the city. and finally, i was thrust upon with the obligation to make sure that i selected a police chief, not a temporary police chief. a chief that will carry forth what i consider to be one of the most important things in this city, to secure the public safety of the great city of san francisco. i think i have done that, with the selection and now the appointment of the chief. so many people have come up to me and clearly you expected a chief who had spent 30 years in his life, but i did not realize how many people he has really known in every part of this community. they come up and they thank us for making that wonderful decision. you will see right off the that, if he will be a great partner to make sure our police force and all the public agency facilities work together and we produce a higher level of public safety in the new year. i set out for a number of these objectives to perform those things in the most non-political way and to give it my full, 150% attention. that means to not be

the city needs to recommit ourselves to the values that our city was named after. st.rancis believed in compassion for those who have less -- had less than others. those of us with opportunities have to give back. part of that entails taking care of the most important among us, the folks who have need, including our homeless. >> let's talk about the transportation situation in your district. you mentioned that transit could be better. how is parking and traffic? is there enough muni service now? >> you are talking to the one member of the board that does not only car. i get around my district by muni, bicycle, or hailing a cab. our transit system is truly challenge. our bosses are late one out of four times. -- our buses are late one out of a quarter times. they're still not as clean and safe as we'd like. we can do better and investing in our muni system. we need more taxicabs on the streets. is difficult to obtain a cab. i support the concept of centralized taxi dispatch systems so you know who you can call to get a cab. i am a big believer in pedestrian bicycling as

i have a safe city i want to have, and a solvent city, and finally, we want to have a successful city. the reason that success is there is because i wanted to ask yourself, what brought you to send francisco? what made you make the investment that you made, that got you into a neighborhood? what brought me here was the excitement of being in a city that was culturally diverse. a city that respected all different cultures and ways of life. 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 t

the city. that means today and it will mean for some time that my administration reflects a strong effort to create and sustain jobs for everyone. if i have learned anything in my visits throughout the city it is that everybody wants to get a job. they want to be here. they want to sustain themselves year. they know how expensive it is. i know how expensive is. i made one of the biggest, most nervous financial commitments buying a house here in my whole life here that was when mayor willie brown ordered me that if i wanted this job, i had to move into the city. i bought a couple of times, because finding a 3-bedroom house in the city was an enormous task. i did it well my kids were jumping up and down on the bed, saying "we are going to disneyland. we are going to disneyland." because their vision of san francisco was a place of play, a place where their eyes are open everywhere they go, they can get the culture and the arts, all the wonderful things we have invested in that make this city succ

the city council there is contemplating a tax that would then benefit the city of brisbane, not the city of san francisco. isn't that correct? >> that is what they are currently looking at. commissioner mirkarimi: this is something i have shared with the office of economic and workforce development. to me, that is a mess. i thought that there was some opportunity or prospects for san francisco to be able to buy four that were to be part of the expansion process, it would have been, i think, more to our advantage -- and actually, we are going to try to advocate for san francisco -- to have that opportunity afforded to city hall so that we would have been able to be more competitive in that process. i have to tell you, when we came in to the knowledge of that happening, and based on all our research, city hall was not on the front burner of trying to stymie that expansion into a city away from san francisco. >> as you know, we have initiated discussions with the port of san francisco to see if there is an alternative to keep recology in the city and county of san francisco and consolidate

in any city, mobility is important. in a city like san francisco where we have a lot of space, mobility is important. to the extent that our public rights of way, streets and sidewalks are not in good condition, not save, not accessible, then we are not as mobile as a society as we need to be. therefore, we are not as strong as a society and have a strong enough economy. mobility really relies on infrastructure that is in good condition and i think we all recognize we have a long way to go in terms of realizing a city with infrastructure in the shape we need to enable that kind of mobility. it is also important because, here in the city, we have a transit first policy, a better streets policy. in order to get people out of their cars on to transit, on their bicycles, on their feet, we need public rights of way to be safe and accessible. all of that brings us to the point where we are today. the good news is, we have a plan. and that plan is called the 10- year capital plan. it is a plan that came together under the lead

