a city where you could talk to people without being offended by what people brought up. the city understanding diversity, celebrating everything that we were doing in this city. if this is going down the street in a dedicated, green lane, with huge conventions going into town, with people who can speak german and japanese, to find their way into your neighborhood with japan town -- and these great restaurants. a city with great nightclubs, the bring over a million people here on a daily basis, to find their way for jobs and all the other things. this is a successful city. the diversity and the strong neighborhoods in the different languages, things that we love about the city. those principles, of the same city and a successful city, that is what i wanted. now we have a difficult decision, how do we bridge the gap of the budget, and how do we make certain that this decision does not hurt people more, and maintain the level of services that they want and keeps you excited about the city, and keeps you committed to being here. i want to throw out to the civic engagement sta

city. commissioner campos: in other jurisdictions -- oakland being one of them -- the city council actually has a say over rates. to your knowledge, the board of supervisors has never opined on what the amount should be or what the allocation of these funds should be? >> not to our knowledge, but other -- under our current process, any member of the board of supervisors could initiate the process. commissioner campos: is there a reason why under the rate process, the number that was cited was 10.6% of the total revenue? >> this is our deputy director. >> it was not based on a percentage. it was based on looking at individual costs for programs and their individual services. that was looked at in the context of whether that total was a reasonable amount, but it was not set at 10.6%. at that point -- and actually, the percentage may vary depending on the revenue that comes in to recology. that 10.6% -- the amount is fixed, so if there revenue is lower, that percentage could go up -- it -- if their revenue is lower. commissioner campos: the reason i ask is a superficial comparison. it does not

and i know working the city, being a resident of the city, we're a much more enlightened city for the rest of the world to look at, we want to be less dumb about it. that's why i'm so grateful to launch our pilot frahm of s.f. park. that's going to be our san francisco version of congestion pricing. right to the meter. right to the parking spaces. and for some time now i've been absorbing what are all of these little markers going around and being placed in all of these parking spaces. oh, they're going to try to do something smarter. maybe it will come back to us in a smart way. with the help of our federal highway administration, thank you very much for doing this, with the help of leader pelosi and her advocacy and her policy, guidance souun port, federal highway administration, department of transportation, all of froirneds there, we got some very serious funding for our m.t.a. we put them to work and through their leadership and through the collaboration with departments like public works and our other departments and environment department and others and our traffic divisions we

i want the city to be safe. not only in a public safety since, but also in the core level of services. i want the city to be solvent. that is, that we pay for programs that we can afford. that also means that we work really hard on making sure that we reform our pension system. right now, as we face our budget deficit of $6 million, a good third of that is the increased cost in our employee benefits. so we have to mean that in. i do not think we would be here tonight if we had a pension system that was solvent. finally, by what our budget to be reflective of a city that is successful, that is all the things that we enjoy, that attracted all of us to buy our homes here, raised our kids here. a successful city means we can continue attracting people to be year, to have strong neighborhoods, resilient neighborhoods like district 8, make sure we are doing everything we can to make our neighborhoods successful, along with all the other attractions that we can afford to have. a safe city, a solvent city, and a successf

it would be the largest hospital project our city has seen in decades. would probably be the largest land use project discussed this year. it is right on the edge of my district. it is seated at the intersection of several separate as oriole -- supervisorial districts. there are issues around displacement, the impact of a large hospital on the surrounding neighborhoods, and whether the size of this hospital and plans in the city wide picture of health care access. i am sure we will have robust discussion about this in the coming months. >> are there any other issues that concern you that we have not discussed? are there any other interests you plan to concentrate on as supervisor? >> one thing every supervisor works on is the relationship between our neighborhoods and city hall. i am blessed in district 3 to have a rich network of neighborhood associations, merchant groups, and nonprofit organizations that i interface with regularly. they often had difficulty navigating city hall. i am trying to help develop neighborhood councils that bring together thes

but right now, these city being subsidizing this organization -- >> right now, the city being subsidizing this organization. ed but this year, $7,000 was cut off. the appropriation was $50,000. we have to conserve more and more new immigrants. supervisor cohen: ok. >> every day, there are about 20 people asking for translation, looking for a job. supervisor cohen: thank you very much. >> thank you very much. supervisor cohen: you are welcome. i have an anonymous question periods weights -- i have an anonymous question. wait. >> i have to leave. supervisor cohen: one question, sharon. >> excuse me, supervisor. i would like to think our marriage and department heads -- our mayor and department heads. i have to leave. and i am not getting paid. i heard you say people who have to leave, leave. my question is simply this -- thank you, and i would like to say thank god, and we have an opportunity, in the opportunity is what i think i heard in the comments reflected by others. we all have needs. i would ask do the following in anchoring this discussion and subsequent discussions. that we not thi

