values, it is about the future of our city. you have heard all of those that you have attended. the budget town hall meetings and meetings with our community- based agencies. you need not hear from me today again about the goal, but i do want you to hear from people who i think are our challenge and reflective of our city, so i want to invite up to the podium today three people -- three students who will talk to you in their own terms about how they feel a city can be safe, a city that can be solvent, and a city that can be successful. if i may invite zack parker to please set up to the podium. he is 8 years old. he is going into the fourth grade at sherman elementary school. he likes playing basketball and drawing. he will be visiting yosemite and his family in oregon over the summer and attending summer camps. thank you for coming today. he is joined by his mother. go ahead,. >> hello. [inaudible] mayor lee said he wants the city to be safe, the word means more than one thing. will walk to school, play outside, or go shopping

i want you to know that we understand that our city is no longer a stagnant city. it is a growing city, a city that's population is growing. companies want to come here. they want to employ our residents. they want to help us grow. so we have focused on what we can do to sustain those jobs and make sure our city is successful. we have our america's cup that is slated to occur here in 2013. what a wonderful opportunity to continue to make that event grow. it is no longer a national event. it is an international event and reminds us how much we are as an international city. we continue to embrace our local hire program. thanks to the before your supervisors, i am working extremely hard to make sure it is not just construction, but we have a spirit of local hire in every company that here. we have apprenticeships programs reflected in our budget that will allow our department of public works, our recreation and parks department, our environmental department to work together to make sure that we hire as many people as possible to fill our apprenticeship programs as we

i want to thank our city's commissioners and our city's departments heads for all joining us. today is the day of reflection and mourning. while we honored these two brave men, we should think about how we can serve our city, our communities and our neighbors just as anthony and vincent did for so many years. thank you for joining us here today and showing your support for these two valiant men. lieutenant vincent perez, firefighter and paramedic anthonyer valerio's memories. and loving families, their communities, and within us. now, let us honor that memory in a way that reflects the tremendous pride and gratitude that we have for them. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, mayor lee. we would like to do the firefighter fair wells that these two men have answered the last alarm, and our first speaker will be the captain of 26 engine. ladies and gentlemen, i have the privilege to speak today on behalf of all the members of station 26. to the perez and valerio families, please know that you are and will always be in our thoughts and prayers. we can only imagine the grief that

mutual aid between our cities and counties are so important. we are working today on the interoperability of our regional cities for the big event. we are setting ourselves up for success in the first challenge that we have, getting interoperable communications up and running, so that local police and fire and emergency systems can communicate with each other. so when we work on interoperability issues in our city, we knew it was not good enough. we knew it had to be on a regional basis. now we are making commitments from the federal government, federal agencies, to a effectuate that. so i wanted to give you a glimpse of what was on my mind as the mayor of this great city, to embrace the work you do, to take your advice very seriously, and to give our whole fit -- city family and regional family an opportunity to succeed. my goal, ultimately, is to work with you, not only to reduce risk, but i think i can also effectuate a significant reduction in fear itself. fear of this earthquake impacting us in the most negative way. you saw how devastating

finally i want to make our city successful. ccessful means basically reaching back to what brought all of you here to san francisco, what made you come here whether you're immigrants or people who moved from another city, people who moved just across the bay to come to san francisco. what made you attracted to the city were things that attracted me. good housing, good schools, good events, good cultural institutions that are reflective of all of our diverse cultures. all of those things that made our city wonderful, including being part of an international city, a city that understands all of the diverse cultures that we represent. i know many of you came and struggled to be here because you know the city is a wonderful, wonderful city to raise our families in, to raise your kids in. your kids are like my kids. we're very proud of this city, because it is so great at all the cultural institutions, so wonderful in its support for its education. we want the city to continue being successful, so-so as the board of supervisors works

