tv [untitled] May 6, 2014 11:30pm-12:01am PDT
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police officers, we want to make sure we have gardeners in the parks. it's going to be a conversation we will be having over the next few months but it needs to be wrapped up, as are all these other great priorities we have as a city, it needs to be wrapped up in one whole sum discussion, not take willen individually. >> mayor in your state of the city in january you talked about the importance of raising the minimum wage but you've kind of hedged on what that amount should be and now there's a $15 an hour proposal out there. is that something you support? and how would that impact the city budget? >> i definitely support an increase in the minimum wage. i signaled that that was part of the affordability agenda for the city. low wage earners cannot survive in the city at $10.74 an hour. i think there's general consensus that that's true. then how do you not hurt job creation? that's another part
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of my priorities in discussions with not only the board but with businesses and communities, how do you make sure youth are not negatively impacted or that certain parts of our business sectors are not hurt so badly that they can't recover? so these are more delicate discussions that have to have inclusive thoughts from them reviewed by economic experts. so i was reluctant to call out a number and then challenge everybody to meet it so much as call out the need to go in that direction and invite everybody to tell us, okay, what is the right number? what is perhaps the phased ways we can do this that happen low wage earners survive better in this city and give them some hope and afford things and at the same time have those conversations with small businesses, with medium-sized businesses, with other sectors of industry in
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our city that we value that are job creators, job sustainers in the city, how do we do it in ways in which it doesn't hurt them. there is a huge amount of money employed by nonprofits. have we had a conversation with them about how increasing the minimum wage helps or hurts their operation? i would hate to see critical nonprofits say that's the last straw, we're going to have to close down. we can't even provide the services you pay for in the city because you are telling us to increase the wages but are you going to pay us to do that as city contractors. there's those critical conversations we have to have before we announce a wage or a series of wages that would get to something more affordable. >> call out that number, though, the $15 an hour, do you think that's do-able? >> well, i think that's only do-able if you do it in certain
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ways that reflect not hurting businesses. >> and how would that be? >> that's what's going on right now, barbara, it's those delicate conversations with all the different business sectors because i get a lot of emails saying if you just threat the $15 an hour on me i'm gone, i'm closing or i'm cut or i have to raise prices and i'm going to be less competitive. there's a lot of comments about that. there's a lot of comments about why aren't we doing this statewide, why just san francisco? we're competing against all the other businesses in the region. yet for me and my sentiment with the board of supervisors as well is they want us to have those delicate conversations. that's always been about making sure our economy is very positive. if you just thrust things on business like that and then they have to react in ways in which we can't anticipate and we want to anticipate as much as we can, then you are talking about shocks to the economy that i
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think are bad ways to do business as a city but also as a city that's trying to have better relationships with its business so we can hire more local residents, more low income kids, grow our economy in the right way, in a predictable way. business and job creators, including city departments, i think the key thing is predictability rather than shocks to the system. >> so there is a trio, as i see it, three interconnected issues. there's affordable, which is connected to housing but not just housing, there's jobs and there's the minimum wage and how that helps people in san francisco with the affordability issue. how interrelated do you see -- i mean you've talked so much about affordable housing, you have too, supervisor farrell,
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how do you make housing affordable without increasing people's salaries? >> i would just say one comment. you know as we talk about the minimum wage, we talk about other things we're doing as a city, i believe mayor lee's approach is exactly the right one to do is we need to have a wholesome conversation. issues like this don't lend itself to political bullying at the ballot. that to me is exactly the wrong approach. if we're doing something that is going to affect our small business community and our large business community we need to have a dialogue, an active dialogue, with this em. i, too, support increasing the minimum wage but i also support having everyone at the table to discuss how it will impact them. should that impact small businesses that have five employees the same way as a business that has a thousand? those are conversations we absolutely need to have and it's that approach that takes a while to come up with what the ultimate solution is but i think that's absolutely the right approach, especially, as
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mayor lee mentioned, we want to make sure for our employers here inside of san francisco that we give them certainty and a voice in the process because without them we wouldn't have the economic growth that we do as a city. so it's really pof to have a process around it and it's a complicated issue, how it affects youth employment, how it affects small businesses, people who get tips as a big part of their wages, it's a very complicated issue and we need to make sure we have a process around that and i think it's the right thing to do. >> i just want to remind the people tuning in today this is the 2014 online budget town hall hosted by san francisco mayor ed lee, also with supervisor mark farrell and the mayor's budget director, kate howard. i'm barbara taylor with kcbs radio and we just have a couple minutes less so i'm going to give you the tweet, mayor ed lee, using the
