it then we have a chance that the public might understand it, but it's hard for us to understand no matter how well we think we know the budget. i want to just end by saying that i appreciate the comment that was made because i actually think our budget documents, as big and confusing as they are, are just many, many times simpler and more accessible to everybody than they were a few years ago. and i understand that that actually is represented by a huge amount of work by our staff. and by input from the public where we talk about how we can make this more accessible and easier to understand so thank you very much. >> any other comments, questions? wow pree rita, this might be good for you. >> i also want to thank, just generally speaking regarding all of our budget processes here, i want to recognize the board for your leadership in helping us to start the process earlier. i want to thank everyone who have lent their voices to the development of the budget, and i especially want to thank deputy superintendent lee for his leadership in really listening to the feedback and for rita a

i understand that's a priority. again, given where we are as a city, what we experience -- the roster's full, so i'm going to stop with the time here, but as we hear from our residents and see in our neighborhoods, property theft up tick all the time, our da have grave concerns here, i'm struggling with this overall program, i'm struggling with all the sudden it popped up on our board calendar, but i certainly wasn't briefed on it and it came as a committee report last week which is generally something that's something that's been fully vetted and so i have grave concerns about it. i will seed my time right now to other folks, but want to come back to some of these questions down the road. >> happy to answer any specific questions you have, however, with regard to the procedure with committee, perhaps the committee members could give you a background of how soon it got to the board of supervisors. i would indicate that for someone who's put on or, someone who bails out, there's no concern about what accountability t

you never come to an understanding.here comes a place that you can go no further as carson says that was the impulse toward the book. those two things, to tell his story in a way that keeps him them, they keep them alive and in a way that might help other people. curiously, and david morris and i were just talking about this. curiously i find that now having written a memoir as close to the facts as i understand them as i possibly can, i am freed of the facts and now i am writing a play in changing characters and purposes in place and i feel quite free to use the emotions that are still in me in this very different way. >> thank u. >> thank you jenna. along with the country lionizing veterans we have a pa system with serious shortcomings. the va backlog is already a joke on comedy central. it's well-known that the battle for benefits goes on year after year. i am curious how you three would respond to the seeming contradiction between the fact that we lionize our best anti-access david morris writes, the shortcomings in

we're instituting -- >> i understand that, but what i don't understand -- i'm trying to understand why this is being added as an additional layer when it seems like there's something that actually exists to support allowing low level offenders the opportunity to potentially get out through pretrial diverse, why is this necessary for the ankle monitoring part of those who have not necessarily been convicted yet? that's what i'm trying to understand here. >> pretrial diverse itself is a program for certain offenders -- >> lo level offenders. >> misdemeanor offenders and certain misdemeanor charges. normally what happens is this isn't universal, but first time offenders perhaps on first time misdemeanor charges would be eligible for pretrial diverse. what that means is that person gets released by the court on their own promise to come back, but they're deferred to the program, and when they come back to court successfully after however long and whatever things they're supposed to do, their case will be dismissed. that's the specific program. that's not applicable to all misdemeanors and

but i understand that it's not that simple. you know, it's a topic that we might devote an entire hearing to. ranking member defozio, previously, along with then -- well, with ranking member waxman of energy and commerce. i'm pleased they have called for such a hearing. we can touch on the subject, i believe, in this hearing. and that mielgts be helpful. and i'm sure there were other points that all the witnesses can make about what we have yet to learn. what research we have yet to sponsor. who studies yet need to be done in earthquakes that continue to happen in usually unpredictable ways and with very important consequences. so thank you. >> all right. and, as i said earlier if the full committee chairman or ranking member are here, they are going to make a statement, also. we have the ranking member now recognized. >> thank you, chairman, thank you for calling this important hearing. 50 years ago was not limited to alaska, though it's particularly devastating in alaska. the trksz sunami that was generated killed four argoni

