san francisco league of women voters and i'm here today to discuss proposition a, a proposition that voters will be voting on on november 2nd. this will authorize the city of san francisco to issue general obligation bonds the bonds would be used to finance earthquake retrofitting on affordable housing and some of room occupancy buildings that currently deemed to be at risk during an earthquake, this will allow an increase of property taxes to take the bonds. i have the chairmen of the san francisco republican party and an opponent of proposition a. >> first of all, generally speaking, bonds are used for government buildings. part of this building is a government owned but part of them are privately owned income- producing buildings. we don't think that the taxpayers should have to pay to retrofit privately-owned buildings. the landlords own knees and they did not have to pay these bonds -- the landlords own these and they did not have to pay these bonds back. san francisco has roughly six and a half billion dollar annual budget. the infrastructure is always the last thing. you wait till it crumbles rather than fixing it well over funding some other things. we don't think that those people will be charged to pay for those bonds should have to pay to retrofit privately owned buildings. >> what are the costs and benefits to san francisco citizens if this was to pass? >> this is usually about double for the bonds. a $46 million bond, this will be close to 100 million by the time they're done paying interest and everything else on it. the benefit is that the buildings are retrofitted but they should be retrofitted by income at the city has been tell -- that the city has. this is very high for any city. >> thank you. i am now with the deputy director of the urban planning and research center. why do you support this measure? >> the reason that i support the measure is that it is very difficult to think about earthquakes or even talk about them. often, we just want to put our head in the sand and pretend that they are not coming. unfortunately, we know they are coming. there is a 53% chance that we will have a major event here in the bay area in the next 30 years. what we need to do now is to get prepared. part of that is thinking about the resilience of our city. the ability of our city to rebound quickly. in order to do that, we need to shore up our buildings and our lifelines'. we can have buildings here in san francisco. that is why the department of building inspection has been working on a program. they have done a report that is all about -- buildings. contrary to the name, their buildings that have a seismic vulnerability right on the ground floor because of many window openings were garage door openings. those are the buildings that collapsed or tilted during the last earthquake. we had a lot of those buildings right in san francisco. it is estimated that we have 2800. this proposition provides $46 million worth of financing to retrofit these buildings that house low-income people. these of the most vulnerable. this will allow us to retrofit those buildings so the collapse rate goes from between 11%-33% to between 1%-3%. that means we will not end up like new orleans after katrina. >> how will this benefit san francisco voters? >> this is a very modest bond. extremely modest general obligation bond. the cost per $5 thotho,000 of assessed value is $7.94. the important thing to remember is there is a big cost to doing nothing because if these buildings fall down not only do we have to rebuild them at a huge cost to us and all society but they're a major fire risk. the gas lines can break and they can cause a big fire, which is why the fire persons are very concerned about this measure as well and want to see it passed. >> thank you, sarah the please visit the league be women voters web site for all voting information and don't forget to vote on -- on november 2. hi, my name is virginia grandy with the league of women voters of san francisco. i'm here today to talk to you about proposition b verages which will appear on the ballot november 2. proposition b is a measure that would increase the contributions made by city and county employees made to the city's retirement system and health care system. the city's share of funding these services would be reduced. >> i have with me here today michael hennessey, sheriff of san francisco, who is on -- an opponent to proposition b. sheriff, do you oppose proposition b? >> first of all, thanks to the league of women voters for having me be able to speak on this issue. i strongly urge san francisco voters to vote against proposition b because of the unfair adverse grim pact -- impact it's going to have on san francisco's lowest paid employees. i know proposition is being sold as a pension reform measure and if that's all it did, it would probably be a positive measure but the real negative impact is goinging to -- to be on the health care. people think city employees get paid a lot and frankly some do but 50,000 get -- 6,000 get less than $50,000 a year. if a person has blue shield, which is one of the option involved and not the most expensive one, a person will have to pay $5,000 more a year out of pocket if they have a dependent, a child or a spouse. i've got 57 employees called cadets. they do security at city hall and the hat -- hall of justice, other places, help check bags. they make at most $37,000 a year. if problem sigs b passes, $5,000 of the $3 p,000 -- $37,000 will have to go to the new health costs on the blue shield program. take for example an entry level school teacher here in san francisco. their pay is $45,000 a year. they are also going to be impacted by the increased health care costs. i think that's the main reason here that proposition b is imposing greater health care costs on city employees than ever before and it's going ton -- to have an impact on their ability to provide health care to their children, to keep their same doctor and health plan and to do all the thicks a person wants to do to take care of their family. >> thank you, sheriff. so if this measure were to pass, how would the citizens of san francisco be impacted in sflb the citizens of course, a number of citizens are city employees and they'll be impacted in their pocket book because they'll have to pay a lot more to maintain health care. some are going to drop health care, drop a dependent off their health care or they're going to have to drop their long-term family doctor they were able to choose under one health plan but won't be able to choose if they go to the cheapest health plan available. it's going to impact health care proifers, nurses, teachers, people who provide health services in san francisco and i think it's an brear -- arbitrary number that's been put in this measure. 