tv [untitled] August 7, 2013 11:30am-12:01pm PDT
11:30 am
here along mid-market or they're in hunters point or they're in treasure island or in park merced, and i think we've done well to get a lot of projects going. we have to also deal with affordability. and that was my link to the success of the city, that while we become more successful, we're not leaving anybody behind. we're a city for the 100%. and we want everybody who wants to live here being able to be here. and in particular, those that we want to be here are going to help us recover in any kind of event. in an emergency event, i've been trained ever since my very first visit to new orleans after their disaster happened in katrina so know that we've got to recover better ~ to know. we've got to ask everybody today, we want you -- we ask you to live and work in our city. and if there is anything to happens, to be right there for people so we can recover extremely fast and well.
11:31 am
this is the vote of confidence that our voters had in us, with the housing trust fund, and also working with us to make sure that we had a first-time home buyer program and the first responder's home buying program so we can locate everybody here who needed to be here to help us with a quick recovery if there is anything that should happen. this is the context in which we launched this program. we will adjust it along the way to make sure it continues to work effectively. and i'm gratified to be working with olson and his team of people that are community developers and housing developers to make sure this happens for everybody. thank you to our first responders, to our chiefs, our sheriff, our police chief, our firefighter -- fire department chief, and all of the rest of the employees here who will take this opportunity to live in our city as well as work for the greatest city that we have. and as we become more successful, we'll take care of others who want to live in this city as well. with that, i'll introduce olson
11:32 am
lee who can explain everything from debt ratios to how this program works and all of the different financing schemes that we have to make sure it works well. olson lee. (applause) >> thank you. i really want to thank the mayor and the board of supervisors for their leadership, again, on the whole prop c effort and also the voters of san francisco. i will not go into a front end and back end debt ratio because everybody will glaze over. but i will say that we are picking up the program. we will have the great details about the program on our website. this is the mayor's office of housing website which you can reach through sfgov and that will be on the website no later than august 1st, which is on thursday. it's a great opportunity for us to expand what we have done previously with the down
11:33 am
payment assistance program, and this is indeed an expansion of what the city has, has done to serve its residents, the city and the employees. at the same time we are doing this first responders program through the budget process led by supervisor farrell, this has been the first year of the housing trust fund program and there's been a variety of programs that have been funded with the housing trust fund passed by the voters. and this is one of the first that we are rolling out. we will continue to roll out other programs related to the housing trust fund as the year progresses. but again, just to summarize, this is the down payment assistance program. as supervisor farrell said, it's $100,000, it's a shared appreciation program. the funds roll back into a pot of money that will be used on an ongoing basis to help not
11:34 am
just the first first responder, but a subsequent first responder so over time this pot of money will grow because it will be replenished through additional budget cycle. and as both the supervisor and the mayor said, this is the first year and we will fine tune this program. we will try to identify what works and what doesn't work. the goal of any of our programs in the mayor's office is that the program is effective. so, where the program needs to be tweaked, we will tweak it. we will report back to the board and to the mayor about the effectiveness of this and we really look forward to engaging with the first responders and making sure that we have a really successful program. i want to take this time to acknowledge brian chu from my staff who, along with jamie lou and a lot of folks on his team, worked really, really hard to sort of adjust the program to make sure that it worked for the first responders and we really appreciated all the
11:35 am
input we got from the community as well as the first responders in trying to craft this initial program. so, we really look forward to this kickoff. thank you very much. (applause) >> thanks, olson. i want to recognize a few people here that have been instrumental in this program and the creation of it. again, we mentioned olson and brian chu, but want to thank our union membership. i see floyd from 78. i see marty from our police officers association. michelle and don from our sheriff's unions. ~ 798. i also want to recognize chief hayes white, and sheriff mirkarimi, thank you all for being here and for showing your support. i want to introduce someone i felt was really important to make sure that we connect how this is going to affect the members of our first responder department on an individual basis. and eei a part of the
11:36 am
sheriff's department for ten years here in san francisco formerly a cadet here in city hall, now part of the investigative services unit, has been renting in san mateo, i understand, for the last five years and is looking to purchase a home here in san francisco. and one of those first responders that we are proud to have not only working for us as a city, but someone that we want to encourage to live within our city limits. allow me to introduce to you mercy ambat. (applause) >> first of all, i want to thank everybody for being here today. my name is merci ambat. i'm so proud to be here representing my department, san francisco sheriff's department. i'm a senior deputy sheriff with the san francisco sheriff's department. i've been working for the department for a little over 10 years. actually, as supervisor mark said, i started out a cadet. thank you.