i understand your concerns are [speaker not understood], and i understand why you are a bit wary of the departments involved. but i do not see a clear basis for rejecting de rose. the issues has been policy 4.2. so, let me briefly address that. we spent a lot of time reading the direction backwards and forwards and it does not do what opponents believe it does. it's not a mandate and not a blank check. 4.2 does not give any city agency the authority to do anything other than create an inventory and develop a management plan. any steps to change that management plan change a use type, acquire property, start a project, or make any other note worthy changes regarding public or private property would require its own extensive public process. that would involve technical research, community engagement, environmental review under ceqa, and approval from public bodies such as the planning commission, the rec and park department, and potentially the board of supervisors. and this new version of the rose actually strength entitles the community engagement process by adding a new objective that

i realize that there are fully funded positions, but i just don't understand why this is -- i don't understand how this is going to impact this particular program because i am a supporter of the program. from my perspective, it doesn't look like if we agree to this particular cut that it would impact the leap program. but you're saying that it will, and i just -- i'm not getting it. and, so, i just -- >> mechanically the way this would work, if the board approves the budget and the department finds say six months into the year it would appear based on the projected payroll cuts that they don't have enough funded positions in their budget to manage, the department then faceses a choice about how to bring their budget back into line. that can be a number of things. that could be not backfilling a vacant position that might have

my understanding is that this has been in committee sever times. i aem assuming it came out of the committee report simply so the two reeds could be before the board goes into recess so i'm prepared to vote on this today. i do have concerns about this. i want to associate myself with supervisor farrell's remarks and president chius, but i want to focus so far has been on the pretrial em with bail. the legislation also makes a change for post trial for convicted inmates and it does so by eliminated the requirement that be placed on em as a convict that you have to have been either minimum security or low risk and so it looks like the sheriff's department is leaving or something. i have questions also. can i ask questions too or -- yes. i don't know if you just heard what i just said, i think it's been appropriate so far on the pretrial em but in terms of post conviction, there's a change to the law eliminating the requirement that people who are convicted in custody has to be either minimum security and low risk and that's being eliminated. why is t

i want people to understand how it impacts all women. any woman who has to go through this, any workplace where the subject or where the behavior occurs, it has an impact on us, and it has a negative impact. and this is a point in time, i believe, where we can start to look at these issues and make the right changes, whether it's in our investigation processes, whether it's in our procedures we go through when we have hearings on sexual harassment, or whether it's in the way we conduct our lawsuits. >> do you have regrets about how you came forward, when you came forward, and what happened? do you have any regrets about it? >> the regret that i have, really, is that we didn't have a better understanding to be able to present to the american public about the problem. i truly believe that that could have and should have been done through the senate judiciaryveh told the truth. there are probably people with whom it will never be settled. and i can understand that, and i can actually live with the fact that people are not certain. but what

while i understand the objectives, i respectfully submit that i think that this is yet another example of how some of these agencies that we're talking about are disconnected from the reality of what's out there in our communities and specifically i think this is yet another example of the rec and park department not really understanding what its priorities should be and, quite frankly, the fact that the comment that was made by supervisor breed -- and i appreciate the comment -- i think that the fact that there is no specific mandate or specific requirement doesn't leave a lot of confidence given how rec and park has approached a number of issues over the last couple of years. the idea that we would be spending so much time and energy trying to remove trees from san francisco is something that i have yet to understand. i don't understand how it is that an agency decide that this is what its priorities should be, and there are a number of issues that should be rayed with respect to this document, including the equity issues that basically do not address the very important point to maki

understanding whether there are places that could be inhabited by organisms, and understanding what the signs of life are and, could they be preserved. if they were there and not preserved because they cannot be , we need to parse those through our program. what we have done for the last 14 years with the restructured was develop a robotic science exploration program. every step is driven by questions we have had, hypotheses we are testing, things about mars we want to in many ways enhanced by technologies, new approaches, new measurements. the mars we have seen during the course of this program goes all the way back to around 2000, and moving forward, it is about questions, measurements, approaches. the same way people would attack problems in science. this is all about stem. it puts together the engineering, science questions, the math and technology to solve problems. we have been doing that remarkably effectively. many teams in major league baseball would love to have it. it is a partnership with engineering. we cannot do all of this without engineers helping us do that. many of the

