rebuild and renew america. it is like a makeover for california. in this congress, we have made an unprecedented commitment to high-speed rail, creating jobs and connecting communities, never occurred act, -- the recovery act, $2.34 billion for california. the president's budget for fy10 has another $2.5 billion. projects like the transbay transit center are part of our broader vision for a growing, thriving, dynamic economy. it embodies the spirit and goals of what the president and congress are pushing for in our making it in america strategy. manufactured in america, enabling people to make it in america.

[applause] that is because we know when we make it in america, we create jobs and lead the world economy. our manufacturing agenda will close loopholes encouraging job to go overseas. that is how we will reinvest the money into real and -- infrastructure in america. we will create clean energy technologies, and the wind turbines and solar panels the world will buy. the idea sprang from here, and then the manufacturing took place somewhere else. not under our made in america agenda. the idea and innovation is here, the manufacturing is here. we are here to compete, to win, to prevail, in the global economy, and all of that start by building our infrastructure.

that is why we are here today. one of the goals in putting this for -- and it is a specific and concerted effort -- to make sure we have jobs for all the effort -- purposes i mentioned, for all of our veterans to come home to work in a clean energy economy, somewhere that is worthy for the sacrifice that was made by our veterans. secretary lahood, please give the president to our appreciation, thanks, gratitude. when he became president, he stood on the steps of the capital and asked for swift, bold action now. to create jobs for the future, and education, we will use the

soil and wind and sun to run our cars and fuel our factories. you know the list, it goes on and on. health care for all americans is a right, not a privilege. one week and one day after that speech, the house of representatives passed the recovery act. [applause] because we were ready and had worked with the president in advance with his vision and leadership. the senate took up the bill, and as the senator said, weeks later, was signed into law, and here we are today because of it. so thank the president, and as we break ground, for the families in san francisco, and

the bay area, because of the work done here, our hopes are rising. thank you all very much. [applause] >> thank you, madam speaker. this concludes the speaking portion of the program. i would like to invite the speakers to join me for the historic groundbreaking. if you could please exit the stage, and then we will be providing you some ceremonial shovels. if the speakers could exit right and left and join me in the front. thank you.

[applause] i'm the president of friends of mclaren park. it is one of the oldest neighborhood community park groups in san francisco. i give a lot of tours through the park. during those tours, a lot of the folks in the group will think of the park as very scary. it has a lot of hills, there's a lot of dense groves. once you get towards the center

of the park you really lose your orientation. you are very much in a remote area. there are a lot of trees that shield your view from the urban setting. you would simply see different groves that gives you a sense of freedom, of being outdoors, not being burdened by the worries of city life. john mclaren had said that golden gate park was too far away. he proposed that we have a park in the south end of the city. the campaign slogan was, people need this open space. one of the things that had to open is there were a lot of people who did a homestead here, about 25 different families. their property had to be bought up. so it took from 1928 to 1957 to buy up all the parcels of land that ended up in this 317 acres. the park, as a general rule, is heavily used in the mornings

and the evenings. one of the favorite places is up by the upper reservoir because dogs get to go swim. it's extremely popular. many fights in the city, as you know, about dogs in parks. we have 317 acres and god knows there's plenty of room for both of us. man and his best friend. early in the morning people before they go to work will walk their dogs or go on a jog themselves with their dogs. joggers love the park, there's 7 miles of hiking trails and there's off trail paths that hikers can take. all the recreational areas are heavily used on weekends. we have the group picnic area which should accommodate 200 people, tennis courts are full. it also has 3 playground areas.

the ampitheater was built in 1972. it was the home of the first blues festival. given the fact that jerry garcia used to play in this park, he was from this neighborhood, everybody knows his reputation. we thought what a great thing it would be to have an ampitheater named after jerry garcia. that is a name that has panache. it brings people from all over the bay area to the ampitheater. the calls that come in, we'd like to do a concert at the jerry garcia ampitheater and we do everything we can to accommodate them and help them because it gets people into the park. people like a lot of color and that's what they call a park. other people don't. you have to try to reconcile all those different points of view. what should a park look like and what should it have? should it be manicured, should it be nice little cobblestones around all of the paths and

like that. the biggest objective of course is getting people into the park to appreciate open space. whatever that's going to take to make them happy, to get them there, that's the main goal. if it takes a planter with flowers and stuff like that, fine. you know, so what? people need to get away from that urban rush and noise and this is a perfect place to do it. feedback is always amazement. they don't believe that it's in san francisco. we have visitors who will say, i never knew this was here and i'm a native san franciscoan. they wonder how long it's been here. when i tell them next year we'll get to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the park,

