Updates from stories in progress.

Interview with a desperate family. Reporting by Patrick Burke part of the American Apparel story.

These sisters both worked in American Apparel’s sewing department before the I-9 audit.  Now they’re looking for work and hoping for a way to avoid catastrophe for their family.  I conducted this interview, with translation help from Natalia Garcia, on 11/18/09.  Today, the 19th, I’m told that American Apparel CEO Dov Charney will be helping the Perez family, at least with this month’s rent.

A Desperate Family from Patrick Burke on Vimeo.

More than just a number: Theresa Rutheford – Part of the SF Public Press’ look into “SF city downsizing slashing worker’s paychecks.”

Supes will vote whether to restore funding for pink slipped workers next Tuesday.  Theresa Rutheford, a CNA at Laguna Honda, talked about how the cuts would effect her.UpdateFinal by monica.jensen

Inside the Alameda Courts: Day two. Part of the Crime Courts and Communities investigation with KALW. (Also see Day One).

Stanford law professor Robert Weisberg added another perspective on jury selection. He said that an experienced lawyer who tries the same types of cases will over time, start to come up with profiles of ideal jurors. Prosecutors, who are particularly prone to specialize, are great at this, he said. Weisberg added that in high-stakes, well-funded cases like lawsuits against big businesses, a defense attorney might even hire a jury consultant to research demographics. But ultimately, “lawyers know that there are a certain number of people that they won’t be able to get out of a jury,” he said. “That’s when they start using their questioning not to expose a bias in the juror, but to start to seduce the jurors into their way of thinking.”

New Jails, No Treatment, in California Prison Plan

With his first proposal rejected by a federal court, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week submitted a new, 130-page plan to cut California prisons’ inmate population by 42,000 in two years.

The proposal (PDF) would build new prisons and transfer inmates out of state, but comes amid a hefty budgetary slash to drug treatment programs that lawmakers had previously identified as an effective way of in keeping people out of prison.

Published: Parent and community groups fight uphill battle to reform public school food.

Tavon Frazier is a skinny 9-year-old squirming in front of his Styrofoam lunch tray. He’s eaten most of his chicken taco and his friends, all wearing the navy polo shirts of East Oakland’s Korematsu Discovery Academy, are wiggling around him, chewing on their flour tortillas and nibbling on baby carrots. Tavon didn’t stop at the salad bar on his way to the cafeteria table today. He says sometimes he’ll get applesauce when they have it, but mostly he doesn’t like vegetables, especially broccoli and carrots. His ideal cafeteria meal would be “donuts and cupcakes and a cake,” he says with a mischievous sideways grin.

We have a new labor related pitch up today courtesy of two energetic reporters from The Public Press. Their video pitch is below. Check out the full pitch: SF city downsizing slashes workers’ paychecks.

Summer Layoffs Continued from Monica Jensen on Vimeo.

To kick things off the dynamic duo produced this piece for The Public Press. You can support their full investigation at the pitch.

By Kevin Stark

The Public Press — Nov 4 2009 – 9:14pm

San Francisco city leaders have found an extra pot of $8 million they hope to use as a patch on the summer’s tattered budget, potentially rescuing more than 500 frontline workers already given pink slips or downgraded to lower-paying jobs.

The city employees, mostly nursing assistants and clerical workers, were given 60 days’ notice in September after a bitter conflict with the organized labor, provoking accusations that the city was discriminating against women and minority employees, who are well represented in those professions.

On Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors’ budget committee moved forward with two pieces of legislation that would hand a victory to SEIU 1021, a major labor union that represents nearly all of the 546 city workers threatened with layoffs this fall.

Supervisors Chris Daly and John Avalos authored the two proposals. Avalos’ legislation would save the health-care and clerical workers’ jobs by scaling back management positions.

Daly’s plan is to use $7 million from the city’s general fund to prevent the layoffs. The Department of Public Health is projecting a surplus of $8.25 million for its fourth quarter. Daly’s legislation would, effectively, dip into these funds.

While the full board will consider both ideas in the next few weeks, there is the chance the jobs could be saved through other approaches.

“The mayor’s office is continuing discussions with the union,” Avalos said. Avalos also said he hopes the city could find new revenue from the state.