. >> we're on the memoranda of understanding. >> i'll have to reduce myself our law firm hnltz that. >> is there a motion and a second to reduce commissioner low moved and seconded your reduced. >> recuses. >> good morning holly from the capital division the matter before i is the possible mou between rec and park and the mayor's office of public finance for the van ness property you're familiar with the property that is a site on the waffling adjacent to our islander and to brief i i'm sure you're aware of the proposal for the real estate diversifies to purchase that and hold it up for 24 months it will undergo community outreach at the last meeting i approved the resolution in support of the acquisition and the future use of the fund and the board of supervisors passed the proposed acquisition onto the full board and made the approval contingent on the memorandum of understanding so, so the full board will vote on tuesday the 22nd. so rec and park staff has worked with the director of real estate to prepare a memorandum of understanding that governors the purchasing and maintenance

also it's my understanding there is a significant open space in the surrounding area. so, i just feel that this project in particular is a little premature and this question may have been answered but i'm trying to understand why we are aggressively moving forward with this. >> why don't i ask parks and recreation staff to speak. >> okay. john uptike from the real estate division can speak to this project. in terms of the remediation we have a number of estimates from the environmental report. we are working on refining the cost estimate and we have been speaking with the city attorneys office about use of the open space acquisition fund for a portion of the remediation cost. and given that the full value of the site is based on the assumption of a clean site, sort of the difference between what we pay as a purchase price and the an appraised value can capture the environmental remediation. >> skews -- excuse me. i'm sorry. that's confirmed? >> yes. we have done that last year. >> okay >> although we haven't received browns field grant fund from the epa, it's strongly

so if you know anything about politics, will you understand that. so mr.eiskin and the board and public you are talking about -- i expressed this at the last meeting how you want to treat the operators fair. they deserve this and they deserve that. but again, your te

i understand the point you're making. if you can provide any elimination for the record as to why that business model makes sense for your company it's unusual to have the frontline claims people in my experience and nice to do legal work on behalf of insurance companies and obviously they have a whole wad of claims people. typically. mr. valukas you made a couple of statements. i'm familiar with the report. i felt like that was back in school studying cross referencing and going to the acronym table. i did think it was thorough. i did think it was complete but a couple of conclusions that are interesting to me. one is that you said that you kind of one out of your way to conclude that gm did not put cost over safety hazard related to this defect. artifacts in that reporting complicit in that regard? i you had to go on to say that is what the people that you interviewed told you and these were the same people that you have called out for indifference, incompetence, lack of urgency. is there something i'm missing here that

for the women we work with, they understand, and they support folate the idea that they want to state to support the initiative. >> previously, young women in west africa have seen prospects, but here at the airfield, there is nothing they do not do. medicine on the move is just getting off the ground, but it is an ambitious. >> i hope that it will spread. i would love to see this emulated throughout the subregion. and possibly into other parts of africa. >> i am very happy. >> the aim is to spread health messages, like the importance of hygiene, acting more and more people. -- to more and more people. >> i want to do something that makes a difference, something that makes me happy. >> and inspiring group of women. that is all for this week. next time, we will continue our focus on counterfeit drugs. in nigeria, pharmaceutical companies are developing a system which allows their customers to check whether the drugs they are buying our genuine or not, using a unique system involving text messages. goodbye. >> today on "earth focus," from monitoring glacier melt and arctic sea ice to wh

that's my understanding. >> i see. you said that in an answer to an earlier question that you've heard people say there's a culture of getting to yes, but there's also a culture of getting to no. i would submit to you based on your own numbers that the figures bear out there's a culture of getting to yes. you can't get to 700,000 and maybe have 20,000 nos and not have a culture of yes. you said you observed a credible fear interview. let me ask you in your prosecutorial role, did you ever prosecute any drug crimes? >> yes, sir. >> okay. so i'm curious. during your prosecution of drug crimes, did you ever refer to someone who gave money to buy a big load of drugs as a drug trafficking victim? someone that paid massive money to get a load of drugs, did you ever refer to them as a drug-trafficking victim? >> yeah, let me suggest that perhaps we're talking about apples and oranges, but no, i certainly did not refer to someone -- >> well, let's talk about the apples and oranges, director. when someone pays a human trafficke