>> the evening and welcome to the august 18, 2010 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. the presiding officer is a board president peterson. joining her is vice-president commissioner goh, commissioner fung, commissioner garcia, and commissioner hwang. our board's legal assistant -- i

am the executive director. tonight, we will be resent -- have the senior building inspector. it in the front row, we have someone representing the department of public and health. [unintelligible] at this time, i would like to ask you to please go over the meeting guidelines and conduct the swearing in process. >> we request you turn off all phones, beepers, and pagers. please carry on conversations in the hallway.

the rules of presentation are as follows. they each have seven minutes to present their cases, and three minutes for a bottle. people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the 7 or 3 minute periods. those not in conjunction with a party may have up to three minutes to address the board. they are asked but not required to submit a speaker card or a business card to staff when you come up to the lectern. there are available on the left side of the podium. the customer satisfaction forms are there as well. please speak to board staff during the break or after the meeting. the board office is located on

mission street, room 304. this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television, sfgtv cable channel 78. dvd's are available directly from sfgtv. at this point, we will conduct our swearing in. if you intend to testify, please stand and raise your right hand , and say i do after you have been sworn in. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you. >> president peterson and members of the board, we have at three appeals that have been withdrawn and will not be heard this evening. one is item no. 5 regarding the

property, and the other are connected items 12a and 12b. we can move on to item number one, public comment. is there any member of the public that would like to speak on an item not on the agenda tonight? >> members of the board, i am director of the san francisco open government coalition. i would hope that the board members or were noticeable of the fact that this time i did take the oath. it was an oversight on my part and believe me, it will not happen again. i have not used to the city rationale that someone not under oath will lie. i hope you notice when other

city employees are not taking the oath and meet them with skepticism. i appreciated it president peterson's concern about the lack of counsel, from the presentation and request for reconsideration. i think this may end up in court, and we would be willing to take any this statement i made under oath. and i don't believe it that i said anything other than what i had already said under oath in prior testimony at the time of the actual appeal. the reason i am here is because basically i viewed a lot of hearings and you can go listen to these on the sunshine ordnance task force website. those are the statements i made, i don't think they are in any way false, and i will be using them to talk about this issue.

one of the things you have to understand in cases of abuse, it is usually a crime of power. as an individual citizen against the city agency, who will have the power? the city agency. a main concern was that this board made the decision not to give them additional time to ensure that the city agency had provided them with all of the appropriate documents. commissioner hwang said it was very concerning, but the general consensus seemed to be that because there were no issues raised, the vote was what it was. the bottom line is, the possibility there were no new issues may be due to the fact that certain documents were withheld. but those are complaints i made on numerous occasions. city employees do not own the documents.

the city does not own the documents. they belong to the citizens of the county and the city of san francisco. there is no employee that has the right to withhold from any individual, especially that person in the case, documents they need for that case. and there the next 56 weeks, i changed it from four to six weeks because i want to bring in a number of these things. i believe they acted in an abusive manner. president peterson: next speaker, please. >> can i have the overhead, please? good afternoon, commissioners. last week, when i show you this california law, i said that they

do not meet the minimum qualifications to be commissioners of this board. commissioner garcia, he responded by saying that you speak for the board when there are gaps in our education and our training, having to do some of the issues coming before us, we seek the advice of the city attorney and other departments, and we do actual research. information from building and planning personnel have made many false statements to protect illegal construction. certain expediters and property owners who also made false statements to you, it states that you shall be qualified to be specifically knowledgeable in the california building standards code. it does not say it is okay to ask the city attorney. it does not say it is ok to seek the and permission from anyone else or anywhere else as a substitute for a commissioner having a basic level of

