good afternoon. i m the general manager of your recreation and park department. we have the great pleasure of stewarding over 4,000 acres of open space around the city, including 220 neighborhood parks and several really fantastic jewels in district three. our priorities are very simple. we want clean, safe, fun parks for everyone. and vibrant, robust, healthy recreational opportunities for all. it is widely known that our department has had its share of budget challenges over the last seven years. we ve been asked to either cut or raise nearly $43 million from our operating budget. financial sustainability, making sure we can keep our pools and rec centers open, our parks clean and safe, is our priority. it is also our priority to make sure that no one is denied an opportunity to participate in our recreational programming, and we re very proud of our new recreational model and our very, very robust scholarship program. despite the challenges that i m sure will be discussed
one of our biggest priorities at central station is maintain foot patrols. it s one of the things that remains a priority in these challenging fiscal times to maintain foot patrols. aside from that the other issue as it relates to the budget, we talk about it every day at central station, how can we help the situation with its budget situation, because it s really our situation. we re all in this together, so as much as the unions working with the city, i know the police officers, certainly the sentiment at central station is how can we help. so stay tuned. thank you. good afternoon. i m over at the housing authority. thank you for all for having me here. i ll probably be the briefest of everyone here. we have a small footprint in chinatown. we re doing about $8 million worth of energy retrofits. we re partnering with my good friend, mr. phil, to do the summer youth program, which every public housing youth will go to camp for free if they choose to go to it. we re committe
we re committed to subsidizing that product. it s a great partnership. worked wonderfully last year. we re going to do it again. the other thing is, most of our funding, 99% of it comes from the federal government. so to that extent my job is to make sure i don t burden the already deficit that the mayor has and supervisor chu has so that we try to maintain our programs in a neutral position. so other than that, we ll be hear to answer your questions and move on from there. first of all, i want to thank all of our public servants here today. i look forward to the conversation. so what i d like to suggest right now, we actually do have one speaker card that was submitted to us before we started, but if there are members of the public that want to ask any questions, if you could please line up behind this podium. let me read the first question, and we ll start acknowledging folks at the podium. easteri m going to ask the first question, which is as follows. under the current
challenging fiscal times to maintain foot patrols. aside from that the other issue as it relates to the budget, we talk about it every day at central station, how can we help the situation with its budget situation, because it s really our situation. we re all in this together, so as much as the unions working with the city, i know the police officers, certainly the sentiment at central station is how can we help. so stay tuned. thank you. good afternoon. i m over at the housing authority. thank you for all for having me here. i ll probably be the briefest of everyone here. we have a small footprint in chinatown. we re doing about $8 million worth of energy retrofits. we re partnering with my good friend, mr. phil, to do the summer youth program, which every public housing youth will go to camp for free if they choose to go to it. we re committed to subsidizing that product. it s a great partnership. worked wonderfully last year. we re going to do it again. the other thing
the situation with its budget situation, because it s really our situation. we re all in this together, so as much as the unions working with the city, i know the police officers, certainly the sentiment at central station is how can we help. so stay tuned. thank you. good afternoon. i m over at the housing authority. thank you for all for having me here. i ll probably be the briefest of everyone here. we have a small footprint in chinatown. we re doing about $8 million worth of energy retrofits. we re partnering with my good friend, mr. phil, to do the summer youth program, which every public housing youth will go to camp for free if they choose to go to it. we re committed to subsidizing that product. it s a great partnership. worked wonderfully last year. we re going to do it again. the other thing is, most of our funding, 99% of it comes from the federal government. so to that extent my job is to make sure i don t burden the already deficit that the mayor has and superv