ask you to maintain and increase the funding for the san francisco arts commission cultural equity grants. we've also been the recipients of the grant for the severn cisco art commission which allowed us to improve our space and install the wooden floor. we want to maintain the center as a legacy that preserves the legacy of the struggle of the international hotel anti-eviction movement. i invite you all, everyone here in the audience to our open house tomorrow from one p.m. to six p.m., if you can break away, we are going to have food and a live band that is going to play music from the 19 60s and 70s, get out your dancing shoes and come relax with us. i'm happy to tell you about it. the band is going to be an ensemble of people who started their group in the 1960s, they started out when they were 16 years old, and now they are in their sixties. come and rock with them. >> -- the -- has not had a raise in -- it tries to fund programs all of the city and try to support groups of underserved communities and so . we think it is an important program. supervisor chiu knows the value of it. thank you. >> good morning i am greg -- with save north beach. i do thank your staff up here, it's a beautiful morning, they probably don't want to be here. they have families too. i am not here to plead against the deploying of muni service particularly on adex 30 and 45 bus lins, director ruskin here has commented about the situation of the muni's budget and the examiner, and i think we have taken a careful look at how we're spending money on our infrastructure and for public transportation as the city grows. is difficult to sit here and ask, there are a lot of great ideas, desperate, draconian cuts our school system is suffering, we have a huge budget deficit out there, we add to that, the deficit, 470 million, does not include deficit of the central subway, the projected deficit of 400 million dollars of the time the construction is done. somewhere we have to give something up. one of the things we are proposing is to eliminate the extension to north beach for the time being. it is not necessary. you have no plans to put something in there. you'll save 70 million dollars and have heard a lot of pleas appear about how that money could be better used. something has to be given up in extending the subway to that area -- it's a beautiful idea long-term, i love it but we have to have priorities here. educating our children, healthcare, the budget officer said that we have a sequestration, 8 million dollars this year, ends in september. i have been told to stop here but we do have to put constraints on how we spend to save the city. thank you. (applause) >> howard wong, native of north beach. i have not been in my alma mater's auditorium for a long time so thank you for holding this year. some great events that i saw in from this stage when i was in high school. it is to be known as high school for o.j. simpson, and recently learned that richard goldman came to galileo. i am an architect by training; i have worked in many city projects. when i work with city departments we always weigh different options; we look at how to spend money. when things do not make sense to do not proceed with the project. when they made sense you try to make them as efficient as possible. as a previous speaker said, the central subway, when their word the largest contract on tuesday of this week for 840 million dollars, the project will be essentially over budget by a large about. the muni's internal memo says that they'll have 60 family dollars contingency left. our numbers indicate worse shape than that. we know the big infrastructure projects will go over budget. the federal transit station estimates that the overage could be 480 million plus. we have needs for muni. there are very simple things in life that can all do in our departments and agencies. we weigh those options. what is a greater good? the greater good of the 700,000 riders? 700,000 riders? the nun hundred thousand taxpayers? let's take a look at that subway maybe cancel like the embarcadero freeway. so anyway thank you very much. (applause) >> good morning mayor lee, supervisor chiu, supervisor ferrell. thank you for the opportunity to speak today on work for services. my name is -- the manager of chinatown one-stop career center operated by self help for the elderly and charity cultural services center in the heart of chinatown since july, 2010. we have seen thousands of job seekers. thank you for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of those workers who are not able to speak today about their needs and lack of access to vital, critical job training and services. this year we have had more than 25% cut, 200,000 cut it work for services at the chinatown one-stop center and hundreds of people will not have access to the vital work for services that are critical to the family economic success but only of residents of district 2 and 3, but citywide also. today i urge you to continue to invest in the workforce needs of san francisco which not only includes job seekers looking for skills of great, occasional english as a second-language training but also those workers currently working looking to upgrade their skills. thank you again for your time and for your energy and your consideration. (applause) >> hi, mr. mayor, supervisors, budget director, kate howard and other city