Race, gender and class at issue

Dozens of workers and their supporters spoke at Wednesday’s committee meeting. Madeline McMillian is a clerk at the Hall of Justice. While she did not receive a pink slip, she came to speak on behalf of coworkers who were laid off. She said the cuts were unfair.

“It’s just not right,” McMillian said. “They should cut straight across. I work at the Hall of Justice. They just hired two deputy chiefs. Their income could cover five of us.”

The layoffs are a heavily debated political issue. The union has decried the cuts and criticized Mayor Gavin Newsom for balancing the budget on the backs of low-income workers.
Newsom’s aides say San Francisco nursing assistants are better compensated than those in comparable cities in California. The city, facing a $438 million budget hole, had to make tough decisions, Newsom said.

The union says the layoffs disproportionately hurt women and minority workers.

“Eighty-two percent of the city layoffs over the course of the last three years have been SEIU members,” said Robert Haaland, a political organizer for SEIU 1021. “We only represent 50 percent of the workers.”

Debating the numbers

The controller’s office could not confirm Haaland’s statistics.

“Layoffs are not necessarily evenly distributed among unions,” Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda wrote in an e-mail.

Zmuda said many factors influence layoff decisions, including “the value of wage concessions, priority of services and ability to reduce costs while maintaining service delivery.”

Supervisor Carmen Chu was the only member of the budget and finance committee to vote no. She said it was important to evaluate the impacts of the legislation, specifically how many jobs it would save and how many new managerial jobs would be lost.

But another supporter of the change, Supervisor David Campos said the attention on the issue represents unfinished business from the summertime cuts.

“People are so passionate about this issue is because it is so important,” Campos said.

From the City Budget Watchdog series.

‘We wanted to make sure there was equity in how the budget was approved.’

Supervisor John Avalos, chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, addresses coalition building, community organizing, his fight to save key social services, his closed-door agreement with Mayor Gavin Newsom and his frustrations with the budget process.

Part of the City Budget Watchdog series. This post can be republished anywhere  as long as credit is given to the Public Press, Spot.Us and Hank Drew who produced this video.

You can also support this reporting by donating to the pitch.

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi recently spoke with The Public Press about government waste and the need for budget process reform.

While “delighted” that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was able to “extract” $45 million from Mayor Gavin Newsom’s budget, Mirkarimi said he was still unhappy with the budget process as a whole. He said he would like to see the budget changed to a two-year cycle from the current one-year cycle or at least have the budget submitted before June 1.

“Our side allowed the mayor … to get what they wanted,” Mirkarimi said. “But, in return, we got what we wanted in terms of a higher level of dollars.”

He said the add back process was “barbaric” for groups who do not have political power within the city government.

He questioned the inefficiencies of the city government and called out San Francisco’s public relations employees as an example of government waste. He said the city employs nearly 70 public relations workers — five being with the mayor’s office.

“I feel like these are kind of well-paid coveted positions,” he said. “No mayor has ever had this many … not even Willie Brown who was a very high profile mayor.”

He also said the police department did not give much money back to help balance the city’s budget.

“I think it is a very top-heavy department,” he said. “The idea for me is less in the stations, more on the streets, more in the neighborhoods especially neighborhoods that are chronically distressed.

SF Event Site Kicks off with Gay Pride

Sfevent.tv, a cultural online video magazine that focuses on San Francisco and the Bay area, initiated the “San Frandom” section, which documents random events and happenings in San Francisco, with San Francisco Gay Pride Parade 2009 coverage.

The Pride Parade & Celebration started June 28, 2009 at 10.30 a.m. at Market & Beale, and the footage in this clip was taken at Market & Mason. Turnout was fabulous, and the mood was energetic. It was a hot day in San Francisco, so those lining up along the sunny side of the street wrestled with the heat–or shed their clothes.

This year marked the 39th anniversary of the San Francisco Pride Celebration and Parade. The event’s theme this year is: “In Order to Form a More Perfect Union…”  (Sfevent.tv)

Part 1 of a three-part series:

San Francisco Gay Pride Parade 2009 – Part 1 from Franck Tabouring on Vimeo.

