eastern neighborhood, and the maximum fee that could be imposed on projects back then was $8 per square foot based on the prices of 2008. the mayor's office of economic analysis say today that it will be 2016, 2017 before san francisco will be back to 2008 prices, said there's no way on a that was actual financial analysis back then that we could afford to pay any more fees. how can we afford to pay any more fees and have more unemployment? on top of that, to add insult to injury, this was going to be retroactively back to july 2010 when the fee deferral process was approved by the board of supervisors. the process was a stimulus package that was supposed to try to help the industry move forward. so you could defer some fees. you take this to look backwards

to try to force these, so i'm glad that you are continuing this hearing today. i think we need to shine some light on this. we need to get stakeholders involved, and i thank you for your time. >> good afternoon. >> i would like to start by addressing the effort put forward by staff. i do not expect staff to know the intricacies of our industry. nobody would. but when they are proposing such a fee, such changes, and my out of bounds to expect someone to verify the unemployment rates have exceeded 35%? -- am i out of bounds? would it be too much for someone to check with the building

department and verify statistics, and you would have seen that permits for new construction are down 9% from 2007? would it have been hard to come from the statistics? what about builders' groups? we were with you guys three or four weeks ago, and we had a very similar process mr. ford, your comments may have been appropriate, but the truth of the matter is -- and this is my opinion -- the if we were not here today, this would have been jammed through, and we would have been a day late and a dollar short. you cannot conduct legal hearings without having a copy of the legislation present for the public to review. we were told that it was policy two hours ago by your staff. if anything should happen here, there should be a credit to our industry.

we put the eyes and ears on our streets, we fill the sidewalks, we create vitality on the streets. the more eyes and ears on the sidewalk, the more vitality, the better the pedestrian experience is, the more people are going to rise your program, the more fees you will have to collect. director nolan: any other public comment? seeing none, public, this close. the direction coming out of this is there will be these meetings -- >> we are going to pull this back and correct what has occurred here. director nolan: get back to the policy and governance committee before it comes back to this board. >> i think there may be some work we need to do as a staff before it even goes to policy and governance. we will have a solution or recommendation that does not require a great deal of analysis at that juncture. director nolan: i'm sure people

are here today realize it will be difficult to craft something that works in everybody's interest, but we appreciate your input, and the lease commitment i think this board can make is to let everyone know they have been heard. ok, directors. >> i want to thank the folks who came down today. rather than getting into the merits of this, which we will discuss at a later time, i would like to pick up on ms. sheridan's point and make an institutional comment. we are a transit agency. we know who the transit stakeholders are. it is a relatively comfortable network, but we do on more than one occasion assess or consider fees that affect the building community, and this is, as she correctly and others correctly noted, the second time we have had an outreach issue with this group. in the end, this is not our

decision. it is the board of supervisors' decision. i would suggest that two members of the public who are interested in this. it may not be too early to start contacting your friends, but as an institutional matter, can we make an effort to create the memory that whenever something is coming up that is going to impact development fees, at the very least, called the residential builders association. this is the second time they have come down in force representing their membership very well, the second time that they have suggested that they are willing to work with is probably in a public out reach capacity, and i would just like to make sure that that message is not lost and that ms. sheridan is not down here giving us the same message a third time in the future. director nolan: as much as we enjoyed seeing her. >> we love seeing her, but we like her smiling. >> director heinicke, your point was clearly made, and will not make that mistake again. director nolan: thank you all

very much. i guess this concludes this part of the meeting. we will go to item 14. >> we are at this point of the agenda going to move back to item 12. director nolan: let me say why. we said that we were going to wait until 4:00, but supervisor campos' office would like to do this now, and we will do a closed session, which i expect will be extremely brief, after that. >> there are a number people outside who would like to come in. director nolan: come on in. >> have them come in and have them fill out cards. item 12 is authorizing the executive director to provide up to 12,000 youth passes per month to the san francisco unified school district for the department of children, youth, and families from april to june 2011 for distribution to low-

income students at no cost. director nolan: thank you. yesterday, i had occasion to meet with our mayor, and note that mayor lee is totally supportive of this proposal. my sense is this entire body here is supportive of it. i have not talked to everybody, but as a one-time thing at least, to make this happen for the rest of this year. i would be concerned if we view this as a precedent for going forward because budget considerations are tight, but someone mentioned earlier the idea of encouraging people to use the system, and that is good. i did not know if members of commons at this point. >> i have one question which may help clarify and expedite this. as i read the report, not only does this serve the wonderful goal of allowing disadvantaged

children access to transit, but as i read the report, there's actually no budget and five of this proposal. >> none whatsoever. you budgeted to have this expense this fiscal year and next fiscal year. director nolan: will take care of that after that. the administration of that? >> there's still discussion between the school administration and department of child services in terms of how to administer this. they will take care of it for this three months, and we will have to examine what happens next fall. >> i will state my own personal view. i do not mean to short circuit public comment, but i do not want folks to feel like they have to pass an early advocate when we are sort of already there, but i personally would support this proposal. director nolan: i know several people have asked for a translator. if we could make it very clear that this will happen, and there's not a need to speak unless you really want to.