50%. who came up with that as opposed to 45% or 55%? it's an arbitrary number trying to be put into law and i strongly vote people to vote no on proposition b. >> thank you, sheriff. i am now with craig weber a former member of the san francisco civil grand jury who is here to talk as a proponent of proposition b. mr. weber, why do you support proposition b? >> i became involved in pension reform nearly two years ago as a member of the san francisco civil grand jury. at that time the grand jury elected to investigate pensions within the safety, police and fire departments. we investigated pension distributions for the 10-year period 1998 to 2008 and we were -- we paid particular attention to the practice of pension spiking. pension spiking is the end of career promotion or temporary assignment into a position where one earns a higher compensation and a higher retirement benefit from that compensation. we found within safety a significant number of retirees who spiked their pension in their final year and created tens of millions of dollars of potential pension obligations for the citizens of san francisco. the findings and recommendations be that report were largely ignored by city officials and administrators of city departments. for that reason i decided to continue my involvement with the grand jury and served a second year on the grand jury. we extended the scope of our investigation of the retirement system to include pension costs, pension distributions, and the projections of pensions through the next five years. >> if proposition b were to pass, how would the citizens of san francisco be impacted? >> proposition b is the first pension reform initiative presented to the voters since 1976. and in 1976 the voters voted to exclude overtime in terms of computing the pensionable compensation. this reduced pension obligations in the city and county of san francisco by millions and millions of dollars. proposition b is a cost-sharing areaningment. it's a proposal to -- arrangement. it's a proposal to provide that employees pay their share of the pension obligations. today a $65,000 clerk in the assessor's office pays nothing into their pension system, as does a $200,000 public defender. they pay zero dollars into the pension system. the city's contribution rate currently is 13.5%. it's projected to increase to nearly 30% in the next five years. the city cannot sustain these pension costs. a yes vote on proposition b will send a clear message to public officials that the obligations in the future must be addressed today. thank you. >> thank you, mr. weber. and thanks to you the viewer. i hope this conversation has been informative about proposition b. for more information check out the league's web site at sfvotes.org and be sure you >> hello. i'm steve mcdonald with the league of women voters of san francisco, here today to talk about problem -- proposition d, a measure that the citizens of san francisco will be voting on november 2. >> proposition d is a measure that would allow noncitizen residents of san francisco to vote for member of the board of education if they have a parent or guardian of a child living in the school district and they are over 18 years of age. >> i'm here with chris miller, vice chair of communications with the republican party of san francisco, who is going to speak in opposition to proposition d. chiss -- chris, what is it that you feel the key points are in opposition to proposition d? >> sure. well, there are a number of reasons that the republican party as a whole has chosen to oppose proposition d. one of the main reasons is the fact that this particular measure fails to differentiate between legal and illegal citizens. so although at face value this may look like it's a piece of legislation that makes sense and it might be a good idea to adopt this type of policy, obviously there are serious legal implications involved in failing to differentiate between legal and illegal citizens. voting is clearly a right of citizens and if we were to consider noncitizens voting in a school board election we would definitely only consider being a proponent of a measure that included legal citizens here in the country legally. the other reason we are opposing this is on the fiscal side. this is going to cost anywhere to the tun of -- tune of $150,000 annually according to the controller's office and the department of elections and clearly anyone that knows anything about our budget knows that we do not have the funds available nor do we have the funds available for many of the programs that are opportunity -- currently in place. another reason we are opposing this is it also opens the flood gates for massive voter fraud. there was a person who came to speak to the central smt and we asked them specifically why did you make the decision to use the verbiage noncitizens rather than being able to differentiate between legal and illegal citizens nor did they have a mechanism in place to make sure voter fraud wrote not take place. >> if passed how would it affect the citizen of san francisco? >> clearly proposition d is p a measure or piece of legislation that is attempting to improve the school board elections. it's more an attempt, what i've heard the argument for it, is that it may make, one, availability to the system to vote for, in a school board election, for parents of potential students that are currently enrolled in the public school system. it does not, it also does not differentiate between students currently in the public school system and children that are eligible to be in the public school system. if that had been the attempt they would have differentiated between children in the public school system as opposed to those who have the option of attending public schools in san francisco. so this is not a piece of legislation that's going to drastically change the outcome of an election or going to have any positive impact for the citizens of san francisco as a whole. >> thank you, chris. i'm here with david chiu, president of the board of sfrfers -- supervisors, to talk in support of proposition d. how do you support proposition d and the real estate ops? >> i'm a strong supporter of proposition d for many reasons. we all know our schools are severely challenged. we have teachers being laid off, overcrowded classrooms, so many services that have been eliminated. our kids need better. one of the best ways to improve local public schools is to engage all aur -- our parents and proposition d is about 100% parental participation in the most important decision in our school system, who gets to constituent -- sit on the school board? proposition d would allow all parents to vote in the elections, including immigrant parents. this is to did so parent. right now one out of three parents in the system is an immigrant. most of the kids themselves are actually citizens but because their parents don't have a voice, the kids don't have a voice so proposition d is really to engage all of our parents. this is something that's actually been done in a number of other cities around the country. in recent years in new york city, in six cities and towns in maryland, in chicago, immigrants have been allowed to vote and studies have shown that when immigrant parents are working alongside all other parents, that helps to improve schools in many ways. in new york city these coalitions helped brick about reduced class sizes, new capital