that is the whole city family of employees. the fear that kind of event occurs -- i think we have an opportunity in our short lifetimes to eliminate fear of seismic activity, if we plan, practice, continue exercising, if we continue the disciplined approach of reducing our risk in every way possible. and it is with your help and leadership that we can do this. thank you very much for holding this forum. thank you for having me today. i appreciate it. [applause] >> good afternoon. it is horrible being the speaker after lunch. stretch a little bit. ed and i are particularly happy to be working on so many different issues. this is probably one of the most important ones, one, that in these economic times, would be easy to forget or say. let's just hope that it does not happen on our watch. the reality is, we do not know when it is going to happen. i do not know about ed, but i answer all the phone calls in the middle of the night, even when it is the wrong number. i tried to remember to keep my satellite telephone charged in case

so safe city, a solvent city, a successful city is the instructions i've given to the departments.hey're doing their very, very best, whether it's the recreation department, the budget department working hard with me, or our social services, all of the other departments represented here, they're doing their very, very best. having said that, many of you have been to other of our town hall budget meetings. and i want to let you know tonight, we have been hearing from you. we want you to know that we are listening. we are already making decisions before we even go to the board of supervisors to reflect how important some of the things you've indicated are. i want you to know tonight that for many of you who are seniors -- i mentioned this when we talked about a safe city -- you have represented your interests, and the community's interests very, very well in almost every one of our town hall meetings. we've heard you, the budget office, all the departments, have h.s.a. to the department of aging have heard as well, have talked already, and we're beginning to move on those recommendat

plan for the city. this is one of the key projects, one of really the key initiatives that we're focusing on the city to demonstrate where we want to go over the next five years. and we want to thank gail and microsoft for being here today and talking a little bit about this project. gail, if you want to talk a little bit. >> thank you very much to john. i'm hoping everyone can hear us ok on the other side. thanks so much for joining us as well. and i just want to really say thank you to john and his entire team here in the city and county of san francisco for this partnership. and the tremendous vision that you've shown in terms of the efforts to continue to have a have a t.j.ic vision for the city and county -- strategic vision for the city and county and modernizing and we're happy to be on this journey together in terms of leveraging technology, improve the services that the city provides to its citizens. so with this opportunity to work together on this innovation in terms of the benefits of cloud

city. i was with them last week. they had all these volunteers out helping us repair homes in our mission and excelsior for seniors, so it is a wonderful cooperation we have with wells fargo. how was the right coming in today? >> when a great way to start the morning. i wish i could start every morning like this. we have more than 9000 team members at work, so coming from marin county in the east bay from the south bay, so we are actively working with them and helping reduce greenhouse emissions. one of that is by the commute, so we are actively encouraging bike riding to work appear almost every one of our administrative offices has bike racks outside of it to help support our team members, so thank you, and thank you, mayor. >> joel. travel sf. our tourists and visitors are noticing this experience. what are you saying? >> travel and tourism in -- is san francisco's number one industry. 80 million people come here every year, and more than 1/3 are from international countries that are use

so a safe city, a solvent city, successful city are the principles i am sharing with everyone while we make tough decisions that are bound to come up, and i want to make them with your concerns in mind. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. that was a brief introduction to some of the key figures in city government, department heads, and everyone else who is here who will just introduce themselves. >> my name is phil ginsberg. i am the general manager of recreation and parks. -- my name is phil ginsburg. [inaudible] thank you. >> [inaudible] i am mayor lee's budget director. it is my job to work with the mayor and board of supervisors to make sure we are going to balance our budget every year, as we are required to do under the charter. i appreciate all of you being here and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the budget. [applause] >> [speaking spanish] i am director of health. [applause] them a good evening. -- >> good evening. i'm from the department of children, youth, and their families. [applause] >> i am from the department of public works. dpw is responsible for designi