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hash tag sf budget, also email the mayor at mayor edwin lee at sfgtv.org. >> you keyed me in on something i'm very excited about is housing. >> that's something i was going to ask about. >> that's tied to the cost of living here in the city and everybody agrees it's so expensive. every day there's another story about someone moving out or being evicted or you turn your head around how much it costs. housing is very complex. and it's complex to find solutions. having been a housing activist in my previous life, i know a little bit about it and i know that building housing that we have not done in past decades, building housing is one of the
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great keys and that's why you'll see me celebrating housing being built in san francisco along transit corridors and places where our planning department has guided us with our planning areas where we can provide more density, and then figuring out how we can make that housing more affordable to working families in the city is a huge challenge. we're going to put there. i put out a pretty aggressive 30,000 homes to be built by 2020 and that means five or six thousand a year each year until that 2020 is done. that's the building part and i believe we're going to get there. i believe we have enough inertia, enough land identified and so forth, but building is only one aspect. because what if we built and then the same number disappeared for different reasons that we didn't pay attention to? i'm a big strong supporter of our rent controlled units and
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that is why i joined with senator mark leno up in sacramento to reform the ellis act so you don't have speculators coming in here and wiping out whole buildings of affordable units for people so that's hopefully going to get some traction. i also want to make sure that we work with our departments to find all the lands that are available that are wib our control that can be used to build housing because guess what? the biggest cost in building affordable housing is the land cost itself. and we've got, for example, 16 *t and mission now, finally the school district was able to make an agreement with us and that's just one of many parcels that people and entities have held on to that we are now identifying through kind of a land banking effort that we're trying to get. i'm asking banks and corporations to come in and assist us with land banking opportunities that buy down the cost of land so we can build
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housing that's affordable for working families and then we joined with supervisor farrell very strongly on the down payment assistance program that targeted people that we really want and need to live in the city and that's something i'm going to let him talk a little bit about, but i'm excited to work with him on about because guess what, every time we've done it it's been used up immediately and it reflects the strong interest that people have to be here and serve the populations as they are served. >> unfortunately we've run out of time. i apologize to those of you who sent in questions and we weren't able to get to them. you can still submit questions and hopefully someone in the mayor's office will respond to you. just as we close very quickly, in less than a minute, supervisor farrell, do you have any final thoughts? >> i think the one thing i want to make sure everyone in the public knows as well is that as a city of san francisco we have done a lot to protect ourselves in the future financially as a city. you
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know as you look at the two legs of a long-term stool for municipalities across the country it's pension and retiree health care obligations through proposition c in 2011 and now this year we are the only city in the thauds have passed both pension reform spbd health care at the ballot. that's something we're very proud of and to know we are focused on not just today but tomorrow and have a vision of san francisco knowing we are on solid footing going forward. i think it's important to know in large part because of those moves we have the highest credit rating as a city and it's important to know when you think about our budget and our long-term financial few fuer we have done a lot as a city and we're going to keep working on it and it's important to know that we are continuing to look at the future as well. >> mayor lee, your final comments. >> we are the innovation capital of the world and i am proud and humbled to be the mayor and have the privilege of working with the board of
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supervisors to figure out all these thingsment. i hope our audience through this show and all the meetings that we have understand all the complexities we are faced with. i will work hard every day with the board to make sure we deal with those complexities but the ultimate outcome of being an even more successful city, a compassionate city, a city that welcomes everyone but also figures out solution oriented innovation is what our city should be remembered for everything that we do and make sure we're a city that works for everybody and appreciates all the diversity that is our strength. >> thank you very much. thanks to all of you who participated in today's online town hall, mayor ed lee, kate howard, mostly you, the public, we hope we have been able to answer some of your questions and please stay involved in this budget process. there's going to be lots more opportunities in different neighborhoods all around the
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today we are at recology. they are celebrate 20 years of one of the most incredibly unique artist residency programs. we are here to learn more from one of the resident artists. welcome to the show, deborah. tell us how this program began 20 years ago. >> the program began 20 years ago. our founder was an environmentalist and an activist and an artist in the 1970's. she started these street sweeping campaigns in the city. she started with kids. they had an exhibition at city hall. city officials heard about her efforts and they invited her to this facility. we thought it would coincide with our efforts to get folks to recycle, it is a great educational tool. since then, we have had 95
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professional artists come through. >> how has the program changed over the years? how has the program -- what can the public has an artist engage with? >> for the most part, we worked with metal and wood, what you would expect from a program like ours. over the years, we tried to include artists and all types of mediums. conceptual artists, at installation, photographers, videographers. >> that has really expanded the program out. it is becoming so dynamic right now with your vision of interesting artists in gauging here. why would an artist when to come here? >> mainly, access to the materials. we also give them a lot of support. when they start, it is an empty studio. they go out to the public area and -- we call it the big store.
