mr. corso's got the message. >> and also, mr. president, to you, you have mentioned a number of times about the need for friends of the san francisco fire department, and rumor has it, sir, that you will be retired. >> wow. thank you for your suggestion. >> got more time for us. more time. >> you're more than welcome from my suggestion. >> there's certainly a lot of money in the private sector that could be tapped to support our department. >> well, every time you have mentioned the friends of the fire department, i supported it. >> we did have one years ago, but it disbanded, but it's something that should be researched a little bit more, yeah, how we could reestablish that nonprofit entity. >> well, the nonprofit entity would have to be totally separate from the department. it would have to be a 501(c) 3, but i have always bought, since you first joined the commission, you have brought that idea up, and i have always thought that it was an excellent idea. >> well, the planning department has one, and a very successful one. it r

. >> well, the other question, mr. corso, is the itch will i indications of station 49, if we had to cut 2.5%, we'd have to layoff three ambulance drivers, and i don't think anybody knows how many people work in san francisco now, but if you look at the streets and the commute hours, you know it's a lot of -- a lot of people working here, and that number is questionable. who knows, and the tourists, and you have 35,000 hotel rooms that are, like, 90% occupied, so that number -- >> 1.5 million every day. >> yeah, so the estimate would come from the expert, boma. that's part of their business is knowing that. i don't know if we've ever had this department staff to take care of 1.5 million people. but any way, that's not your problem. that's ours. so any way, that's just -- would there be a projection to layoff ambulance drivers or how would that work? >> i think the city has high day and night populations in history, and we've seen that in call volume that's continued to increase. so as we've done in the past few years, i thin

you will hear in the -- in item following, item 6, from mr. corso regarding the budget instructions that we received. we are well into our second quarter and managing our 17-18 budget really well, and you'll hear more again about our budget instructions and the timeline related to submittal of our budget by february 21st, and we'll have a series of meetings, i'm sure, that we will ask for items to be placed on related to the budget, and we will requeen the budget committee. with regards to our academies, the 123rd class is in its fifth week with 55 members. things are going well. dot is working hard. there will be a february 5th graduation. it's an evening versus a morning versus lodge sticks. usually for a winter graduation, we have it indoors, and arch bishop reardon high school has allowed us to use their facility. out of the four members -- the numbers were reduced from 54 to 50 due to one resignation and three removals for performance, and i know commissioner covington always asks for the breakdown. we're in our 12th week. i believe we have one