mr. ginsburg. >>, to continue to send my thanks to cady, who does such a wonderful job looking at the commission's finances, given the climate. there is a department head meeting going on right now about the city's budget. because you're in this commission meeting presented our budget, they know we are not here. the message the mayor is conveying his although the city it is certainly happy the six- month report indicated positive news, structural challenges certainly remain for the city. it is the mayor's office boss expectation that we continue to manage the budget, which is why it is before you today. for the second year in a row, we will have no layoffs and no program reductions. i think that is a credit to the tough decisions that you as a commission have been making to offset some of the general fund cuts we have had to experience with earn revenues. so on behalf of not just staff, but those who use our services, think you for your leadership in helping us maintain services. while we are at a moment of certainly less bad news and we have had in the past, it is important to note a big piece of

mr. ginsburg? >> the department of emergency management, not just the n.f.c. championship game or preparations for flooding but we had power issues going back to the monday night game in pittsburgh so there was a ton of interagency coordination with sfpd, fire, d.p.w., rec. and park and d.e.m. often throughout that three or four-week process, served as the quarterback and coordinator facilitating conference calls and making sure we were working as well together as we could so my thanks to all of the other city agencies involved in helping us manage the variety of issues that came up at candlestick, special thanks to d.e.m. sometimes even little events, we can use this model and it works and it worked well. thank you. >> we're getting much better at it. we're figuring that out as we move along. thank you, phil. i'm going to move on, then, unless there's other comments, here, to recent fires and we have three presenters today but we're going to start with chief hayes-white. if you could give us a little update, please. >> certainly. good afternoon, mayor lee, el

ginsburg. good to see you, mr.see you, chris. >> you are not adjusting your plan to wind down the war by 2014 but it has reinforced a feeling among a lot of americans that the u.s. needs to get out as quick as possible. how do you think the latest violence has changed the equation? >> well, i think it has brought into sharp focus the fact that general petraeus' surge has not worked. despite what his supporters claim politically, the president has reached the end of the road in so far as reconstructing afghanistan. it's got to be back, we have to revert back to vice president biden's strategy of engaging largely and countering terrorism from the air. whether karzai stays or leaves, i think he'll end up with a pot of money in geneva. tinge taliban will continue to control a good part of the eastern part of the country. the pakistanis have no intention of supporting u.s. aims in afghanistan. and the u.s. military, i think, has already come to the conclusion that whatever they have valiantly tried to achieve on the gro