For full coverage, visit Sfevent.tv.com

Veteran Fundraiser Spills–Boosting Spot.Us Pledges and Partnerships

Steve Katz, fundraiser for Mother Jones and esteemed friend of Dave Cohn, continues an ongoing conversation about Spot.us, Mother Jones and non profit journalism. The post comes in response to a video Dave posted on Steve’s blog at the end of May, which recaps Spot.us’ feat of funding 24 stories in 25 weeks, raising about $20,000 in individual donations.

While Spot.us is moving forward with beat-based blogging and more aggressive fund raising goals, Dave stopped in his tracks to ask two questions: first, is there something “naive” about the Spot.us approach making it a slow model to adopt? Second, are there more traditional methods of fund raising that Spot.us could incorporate?

Here is what Steve Katz, seasoned fundraiser, has to say. (Maimonides’ Ladder)

City Budget Blues On Air

The city is trying to find ways to close a nearly half billion dollar deficit, which means cuts. After the board of supervisors reworked Mayor Newsom’s proposed budget last week, the debate seems to be centered on funding public safety or funding public health programs. Reporter Kevin Stark of the Public Press has been following the city’s budget blues and speaks on air about the budget quandary. (KALW’s Crosscurrents)

District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly sat down with the Public Press to discuss the budget crisis, his legislative priorities, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s political agenda and the circumstances surrounding this year’s budget. A supervisor for eight years, Daly has aligned himself with public health in fighting for social service organizations in this summer’s budget battle. He is a harsh critic of Newsom and argues that the mayor’s political allegiances have trumped the needs of the city.

(Watch the video on the Public Press.)

Related Pitch: City Budget Watchdog–Covering City Hall, ’cause Somebody Has To

Looming BART Strike, Now a Fare Hike?

Apparently, the world won’t come to an end for BART riders on July 1. It seems the strike probably, most likely for all intents and purposes won’t happen. (That is some shitty news, Bay Area bloggers and media outlets. A Bay Area-wide public transportation meltdown would’ve been traffic gold during the holiday week. Alas.)

But do you know what will happen on Wednesday? Wide-reaching fare increases. Yay! What are those changes, you ask? Akit’s Complaint Department has the lowdown. the skinny. the scoop. On Muni, Adult fare (cash) goes up to $2; the same goes for AC Transit. Ferry service goes up a tiny bit. And BART will see a 6.1% fare increase for all riders (that is to say, “Inter San Francisco fare increases to $1.75.” (Which, as Akit points out, is still cheaper than Muni.) (SFist)

The Buttman Cometh: Cigarette Tax To Pay For New Class Of City Worker?

It’s becoming increasingly common for governments, from federal down to local, to tax the living shit out of stuff like cigarettes to pay for other things, like health insurance for kids. (Also: did you know a package of rolly costs $15 in SF these days? Holy crap).

But San Francisco’s own local cigarette tax, a $0.33 cent per pack fee that would go into effect on October 1, won’t help pay for health costs, the school district, or anything else save the effort and energy needed to reach down, pick up those narsty smelly discarded cigarette butts, and place them into the trash.

The fee, proposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, is intended to cover the $11 million annually spent by the city to collect old stanky ciggies. How did the city come by that figure? Simple math: the city spends $44 million a year on picking up litter, cigarette butts account for 25 percent of the city’s detritus, ergo the city spends $11 million a year on picking up after smokers. (SFAppeal)

Police Dept. Next on Oakland’s Chopping Block

On the verge of closing a $83 million budget shortfall, members of Oakland City Council have proposed slashing 10 percent from the Police Department’s personnel budget. The move would cut nearly $12 million from the general fund budget and account for the single largest reduction in the budget proposal that’s up for approval on Tuesday. The question is: Where in the Police Department will the cuts come from?

The proposal by council members Jane Brunner, Ignacio De La Fuente, Pat Kernighan and Jean Quan says it could come through renegotiating the union’s contract, which still has a year left on its term. The funding of public safety in Oakland has emerged as the most prominent – and perhaps most divisive – obstacle to balancing Oakland’s city budget. It’s significant because public safety is the most prominent issue for this city of 372,000 people.

