agencies that have a plan in urban agriculture has led to an overall decline in city resources, related to funding from the 1990's. there is also no cross department agenda, and there have not been a full-time staff dedicated to this issue. this legislation creates a centralized urban agriculture program that will help, hopefully, to bring cohesion to city management of the urban agriculture strategy. in addition to serving as a one- stop shop for technical assistance, we hope it will enhance urban agriculture in san francisco. i want to thank the many city departments that have worked on this issue, including the mayor's office, the rec and park department, puc, planning, and the department of public works. i also want to thank the urban agriculture alliance, and in particular, spur, whose staff wrote and researched the report that has led to this legislation. i also want to thank my aid for the work that she has done not just on this ordinance, but on the ordinance passed last year to make sure san francisco is on the forefront of the urban agriculture movement. i h

will better support farmers and gardeners throughout san francisco and allow the city to better capture the benefits of urban agriculture. well people growing food in the city benefit themselves when they get the food, the city benefits from urban agriculture in a number of ways. that includes providing people with awareness and a connection to the broader food system, green space and recreation, savings to public agencies when volunteers manage public land, ecological benefits and the green infrastructure in terms of waste water and heat island effects. it is a place where many people find to build community in these spaces. our urban agriculture has potential to it address sued access and public health and we are waiting to see but may have some economic development potential in terms of job training and in terms of employment. the urban agriculture program proposed in this legislation and the duties and goals set for the program will address a number of issues and opportunities identified in the report we published in april. first and foremost, we have an ad hoc approach in terms of how it -- [tone] super

awful lot of things we want to grow and develop in the city and i looked toward to helping it do that. >> thank you for introducing this. i'm from the urban agriculture alliance. i want to address the question about funding because we have heard from city agencies and nonprofits. so many are passionate about getting this work done but we need funding to make it happen. we are all excited about expanding the role of the city in supporting urban agriculture but we need to think in terms of what that should look like in terms of supporting community organizations doing that work. centralizing is an important step toward supporting the grass-roots level and some of that is having a central coordinating role in city government or nonprofit that could link people with bill people they need to be in contact with to activate public land or get resources that are available like the community opportunity fund. right now, it is disjointed and hard for a community group to do that. ongoing, the important pieces are seeking funding for this position and looking for some model of community over size of a different constituency groups can be involved in

here in san francisco, we enjoy one of the highest quality of water that any urban city can boast of. we do not need to have all the water at our facilities except for a few exceptions that we are aware of. because of fighting issues. we are talking about cutting the contract to bring in a bottle of water. i want to encourage the public to help us identify as many cost savings issues as possible. finally, you talk about the school closure days. i am afraid that is not strong enough. school closure days suggests that bad weather, schools closed. i would recommend what commissioner wynns has always called them, forced school closure days. i am looking at page 11 of the hard copy of the budget. in the budget book, it does not include the word "forced." just to communicate that they are in voluntary, no learning days, just to make it clear. >> i have a question about the situation at the state level, specifically about the triggers. maybe we are getting ahead of ourselves. the lao release an alternative for what the governor considered traitors. it is a little less draconian. it is still

able to shed some light on is one of the areas i am concerned about is we all agree we live in an urban city and can use more trees. but we are also finding that trees once the city relinquishes ownership goes to property owners or -- and property owners are not able to adequately afford to maintain these trees. i have been dealing with a couple of situations in a southeastern neighborhood where property owners trim the trees in an effort to keep them maintain and received fines. we are talking about a $6,500 fine. unbelievable. very heavy for a neighbor trying to do their part. i'm looking for a better understanding -- we're planting more trees that have no money to maintain them. there is also the process where they are relinquishing maintenance of trees to people. before we start planting more trees, maybe we should figure out how we're going to manage the ones we have. maybe you can answer that. >> the tree plantings are in the and the basin to reduce the trash that collects in the basin and the blight that can be collected -- this is what will be funded on the planting side. >> them fro

able to shed some light on is one of the areas i am concerned about is we all agree we live in an urban city and can use more trees. but we are also finding that trees once the city relinquishes ownership goes to property owners or -- and property owners are not able to adequately afford to maintain these trees. i have been dealing with a couple of situations in a southeastern neighborhood where property owners trim the trees in an effort to keep them maintain and received fines. we are talking about a $6,500 fine. unbelievable. very heavy for a neighbor trying to do their part. i'm looking for a better understanding --'

