks up to congress and sends an e-mail there are about 1,000 citizens who don't. i don't know how many people spoke today, perhaps 60 or 70. if i bought down my clients that were located in san francisco, this year alone there would be about 40 and if everyone else brought been the clients perhaps 40 each, i don't know how much that equals, maybe 3,000 people would talk and i think that they would all urge you to adopt the 30,000 square feet passed for by the libraries who know their job and know the amount of space needed for the books that are used every day by the lawyers. thanks.

>> good day, members, my name is kurt (inaudible) and i am the president of the board of trustees of the law library and i would understand that we would have a chance to speak with you after the closed session but i thought that i would have the opportunity to speak to you now. mr. rice has indicated that the history of the 1200 van ness building and i want to say to you in the time is permitted to me that we have a long history of the city promising our adequate facilities ever since we moved out of city hall and everything has been temporary and much of our material has been in dead storage which means that we can't get access to it which means that we can't get our citizen and our users to get access to it and both the lawyers and lay people and that is not the way that it should be. if you look at the numbers, frankly i am sorry to say this, i am a citizen of this city andvy been here since is 1956

and practiced since 1956 and you are not being dealt with fairly and adequately, the city, and board of supervisors passed a resolution, in 2004 saying that 35,000 feet was the adequate space for the law library, nothing has changed. now, the city has produced an expert witness who says that 22,000 feet is sufficient. the expert witness is being contradicted extensively by the material of you fighting in court. i can't get into it now because it is much too detailed. but the city has somehow taken the 22,000 feet of the expert and reduced it to a 20,000 feet. but if you look at the item four in the executive summary, about halfway down the first page it says that the proposed lease would initially include approximately 15,633 net square

feet on the first floor and in addition there is (inaudible) of the first offer and a year from now is something like that. nobody says what we are going to do with the needs or the material that people need with the space for access for the people in the library i have been hearing all morning, that is all under the curtain and under the carpet. and not being paid attention to it, nothing is being done about helping us to move with just the city's obligation under the city's charter. and i am just frankly very, very distressed at the way in which the city administration has handled this and i urge you to reject the resolution for the reasons that i have stated on which i could go on to state longer thank you very much. >> thank you. >> supervisor mar? >> has a question for you, if you don't mind. >> could i just ask. >> i just reviewed the 2004, willie brown and board of supervisors resolution, i don't

think that it reference 30,000, where are you drawing that from that it is sufficient and adequate? >> that would help if i could see that and the other question is, how is the storage at brooke's hall being paid for? >> i can answer that question, but the librarian is in a better position to answer the first question if i may. come up here marsha and help me. as to the brooks hall is being paid by the city but i urge you to go over there and look at it. it is behind a wire enclosure piles of boxes that are deter ating and the books are not accessible and they are rotting. this is which is what we put in it there for two years during the remodeling process, we thought that we could do that, it has been 18 years

>> before miss bell answers the question, from mr. charles diers report, did he conduct you or the library staff? >> i am glad that you asked that. the city attorney office contacted our attorneys and that they were going to have it and he was going to serve as a mutual facilitator and mediator and then the assistant city attorney told them that they changed the position and their mind that he was going to be a partisan expert and so we dealt with him as a expert and we were polite and no corporation. >> thank you. >> in 2010, the controller's office undertook its own study and invite the library to participate and came up with something that is called a draft report which was issued in june of 2010.