While the police officers’ union’s contract is the most significant portion of the proposed cuts to the department, other resources are also on the chopping block: maintaining and staffing the police helicopter, the use of police for events and even the ability of command staff to drive their vehicles home. (SFGate)

Related Pitch: Oakland Police Blues; Civilian Oversight of Police in Oakland–Breaking the Wall of Silence

By Christopher Cook
The Public Press

Part of the SF Budget Watchdog series. Help support this work. If we can raise 1k this month we will receive a matching grant.

Welcome to San Francisco’s lean and mean 2009 budget season. It’s going to be a brawl.

As Mayor Gavin Newsom seeks to eliminate a $438 million deficit, mainly through cuts to city staff and services, the board of supervisors and numerous opposition groups will be haggling over the brutal details through July 1.

While much of the current debate centers on how to spread the pain, some groups and supervisors are calling for new revenue measures to avoid decimating city services.

There is also a running debate about whether the budget disproportionately hurts the poor while increasing funds for fire and police services. In the coming months the Public Press will be keeping a close eye on the impact of the budget’s fine print — and promoting dialogue and inquiry into how we got into this mess. We’ll also be examining new policy approaches that might help us out of it.

Below you’ll find our quick-and-dirty user’s guide to the budget process, including snapshots of the pivotal budget players, a look at some of the leading budget opposition groups and interactive charts comparing this year’s proposed budget allocations with those of previous years. We invite your tips and feedback. Send comments to citybudgetblues [AT] public-press.org.

And if you’d like to donate to this series through our fundraising partner, Spot.us, visit our project page. Every bit helps!

Meet the Key Players

As the budget passes from Newsom’s staff to the supervisors, let’s pause a moment to meet some of the key players in the budget setting process.

Nani Coloretti: Budget Director

Newsom’s lead budget official, Coloretti told the Chronicle that trimming the budget is “like trying to lose that last 15 pounds of weight. We’re gaining weight right now, and getting farther from our goal.” Before her current role, Coloretti served as Newsom’s deputy policy director, then policy director, after first serving as director of budget & policy for the city’s Department of Children, Youth and Families. Prior to her city work, she was employed as an economics consultant, public policy practice group coordinator at Law and Economics Consulting Group. At the mayor’s budget presentation last week, Newsom enthused, “If anyone deserves a round of applause, it’s Nani Coloretti,” according to SF Appeal.

Coloretti’s cast of budget helpers includes:
Gigi Whitley, Deputy Budget Director
Greg Wagner, Deputy Budget Director
Kate Howard, Senior Fiscal and Policy Analyst
Rebekah Krell, Senior Fiscal and Policy Analyst
Meghan Wallace, Fiscal and Policy Analyst
Manish Goyal, Fiscal and Policy Analyst
Jonathan Lyens, Fiscal and Policy Assistant

The budget proposal is online. The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee will be doing the heavy lifting to steer the board’s budget revisions to the mayor. Below are snapshots of the key players:

John Avalos, the committee chair, represents District 11, which includes Excelsior, Ingleside, Visitacion Valley and other neighborhoods. While strongly opposing cuts to social services, Avalos has been pushing for revenue measures to help stem the budget bleeding.

Avalos told the Fog City Journal he’d like employees on the high end of the salary scale to “give back more” than those on the lower end of the salary scale. “If you’re making over $150,000 a year, that’s a great salary to have, even in San Francisco.”

At a February press conference Avalos proposed a special election to enact a gross receipts tax, saying, “If these corporations pay their fair share, we can generate millions that will go towards keeping health clinics, youth and senior services, and jobs safe for San Franciscans. In these tough fiscal times, we need to give ourselves as many tools and options to craft a balanced budget that maintains the public safety net and protects San Francisco seniors and families.”
(415) 554-6975 Voice
(415) 554-6979 – Fax
John.Avalos@sfgov.org

Ross Mirkarimi, the Green Party’s top local official, represents District 5, including the Haight, Panhandle and other neighborhoods. He has been a persistent critic of the mayor, and has pressed for alternative approaches to spread the budget-cutting pain.

In an interview with the Fog City Journal about prioritizing wage cuts over staffing cuts, Mirkarimi said, “It’s a wise idea. It asserts a level of compassion and collaboration that I don’t think exists now. But in desperate times, more than ever, this would be an excellent time for leadership, particularly in Room 200, the mayor, to help amass this level of consciousness and what it means to alleviate our significant problem.”

