[applause] mark o'neal. shalissa holmes fox. andreea ross. tusik yaya julia martin. robert ruskie. karen kai. and i may have a few more, but let's start with that. two minutes each. >> good evening. my name is ed newbower. i am one of the employees were -- employed by the district. we maintain and repair palms, boiler systems, generators, 250 boilers, some palms, miles of leaking pipes, -- 250 boilers, sump pumps. we are the people that keep our children warm and safe inside our classrooms. despite claims of no heat, we respond to many other emergencies on a daily basis. we are also trained to deal with asbestos as the pipes costly spring leaks underneath our schools. we have had to deal with low- grade contractors doing repairs after they leave and things do not work right. each school presents its own unique set of challenges and problems. the department has never said, i cannot, or i will not, when it has to respond to an emergency or make repairs. we are asking you tonight to be compensated the same as other city engineers who have nowhere near the same duties as us but receive

[applause] mark o'neal. shalissa holmes fox. andreea ross. tusik yaya julia martin. robert ruskie. karen kai. and i may have a few more, but let's start with that. two minutes each. >> good evening. my name is ed newbower. i am one of the employees were -- employed by the district.

[cheers and applause] >> my name is mark o'neal, i am a parent, and i am here to register a strong protest, and in essence, my family and i are very disappointed in the manner of which this assignment preceded the past few weeks, and we found out that our daughter did not make it into any school here. you set up a deadline, or your administrator set up a deadline for a choice of schools in early july. the cop was roughly july 5. we were not here during that time what we found out our daughter who was going to a parochial school year in san francisco stated very clearly that she could not go back there due to the bullying and things of that nature. and then we came in and register. we were told that she was third in line for mission high school, that, you know, they could not confirm it for another 5 to 6 days. we said fine. thank you. then when we found out about the deadline passing, the minister in charge pushed the deadline further on and added more students and said it was going to be set up as a lottery this time, so those people, before they got to the second deadline, it got pushed