departments. my name is pam denenberg. i am a member of the coalition that includes -- and has support of the san francisco -- and many faith-based groups. we are speaking for justice for the whole city, for those affected by the behavioral, mental health issues, which includes many homeless people , as well as people with money and those affected by gun violence in the wonderful city of st. francis. we ask you not to cut the budget for the mental health services; the services already lacking in terms of inpatient mental health; we also speak to you about the fact that -- was in the building two new hospitals in the city without one single behavioral health bed, -- here is an opportunity to provide some resources. we have a plan that was produced by some physicians who try to deal with this issue in the city. we met with many of the supervisors and we would like to meet with mr. -- with you, mayor ed lee and also with kate and any of the other departments. we have heard the horror stories of patients being strapped a gurney for days; or released early due to lack of mental health beds and lack of resources in the city. is a huge concerned. we want to keep funding for mental health in the budget increasing it to an adequate level and hold federal health accountable for their fair share of charity care. call me at 415-999-2855. thank you very much for your services also. (applause) >> okay thank you everyone for coming out. that is the end of the public comment section. we are going to wrap it up, and president chiu and i will stick out here if you have additional questions. we have had a number of neighborhood groups from russian hill, district 3, a number of advocacy organizations as well and in particular the individuals that came out and did the pastors that came out to speak to us today .also want to thank the department heads again and mayor lee this is the seventh town hall, we have done this for five saturday's in a row. thank you for sacrificing your family come as well. i hope that you will again enjoy district 2 here in a saturday morning. i to talk with you about the budget process putting on my hat is chair of the budget finance committee. for the next few weeks the mayor and his team, in particular kate howard, will work together to put a proposed budget that will be transmitted to the board of supervisors in about two weeks time. at the end of may this will be transmitted, to the board of supervisors and holding hearings every wednesday at 10 in the morning at 1 in the afternoon. open to everybody. during the month of june we'll hold budget hearings and city hall that will focus on the mayor's budget and by the end of june we'll pass out or hopefully have an agreement on the budget come from eyes, with the gold pass a balanced budget by the mid-july at the board of supervisors, and have the mayor sign it. if you want to continue comment, now is the time to get that done either by e-mailing us, hauling us are showing up now on wednesday said the budget finance committee meetings. also as a budget chair i want to tell you my few priorities that i continue to articulate during the budget process here. number one that we have an open and transparent process, with everyone here in this room and the public at large in san francisco. will continue to do that in city hall. second of all that we manage our finances in a very responsible manner. we need to protect not only our services today but we need to protect services in the future and for future generations of children in san francisco. lastly that we have a budget that reflects the values of everyone in san francisco. we want to make sure that everyone is included and has a voice in the budget going forward. i will tell you now as a district two supervisor, my priorities will continue to be one, focusing on district two and having a razor focus on our issues, in should the economic footing of the city is on the right track. we talk about it before but our employment rate has gone from 9.8% to 5.4% unemployment in san francisco. it has a lot to do with macroeconomic climate but what we do in city hall as well. we need to continue to put the foot on the gas pedal in the jobs are not an issue for san franciscans. lastly we want to talk about the life issues. how can city hall make life better? whether public safety, education, parks, keeping families in town, that is my priority and i will continue to make sure that is reflected in our budget. thank you for coming out today. if you have additional questions of district two or 3, shoot me an e-mail, stop by the office on wednesdays, 10 a.m., 1 p.m. we will have budget meetings for the next month and a half. . if you have additional comments let you know at this point i would like to turn over to my colleague and it great supervisor from district 3, supervisor david chiu. (applause) >> i want to thank all of you today for participating today. what i want to do so the next two minutes is summarize what i heard from my constituents and feedback that we heard in different months. you heard the district 3 has the least amount of open space in any district of the city ; making sure we get the north beach club house open , making sure we have adequate staffing at joe dimaggio -- public safety. , t you've heard from folks today around the issues that we continue to have on broadway as well as the fact that we needo ensure