supervisor wiener: i was happy to hear you talk about how ggnra would be working with the city. would they be effectively negotiating with the city in order to take into account the needs of san francisco and its residents? whether actually be a collaborative process to shape the plan going forward? >> i would not characterize it as negotiating. we have alternatives on the table. a constructive comments from the public and working with city officials, we are all ears. supervisor wiener: i understand that the white house has instructed that under nepa, federal agents are to work with local officials. >> yes, we do. i am not sure how you are characterizing it, but we are all leaders. -- all ears. we have to take their comments on what we have on the table and that will inform. supervisor wiener: for example, sticking with the current management plan, working with the city to improve enforcement, would that be a possibility? >> i don't believe the current status quo is sustainable. we would not be here talking about possible changes. are you asking for some sort of a delay? supervis

this shows how much she cares about the city, so thank you for being here. this meeting would not be possible without the help of so many people that have worked in the last few weeks to make it happen. i want to begin by thanking mayor lee, first and foremost. [applause] one of the first conversations we had was about the importance of involving the community in these discussions. one of the first things we talked about was how he was going to come to district 9 and have a budget town hall meeting so that the budget discussions do not just happen in city hall but actually happened here in this community, so thank you, mayor lee. i also want to thank the organizations that have come together to work on this. they have done everything from helping to create the format for the town hall meeting to providing things like child care and translation. on that note, each you need child care, as was previously announced, we have licensed child care personnel in room 101. you go out these doors. that is provided. we also have translation, but these organizations are t

i want a city to be safe. this city has to be safe. safe in two respects. safe, in that we have a public safety system that is led by our police departments, and also by community policing. so that all of us can grow up in a safe community. also, safe in the sense that we have a core level of social services that we depend on, that seniors can depend on, that families and youths can depend on. that core level of services has to be there. i want a city that is solvent. that we can have programs that we can afford to pay for. and guess what? we are becoming insolvent if we allow our pension system to run away from us. that is why i am working so hard with labor union leaders to make sure that we have a pension system that is dignified, that we can afford, and we will get there. every day that we work with our labor and union leaders, department heads, we want to make sure that we have a balanced, solvent pension system that does not run away from us. the new know why we are in such a deficit today? over $125 million of that is cost for our employees. i would

be financed? there is a significant cost to someone above and beyond the physical work. in terms of financing in the city facilitating financing, the bond in the 1990's, it was supposed to be divided about 60- 40 in terms of the market rate. the market rate program and has barely been touched in part because at certain times, private financing. and from what i understand because we have made it so onerous and bureaucratic to take advantage of what people wanted to deal with, we really created a bunch of that money and people were taking advantage of the market rates. how do we provide access to financing that people will actually use to do the work? >> that is a very long question. if i don't adequately address it, anyone of us would be happy to sit down. your first point is about mandates versus voluntary programs. we did a lot of research on what communities have mandatory programs, what have voluntary programs. some people will respond to voluntary programs, voluntary incentives. by and large, projects such as this done and get implemented unless they are mandatory. it is a sad reality. where is the m

but right now, these city being subsidizing this organization -- >> right now, the city being subsidizing this organization. ed but this year, $7,000 was cut off. the appropriation was $50,000. we have to conserve more and more new immigrants. supervisor cohen: ok. >> every day, there are about 20 people asking for translation, looking for a job. supervisor cohen: thank you very much. >> thank you very much. supervisor cohen: you are welcome. i have an anonymous question periods weights -- i have an anonymous question. wait. >> i have to leave. supervisor cohen: one question, sharon. >> excuse

from my perspective i think the future of a great city has to be a city that deals and tames the lion beast of congestion, that figures out how to manage our parking, and i think this is exactly the way to do it. this announcement is now incredibly exciting because today we are entering the 21st century technological world of bringing data and open applications and iphones and online crowded source developers to help us figure out how we're going to do this in a smart way, how we're going to do this in a fresh way, how we're going do this in a way that saves us time and makes us official and makes san francisco the most liveable city we can be. on behalf of the board of supervisor and i know supervisor weemer is here, i want to thank the chair of our t.a. and the mayor and all of the city staffers who have been working four years to make this happen, we look forward to the day when we can drive around the streets, spend less than three minutes looking for parking and get on with our lives. thank you for being part of this wonderful announcement. >> i mefpksed we could not do -- mentio

i want the city to be safe. not only safe in the public safety sense, but in the core level of social services safety net. how one of the city to be solvent that we have programs that we can afford to pay for. i want the city to be successful. that we celebrate and try to support all of the diverse things that we do to bring visitors here to keep our children here and keep families wanting to come and go up here. safe, solvent, and successful have been the principles i have shared with city staff and commissioners as we began this budget process. tonight is all about listening to you first and foremost. and getting that in but that we always said we have a value. so i will be listening very carefully to what you have to say church tried to make that balance. the $380 million balance is not that easy to do. there will be decisions that we all have to make. and we have to come together to make those decisions of it we have a balanced budget. i will have my ears open and listening to what everybody has to say. we'll