in that report, the conclusion of the city was that the law library needed that minimum 35,000 square feet throughout the materials in the litigation, the city refers to part of that report, and there are things in that report that are otherwise inaccurate. but that is where the two statement came about 35,000 feet and with respect to brooke's hall to go back to 1995, when the bond issue was paying for the move out of city hall and the temporary move out we were expected to come in back in as all of the other stores would come back in and there is no expectation that we were not and so the move in the materials and the offices were paid for by the bond funds and at the reoccupation of city hall, and suddenly the law library did not go back in. so the materials have been stuck in a basement and the merchandise mark until it was leaking because of those

conditions, then the city moved it to the hall. but the cost associated with anything having to do with moving the library out or temporary out was a part of the bond project that related to the improvement of city hall. >> my last question is that i know that the 2004 resolution talks about the 525 golden gate building, that public and private resources would be raised for that project i am wondering if the board of trustees would raise the funds in being helpful in the move or wherever the move was and what the finances of the board of trustees is. >> could i speak to that for a second and i will let our president talk. >> it is impossible to have a capitol campaign if you can't identify a location for which the library would go and what the cost would be. way back in the early 2000s when there was activity under

mayor brown's mayorship. the hope and the expectation was that there would be an effort to obtain support from the community, as well as from the city, but the whole project disappeared before, that was ever possible. and so we are in this position that you can't go out and try to campaign for money if you don't have a location and a cost estimate and etc.. and the second point that i would make about that is this city is renowned across the country for the services that it provides to disadvantaged people and the major law firms and the small law firms in san francisco have historically contributed, hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the bar association of san francisco.

i have been notified that the recent change in the legal community so that a lot of local firms are now associated with out of state firms has made an impact as well as the economy on the amount of dollars available for the charitable contributions and they may necessarily have the same perspective as historically san francisco firms have had regarding making those kinds of contributions >> let me say a word about the 525 golden gate. that became a effort in which we spent a lot of time with the mayor and the people on his staff trying to work together and you are familiar with the societies where the pvc building is now, and at that time, there was an empty condemned building there and they thought about that being a

major city office building, which would house the library and on the ground floor there was going to be a justice center where the people could walk in with legal questions and they would be volunteers who would answer those questions and brand new idea and never had been followed anywhere. the city attorney was going to move into the building and there was going to be a bridge across the alley to the courthouse, and it was a wonderful idea and then the city dropped the ball and never went anywhere. >> could i add a follow up, just to supervisor mar's previous question, sir, what has the law library does in terms of the own fund-raising, you talk about conditions, because this one perspective says that you are coming to staoet and i know that we are mandating and there is a debate about square footage and what is adequate. what have you guys done? >> the law library is operating

expenses, books, salaries, insurance, computers, everything is not paid for by the city, it is paid for out of a small portion of filing fees, so if someone files a civil case in the supreme court in san francisco, the law library gets 42 dollars of the total filing fee, our revenues last year was 1.3 million and our publishers expense for the primary resources such as west law and publications was $400,000. so the law library sadly is not in a position and never has been that it has hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to solve its own problems. and so we are operating on a declining budget because the less cases that are involved in court because the court rooms are closed the less filing fees. and so, we are not in a position to be able to contribute a massive amount of funds ourselves and what we would hope is that with the

securing of an appropriate place that we can reach out to the community for help. >> so, okay. >> historical situation. going back and not to 1870 because this was the very first law library in the state and the legislature and structured this library so that all of its housing and facilities were, as a responsibility of the city and county, not by the separate corporation in that way since 1870. >> i understand that and we have had and we fund many, many non-profits as a city that over the last few years and i know that yours dates back much longer with a move out of city hall but that have fund raised on their own as 501 c3s and taken upon themselves to take an ore on the boat and say that we are going to participate in this. that was my question, what have you been doing actively that you guys are here and talking about public dollars here and what have you guys been doing

as an organization on your own to supplement that. >> you understand that we are in temporary housing which is not really very functional and so far, we are not in a position to get going and start anything until we get permanent housing. >> so the answer is that you guys have not done anything, is the answer? i am trying to get at what you have..., i understand the convictions and i understand where you are. >> we have a little bit of money but it is not substantial. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please? >> my name is charlie spegal and i am an attorney mediator and i do not want to cut off that conversation which is the most important one that you could have. i would say, if you want to know what they had done about organizizing, you have now sat through two hours of their ability to motivate people in the community. in order not to repeat anything that has been said, i am going to