public safety or pedestrians and cyclists in a way that ensures that there is also parking for merchants. i hope to work with the mayor and the mta. when it comes to transit we know we have to continue to invest in muni. the mayor and i have a task force. you heard conversations today about the central subway . there are thousands of constituents in district 3 that are interested in looking at new options to expand the central subway and other muni lines into north beach and into fisherman's wharf. ,we have many constituents who have talked to us about the need to invest in our children ,our use our families, and we have to make sure we're protecting our seniors. we have to make sure that our food programs are adequate. i want to thank members from the asian-american community who are here. i want to thank in particular folks who stood up for our workers and making sure we are investing in good workforce programs, in the arts, and i want to do a particular plug for language access. in the first year in office i passed the cities in which access ordinance. we have to do a better investment in that area. you elected mayor lee and supervisor farrell and i to be available to you 24/7, but i want to take a special moment to thank the men and women behind us who do the work tirelessly and often don't get the effective date need. i have all the folks behind me on speed dial. it would give a special thank you to all the folks who do this work. thank you very much. (applause) and, to close it all off, i want to invite back our good mayor. mayor lee i want to thank you for your partnership with the board of supervisors and i look forward to the difficult conversations to resolving this budget in the next couple of months. >> mayor lee: that reminds me, the supervisor's phone bill by be pretty high. we'll have to work with him on that. thank you for coming out. if you listen to the news today this morning the city of detroit has a billion-dollar budget; and they announced that they have a 13-billion deficit, how will they survive? although we have an incredibly larger amount of budget, we have to be very smart. we have to be very focused. we are going to balance our budget, not just for one year, for two years. we are going to pay attention to the five-year financial planning, and the best fiscal officers make sure we do. will respect the 10 year capital infrastructure planning because that is what gives it basis to talk to our voters about how to use their property taxes. we are going to get the best services out of our departments because they are part of all of you, living and working and visiting in a world-class city. in that respect, all of the summary that supervisor chiu just mention that supervisor ferrell did with your testimony, will do our best to reflect our budget on the values that you have asked us to pay attention to. this is an incredible town. it is one that if you listen to everybody speak, it is hugely diverse. culturally, by way of needs, by way of classes, people that want to live not only in this great city, not only survive, people want to be successful in the city. this is why we are a city that is rich and services. we want everybody to be successful here no matter where they came from. so we've got our work cut out for us. i'll let you know that each member of the board of supervisors and, our office and the incredible budget team i going to work very hard now that we have concluded the public hearings. we are going to utilize our time incredibly in the next two weeks to get the balance, but also get to it in a way that face attention to the issues that you have asked us to pay attention to. hopefully we won't have those midnight hours of yelling and screaming at each other like we used in those early days. this is a reason why we spend the time in front. let's get to our values right away; but accomplish those things that we need to do to give you faith that government is listening and i again appreciate your spending your incredible personal time and on a great, great day. go to bay of breakers tomorrow, go to the street fairs, and joy our city, be safe, calling anything on 311 when you see things awry, utilize services and be proud of the city. will go to work for you and do the best we can. thank you. apl (applause) i'm nicole and lindsey, i like the fresh air. when we sign up, it's always so gratifying. we want to be here. so i'm very excite ied to be here today. >> your volunteerism is appreciated most definitely. >> last year we were able to do 6,000 hours volunteering. without that we can't survive. volunteering is really important because we can't do this. it's important to understand and a concept of learning how to take care of this park. we have almost a 160 acres in the district 10 area. >> it's fun to come out here. >> we have a park. it's better to take some of the stuff off the fences so people can look at the park. >> the street, every time, our friends. >> i think everybody should give back. we are very fortunate. we are successful with the company and it's time to give back. it's a great place for us. the weather is nice. no rain. beautiful san francisco. >> it's a great way to be able to have fun and give back and walk away with a great feeling. for more opportunities we have volunteering every single day of the week. get in touch with the parks and recreation center so come