welcome to city hall. the great city hall of san francisco. [applause] we have been busy this morning but it has been a pleasure all morning to greet so many people love the city. i cannot think of another 10 people who love this city. i want to thank each and everyone of you because your volunteering -- i know that word. volunteer for one of the greatest cities in the world. what you will be doing, sacrifices in time, interactions with you, with various commissioners, it will be a wonderful experience, one that many of you will continue to do, and some of you about to do for the first time. i see former supervisor bevan dufty is here. david from the department of the barnett. emily. commissioner shorter, thank you for being here. bruce, thank you for being here. tom, roberta from the mta, thank you for being here. please forgive me, i am still young. [laughter] i have so many others serving on different commissions already. thank you. we have city departments that are here. i know we have the department of the environment, film commission, co

i want a city that is successful. what made you come and buy a house? it is because you felt the diversity of san francisco. we have the ability to attract -- we have of events in our parks that just attract so many people, but are affordable to our residents to have a world- class city that can win the america's cup. we have to have those programs and those traditions. that is what brought us. i want a city that is successful. i will stand for a city that is growing old and not paying attention. we need to do all kinds of things to make sure that we have transportation systems, our communications are modern, and i want a city that is safe, solvent, successful. a lot of things we have worked on for many years, we have to work better at them. we can't afford to do the things that we have done. a lot of them are here. i am happy to be here with combined districts to tell us what you think is important to the city. those are the instructions i have given and i think you for spending your time here this morning. if anybod

we are moving forward as a city. the future of the city is the young people who will get these jobs. we're making certain that we reach out all the neighborhoods to make certain that the shops are open to all of them. they will not do this without a solid education system. i want for the youth to have good lives in the city. thank you very much. >> westfield has been a strong contributor to the economy of the city, and their presence in the city generates thousands of jobs for residents of san francisco and millions to the tax base. the $30 million that is being invested in this facility speaks volumes about their ongoing commitment to the city. this is the president of westfield. >> thank you. i would like to thank ed lee, the commissioners, jennifer, the staff of the redevelopment agency, and the office of economic and work-force development for being here today on a spectacular san francisco de, to support the efforts of revitalization. i also like to thank amy and the staff of the redevelopment agency, for sharin

the city. s.p.a. is just now rolling out a program for r -- will be the case by the summer. let me get one last point and on the question about relationships to lenders. the question was, do have to have an account with a bank in order to get a loan? may answer is no, but the real answer to it is certainly want to do that. one of the things we see as an important thing for you, as a small-business person to establish a relationship with a lender on a variety of levels before you look for funding. part of that is opening an account with them, letting a lender know about your business, understand your business, talk to them as you are growing your business. when the economy is strong, all lenders are shopping for transactions. in times are tough on credit, you want to rely on those deeper liberation ships with your lender. you want to develop a relationship with a lender. it is the case where you want to open up an account, while to have another bank services that you want to have a relationship

of the city. ladies and gentlemen, my dear friend, please join me in welcoming the 43rd mayor of city and county of san francisco, mr. edwin lee. [applause] mayor lee: thank you. thank you very much. welcome to the people's hall in san francisco. i want to first of all say -- i have always wanted to say this. the commissioner is such a wonderful person, and she has been our commissioner on immigrant rights commission, but you could see her when we walked in. she was hustling around getting everybody settled, doing what we needed to do to have a successful event, but she has been a wonderful adviser to me for so many years and a great asset to the city. i want to give you a round of a free shares applause. -- appreciative applause. thank you so much. it is my personal pleasure to welcome all of you here to celebrate nowruz. this has been something that supervisor mirkarimi and i talked about for so many years, to make sure we on this day and make sure all of you feel so warm and welcome, so, we are

we need to look at what we do as a city and was services we offer. we have 26,000 city employees. our payroll and fringe benefits for city employees accounts for over 60% of our budget. if we are not willing to look at that issue, i do not think we are going to solve -- i know we will not solve our long-term financial issues. that, to me, is the biggest deal. second, it is about job creation. jobs are not just putting people back to work, which i think is the highest priority, but it is all the ancillary benefits we received, whether it be payroll taxes, an increase in property taxes. people who live and work in san francisco also shop at local restaurants, so shop at the local retail stores. it is a huge economic impact in san francisco. in my opinion, it is getting our costs under control but also promoting economic development so we have a financial engine that will continue to promote us year after year. >> what are your ideas on dealing with the issue of homelessness in san francisco? >> i am one that thinks mayor newsom did a great job thinking proactively about what we need