11:37 am
i started here as a sheriff's cadet in city hall and then i got -- i became a deputy sheriff, then i got promoted as a senior deputy. currently i'm the sheriff's investigative services unit. as an immigrant to this country, i'm honored, peace officer of san francisco. it's been a really hard for me to find a house in san francisco because, as you all know, the housing in san francisco is not that easy. but one of my -- one of my proudest moments in life when a former sheriff mike hennessy swore me as a peace officer in san francisco, that day i decided that this is my place, san francisco is my place. this is where i want to live. this is where i want to buy a house, in san francisco.
11:38 am
and again, my department has been great support to me ever since i started the department. it's been almost 10 years. i can mention a lot of names who have been support to me including our chief of staff, former sheriff, captain, different numerous people have been helped me. i don't even know why they helped me. they didn't know me. so, to me i feel like this is the city i owe and i'm so -- [fire engine] >> sorry. again, i used to live in san francisco. but as you all know, the housing prices here are very high. so, i had to move out of san francisco due to the cost of living. now i am renting in san mateo. but again as i said before, this is where i belong. this is where i want to serve here because i'm a peace
11:39 am
officer san francisco. and the city spent a lot of money for me, so, it's a pay back. and again, because i want to live in san francisco, i've been saving money to buy a house in san francisco. but again, as i said before, and as most of you know, the houses are very expensive here and then comes supervisor mark farrell and his excellent team, come up with a program to assist first responders with a down payment assistance program. that's what exactly what we need. many of us want to live in the city and provide our services to the city, but -- [background noise] >> we have been forced to live somewhere else. i feel like i take the paycheck from san francisco and spend somewhere else. and, again, i want this program. i want to take advantage of this program. and i want to live in san
11:40 am
francisco. again, i want to thank mayor lee, supervisor mark farrell, sheriff's department, our sheriff ross mirkarimi, the union, the [speaker not understood] association, managers association msa, for everything, they come up with a plan to help first responders. and i believe that it's a god send gift program for us because we want to live in the city because we want to serve the city. this is where we belong. and again, as i said, i made my decision when former sheriff mike hennessy swore me as a peace officer. i decided this is where i belong. and, again, i want to thank [speaker not understood] san francisco and everybody for being here today. and again, it's a lot of work. ~ voters of san francisco and i hope that the mayor of
11:41 am
housing department and also mark farrell, supervisor mark farrell has enough money to assist us all who want to live in san francisco. not just 10 people or five people or two people. i believe that everybody deserves a chance. those who want to live in san francisco, those who want to provide service for san francisco, because we believe that this is where we belong. and that being said, thank you all. thank you for coming out here. and thank you for letting me speak. thanks again. (applause) >> thanks, merci. and thanks again for everyone being here today. i am supremely proud to stand with our men and women in uniform that are our public safety officers here in san francisco, with mayor ed lee and his team to launch this program today, and look forward to making it a great success. so, mayor lee, olson, i will be here to answer questions if you like off to the side. but thank you all for being here. much appreciated.