funding to schools and greaterer participation in after school programs. and the supreme court has reiterated over and over that citizenship is not a prerequisite to voting. the reats -- reason our founding fathers allowed immigrants to vote in over 22 staints and -- states and territories is that allowing newcomers to invest in local institutions improves this for everyone. >> if passed how do you see proposition d impacting the school system? >> i think many of us believe that when you engage all those parents working a longside together, that really helps to move the entire school system forward and this is why we have parents throughout the city, young people, teachers, the democratic party, the labor council, the entire school board and a super majority of the board of supervisors in support of this important measure. i hope that voters will take an opportunity to visit our web site at votepropd.com to learn about the importance of 100% parental participation to really move forward our schools in the 21st century. >> thank you, david the >> thank you. that sums up proposition d. for any other voter information please go to sfvotes.org, the league's web site and >> hello, my name is patricia mcgovern with the league of women voters of san francisco. i'm here today to discuss proposition e, a ballot measure that the citizen of san francisco will vote on on november 2. proposition e is a measure that would allow eligible san francisco residents to register to vote the same day as a municipal election. the current 15-day registration deadline would continue to apply to all combined federal, starktse municipal and district elections. >> i'm now here with alicia from the san francisco young republicans, an opponent to proposition e. why do you oppose this measure? >> our organization opposes this measure first of all because it creates a separate set of rules for elections that are city only as opposed to ones that have state and federal on them too, also because it opens the door to massive voter fraud and it will add a significant amount of cost to each election and time that the department of elections is going to have to spend on each election going forward. in terms of the potential for voter fraud, right now the way voter registration works is that after you register, the department of elections forwards the information to the secretary of state which needs to confirm that the name up provideded on your voter registration card actually matches the driver's license number or the last four nucks of the social security number you provide on the form. if you register on election day there is no way to confirm that that those numbers actually match the names. so we could potentially have somebody going around registering at various polling place as round the city, voting multiple times and this could create a big problem. also there's nothing in the legislation that actually states that that type of vote would need to go on a provisional ballot. assuming that it does go on a provisional ballot, still that dramatically increases the cost of the election because the department of elections needs to go through and verify each one of those provisional ballots to make sure that we don't have multiple votes from the same person or votes from, you know, people who aren't pale -- real people. so the department of elections is going to have to intend a lot of time, energy, and money to go through and verify all of those. in the past the amount of time you had to register before an election was actually 29 days. bay decade ago we changed that to 15 tase before the election and when that hopped -- happened the amount of provisional ballots increased dramaticy. >> how do you think this will impact san francisco elections? >> he believe that if this measure goes into effect the amount of provisional ballots is going to shoot up again and the department of welcomes is going to have to spend even more time and even more money verifying provisional ballots that are frankly unnecessary to have in the first place. also elections need to be certified 30 days afterwards by the secretary of state and if we have this new flood of provisional ballots, the time spend -- spent on that may even exceed the 30 days and then we wouldn't have the election certified in time and physicians -- positions could actually go vacant. >> thank you. we'll now hear from a prop ownent of proposition e. -- prop onent --. >> i'm here with supervisor ross miracle airmanny of the board of supervisors. >> first i would like to thank the league of women voters for sponoring -- sponsoring this fur -- forum. many groums have come to rally around proposition e because we believe it's our job to do everything web to try to enhance participation in our election system. eight states and the district of columbia over the last eight -- eight years have adopted same-day voter registration and all have demonstrated that there is real added value and benefit, no debt riments, no negatives for increasing and encouraging, motivating soter interest and registration. 3% to 7% is the average voter turnout. that's important to san francisco because we have a lot of participation but in the last 10 elections 37% has been the average. that's pretty low considering the expense we often afford in administering these elections. so with the proof of the other states that have shown all the positives, we went to the secretary of state's office and our own director of elections to make sure would this work well for san francisco and the answer is thumbs up. so i'm happy we'll pursuing this. i believe california will follow suit but good for san francisco for being the first to actually make -- come this close to make it happen. >> how do you think it will impact the citizens? >> we want to make sure there are no unintended consequences or hidden costs. the department of the controller and the elections director see really in extra costs and the costs you would see are those that would be associated with any enhanced voter participation in any election and that's a good thing. we also want to make sure we're protected against fraud. in learning from the other eight states and the district of columbia in how they have enacted this we believe we're well poised technologically and administratively to make sure there will be no added costs and fraud. >> thank you. if for -- more information, please visit the league of women volters web state at sfvotes.org and remem >> hello, my name is katie with the league of women voters of san francisco. i'm here today to discuss proposition g, a measure that san francisco citizens will be voting on on november 2. >> proposition g is a measure that would eliminate the current method of determining union operator measures by a set formula and instead use collective bargaining agreement and binding arbitration and make additional changes to the rules for m.t.a. employees. >> i'm here with san francisco supervisor dufty: -- san francisco sean else bernd. can you tell me why you support this pop -- proposition? >> sure. right newspaper they are the only group of city