a safe city, a solvent city, and a successful city are the themes i have given our departments to work with. and as we go through the balancing our budget, i said at the outset, there is no magic to it. we have to make some tough decisions coming up. after we make those tough decisions, is like going to be any easier? nope. the governor has plans to realign things that going to hurt us. i do not believe for one second that realignment means it comes with any funding to realigning burdens that will come to us. then the federal government is going to get there. we have already seen the community block grant funds that were going to be heard in many different ways, so we are bracing for that, trying to come up with ideas to make sure our cities survives and survive as well. with that, no more speeches. i am all ears to your concerns, making sure the you know we are working closely with you and your supervisor to make our process transparent and sensitive to all the ideas that you have. thank you very much. [applause] supervisor wiener: thank you. now, why don't we hear from the mayor's bu

what do you really want out of the city? in very plain language, they said, "mayor lee, we like the culture of the city. we like the local restaurants. we like that we can work here for an odd number of hours and we wanted to be safe. we want to make sure we can ride our bikes to work. 25% of them ride to work. they have bike racks on every floor of the building. they also said they wanted us to expand the experience of bicycle riding, to make sure the city was green. all the young engineers -- they, too, said they loved the diversity of the city." that gave me a clear indication that is for the next generation of workers in the city, people who will build in the street, and then to realize what twitter and companies like that have done all over the world, being a conduit for some many events that have occurred, even the latest event that has occurred. they were still part of that. twitter was feeding information to the whole world about what was going on. and to have that product, that name-brand he suggested as a san franc

city other than new york. you ought to exercise your power to protect your city and its residents from planned degradation by refusing to accept this housing element and sending it back to the planning department to be redone. this element has been doctored by spur with the connivance of the planning committee. without environmental review or public street to cater to ideologues, densifying interests to sell the city sold for quick cash. i call on you to reject this temptation and insist that this draft 3 of the housing element be dropped and draft two, the only thevetted by the eir -- the only version vetted by the eir, been adopted. anything would be possible, and it could be totally inconsistent with what was agreed to. only 30 words have been changed. think of what would happen if 30 or even three words were changed in the u.s. constitution. you could end up with dictatorship instead of democracy. 30 words have power. it is very important that they be reviewed and approved by a reasonable and open process.

this city does it differently. that makes our city successful in different ways. i want our son to be safe, solvent, and successful -- ouone -- i want our city to be safe, solvent, and successful. i suggest to you that we have a new level of conversation at city hall. it is welcoming of a good business climate. weak balance that with the services we need to have. we will make sure -- we will balance that with the services we need. we will balance that with the services we need and the challenges we have. having said that, the three ended $6 million deficit is hard to fill when we do not have all of the economic solutions. -- the $306 million deficit is hard to fill when we do not have all of the economic solutions. we still have nervousness about the state and federal governments will do that might make it worse. we have all of that. i depend a lot on the city staff to help me figure this out to build in some reserves that we can use in case things get out of hand so that our own budget and reading can be presented in an honest way. i know what brought you here to

that, along with the perverse -- diverse corridors of the city, that is part of being a successful city. i want to continue that. to continue to have us face -- a safe, soldan, and successful city. and i can do that in a non- political way. i think the unprecedented dialogue with the board of supervisors, that we can get agreements, not yell at each other, not take some much political positions that are for san francisco. i think you for this time and i would be very willing to answer questions tonight. [applause] >> thank you. before we talk policy and the city stuff, i want to talk a little bit more about growing up in seattle. the fourth of six kids. tell us about the way you grew up, hal is shaped who you are now? mayor lee: i do not talk much about it because it was a hard life. we grew up in housing projects in seattle. we struggled. we were a large family. my dad was a cook. my mom was a seamstress. so, kind of typical for a lot of asian immigrant families. i had the unfortunate episode of my dad dying when i was in high school. so we literally had to be on our own. six kids, one