priorities of the city being safe, solvent, and accessible. i think all of us agree with those objectives. the one thing i would add is that as a supervisor who has gone to the process -- gone through the process, it is important for us to understand that when we talk about the city being safe, safety means a lot of different things. safety is not just the typical sense of what we talk about such republic safety -- public safety. the police and fire department play important roles. safety is not just about law- enforcement. safety involves a number of things that include protecting the safety net that makes sure every san francisco ian is takig care of. [applause] i know that nearly shares in that vision. he has made that clear. we in district 9 and the mission have been going through a tough time. there has been an increase in violence. it is something we are very mindful of. we have taken every step we can to ensure the safety of our neighborhood. we're working closely with the mayor and chief of police. we're working closely with the police

we need this city to be solvent so that we make sure we can pay for all of the services we provide. that means we also take care of the pension challenge and we want the city to be successful and we continue doing those things in our neighborhoods and our areas where we attract people to come and maintain their interest in this great city. to address the current deficit, which is $306 million, we asked the departments to propose reductions of their discretionary general fund support. these reductions total only $100 million, one-third of our original budget deficit. an additional 10% would yield a maximum of an additional $100 million, leaving a large remaining gap, even if we were to decide a number of the proposals were acceptable. there is no magic formula for deciding the best way to balance the budget. the reason we give production targets to them is to see what they come up with. we not believe in across-the- board cuts. some departments can do their targets with relatively little disruption to the services. others may have more difficulty. we need to look at all the proposals

we want to be the city that innovates. secondly, it's green because it uses and reuses some of the existing infrastructure in front of my house they're not going to have to dig up because i happen to live on delore street and utilities are underground so they can use what is already there so we're making good efforts to leverage the existing infrastructure with this particular proposal. the third one, i just went through a six-week class and have newfound respect for our wonderful fire and police departments and we're what expecting them to do in the case of an emergency in my lifetime living here. unfortunately, i went through that after i signed my mortgage. the resiliency of this city, if you look at post-katrina and the gulf is very important. having two networks is better than having one. and for people like me that work at home and depend on that, that's economic vitality. [bell] president chiu: next speaker. >> good evening, president chiu. my name is neal bardac. i live in pacific heights. my concern is that the pu

be implemented. we will have economic hurts sometimes in the city. that's how we get people to work. that's how we keep them busy. that's how we keep their future prospects of being in the city alive. i know about the census. i know what people are leaving the city. i understand why -- we did not do this earlier. we did not catch all the gaps that we have. things are changing. they are changing today. we are beginning right now. we have begun. we have already implemented a lot of this, even on projects that we have caught already. we have passed those departments to make sure the spirit is already in place so they can take advantage of a ready work force and take advantage of the intelligence and training that we are doing with all of our contractors. we will have great contractors working with us. i know manny is here on behalf of many other contractors. there will be a whole contracting family that knows how to do this well. the warning goes out to those contractors that do not know how -- be ready. we do not want you making mistakes. we cannot afford the gaps. we cannot afford any

that the response work for the first time, the reconstruction work of rebuilding the city for the first time is being looked at by the city agencies. we are in pretty good shape, the services have been gearing up for years. if we can prevent damage from occurring, we significantly improve the city's resilience. i would like to say how hard it is to create affordable housing in this city, if we can do anything to preserve affordable housing, we will be way ahead. this earthquake will affect how affordable housing dramatically. we noticed that housing is really where we need to focus. the soft story buildings are the key to that. >> that also includes rent- controlled apartments? >> that is right. supervisor wiener: we also talk about bmr programs. given the affordable housing stock. that was my concern. that it wasn't going to these rent-control the market rate buildings. >> the soft story buildings are less expensive to retrofit than other types of buildings. they are only stand on the ground floor. one of the ways that we are trying to address cost is to address the cost of the retrofit. the other a

we want you to be in this city, having the confidence that you're going to stay here, live here, and work here after the big one hits. there's no reason why you ought to be afraid of being in the city. we're going to take the fear out of the earthquake. and the only way you take the fear out they have earthquake is you plan for it and preplan for it and plan to recover. that's the only way to take the fear out of the earthquake. yeah, we're going to have challenges. it's 65% and growing the next one will hit. but we're going to take that fear out by good, solid planning and that's why i want to get back to the city administrate's job after this so we can do more planning with you and give you confidence we're doing everything we can to recover lrd, before we even have a shake, we're going to recover. recovery means you've got the confidence to stay here, you've got the belief we're taking care of business and we'll be up and running after that quake. >> thank you for this forum. i really appreciate that. and you've already talked a bit about pension reform so i -- that was my original