anything in, whether our time, willingness to live in the city, take on the challenges of a big, urban city. i wanted to be involved, innovate with us, and make sure that we all end up feeling better about our investment in the city. this is what i would like to accomplish in the budget. i hope that is an open door for you to signal to date -- tonight what you think is important and what you think we should do for you and for the other people you care about in this city. this budget should be reflective of the us caring about our city in every possible way. so i welcome you in doing this, the first of six budget hearing that we will hold throughout the city. you are welcome not only to be part of this one, but you can be a part of the other five as well. we want to give every district diversity to participate. thank you very much and i want to signal my appreciation for the departments with us today. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor. i just want to recognize, this had never happened before mayor lee, and i want to recognize how important it is for a leader in our city to do this. so thank

we have all these problems that the city, and not just me, every urban city is experiencing this problem, particularly in the state of california. so i need to give you that backdrop to let you know that the decisions we are going to may, with all these very smart people that head up the several dozen agencies, it is not going to be an easy thing. but i will repeat over and over again, the best decisions we make the once grounded with -- with community support, and we want to hear you carefully. so i am going to end my speech is right now so we can spend the bulk of the time listening to your ideas, your solutions, and your suggestions. i leave you with this one thought. be involved. be a bit of with your ideas, because i think innovation, finding creative solutions to old challenges, is extremely meaningful in the city. finally, think about where we should invest. because if we are an investment- friendly city and if we have our priorities straight, guess what, a lot of people with a lot of money will invest in our city as well. not government, because i told you that story, but maybe t

urban cities like new york, boston, philadelphia, charleston and now baltimore were hubs for industry. many luxuries for upper class americans had to be brought in from foreign lands like textiles, food, and even natural resources like furniture production. what is difficult to understand in this day and age, design sources were largely imported. there were american craftsmen, but craftsmen relied about publications set forth in england and france and italy to develop the furniture they were going to make. even furniture designs as well. clothing designs. he used his english design sources and specifications that he englished to produce and his furniture designs reflected thomas hope's which were made famous for household furniture published in london in 1807 and this is out of hope's book. does this look familiar? we will see that later as well. the design source was appropriate as they based so much style, governing and taste on reflections of ancient greece and rome. this was the site right here and rooms that were focused right around an tick witty and the collection of vases whet

in dealing with these aspects when we're dealing with race in an urban city in a setting such as mine. the fact of the matter is we constantly see what we're dealing with as the flip side of the racial disparity and the application of policing when you have a densely populated minority community and you're seeing tremendous amount of caucasian individuals and high-end vehicles in a very poor environment driving throughout the city. the community is saying they don't belong here and go stop them. see the white guy over there? go stop them and they're making that deduction. that doesn't make it right in the application in either way, but we can't be naive to think, number one, that we don't have an implicit bias and it's something we don't have to address. furthermore, i do wholeheartedly believe that there cannot be an overreliance upon social control, formal social control to have the profound impact with the communities that we want to have. the reality is that i believe that police should act as a facilitator and a convener to get the collective efficacy that research has shown us h

i would like to think the city administrator's office, the rec and park department, planning and real estate. in particular, have to think the urban agriculture alliance and all of you who have been working together to create a vision not just a san francisco being a green city, but being on the forefront of the urban agriculture movement. i would like to summarize the changes we have made. we introduced a new version last week and some of the changes includes a new language that for the upcoming fiscal year, we would have at least one of full- time employee for this urban agriculture program. we included language to require the strategic plan to include budget and funding sources to make it explicit the mayor and administrator will consult with relative -- relevant departments and ensure once the program is in place, we will seek public and put from stakeholders and including the language to conform with agriculture and public health laws. to make explicit the rooftop audit will identify suitable roofs and not make final determination of the suitability. language that would allow changes to the completion date should be processed

