certainly board president david chiu for helping me co-host this and carmen chu and her work with us already started and will help guide us, along with board president david chiu on all of the hearings that the rest of the board will have. i want to thank each and every member of the board of supervisors as well. you've been weighing in and we've been creating a different dialogue on the front end to make sure that all of our constituents know what we're doing, more transparent, and ultimately where our values are. i also want a big shout-out and thanks to everybody in this room. there's a lot of department heads and commissions and labor representatives and representatives from our non-profits and community members as well. thank you for engaging us in this really dedicated six-month process. i want to go back to the very first neighborhood budget hearing that we held about almost six months ago. it was one where i was asked at the very beginning, what does the budget mean to you? and i wasn't the only one. there were several supervisors that were there, and we all said pretty much

he is joined by supervisors carmen chu, jane kim, and eric mar.ls, jeff adachi, the public defender, the recorder assessor, hydra mendoza, and emily murase. we're also thankful for the chief of police, thank you. i would like to also acknowledges someone that has been a very special friend of mine, someone that has given me a lot of support and advice over the years. and also someone who has not missed one of these asian pacific heritage month associations, mayor willie brown. >> this evening, we are celebrating our communities from all over the world. i am so lucky to be the mayor of an international city. we talked a lot about diversity, but we also celebrates in so many ways. it is marvelous to hear the names of all these council generals from all around the world. we also have some invaluable participants that represent the city relations. from osaka, singapore, shanghai, taipei, and seoul, korea. they're working with our offices and communities to promote education, trade, allow ourselves to educate ourselves continuously about the need to ha

[applause] so as supervisor avalos and supervisor cohen and we're joined by supervisor carmen chu asou know, i've had the pleasure of working with our whole board of supervisors and i'll tell you, all of them have been very dedicated. and you have heard the new tone at city hall. no calling names. no wasting time. we are on your business. and that's why we enjoy coming out so the neighborhood. we enjoy holding budget town hall meetings because the most important thing that we should be doing is listening to the needs, not making decisions in isolation, and then respecting our communities. that's what i want to do. you know me. i've been picking up trash for a lot of you in this district for many years. we've been out in mccarron park cleaning that place up. we've been down in sunny dale trying to keep things clean, safe. we know these neighborhoods but we also want to make sure we honor a tradition that has been long held in the city. we make decisions with our community. never in isolation. that's why it's important that we be out here. that's why it's important i tell you we haven'

please welcome president chiu, carmen chu, supervisor kim, and eric mar. wish you could see yourselves as we see you. we are chinese, japanese, and caribbean. we are south easton, southeast asian, and filipino. i want to thank the leaders in our community who are here with us tonight, leaders of our benevolent associations, our business associations, and our commissioners. we cannot do what we do in city hall without all of you. we know we have come a long way. it was not long ago that chinese americans were excluded under our city laws. when japanese americans were interned. when filipino tenants were evicted from the international hotel. when the fbi investigated our community. for us to stand here now is amazing. i think finally we have enough asian americans to form our own dragon dance team. it would be a short dragon, but a dragon dance team nonetheless. we would not be here and be able to do that but for the support we have and the work we are all doing together. thank you all for being here, and a very happy lunar new year. [applause] supervisor ch

we also have the chair of the budget committee of the board of supervisors, supervisor carmen khu. -- chu. [applause] and after having chaired the budget committee two years in a row in 2009 and 2010, i can honestly say it's one of the most challenging jobs on the board of supervisors and with carmen, you have a great leader, someone who knows the ins and outs of this budget and really will be looking closely at neighborhoods like arson to make -- ours to make sure we can get out of this budget so carmen is a great person to have on our committee. i want to welcome all the seniors and the youths and the families and residents of district 11 and district 10. we have an incredible task before us on how to balance this budget. even though budget times are looking better, we have hard and difficult choices to make as we do the budget balancing work in the city county of san francisco. our budget is really a statement about our priorities as a city. we have lots of priorities as off our complement each other but sometimes compete against each other and we have to make hard decisions about what

before we do that, i want to acknowledge supervisor carmen chu, chair of the budget committee. to thank her for her presence and for also having a truly transparent budget process. thank you, supervisor chu. [applause] so, these are the department heads that are here. if i missed anyone, please let me know. we have our city librarian, child support services, karen roy, san francisco housing authority henry alvarez, capital planning committee, brian strong, our fire chief, human agency, department of children, youth, and families. from the department of public health, barbara garcia and the cfo is here. department of public works. recreation and parks, phil ginsburg. our police chief is at the police commission meeting. we have the deputy chief and also are station capt. here. from the mayor's office of housing, we have olson lee. we have our newly appointed city administrator. we also have the mayor's education policy adviser, who is also a member of the board of education. i do not think i missed anyone. i am. sorry. that is later. it's my honor to introduce rachel, the execut

i want to also thank supervisor carmen chu who is out here tonight. she is going to be the head of the budget committee -- committee. [laughter] that the supervisors have selected with david chiu's help. this is her third. i have committed to six. we are combining as many of the districts together as possible, so we're trying to do this as efficiently as possible. but we will do all six. we know, based on last year's turnout and i think tonight, the turnout as well, if we listen to closely, we go and do our homework, we will make good decisions so that hopefully you are not there the end of may screaming at us in the months of june saying we did not listen. we have got to listen early, and we have got to do -- got to make good decisions. we're ready to do that. i wanted to forewarn you that this is a two-year budget and is still bouncing a deficit. and guess what -- the news from the state and the news from the federal government is not improving. every time we looked around, there's something else of the governor says he has got to cut, because we he