i will start you out with this fact, speaking of our beautiful city. 25% of our beautiful city is taken up by public right of way, streets, sidewalks, and scraps and parcels that the city leaders laid out to convey people and vehicles. the public rights of way are important. that is what we stoeward. a lot of it was designed more for utilities and vehicles than people. what you have seen over the last few years is a rethinking of the public rights of way. we're here to talk about one small example of movement in a positive direction in terms of how we use our public spaces in san francisco. without further ado, the man you would all like to hear from. he is serving the great city now and once did as the director of public works, our mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. thank you for your leadership as well. i am up here for the ribbon cutting ceremony. i want to thank all the neighbors that live up here. you have seen corners of the city where grass is growing or people are neglecting these places. along comes a bureaucracy called dpw with others gaining confidence that we can

we have had investments in education that made our city successful. i never want a city that abandons its education system again. we submit millions of dollars to our school district. we have seen other cities fail in that mission. they thought the school district was a state system and had nothing to do it. 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 t

we had to make sure were together time and again with us, residents and had the confidence that our city could not only treat them well but also plan for their future, with them, working with them. groups such as the homeless, those on the lower end of our housing affordability. all of that has come together over decades of hard work. right up until last week, that work continued at the highest level in order to make this happen. i need to spend a moment thinking the people who have been before me in this position and other federal positions. they have their history marked in many years of essential contributions to this plan, and to the workings of the island, to the vision that is being presented today. first off, senator feinstein. i want to thank her deeply for her contributions. [applause] leader pelosi for giving us the funding. [applause] former mayor willie brown. his vision for the island. [applause] the only thing i have to apologize for is the casino idea. [laughter] lt. gov. gavin newsom. my predecessor. thank you for his wonderful contributions. when supervisor and now still

he is in shape, challenging everybody, and also doing great work with our city, building our general hospital, helping to build our new puc administrative building. this is andy ball from webcor. come on up. >> mayor lee was great to ride with this morning. it was a wonderful way to start the day. let's hear it for greenland's -- green plains -- green lanes and churros. [applause] it is one of will to have a building that reduces carbon emissions. webcor has been building a foundation for cycling for the last 11 years by supporting 8350-member cycling team. we have a professional team. we set by women to the beijing olympics -- four women to the beijing olympics, and we have national champions. we have been very successful. now, we are advocating for cycling. commuting, for kids to be able to have a safe way to get to school, more bicycle lanes, a better understanding that there needs to be recognition of the cyclist and -- as a vulnerable user on our roads, and that is starting to change the laws to make that recognition, so we have roads now designed to recognize the fact that peop

and keeps our city strong. i just want to extend my thanks to each and everyone of you again as we approach some of our town hall meetings and getting input from the residence. that has made a big difference in the way this process has been done. i look forward to working with you to the conclusion of the budget. with that, i enjoyed reading these questions. there are a variety of them from housing to municipal to health care, so i look forward to doing my best to answering these questions. let's get started. president chiu: our first question is from the supervisor from district 1, supervisor mar. supervisor mar: affordable housing for all people of san francisco is an issue of paramount importance. efforts have been made to address the specific overwhelming housing needs of underserved populations, such as use aging out of the foster care system, or seniors struggling to age in place. in the past, there has been a pattern of affordable housing development being built where land is less expensive. what

we take care of people on the ground each and every day and we do our jobs because in our cities, at least, we have to get things done. that's what we do each and every day. so we've tightened our belts. unfortunately we've had to lay people off, cut back services and balance budgets and we have to have a balanced budget each and every year in our cities. we can't run deficits and we don't print the money. but we know how to get things done and we need a new partnership and a better relationship with the federal government. members of congress don't understand the programs that they fund, the programs that they support. then we'll have to step up and do a better job of explaining to them how we put people to work using the federal resources that we get. so this is not the time for cutting back, this is the time for investing. if we're going to get out of this aftermath of the recession, then we need to invest in america and that means investing in cities and investing in americans. so those are the kinds of things we'll be talking about at this conference and i'm most excited and look

you combine that with the fact that we have an affordable housing in most parts of the city, it is no surprise ouromeless numbers have gone up in recent years. the city needs to recommit ourselves to the values that our city was named after. st. francis 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 c