that was our legal understanding and we thought the city attorney's understanding also. that is what we hope to do with this. >> mr. chair at this time i think it's best to move this forward and pass it out of choice. >> we won't be passing this out of committee today because of amendments. i'm sorry i missioned missed the comment? the way it is >> there is language in a says that the employee has to make the decision by january 1,2015 and this was learly for employees -- clearly that shows that they are not currently a city employee and this is for folks still in limbo that can make the transition now is our understanding. >> the charter amendment as currently drafted does not exactly reflect that. the charter amendment -- we could amend it to clarify that it is intended to cover employees who became city employee after february 1, 2012 afterthe redevelopment agency dissolved. >> we keep talking about 38. i don't think the redevelopment agency had 38 before. 2012 there was about 200. i think it's pretty narrow and it says "and/or" their option to be exercised by january

he understands metrics, he understands accountability, he understands leadership and he has taken a job he didn't have to accept, a job he didn't need to have to do at this time in his life but a job he wants to do to give back to the country he loves and the country he served in the military. i am confident that bob mcdonald will be an outstanding secretary of the veterans administration and i commend him to my fellow senators with my highest recommendation in hopes that he will be approved unanimously, and i yield the floor. mr. vitter: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, madam president. madam president, i stand today also with high hopes that the new leadership at the v.a. will bring much-needed changes to a department that's clearly, quite frankly, in shambles, failing our nation's veterans. during his committee hearing, the nominee robert mcdonald promised to bring a high level of accountability and transparency to the v.a., two things that are sorely needed. this is extremely important and an agency where under the leadership

>> again, senator, i understand thatt

i understand what we've found, i hope that we understand the solution to that now, and we're working on it. that we're not going to find something else still. can you answer that or maybe not? >> certainly, i cannot answer with any certainty what we will and won't find underground as we continue exculpation, but as we progress through construction, the risk of finding things minimize because of the explanation we're doing and exculpation minimizes. >> commissioner torres. >> thank you mr. president. what are you estimating as to how long it will take to transfer 3 million cubic feet of dirt? >> it's one that two year nine month schedule term when we came to you in april. >> so are we comparing that to any other similar models we're looking at like the asaca airport or other models? >> we went through a process at that change order looking at the site condition and looking at the rate at which we could move the soil, looking at sites in which the soil is being held as we moved them, and we went through months of change negotiation using both our staff and professional staff consultant

i understand people more. i used to be in that sense arrogant in that you -- when you explain things or you say things that you think and know or know are true and people don't respond to them, you think that they're doing it on purpose. and that is arrogant. a lot of times people don't respond because they don't understand. they just don't get it. so you have to teach them. so that's another thing i learned. we have to be patient with people. we have to listen to people. you also have to understand what is the core of the issue? what is the core of the problem? i didn't get it before i was in that position, had that responsibility. i came out also knowing that you can actually work and make things happen from government. some people go into government and come out of government disappointed. i didn't come out of government disappointed. i thought to myself, boy, if this will that some of us have because i wasn't the only one, there were other good people as well. not everybody goes to government to serve them

they did not understand that connection. and at that time across industry, stalling on its on -- you can stall if you pop the clutch or run out of gas so the stalling aspect was not considered safety. i will tell you it is now, and any time there is a stalling issue or we identify a defect in the stalling, in this case, the ignition switch, we treat it as a safety issue until we understand what has happened. that is -- that was a broader view at that time. i can't tell you who told mr. -- >> that is -- >> i can't tell you who did it, but it was a broad understanding across the industry beyond gm at that time. >> who can tell me who councitsd him on behalf of gm? >> i'll look if i can find out. >> there was discussion including within the staff incoming a lawyer involved in that, and there had previously been discussion within some of the committees as to whether the stalling did or did not -- the existence of the issue with regard to the stall did or did not institute of safety issues, conclusion reached it was not, and ther