they go from city to city and state to state and fight the little guys. that is what they do for a living. in the last few days, with starbucks -- what we are talking about is not just pet food stores. it is the identity of our city. i went down to low celtuce the other day. -- los altos the other day. i don't know where i was. i some miles of chance. someone gave me this. -- i saw miles of chains. someone gave me this. you have these other cities with chain stores and formula retail. if we don't put a stop to this, our lovely city that some of us may take for granted, will start to look like this. that is what is going to happen. it won't be funny. it might be funny, because there are conventions. a lot of them will say, "san francisco -- don't go there." this is a lovely, lovely city. it should not become a mega strip mall. somebody goes from the airport to downtown san francisco and do not know what city they are in. the could be in denver or albuquerque. they could be anywhere. that is the big picture, which i hope is what we are thinking about, not j

hurwitz: currently, city tunnel 1 and city tunnel number 2 would be feeding each half of the city. so you'd lose half the city if you didn't have a replacement. narrator: without half of its water supply, the city would shut down. for nearly 40 years, new york has been in the process of constructing a solution. man: this project is water tunnel number 3. we started on this project in 1969. i'm a sandhog. i've been a sandhog for 37 years. narrator: sandhogs are the men of local 147, who work deep below the city. they began building the infrastructure of new york in 1872. from the subways to the sewers, the water tunnels to the highway tunnels, new york city thrives because of their work. ryan: you got one little hole in the ground, and nobody knows we're here. see the empire state building, right. that's 1,000 feet. so you figure, you go down 1,000. how high that is -- that's how far we go down. narrator: stretching more than 60 miles under the city, tunnel 3 is taking generations of workers to complete. ryan: i don't even want to imagine what my father had to go through. when we fi

and just a wonderful history that we have made us a standout city where i think other cities, which they had some of that aspect we doff. we're also a cost prohibitive city. it's expensive to be here. i think it's extremely important we remain sensitive to strategy and implementation of making sure the city retains its class diversity. there's always a lot of discussion about diversity in terms of culture and race. class diversity is something that shouldn't be subordinate to that discussion. i want to make sure that san francisco has a working class population. i want to make sure we do not take for granted because we are seen as more cosmopolitan, that that excuses us from not tackling issues of poverty, which there are still substantial pockets of it in san francisco. just by what others may argue. that to me obligates our requirement to make sure this city, being in its reputation of being forward thinking and progressive, learn to -- learn to make sure that that translates into economics so that this isn't a city just for those who could afford it. >> what do you feel like are some

-- the city staff. some of them are here. supervisor wiener: if you submit a card, we will call you and you will be able to speak. >> i have been here since 1972, and the remember buildings that preserve or restore, we would be carrying off the gingerbread instead of carrying wood shingles. it was a disaster. i remember when they tore off the facade had put something else on top of it. it was really terrible. now we have the support of preservation. have seen wonderful buildings around the world. the environmental review takes three to six months. a lot with that long. it is one purchase. we have to get a survey done. >> i will be talking at turbo speed. i am interested in trying to figure out how a balanced policy such as the transit rich areas, transit oriented development, priority development. oriented areas and all the other policies that are going through city hall right now on land use. what i see here is a dilemma that can't be resolved in this room overnight. i don't see process flows from norm

oakland is the second most literate city in the nation, the city with the best weather -- sorry, sand francisco. -- sorry, san francisco. we are constantly being named as the most diverse city. that is, like, 129 languages spoken in our public schools. our latest group, the winner of our spelling contest is a young lady from nepal. oakland is a city that is constantly reinventing itself, whether it be in the end of the transcontinental railroad with dozens of hundreds of different kinds of european immigrants across the country, or the home to the borders that gave birth to a jazz movement, or today, as the most affordable place for new immigrants coming to the bay area to live. each of them leave a mark. one thing that i would say, when you come to oakland, is that of lenders -- is that oaklanders are pretty passionate about our city. i was teasing ed that he and i have probably made more public appearances together then my husband and i have in the last couple of months. i can assure you that we work really closely together, which resolves a couple of major longstanding issues. what