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 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 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 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 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 i want to introduce someone who has been a part of the 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. 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. 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 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 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 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. ...

>> good morning, everybody. it's sunny in san francisco, and we have a two-year budget. let's have fun. (applause) >> and i think maybe members of 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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) >> 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 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) >> somebody's check is in here. [laughter] >> today is? >> good question. >> 24. [laughter]

(applause) >> all right, everyone, want to say thank you all for being here today at balboa park and want to say, first off, thanks to the trust for public land who played a key role in renovating balboa park and to put it to be where it is today. and i want to thank you all for your efforts. you know, one of the best parts about being an elected official is the ability to effect change in san francisco in a very positive way.

and today i'm very proud to announce that after two years of incredibly hard work on behalf of a lot of people, we are announcing a new project in san francisco to bring free wi-fi to 31 different parks, plazas, and open spaces across our city. from areas such as the marina green to washington square park to sunset playground, all a moe square, civic center, bernal heights to right here in balboa park, this project is going to touch parks and plazas across all of san francisco in every corner of our city. san francisco has been a leader in our technology community and our technology economy across our country and now we get to continue to play a role in being a leader bringing technology solutions to improve the lives of our residents here in our city. it's been a privilege to work on this project and to lead this effort the last two years

and look forward to bringing the broader vision of free wi-fi across san francisco in the next few years with all the partners behind me today. this has been a strong collaboration on behalf of a lot of partners. in particular, google, sf city, our recreation and park department as well as our department of technology, and i want to thank all of those involved. this project started a little over two years ago with a conversation i had with an old family friend from google. and i want to take a moment to thank the entire google team that worked on this project. it's been two years, so, it's touched a lot of desks and had a lot of approvals and in particular want to thank veronika bell who is here from google for stepping p. up. google is providing a financial gift of $600,000 to turn this into a reality. this is with the recreation and park department. i want to thank phil ginsberg,

katy, so many people from the rec and park team that really brought this project forward. we selected locations throughout san francisco on a number of levels. first of all, we wanted to make sure that we continue to bridge our digital divide that exists not only throughout our country, but here in san francisco, to place free wi-fi networks in under served communities and across different parts of san francisco. but also to make sure that we provide wi-fi access in some of the most heavily trafficked parks and plazas in our city so we can have the greatest impact throughout our great city. i want to thank sf city for their strong partnership in this project. we started working together a little over a year ago. they are not only the leading effect knowledge jai voice in san francisco, but they really stepped up to the plate to be the project manager here who are going to oversee the installation of this project. and i want to thank in particular alex turk for his leadership during this effort. i certainly want to thank our

department of technology and its new leader mark tuitu for also stepping up to the plate. mark is such a visionary and i think we have years of great things to come out of our department of technology and this is just the first step. and lastly i want to thank my staff and in particular wherever margo is, mar co-kelly. -- margo kelly. margo spent the last two years quarterbacking this project. she spent so many hours of her life dedicate today bringing this to the residents of san francisco and we shall all be incredibly thankful. the benefits of free wi-fi in san francisco are many. not only will it further open up our parks and our city to innovation, to education, and includetionthv i. for all san francisco residents, but it's also as i mentioned before a significant step towards bridging our digital divide in our city.