so i understand that. and then when you start to talk about clinical medicine though and issues for people who are not in the medical field, i think what you have to do is you have to find a good prime aury care doctor. you have to find a doctor who is going to be your quarterback, who is going to navigate, who runs your health team and navigate for you because it's too technical. you can't do it. i would say that in the financial world a guy like me if i'm sitting around picking stocks, something is wrong. this is a, not a good use of my time. but, b, i don't know enough about it to be intelligent. so i have to get somebody to help me. we live if a very specialized world now. >> yeah. speaking of the specialized world, this is a big question i apologize for in advance. i'm curious as to your take that you are a nobel laureate. what is your sense of how cutting edge we are being as americans, how we are leading or not leading across the board with scientific discoveries on all sorts of matters? are you ple

that was our legal understanding and we thought the city attorney's understanding also. that is what we hope to do with this. >> mr. chair at this time i think it's best to move this forward and pass it out of choice. >> we won't be passing this out of committee today because of amendments.

and standards and i have an understanding about the maintenance and i have a understanding of how you supply something, in demand and supply. and then i have an understanding about standards. and so, in 1996, many created the sfpuc and i had to go over there and read the chapter, and say exactly what it means to be an enterprise department, and ask yourselves, whether you all want to get bothered in this type of legislation, without a needs assessment, without any power tout and the work, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you for being here and so as discussed we will go ahead with and suspend item number 8 and also suspend that corresponding public comment, and madam secretary, would you call the next item? >> item 4 is general public comment. >> i have no speaker cards, is there any... i do? >> coster? >> item number four. > (inaudible) the mta or whatever department and that you have a checklist and without it, million and millions of gallons of water are leaking because it just, a litter or one of the workers decided not to be cautious and created a mess. so, other san f

i understand it is not free and clear money. we have to cut other places in the budget and one area we are cutting our state department programs which would assist these three countries for economic development and that makes no sense to me. could you comment on that? ahave heard some reports but lot of americans have searched for sources, the causes. journalists have not written a lot about it and that's part of the problem. americans are reluctant to call these young people refugees because they do not see a war. it's a less visible violence to them. don't have a lot of independent journalistic information about any contractions of these gangs. what does it say about the deportations for these countries that have criminal justice systems? before there is a response, we are on and a little bit of a -- >> we have to turn the room over quickly. if anyone wants to respond? mention, i think it's very important to recognize that unless we address the original factors that have driven these children to flee their communities and thei

which if you understand anything about catholic history and anything about the jesuits, you understanda remarkable statement that is, how earth shattering it is to have a jesuit pope finally at the vatican and as a proud product of a jesuit education. in fact, it was the jesuits who first taught me about religion, it was a the jesuits who first taught me about the historical jesus. i couldn't be prouder or happier to have pope francis in the papacy right now. because at the heart of the jesuit ideal is the preferential option for the poor. it is the notion that jesus' message is about the poor and for the poor and that the only way to really live up to jesus' commandment is to also have a commitment to the poor, to the dispossessed, to the marginalized. and pope francis, i think, has learned a valuable lesson from his predecessor, pope benedict, which is that, you know, the catholic church is two things. it's a bureaucracy and a church, and you can't really reform the bureaucracy. pope benedict realized this. but you can reform the church. and the way to do so is to just simply live ou

to understand? >> i think we are in the process of providing that to you, and you talk to both of them about what their motivations were. >> isn't it important for the doj to look at that as part of the investigation? >> that's not necessarily part of the irs investigation. >> why wouldn't it be? >> nothing happened. there was a brief meeting, there was a discussion about how would be very difficult if not impossible to bring cases. there were no investigation started. there were no referrals made. nothing happened after that. >> so you say nothing happened, how can you give me that kind of specificity with regards to what happened and did not happen if you are really not familiar with what went on? how can you be so precise in nothing happening? >> because we have had people look at whether or not the public integrity section. any referrals from the irs as a result. >> support of the investigation looked into that? >> we asked if that happened. >> ok, do you have an open investigation on april sanz

that's my understanding. >> i see. you said that in an answer to an earlier question that you've heard people say there's a culture of getting to yes, but there's also a culture of getting to no. i would submit to you based on your own numbers that the figures bear out there's a culture of getting to yes. you can't get to 700,000 and maybe have 20,000 nos and not have a culture of yes. you said you observed a credible fear interview. let me ask you in your prosecutorial role, did you ever prosecute any drug crimes? >> yes, sir. >> okay. so i'm curious. during your prosecution of drug crimes, did you ever refer to someone who gave money to buy a big load of drugs as a drug trafficking victim? someone that paid massive money to get a load of drugs, did you ever refer to them as a drug-trafficking victim? >> yeah, let me suggest that perhaps we're talking about apples and oranges, but no, i certainly did not refer to someone -- >> well, let's talk about the apples and oranges, director. when someone pays a human trafficke