this is supported by this board. we're glad you're here. love to see you. but if you want to have made some representative speakers. >> we do have some speaker cards. director nolan: go ahead. >> how many speakers are we going to have? >> until i get the speaker cards, i'm not quite sure. maybe it would be appropriate for a short break to allow them to get themselves organized in here. pardon? director nolan: nobody has been called yet. >> nobody has been called yet. >> carolyn, are there people out there who wish to come in? would you please let them know we are ready for public, and now? >> [reading names]

director nolan: whoever is first, if you hear your name, please make an line and come forward. director nolan: ok. ok. ok. ok, good afternoon and welcome. >> [inaudible] -- [speaking spanish]

director nolan: ok. >> this is the second time we have come to a hearing to talk about the fast passes. i'm here to ask you to please pass the fast passes, the free passes for youth. there are a lot of low-income people who are out of work and currently do not have money to provide their kids with fast as is. i have a daughter who is sick and is not able to work and does not have money to pay for a fast pass, so we wanted to ask your support. director nolan: thank you very much. maybe we could do a little line or something. how about that? if you hear your name call, please line up. >> my name is karen. we have eight youth organization that power -- we have a youth

organization that power, and they are all dedicated, and we urge you to pass the legislation to help them to have things like access to our community organizing meetings so that they can actively participate in their communities. thank you. >> [reading names] director nolan: good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i'm an organizer at power, people organized to women employment rights. we are happy today to be able to come to this meeting space and be able to talk to you and encourage you to support the fast as program. this was a program that was already approved, so we have been working hard to have it implemented.

a lot of us still want to talk to you about our experiences about having the fast passes and how that has impacted our families. we want to continue to encourage you there are a lot of issues impacting people of color. vostok consolidations -- bus stop consolidations. some people will be here today to talk about their experience getting to school. we're going to bring them up to talk about their experiences and how it impacts their families.

we encourage you to release support working class people who depend on the buses to get to work every day -- really support working class people who depend on the buses to get to work every day. they do not have another alternative. cars and bicycles are not an option for our families. we look forward to continuing to work, and that is what we wanted to say. director nolan: we do as well. next speaker. good afternoon. >> good afternoon, commissioners. we have done our committee outreach, and i looking at this already, free passage for freeyouth, it would be a grit helpless -- free passage for the youth, it would be a great help for the families, so i thank you and commend you for your

support, and i look forward to working with you in the future on similar concepts, and it would greatly help these families, and once again, thank you again. >> [reading names] director nolan: good afternoon >> greater than greater than i' -- good afternoon. >> good afternoon. i'm with tehe sro family's collaborative. we have partnered successfully with the school district to give these children who are considered by the city of san francisco as being homeless access to transportation. i'm here to speak just about

expanding the concept itself of the city for these children. a lot of our children have before receiving fast passes never gone outside their own neighborhood. this is something that allows them to be transit riders from a very young age, enjoy the city through transit, and really experience what san francisco has to offer that we all experience every day for all of our communities. the poorest of our communities, the most disenfranchised of our communities, and it is great, and i wanted to acknowledge the amazing work that has been done with the school district, with sfmta to put this first program in place, and we are really happy to see that we're coming to a place now, which, hopefully april 1, we will have 12,000 kids benefit from this program and benefit from free fast basses. that is really exciting for us that another 12,000 people on

top of the 1600 or 1700 that currently receive free fast passes through the homeless program, through sfusc will have the same experience. we are thankful for your support and your hard work on this issue and really wanted to thank the school district for all their hard work and staff at mta. director nolan: thank you. >> [reading names] >> [speaking spanish]

director nolan: thank you. gracias. >> we want to thank you for supporting the free fast passes for youth. this is a difficult time for a lot of our families, and families depend on transportation to get to work, schools, hospitals, and to be able to buy food, so we wanted to just thank you for air support. director nolan: thank you. >> [reading names] director nolan: good afternoon. >> good afternoon. thank you. i want to thank you very much for indicating your support for this item. as you, i'm sure, well know, the youth commission initially sided

advocating for and looking at numbers based on your -- figures from your revenue department in january, 2010, some 12, 13 months ago. the need in the school district, as i'm sure you guys know, is very high. we have a very high free and reduced lunch population in the school district. part of the room was about the really high concern, so when we start talking about this program, perhaps for fiscal year 2011-2012, for which you guys have already budgeted for money, given that you guys are doing budgeting in april 2010, i think of fully that is something that the school district and/or whatever city partners be at, along with your staff, can include private and parochial schools perhaps somehow in the conversation, but please accept the tenor of my comments as being seemingly thankful.