11:42 am
11:43 am
the board and other elected officials, but particularly the board, i think we're getting more and more used to calmness around our budget. and i really want to signal again my appreciation for the work and the hard work that it takes to have a unanimous vote at the board for passing the next two-year budget, which is very healthy. it's certainly a balanced budget. i'm proud of it. but how we got there was a reflection of a lot of good hard work and a lot of people to thank. i want to take this opportunity to thank the budget staff. they have been working really hard. and kate howard and steve, thank you very much for your leadership. (applause) >> and the entire budget staff is here. they continue to be labeled the fiscal geniuses of the city. they works, of course, very
11:44 am
closely with our controller and ben rosenfield, your staff have been extremely supportive and helpful. thank you very much. (applause) >> then, of course, our supervisors, the entire board and their budget analyst. harvey, thank you again for working with us. (applause) >> and the entire board. i want to thank each and every one of you because you along with, of course, all of our great department heads, but in particular we continue to promise that when we bring this budget forward each year, we have that conversation. sometimes difficult, sometimes emotional, but always in support of our neighborhoods. and, so, when we come to each of the districts, each of you have been wonderful hosts. you have taken up a great responsibility to help all of
11:45 am
us describe this budget because sometimes it's very hard to understand when people are just simply saying, i need to live in this city, i need to survive, i need to get a job, i need to have a safe neighborhood, i need to pay attention to the parks. i need to deal with all the things that perhaps the city doesn't provide. we need to pay attention to that. all those conversations have had -- each district has had a good opportunity to engage with our budget. so, i want to thank each of the supervisors for providing that kind of atmosphere where the budget could be discussed. in particular, this year for his first time, supervisor farrell led as the budget chair. i want to thank in particular his services for being there and having so many extra meetings on top of the ones he's had to find the consensus building that we needed. and then for he and supervisor
11:46 am
eric mar, supervisor john avalos, supervisor london breed and supervisor scott wiener, all of them being great participants in the budget committee. thank you as a group, as part of the whole board, appreciate that very much. (applause) >> and again, i signalled at the beginning i was expecting cooperation from mr. rose. we got it. thank you very much for that cooperation. this budget is not only balanced, but it is a responsible budget. it is a fiscally responsible budget, one that we've learned over many years -- and when you look at other cities across the country who have not paid that kind of attention in their fiscal responsibility, you'll see some of the results that are horrible results to the rest of the country. and, so, we hope to continue being a model of how a balanced budget should have and fiscal
11:47 am
prudence is always at a key cornerstone of it. we have the right attitude about our reserves and what we invest in. but this also is a budget about social responsibility and working with the board. and i know supervisor chiu is in abstein shad right now with another matter. but i want to thank him and his leadership as well ~. socially responsible budget also means that we engage our community leaders. we engage how we do services. we understand from the work of the departments that they can't do it alone. and, so, we look at all of our partners and have a budget that reflects the level of social responsibility that will carry out whether it's in the health area, in the homeless advocacy area, in the mental health area, all of the different needs.
11:48 am
we have an opportunity and i want to thank the community-based organizations for being such effective leaders in our communities because without them we wouldn't, i think, accomplish the social responsibility that we all want. so, thank you cbos and community leaders for your participation. (applause) >> finally, this is also a budget that is about investment. it investments in our neighborhoods. it investments in our infrastructure. and in the broad way, it investments in our city's future. and the future is incredibly important to the people who are standing right in front of me, the young folks, because we've always said that our budget should reflect the values of the city. well, we're putting a lot of value in our youth so we have to invest in them. we have to invest in infrastructure that will last a long, long time and we'll have
11:49 am
to invest in technology and all the future that we have. so, this is a very forward looking budget. it's a very expensive one, but it's a very forward looking one. and, so, when we look at the classes that we'll create, whether it's our police or fire or sheriff's department or all the other public safety departments that are challenged with heavy levels of retirement, or we're investing in departments programs or we're investing in education, like $105 million in our public school system in the next two years, people know what investment does. (applause) >> so, all of this, if you're a budget studier, you'll know that i'm speaking the absolute truth, that this is fiscally responsible, it's socially responsible, and it's great investment. and with that, i really want to again give a great thanks to all the departments that work
11:50 am
hard, the people that work in capital planning, all the fiscal officers for each department that cuts to come in, to compliment the argumentses the department heads make. i value that because i often leaned on my fiscal entities in my departments that i served to be the thought provoker for me to make sure that i was able to look around the corner and anticipate costs. and, so, when we are now doing two-year budgets, we have to do a lot better anticipation. we have to have better tools to do that. that's why we lean on our controller and the auditors to give us a good look, our capital planners to give us good looks. five-year financial planning is no longer an exception, it is the norm. 10-year capital planning is now the norm. and we hope to breed that kind of fiscal approach to agencies that we don't fully control,
