>> i get to ask what i want to ask [laughter] and i told them that it would be okay when we we get

through with that so i don't want to prolong this because we have a lot that we want to cover in a short period of time. the ground rules that you will hear about i'll tell you about when they come out and we'll dive right into it. they do not know what i'm going to ask them. they only know the different categories that we looked at and then i get to decide which ones that i want to pull off and i'll tell you that when they come out and i'll tell you the ground rules that i'm going to give them and then i was planning to get out right at at 5 o'clock so i could try to get over to the game right before 6 o'clock [laughter] but traffic and transportation is probably one of the issues that i'm going to touch on with them [laughter] but it's unclear how i'm going to make that happen but i will test them to see which one is the most

powerful and that will be the one where he or she can tell me how to get a a police escort over to the game [laughter] mayor libby schaff give her a hand give him a hand and mayor ed lee, give him a hand. [applause]. >> okay. welcome. all right. >> thank you. >> do you see that, they waited until i sat down. we're off to a great start. so just very quick on the ground rules we're going to have a very engaging conversation. i love the framework that was offered to me and thoughts i have around it. the ground rules are very

simple, the first one is we're going to ask you to keep your answers that thoughtful and the second ground rule is no talking point answers so if you all hear the talking point answers try to give me a sign, talking point, and the third one a test i personally use all the time when my communications ask me to give them a quote i call this a blah-blah blah test [laughter] and this is the honest truth and we're going to ask that you not in anyway way give us a blah-blah blah answer [laughter] as i'm on stage [laughter] and i was going to offer that if anyone wants to leave right now [laughter] you can you can do that. okay. so i have several categories but i'll tell you the three that i'm going to

try to hone in on just so the audience knows i have housing transportation, the economy, technology, drought, public safety policing and then mental health all right? so there's a lot. here's the three that we're going to dive in on -- housing, transportation and public safety and you will see how this comes together. so to get tart to get started, just in case these aren't the three you wanted me to talk about -- so for each of you what is the top issue in each of your cities that's on your mind? how do you view that in the context of your cities and the region? let's start first with mayor schaff. >> well i would say in

oakland safety is the top issue and my approach to it is a real holistic and community driven approach and yes in oakland we need more cops that's for sure but we need them to do better policing and that's community based policing and evidence is demonstrating that it's needed to be effective and proven prevention and strategies and addressing the root causes of crime and as a health professional the social determinates of health, we need better jobs and economic security and we need much better educational outcomes for our kids -- is that blah-blah blah? >> no, you passed [applause]. . >> she definitely set the bar. let's see what happens next. [laughter].

>> the number one priority is dealing with the baseball team [laughter]. >> oh, come on. we're all friends here. [laughter] tough crowd. you know, libby is right at the intersection of crime prevention and broadening opportunities is really where i think we need to be focussed and we've been spending a lot of time and resources on efforts around for example expanding teen job opportunities for for kids in impacted neighborhoods and expanding after school programs. we know this is obviously great and expanding opportunities for these kids but also know it's a proven strategy for reducing crime. >> excellent mayor lee? >> thank you be rna rd

housing that's my number one focus and within that very complex multilevel word, is all this strata that we need to pay attention to particularly workforce housing and that's something we haven't paid attention to and all these employers here to the extent of the success you have felt here in san francisco and throughout the region we can't build it fast enough and i have a plan -- 30 ,000 units of both public housing workforce housing, low income housing as well and we're going to guarantee that it's going to be 33 percent affordable to middle to low income 50 percent to middle income but we can't build it fast enough we've got some old things that all three of us have suffered from we have complained to each other about how slow state credits get pushed out,

how it's not the highest priority for a lot of financial institutions and we've had to muster up many sources of funding for affordable housing and now we're on a pace of figuring it out and we're well on our way and i know that housing isn't just to build and rebuild, we also have to stabilize neighborhoods and present speculation from occurring to wholesale buildings for people who have built their lives in the city and we have to have a multifacetted approach and we're really going to work on the homelessness issue in the next 5 years and really glad to hear that the homeless population does move around the entire bay area.

>> great so let's go let's go to the housing theme more directly and before i i do that, let me ask everybody to congratulate mayor mercado and there was an announcement made in fact today you hit the one million mark. >> yes somehow we hit a million again and i think we hit it five or or 6 years ago and keep bouncing around and keep announcing it every year [laughter] it's a little odd it's a little bit like having a card ash i a kardashian reality show you know they are living there but nobody pays attention [laughter]. >> very well very well. let's talk about housing. so on one hand we're all extremely pleased from the business community healthcare community, the overall economy that things are looking up in

california a lot of jobs and a lot of demands. i happen to lead an organization, i have over 200, 000 employees i have a lot of people wanting to come to california to work and guess what they say? i don't think i can afford to live in california or i have to live so far outside of the immediate work cite in which i'm being recruited into i'm not sure i want that kind of lifestyle that i spend one, two, 2 1/2 or 3 hours a day communitying back and forth to work so it compacts everything, how we recruit people people to the bay area, how we keep people in the bay area, how we pay wages in the bay area and so like you said mayor lee it is a very complex problem and on the other side of the equation you