a line item in the state budget mandating every year that a certain amount of money goes to urban center cities every year for the undergrounding of utilities. i bring that up because it is my wish list. i hate to bring it up with homelessness, hunger, crime, prostitution, but in the bond russian hill. half of russian hill is underground. the other half is really third world. so, some if there is a good deal of money, i would think that we could put it to good use there. thank you for this opportunity. >> thank you. [applause] i know the you have not all been heard tonight, but there will be plenty of budget hearings and discussions in the future. these people have been away from their -- they have been at the office all day and i think they have done a great job. i am going to leave this with david mr. mayor? >> let's give a hand to team up for her wonderful job tonight. thank you. thank you, latina. no pies were thrown. not yet. i want to thank everyone here that has joined. i took extensive notes, and it was worth it, because there were so many issues reflected in districts two and three. ju

as a planner, urban designer, and public citizen interested for our city, there is no reason to not approve this and every reason to approve them. the existing uses for a buffer against a double decker embarcadero freeway and are totally appropriate for today's gracious embarcadero boulevard, and i would caution the board against redesigning and micromanaging every tiny detail of the project. you have one of the world's best designers, one of the world's best landscape architects, and a developer with a terrific record all -- our waterfront. please do not try to redesign this project from the dais. that is a formula for failure. your highly qualified planning department and port staff have very competently presented the case today. the height limits, for instance, were set by the very public planning process. i will not repeat what they have said, but it is time to move on. please approve the zoning and general plan amendments and other findings and pass on to the full board with the unanimous vote of this committee today. commissioner torres: -- chair mar: thank you. next speaker. >> i tha

we're joined with carla short who's the city urban forrestor. is that right? >> uh-huh. >> she's going to look at trees and talk about tree issues. and we invite your questions. she knows all about trees. we have a whole pile of trees ready to put b put in the ground. what kind of trees are they. >> victorian box trees. >> what size are they? >> a 24 inch box, which is the new standard. we do at least 24-inch box or larger unless the site is to constrained that we have to go small every. er -- smaller. it increases the survival rate of the tree. so this is our new standard. >> it takes a little while until they can adapt to the location. how long does that usually take? a couple of seasons? >> it does. we normally will water a tree throughout the dry season which we estimate about nine months of the year. so if it is -- has not rained, we have to go water the tree. once it is established, then it does not need our help. >> there's a particular problem with trees that are in boxes or in planters or that are not planted in the ground and that's that they have a

former symbol of middle class strength michigan state university will be teaming up with the city to work on an urban farming initiative called the metro food plus innovation cluster its goals are to spark innovation in inner city agriculture specifically food energy and water systems that could help feed urban communities additionally the clubs are planning on making use of abandoned spaces around detroit there are many of them and that could turn some of these blighted areas into a model for economic development none of the details of the plan of been laid out yet but we do know that the university will be spending about one and a half million dollars over the next three years to develop the program we also know the university and city officials hope this initiative will give local farmers access to new technology encourage soil remediation and encourage more indoor growing through the development of new techniques and as he's president simon said in a press release quote unquote by two thousand and fifty food production will need to double using less water and energy than today we see this is a gr

the explodesing cities of other parts of the world today are part of the same world to urban migration, but i don't disagree with the premise of the question. american cities felt very different in the 19th century and early 20th century than the european citizens that would have been their nearist analogs early on. partly because they were so koss ma tall pin, so polygloth, the religious faiths expressed on the lanscape, and could you say that although the concept of the melting pot is a very complicated and in some ways problematic way of thinking about the immigrant experience, it is one of the challenges that the united states. to grapple with. for decades and decades and decades. what does it mean to be an american. how does one become an american in this complicated, convergence of peoples from all over the world that made this nation, calmed it into being. >> back to your writing about abraham lincoln a little more. expand, if you will, some of the things that you see that influenced him as a political leader and ultimately as a president? >> sure. well, there's a really interes

are there other cities doing better than san francisco? >> we have the urban libraries council, a cooperation of various urban libraries. we have benchmark cities and we try to look at a representative sample. we do better than most cities, if not all cities, currently, in terms of expanded hours. let me move on to talk about some of the investments we are looking at making based on our priorities. collections. we are looking at continuing to put a good dollars into, not only the books, but more and more into digital learning, e- books, etc. the $9.9 million for fy13, $10.4 million for fy14 represents a significant investment. just under 11% of the entire operating budget for materials and books. collections -- i just want to let you know, on the electronic resources, we have seen a 50% increase in demand. so we really have a need that we try to meet. audiovisual materials, all that is reflected in that enhancement for library collections. we are very interested in having our services -- supervisor kim, to your point about neighborhood of reach -- in the neigh