11:51 am
but i know they appreciate it. whether it's a school district, the housing authority, city college, or all the other partners that we value, that they need to be a great part of this fiscal approach. then we can say to cities like detroit and others, we've got the answer, that you don't have to do what you did in the past or don't fall into the traps that we have the answer here in san francisco. and that will continue to be a consensus building approach taking care of our responsibilities. with that, i'd like to give the podium for a while to this year's chair of our budget committee, of course is mark farrell. (applause) >> well, thank you to mayor lee for his great leadership during this process. you know, after months of debate in city hall, after six town halls in our different
11:52 am
neighborhoods, after an online town hall, i think what i'm most proud of today is that we're signing a budget that is not only representative of the mayor and his team and the board of supervisors, but as we stated in the beginning, we wanted a budget that reflected the values of san francisco, of all san francisco. and i think we've achieved that today. i want to take a quick moment to thank all those involved, starting off with my colleagues on the board of supervisors, to everyone. i think we had all 11 members there the night we signed our budget, late into the night. i want to in particular thank my budget and finance committee members as well that we serve together, and single out in particular john avalos, supervisor avalos for your leadership in this year's budget, supervisor avalos. (applause) >> who is real a great partnership working together. and i also want to thank so many people, but to quickly
11:53 am
highlight what mayor lee mentioned and the people he mentioned ~. it's hard to -- you cannot overestimate how important so many people are in city hall to getting this budget done. it's a $7.9 billion budget. it's incredibly important and it matters to the residents of san francisco. and a few people in particular, first of all kate howard, the mayor's budget director. (applause) >> kate and her incredible team as well. every single person on kate's team. (applause) >> for those of you who don't know, they spend countless hours here in city hall, late, late nights, early mornings, hopefully no all nighters in particular, but without them we wouldn't be here today. to ben rosenfield, monique zamuda and the entire controller's office team, thank you so much. (applause)
11:54 am
>> kate and ben were really partners in crime in getting this budget done and with us every step of the way and such an integral part of what we do. to harvey rose and his entire team, thank you, mr. rose, for all of your efforts. (applause) >> to severn and deborah, your entire team, thank you for making your funds available so we can redistribute them at the board. [laughter] >> and also mentioned earlier our city attorney's office, jon givner, our board city attorney and to his entire team, thank you all to our city attorney's office. (applause) >> and certainly everyone else from steve on down the entire mayor's staff that made this budget happen, thank you so much. and i want to give a special shout out from someone i continue to learn from on a
11:55 am
daily basis, our former budget chair , assessor-recorder carmen chu. (applause) >> and last but not least the people i think at the end of the day are critical and most important, i want to thank the staff of all of the board of supervisors members. in particular, my staff kathrin stephanie is here who was on budget with me the whole year. thank you, kathrin. (applause) >> margo and jeff on my staff as well, but again, to every single legislative aide, to all of the board of supervisors members, we can't do without you and you play such an integral role. so thank you for all of why you support this year. with that, i want to thank everyone for being here. i want to thank mayor lee for his incredible leadership not only on the budget but everything he does here in city hall. let's get this thing signed. thank you. (applause)
11:56 am
11:57 am
♪ >> i am so looking forward to the street fair tomorrow. >> it is in the mission, how are we going to get there? we are not driving. >> well what do you suggest? >> there are a lot of great transportation choices in the city and there is one place to find them all, sfnta.com. >> sfmta.com. >> it is the walking parking, and riding muni and it is all here in one place. >> sitting in front of my computer waiting transportation options that is not exactly how i want to spend my saturday night. >> the new sfmta.com is mobile friendly, it works great on a tablet, smart phone or a lap top, it is built to go wherever we go. >> cool. >> but, let's just take the same route tomorrow that we
11:58 am
always take, okay? >> it might be much more fun to ride our bikes. >> i am going to be way too tired to ride all the way home. >> okay, how about this, we can ride our bikes there and then we can take muni home and it even shows us how to take the bikes on the bus, so simple right here on my phone. >> neat. we can finish making travel plans over dinner, now let's go eat. >> how about about that organic vegan gluten free rest rft. >> can't we go to the food truck. >> do you want to walk or take a taxi. >> there is an alert right here telling us there is heavy traffic in soma. >> let's walk there and then take a taxi or muni back. >> that new website gives us a lot of options. >> it sure does and we can use it again next weekend when we go to see the giants. there is a new destination section on the website that
11:59 am
shows us how to get to at&t park. >> there is a section, and account alerts and information on parking and all kinds of stuff, it is so easy to use that even you can use it. >> that is smart. >> are you giving me a compliment. >> i think that i am. >> wow, thanks. >> now you can buy dinner. sfmta.com. access useful information, any
12:00 pm
>> please welcome them and we'll learn more about them and their work as what they will deliver to this commission as the eaglev goes. but thank you for joining. please welcome them to this commission. (applause) >> if we can call the roll, monica. thanks. >> this is the meeting of the commission on the environment. today is tuesday, august 6. it is 5: p.m. first item on the agenda roll call.
37 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV: San Francisco Government TelevisionUploaded by TV Archive on