(415) 554-7630 – Voice
(415) 554-7634 – Fax
Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org

Carmen Chu was appointed as the District 4 supervisor in September 2007 by Newsom and represents the Sunset/Parkside area. Prior to joining the Board, Chu spent three years as a Newsom protégé in the Mayor’s Office of Public Policy and Finance. Before that she was a private sector consultant with Public Financial Management, Inc., a firm that assists municipalities manage debt and finance public-works projects.

Chu has consistently opposed tax-based revenue enhancement and hews to the idea that the city should tighten its belt first. In January, long before the mayor issued his proposed cuts, she told ABC Channel 7, “We need to take a look at any efficiency we can gain, if there are any areas we can cut.”

(415) 554-7460 – Voice
(415) 554-7432 – Fax
Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org

David Campos represents District 9, the Mission, Bernal Heights and Portola neighborhoods.

Campos has stressed the need to ameliorate budget cut pain, speaking out against Muni cuts and fare hikes. He also hopes that city workers will support givebacks rather than staff reductions, telling Fog City Journal, “A lot of people would rather see their salary cut to avoid a co-worker being laid off.”

At the same time he is not afraid of antagonizing some of the city unions, telling the Fog City Journal, “there are some people in bargaining units (unions) that are overpaid. I think that you have to have some equity in how that’s allocated.”

(415) 554-5144 – Voice
(415) 554-6255 – Fax
David.Campos@sfgov.org

Moderate Supervisor Bevan Dufty represents the Castro and surrounding neighborhoods. He has been a fairly reliable pro-Newsom vote, but has made some surprisingly prickly comments about the budget process.

When asked about across-the-board wage cuts, Dufty was quoted saying, “It’s the mayor that has to negotiate certain things. It’s clear that Mayor Brown would have taken the bull by the horns, so to speak, and sat people down and at the table and personally cut an agreement.”

Dufty also told the Fog City Journal the budget process has “been challenging. Certainly a relationship is a two way street and I think the mayor and SEIU have not had a good relationship for some time, that it’s been my intent to have a good relationship with SEIU and I have worked at it, but I don’t have the responsibility that the mayor does in terms of negotiating.”

(415) 554-6968 – Voice
(415) 554-6909 – Fax
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org

Meet the Opposition:

The details of Newsom’s proposed $6.6 billion budget are being reviewed by the Board of Supervisors, and the city’s unions, community groups, department heads and others are all reeling from the $438.1 million in cuts. But those cuts are not final. The final budget is due July 1, and even then the supervisors can add back funding to different organizations. The next month and a half will see a lot of scratching and clawing at City Hall as organizations struggle to preserve funding. Below are snapshots of a few key members of the budget opposition.

Photo from FogCityJournal.com

Jennifer Friedenbach is the director of the Coalition on Homelessness and has a history of tangling with Newsom. When he cut funding to homeless groups last year, she held a rally of 50 outside of his home. Newsom had her removed from his June 1 budget press conference for not being a credentialed member of the press (she was reporting for Street Sheet, according to Beyond Chron). Expect more of the same this year, as Newsom’s budget slices $13.5 million from substance abuse services and another $9.3 from organizations serving the mentally ill.

Friedenbach will be organizing and protesting this summer in a fight for add-back funds. She has organized a June 10 march from Hallidie Plaza to City Hall called “Real Deal or No Deal.” The event is at 3 p.m. and will include other activists fighting for mental health, substance abuse and homeless advocacy.

468 Turk St (Calendar of events http://www.cohsf.org/en/meetingSchedule.php)
Web site: http://www.cohsf.org/en/
Blog of events: http://cohsf.org/streetsheet/
Event PDF: http://cohsf.org/flyers/2009/May/realDealNoDeal.pdf

Also organizing “Real Deal or No Deal,” is Jackie Jenks, executive director of Central City Hospitality House, an organization that provides counseling and housing services to San Francisco’s poor community. The 23-year-old Tenderloin Self Help Center received a cut of $651,991 in Newsom’s budget and will close Aug. 1. Jenks told The Public Press, “We are very concerned that there doesn’t seem to be a plan for what will happen when all the services that are proposed to be cut are actually cut.”