the ruling of understanding they were thrown out from. these groups which. could extend to accept our constitution and live peacefully of course that will come to do so but those who are born we have to establish that it of state and hopefully other countries will not support them do you think they did the recent advance of isis and iraq doesn't call our whole revision of the counterterrorism strategy into well because it seems that so many sumption about how you did it were up pounded by this very rapid and very dramatic advance it doesn't require. medium term strategy to look at the underlying causes and not just deal with it as a look at the issue because. these affiliates of the other groups that are. obviously local issues to gain local support and then try to support each of them to gain territory or to get political advantage now a list therefore you deal with the underlying causes of disunity what potential threats in that sense then obviously this will keep growing and that's why it's very critical if one situation gets his or without a big explosio

i understand that. everyone is willing to pump all immigrants,y to the we have people in texas, what about the people unemployed here. they have been begging for this congress to pass a bill to let it go through. you can put money into immigrants, people will come here with their children. god love the children. state thatple in our need help. agree with you totally. we have people in our state that needs help. congress is in this attempting to address many of the problems that people deal with. unemployment compensation, for example. there are many people unemployed that are desperately in need of it. one problem does not take away or solve another. each problem has to be dealt with. the children are not getting this money. provided,es that are the service people receiving the money, first of all, we have to give so much money to the justice department to establish additional courts and to give -- and to get the children to follow our own law. they have to have a day in court. that, we have to establis

chairman because i really do understand the concern but i want you to understand. >> is this map accurate, though. >> they're regulated under the current regular laces. >> you had the authority to regulate. it just hasn't been regulated before and i think you're getting ready to expandz your authority in a far greater way than in the past. >> no, we're not. >> nothing beyond the current regulations. are you true about that. >> i am. >> okay. we'll hold you to that. and i understand that the epa does have these state maps in more detail so if you have them you'll get them to us. >> i will -- >> my last question goes to the science advisory board. >> yes, sir. >> you heard me mention that in my opening statement. they by law provide advice to the epa and provide advice to congress. we submitted several questions to the science advisory board intercepted by the epa and the science advisory board was not allowed to answer our questions. that's not the way i read the law. we don't have to get the epa's permission for the science advisory board to give us answers to your questions. why did the

understand?and that i think is in some way our connection to a landscape that when jesus leaves the relative greenness of the jordan, of nazareth, he goes into the desert, puts on the desert security of the desert, he takes the emptiness on, and in some way, plato mocks that he mocks people in the cave as confusing the reflections on the wall with reality. we are people of the cave, those of us who believe the we believe in the darkness. >> i agree with you but i believe i still believe in the tension between the three images that you mentioned. we live in the tension of the cave where the primal events of the new testament takes place in the cave. the enunciation. mary lives in the home. the birth of jesus in a cave, the resurrection comes from a cave. lazarus come when jesus called lazarus to come for the comedy comes from the cave. so the cave is going down to the depths of humanity, the depths of the earth but it's going down to the pit bottom of humanity. but then he goes through the desert

a very serious situation that few understand.hammer and i will sort it out. >> we got 19 dead. got 100 more infected spreading like a brush fire. >> what are you talking about? >> if one of them have got it then 10 of them have got it now. >> very interesting upon. >> this time it's not a movie. deadly owe bowl la virus threatening africa and two americans apparently have it. will ebola come to the u.s.a.? we'll tell you this evening. >> smoke a lot? a little. >> a little bit, man. [ laughter ]

we're instituting -- >> i understand that, but what i don't understand -- i'm trying to understand why this is being added as an additional layer when it seems like there's something that actually exists to support allowing low level offenders the opportunity to potentially get out through pretrial diverse, why is this necessary for the ankle monitoring part of those who have not necessarily been convicted yet? that's what i'm