we appreciate your generosity. i also wanted to acknowledge the really good work of your staff and the school district staff. we are really appreciative and hope to collaborate with you in the future, and we hope that when something youth-realted comes across your desk, you, look for us. we have been talking with you guys about distributing clipper cards, and i hope that is something that continues. >> good afternoon. first of all, i would like to thank you for your support of this. as everybody has indicated, this is something that the youth really need. as mario said just before me, the students in private parochial schools -- this is

also something we should look at. were over 40% of the students receive some sort of financial aid, and a good portion of that number of students are on some sort of full ride, and their families are relatively low income. it be great to look at that in the future and see if we could look at some sort of program for them as well. thank you. good afternoon. that hello. i represent district 7 on the san francisco youth commission. although i attend private school, i attend st. ignatius, like my fellow colleagues mentioned, there are students in the private and parochial school system that would also benefit from this program. i myself am one of those students. i am a first-generation immigrant.

i live in the excelsior district and i had taken two buses two -- to and from school for the past three years, and i'm also on financial aid. although this will not benefit students like myself for this fiscal year, i would like to say thank you and express my gratitude for your support, in that i am in awe of the precedent we are setting. i would like to thank you. >> [reading names] >> good afternoon. i am with the commission of san francisco youth commission, and today, speaking to express my gratitude and sincere thanks to your esteemed board. i did go through the public

school system here, and i was going up to the system, i did see a lot of the changes that were going on, especially with the budget cuts. i did want to express my sincere gratitude, especially in this case. i know that everybody is going through hard times, and i think it is a commendable act you guys are doing, trying to support your fellow youth, which are undoubtedly the future of the city. this is something that is definitely going to be, in terms of long-term education, a great step in terms of education as well, so i wanted to thank you for that. director nolan: thank you. next speaker. a group presentation, huh? ok. good afternoon. >> hello.

>> these are parents from chinese progressive association. >> [speaking chinese] >> i have three kids. there 10, 8, and four -- they are 10, 8, and four. my children and i take the bus every day to go to school. every month, we have to buy a couple of fast passes, and it comes to about $100 for our transportation costs. for a low-income family like ours, this is a very big expense.

but there are more important things in our life. there is a chinese saying that describes the basic needs of our lives -- clothes, food, shelter, transportation, which is the basic needs of people's lives. but now, transportation is more expensive than a closed and food -- more expensive than clothes and food. i hope sfmta can understand the citizens' demands. and can offer as free or reduced youth passes. director nolan: thank you very much for being here. i see we are joined by supervisor camps. -- campos.

good afternoon. >> good afternoon. thank you for extending this invitation for me to appear before you. my apologies for stepping into this a little late. we are still in the middle of our board of supervisors meeting, but i wanted to come here and thank the commission for considering this item. it is something that we believe is an important item. it is the reason why the board previously approved this matter, and this is simply a modification to actually implement, to make something happen, and we believe that what is before you, giving 12,000 free line passes to service for the last three months of the academic year is something that, as you have heard and will continue to hear from families in san francisco, is badly needed. i also want to take this time to

thank and director ford and his staff for working so diligently on this matter and cooperating not only with our office, but also with the the school district, to mayor lee for his help on this issue, to the department of children, youth, and their families that have also been working on this, and to thank you, the board, for considering this matter and hopefully, passing this item as this hearing proceeds. director nolan: thank you, supervisor. there is an excellent chance this will pass. i hope your colleagues and everyone in the city know what a thoughtful and articulate group of young people are here talking on their own behalf today. it is very impressive to us. >> thank you, mr. president. i also want to thank youth, the members of the public, and their families who have come out to

speak on this item. we look forward to continuing to work with you. again, thank you for your consideration of this matter. director nolan: thank you, supervisor. >> [reading names] director nolan: good afternoon. >> good afternoon, board members. i am a resident of bayview hunter's point for 40 years. i, on behalf of my children and community to speak on behalf of what a difference it will make for this board to pass free fast passes for the youth for three months. but it does not stop there. three months will take a burden off of my family because i purchased two adult passes and three youth passes every month, and my income, as i said before, is $900. by this passing the three months, i will have a chance to

save up something for three months, but i would like to see this be continued on in the future, but as we know, and we are right now in budget crisis, and we all know that the city departments need to make some cuts, but i would like to wouldmuni -- to see muni relook at san francisco residents fast as is. i would like to see the look at how they can go around just having resident fast passes for the people that live in san francisco. i think if you look at that issue and you look at the people that come out of san francisco, you look at the people who travel back and forth to come and use our transportation, said francisco residents are getting hit the hardest by buying a fast pass every month. and they are steadily trying to go up, and we cannot afford to see it go up again. we really cannot. if you need to know ho