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they go out shopping, take the materials that, and get to work. it is kind of like a reprieve, so they can really focus on their body of work. >> when you are talking about recology, do you have the only sculpture garden at the top? >> it is based on work that was done many years ago in new york. it is the only kind of structured, artist program. weit is beautiful. a lot of the plants you see were pulled out of the garbage, and we use our compost to transplant them. the pathway is lined with rubble from the earthquake from the freeways we tour about 5000 people a year to our facility, adults and children. we talk about recycling and
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conservation. they can meet the artists. >> fantastic. let's go meet some of your current artists. here we are with lauren. can you tell us how long have been here so far and what you're working on? >> we started our residency on june 1, so we came into the studio then and spent most of the first couple weeks just digging around in the trash. i am continuing my body of work, kind of making these hand- embroidered objects from our day-to-day life. >> can you describe some of the things you have been making here? this is amazing. >> i think i started a lot of my work about the qualities of light is in the weight. i have been thinking a lot about things floating through the air. it is also very windy down here. there is a piece of sheet music up there that i have embroidered third. there is a pamphlet about
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hearing dea -- nearing death. this is a dead rabbit. this is what i am working on now. this is a greeting card that i found, making it embroidered. it is for a very special friend. >> while we were looking at this, i glanced down and this is amazing, and it is on top of a book, it is ridiculous and amazing. >> i am interested in the serendipity of these still life compositions. when he got to the garbage and to see the arrangement of objects that is completely spontaneous. it is probably one of the least thought of compositions. people are getting rid of this stuff. it holds no real value to them, because they're disposing of it. >> we're here in another recology studio with abel. what attracted you to apply for
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this special program? >> who would not want to come to the dump? but is the first question. for me, being in a situation that you're not comfortable in has always been the best. >> what materials were you immediately attracted to when you started and so what was available here? >> there are a lot of books. that is one of the thing that hits me the most. books are good for understanding, language, and art in general. also being a graphic designer, going straight to the magazines and seeing all this printed material being discarded has also been part of my work. of course, always wood or any kind of plastic form or anything like that. >> job mr. some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. -- taught me through some of the pieces you have made while you have been here. >> the first thing that attracted me to this was the printed surface. it was actually a poster. it was a silk screen watercolor, about 8 feet long.
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in terms of the flatwork, i work with a lot of cloddish. so being able to cut into it come at into it, removed parts, it is part of the process of negotiating the final form. >> how do you jump from the two dimensional work that you create to the three-dimensional? maybe going back from the 3f to 2d. >> everything is in the process of becoming. things are never said or settled. the sculptures are being made while i am doing the collages, and vice versa. it becomes a part of something else. there's always this figuring out of where things belong or where they could parapets something else. at the end goal is to possibly see one of these collage plans be built out and create a structure that reflects back
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into the flat work. >> thank you so much for allowing "culturewire" to visit this amazing facility and to learn more about the artists in residence program. is there anything you like our viewers to know? >> we have art exhibitions every four months, and a win by the public to come out. everybody is welcome to come out. we have food. sometimes we have gains and bands. it is great time. from june to september, we accept applications from bay area artists. we encouraged artists from all mediums to apply. we want as many artists from the bay area out here so they can have the same experience. >> how many artists to do your host here? >> 6 artist a year, and we receive about 108 applications. very competitive. >> but everyone should be encouraged to apply. thank you again for hosting us. >> thank you for including us in "culturewire." ♪
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i'll call this meeting to order of the atom for thursday, march 13, 2014. call the roll please madam secretary >> i'll note that director lee is sitting in and with that director lee. director metcalf director reiskin director harper director harper you have a quorum >> thank you very much and the first item on the agenda is communication none. >> none that i've with your of. >> and thank you new and old business directors. seeing none. ex
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