have a lot of other things you have neighbors who feel that we should have no more homes in certain areas that you have maximized the space in the bay area and people like me who have a resident condo in san francisco and i don't want my view blocked so [laughter] but something has to give. so how do the three of you think about the housing crisis? it's not just from your city's perspective but across the board as a regional perspective as a regional challenge, i will tell you as an organization who spends a lot of money building stuff i have to pay certain wages regardless of the geography even though the structural is very different from owning a house in san francisco or

oakland or pleasanton so the rates to get construction for all of those areas is a common denominator and dive into that what are you doing and where should we we go from here. >> to talk about a region issue i like to think that our affordable housing was something that made your workforce possible and you know last year the big talk about oakland was the the brooklyn ification and this year there's a there's a new theory this twin cities theory where we're reliant on one another and i like that awareness because it's important because our residents don't all work within our municipal boundaries and because people are now discovering

oakland we are the second fastest rising rents in the country not the bay area but the country like i said the constructions costs are the same but so that's been our challenge and we're very clear to address the affordability crisis and it is a crisis, we have got to build more housing and we've got to do other things too like i say we can't arrest ourselves out of a crime problem we can not build our way out of an affordability problem we don't have enough time or money to build all the housing we need to make the impact we need as as quickly as we need to make it so we've got to do all of that and we can't be afraid of new construction. >> i agree with libby.

you know, you are looking at three mayors that are strongly aligned on this issue there's no question the big cities carry the heavy load in the bay area and i think what we need to do regionally to encourage the suburbs to look forward to housing their own and there's an awful lot of communities [applause] for example along the peninsula where they are employing lots of people coming from large cities and come great distances and we know that doesn't do anything to reduce the emissions or traffic or anything else so i think we need to start thinking more about how we can encourage and prod our suburban communities to get involved in the construction business san jose permitted almost five

5,000 units last year and these cities are consistently pushing the envelope to try to get more housing and in downtown san jose there's there's 1600 units in construction and another thousand right after that and we'll keep doing it but we got to all do it together. >> very good. >> and san francisco as well i totally agree we're trying to be as creative and i think that creativity also can be affected in the public private partnerships and i would love the speed of developers matched with the passion that we have to help teachers and nurses and others get the housing that they need and fire and police. we are figuring out more and more there's sectors of our society that haven't thought about this as a priority for example all

of our churches we now have a great conversation with the inter-faith council and we know they have churches and big huge parking lots and more and more their parking lots are empty and they are starting to talk with us about how we can work with the city to use our parking lots to build that housing for what they term as an essential workforce and all we need is the public the the public private sector to join them and the other part is we're only 49 square miles and so we need partners that will build appropriate housing and i agree those suburban neighbors that are a huge part of the workforce will also add units to that housing. >> okay. very good. so the housing problems and people travelling all over the bay area leads to

major major transportation issues. and on the one hand i think we would all agree that you know bart is crowded every day so it's at capacity and people are traveling by boat, train and cars and you name it i've even seen a couple of helicopters flying [laughter] so how do we think about the transportation this year and how do we think about about about de congestion how do we deal with this as a regional issue? >> you know, i think there's an opportunity for partnership here among the bay area cities to really lean in right now and sacramento cap and trade money is starting to be creative to really start to get our share for the really important

capital expansion projects we have whether it's bart to san jose or the many improvements needed on the east bay as well. we have a lot to try to build if we're able to move our people around it can't happen through the automobile we can't build freeway lanes fast enough even if we had the money wouldn't be able to catch up with it all so requires an investment in transit and we're flying back and forth to dc and to sacramento to see how we can nudge them along and we're taxing ourselves consistently and ballot measures we're going to pay for more transportation but i think we're not collectively as a bay area i can we could do more to get our share. >> you know, we had a

great conversation with our public last year we voted in a 500 $500 million transportation bond and in san francisco halfway there completing the subway and that 500 $500 million is not going towards new buses and trolleys in the very near future made in sacramento by the by the way i think now it's upon us as mayors to treat the transportation issues as a region we already are forced to do that because many of the funding streams ask us what our regional priorities are and i must say i have to give in sometimes to self interest and other times say no. no. no. i've got to support bart to san jose and support bart in the bay area beyond our own self interests and now i think we're having a great conversation or beginning to have one what does the future look like?

all of our cities are growing at tremendous rates and what is our vision? this is one of those moments when mayors get to talk about vision vision and transportation is very appropriate we need to reorganize the the way we cross that bay bridge and we need a second transbay tube in addition bart to san jose and need caltrain to move quickly and i need to provide a vision of how that tunnels in to our transbay center and that will help federal and state moneys understand where we're going in years for which if we don't start planning now and make isn't make smart investments and we need immediate relief and also a vision for people to believe that