knowledge required by law. not to meet the minimum qualifications is different from having gaps in your education. you have been a commissioner for five years. you not only have the minimum qualifications for your position, you are also lacking knowledge in the requirements. the public activist for people's rights has spent many hours to protect people's writes. he commented during public comment. your job is to protect public rights. commissioner garcia, you attacked him by saying that he could not speak any public comment section. it is not required to take a note for public comment. he was not a witness. your attack on mr. hartz is totally unacceptable when you lack the qualifications and knowledge to be a commissioner. you did this to support and protect illegal projects.

i believe you owe mr. hartz a public apology. president peterson: any other public comment? please step forward. >> good afternoon. a civil engineer was arrested and charged for more than 200 felony counts, allegedly creating bogus documentation about 100 construction projects in the city. no building inspectors asked about this document. i do not have experience -- [unintelligible] it requires a licensed

architects. when the property was planned, the planning was mysteriously disappeared again and again. they have a licensed engineer, but they are not a licensed engineer or architect. it is different from shift to shift. we request that all plans -- as they should be revealed and corrected in a timely manner. he told them that there are connections with both the planning department, and our complaint would be ignored. this is the only true thing they give to us. we're approaching illegal

activities. he was the permit expediter for the adjacent properties, and one property owner even hired both. from both buildings, we're willing to give statements to support them. they told us that she was asked by the commissioners and they would like to support the illegal activity. [unintelligible] maybe you choose to support the city because some of the commission had minimum qualifications for your position. it requires that you guys have knowledge of buildings. some of you do not have that. thank you. president peterson: is there any

other public comment? please step forward. >> good evening, commissioners. i couldn't let the second to last speaker pass without some kind of a response. i am a land-use attorney in san francisco and i have been practicing for more than 30 years. i have approximately 500 cases before this board. i have appeared in numerous cases before. commissioner garcia, i have always found him to be fair to everyone involved. this ranting and raving indicates nothing more than the speaker's ignorance. it is really a waste of the taxpayer money to use these public comment sections to conduct rants against respected

city commissioners. thank you very much. president peterson: is there further public comment? >> i am just any member of the public, and i don't appreciate the speaker being called as a rant. we speak because we have something to say, and i am really glad to hear everything that i have heard tonight. i am pretty upset about the process, and i feel like the process is working now that a certain person has been indicted for what ever. i am happy to hear about this person. we need to be nice about it. anything -- whatever you say is ok, that doesn't mean it is a rant.

president peterson: is there any other public comment? we will move on to item number two, commissioner comments and questions. item #3 is the adoption of minutes. for discussion and possible adoption are the minutes of august 11, 2010. >> any comments? >> i move to adopt the august 112010 minutes. >> if you could call the roll, please. is there public comment on the minutes? seeing none, called a role. >> on the motion from the president to adopt the minutes -- commissioner hwang: aye. commissioner goh: aye. commissioner fung: aye.

commissioner garcia: aye. >> they are adopted. president peterson: we can move on to item number four, they each have to do with the adoption of findings. >> i should have done this during commissioner comment, but if we could agenda is this something that came up tonight during public comment as to the law and qualifications for commissioners? that is two weeks in a row that has come up, and i understand we are not allowed to talk about it if it is not on the agenda, but i like to have an opportunity to talk about it. president peterson: when you are ready, call 4a, please.

>> and adoption of findings property, a p.o. number 09 -- appeal number 09-4142. they voted to grant the findings -- to grant a permit with the adoption of findings at a later time. it will and in restoration of the living in a to make a three dwelling unit. president peterson: my understanding is that we are in agreement. if you have questions or comments, you can call them up.

is there any public comment on these findings? commissioners, the matter is before you for adoption. >> i will move to adopt the findings. >> on that motion from president peterson to adopt findings. commissioner hwang: aye. commissioner garcia: aye. commissioner goh: aye. commissioner fung: aye. the vote is 5-0, the minutes are adopted. president peterson: if you can move on to 4b. the subject property, it is appeal number 10-