Web site: http://www.hospitalityhouse.org/

The powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 covers more than 11,000 city workers, including janitors, security guards and health care workers. Under pressure from Newsom, who threatened to lay off 1,000 employees, on June 4 the union voted overwhelmingly (86.4 percent) to accept wage concessions that will save $16 million in the city’s general fund.

But the union has been a vocal opponent of Newsom’s cuts. At a protest this March, Damita Davis-Howard (pictured above) said the cuts are counter to “What this city ought to be — a caring city, caring for the people who live in this city and caring for people who serve this city. People are losing their houses, people are losing their savings, their retirement, and it’s the services in San Francisco that help those people in crisis.”

http://www.seiu1021.org/events/Default.aspx (calendar of events).
http://www.seiu1021.org/Default.aspx (Web site)
Photo courtesy of SF360

Public Defender Jeff Adachi has been extremely public in his fight to preserve his office’s budget. In January, he issued a feisty letter to the mayor and Board of Supervisors requesting $50,000 for two part-time paralegals. He said that without extra staff, his office could not handle every homicide and major felony case in need of a public defender, and he would begin hiring out private lawyers for $120 an hour (costing the city $1 million a year).

His request was denied. Adachi also printed 5,000 postcards addressed to the mayor’s office, saying “even in these difficult economic times, San Francisco cannot afford to place equal access to justice on the financial chopping block.” Adachi’s efforts, so far, have been to no avail: His office is facing a proposed cut of $1.9 million, or about 10 lawyers.

We are two weeks into our most ambitious project to date.

City Budget Watchdog – Covering City Hall ’cause somebody has to.

Do you want to know the scoop on San Francisco’s budget cuts? We face a half billion dollar hole in the budget. In a time when the entire country and state is in a cash crunch this is when it is most important to keep a vigilante eye on how funds are or are not being dispersed. If we are going to steer our city out of this – we need to be informed.

The Public Press is creating content with an eye to being the go to source of info on the city budget cuts. They are working to be THE SPOT to go for news and analysis on the city budget cuts.

Check out their City Budget Watchdog project page.

What is Spot.Us’ role?

At the beginning of this month we announced a $1,000 matching grant thanks to the generosity of Ruth Ann Harnisch.

Here we are 15 days in and halfway there!! So progress is being made – but we need your help to access the matching grant. And don’t forget the larger goal: If we can raise 5,000 by the end of the quarter – we will continue to cover City Hall for another three months!!!

The team, which includes Spot.Us alumni Chris Cook, is producing fantastic work so far.

• SF budget cuts target behavioral health (6/11/2009)
• Supervisors urge shift of $82 million from cops and fire to health (6/11/2009)
• Perfect storm of bad economic news led to San Francisco’s budget scramble (6/9/2009)
• The San Francisco budget: a user’s guide (6/9/2009)
• Homeless counseling group first on Health Dept. chopping block (6/2/2009)
• Supes approve Muni budget after Chiu yields (5/13/2009)
• Cabbies steamed over proposed taxi overhaul (5/12/2009)
• Fuse is burning in Muni budget showdown (5/7/2009)
  
• SF budget cuts test city’s liberal image (4/15/2009)
• City looks to make dangerous stretch of Masonic safer for cyclists (3/20/2009)

Highly recommended are their videos – like the one below from the Public Press article: “SF Budget Cuts Target Behavioral Health.”

Tenderloin Self Help Center from Monica Jensen on Vimeo.

“If the cuts are approved, some nonprofits could shut down as early as Aug. 1. The Tenderloin Self Help Center, which provides 2,500 people with drop-in substance abuse counseling and job and housing assistance, is one of them. The decades-old center would lose $652,000 under the proposed budget — leaving it without enough funding to keep its doors open.”

These are interesting times to be experimenting in journalism. Just when we need watchdog journalism the most it will be the most challenging to produce. I know one thing – Spot.Us and the Public Press aren’t backing down. We intend to rise to the challenge and that is where we need your help.

Bottom line: Producing meaningful rich journalism is time consuming and therefore expensive. Most likely you already knew this, but it is worth repeating. The upside to asking for small donations: You know that we are working for you. We have no advertisers to please. We only have an inquiring public. A public that wants to know what is happening to their city. That is who we report for and who we report to. We work for you.