including the subject on the 21st. >> commissioners, with that, we can move on to item 8 and your calendar. >> good afternoon president miguel, members of the commission. it is a long time. excuse me if i fumble with mining and familiarity.

there is an update on the planning department. it was 12 was to go that the director asked me to engage with the community. you asked the community to began following their hearing on most of a year ago of better planning for japan town. starting 12 weeks ago, i was familiar with japan town. all the work that had been done by department, there are efforts

to get that plan before you. we a lot about the social and environment -- social and physical environment. six weeks ago we were at a meeting here that was attended by two commissioners and it supervisor mirkarimi. we have been looking at the committee structure. we have been working with him to his effort to provide some additional funding.

one of these warrants a significant attention from us and respect for the community in the effort that they have made. they have embarked on a very ambitious schedule. they were not aware of any finding work continued planning support and the review of the better neighborhood plan. basically i was assigned to work with the community on that.

we are looking to deal with the community in meaningful ways. it is very exciting to me to report with the progress that we have made in the past few weeks. the first is the most important and the planning department is now providing additional staff support to the committee's review of the better neighborhoods plan. through the efforts of supervisor mirkarimi, we received funding to engage with consultants and trying to

maintain the traditional cultural integrity. we're still exploring a means to that end. we have request additional funding to two specific projects. we should also direct of reach to those organizations and seniors of a spiritual nature and those kinds of groups that meet regularly. we also received word -- word earlier this week that the ford

foundation -- for a foundation for a means to maintain the cultural integrity and viability of japan town as a vibrant and thriving community. as commissioner miguel mentioned earlier, we met with the san francisco heritage. through their partners in the field program, we have also been identified and they will be focusing their attention in that partners in the field program. i have been able to work with one of the cochairs of the

economic development in japan center committee reviewing the plan. we have been successful in obtaining additional student help. we have a project timeline which is a tasked to the end of the memo. there are established by laws for them to change, modify, to add to the better neighborhoods plan. i basically went to the members of the community and said that

my paranormal abilities are very limited. we are in the process of both trying to greengage with the traditional steering committee and adding to that so it broadens its base in terms of community representation and to give them a basis for giving the planning department clear and explicit directions on how to add, modify, or change the better neighborhood plan that was presented to you just over a year ago. there are four working committees that have been established. they took the plan and they took chapters. there are four committees, one that works largely on heritage issues, another that works on economic development, japan

center issues that are mentioned. also land use and the public realm is the concern of a steering committee that will meet later this month. we would like to achieve the preservation of the cultural integrity of japan town. rather than go into each of the activities of the committee that i ever tried to provide an explanation of in the memo.

each one of the committees will submit a report on their activities to you. we do have with us today the cochairs of the economic development and -- center committee. we also have one of the cochairs of the land use committee. without me stealing any of their thunder, i would like to invite them to come to the podium and offer any insights or updates that might or might not be in the memo. we have been making daily progress on the review of the better neighborhoods plan. i will be here for any questions if you have any. >> thank you.

>> i am bob, duty -- i am bob tamaguchi. i don't want to co into the steps of the committee work so far. we are working diligently to review the various recommendations in the draft plan and we are also finding that there is very much interested in many alternatives to those recommendations. i think that he will see that this will have some significant changes by the time we are finished. i think that there are lots of changes but it will be much more coherent and give us a better

direction. i want to take the time to thank all of you for your support. also the supervisor. we have been able to leverage your commitment into other funding to support our need for consulting work to be done on different aspects of this. it worked very well. we are very blessed to have paul working with us. his enthusiasm and experience shows very quickly. i am looking forward to working with him and am confident that he will get to the finish line.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. and i and the jobs representative. i would also like to think the commissioner and a director and also supervisor mirkarimi. i see a new opportunity for us. i am fearful that japan town does not become one such as sacramento which is nonexistent or seattle which is non existent. thank you for the opportunities. >> thank you.

>> president miguel, commissioners, thank you again. we are truly pleased with the progress that is being made and really the assistance of -- has been invaluable. he has been opening our eyes to new possibilities. he has been pushing us along nicely to really come up with some concrete ideas and recommendations and we have been having some very exchanges both with committee members and with mr. lord about how we built from the base of the traffic. -- of the draft. this is what the committee had in mind when we came to and we

needed to get people's opinions because people were waiting to see something in print to response to. we're getting all kinds of reactions but we are now working in our subcommittee on creating some pretty concrete recommendations. mr. lord has been a tremendous resource and helping to find as the nation's and keeping us on track and that has been very important and i think will results in a very good and very detailed plan that will carry japan town forward so we thank

you for the assignment and your support and look forward to coming back to you with more details. for the land use committee, we have one change of time in our upcoming schedules on october 7th and we will begin our meeting at 7:00 due to availability otherwise we need to every thursday of the month. thank you, we hope that you'll be able to come to our community or so committee buildings. >> is there further public comment on this item? >> if not, public comment is closed. >> i have been able to attend a couple of meetings and with the

addition of mr. lord, i think that things are going quite swimmingly but from what i hear, things are moving along fairly well. on the cultural heritage part of a better neighborhood plan effort, just to extend on what mr. lord presented, he did mention support for the natural trust for historic preservation. that came in the form of a brand. she has an extensive background in that area already. secondly, have been bumped into michael cohen a month or two down-a month or two ago.

mr. lord and had been at some previously, so i have a little background in it. and the community involvement is massive and their meeting

schedule here is extremely aggressive and there aren't many communities that have been able to get the grant funding and the interest and enthusiasm in the project over this period of time. and i really complement them. it shows that they are very much together even though there are obviously differences of opinion and that standard and they are working through that. and really good to see that happen. >> thank you, commissioners. if we have completed that item, we can move forward to general public comment. at this time, members of the public may address you -- >> i rise to a point of order. you never asked for public comment on item number seven. >> yes, i did. >> on item seven? >> item seven? >> you asked for general public comment on item eight, but you

did not on item seven. okay. we can do that. >> i am ray hart, head of san francisco open government and i have a couple of comments on item seven. the speaker was going rather rapidly but i think when she was talking about sending out data to the public, i believe she was referring to the supervisor's motion to insure all city agencies and commissions do their best to make accessible on the internet and websites documents that relate to their business and activities. i think this is particularly important for a number of reasons. it allows people who otherwise might not be able to attend a meeting to get information about what the meeting has with the substance of the meeting was and

also get some idea as to the handling of business by the commission and the points they might want to address. it also allows members of the public who might wish to come and address particular agenda items to peruse the agendas and minutes and so forth to determine whether or not there is actually something which will allow them to come and do and since most of the meetings are held during the middle of the day for most people, it's difficult to make arrangements to come on to make the meeting. and also, she mentioned the fact that the historical preservation commission is looking into putting renovations to the president's dais and the a.d.a. requirements for a ramp and during that conversation i would like to point out to you that one of the members of the public got up and provided documents to

the commission stating that the current ramp and the current changes made to the dais, so forth, were never done legally. there were never any permits obtained and her comment was i hope that since this is being done right that they will at least take the opportunity to insure that the illegal changes made prior are corrected. president miguel: thank you. is there any further comment on item seven? if not, that item is finished. >> i would note this category has a 15-minute time limit and members of the public may address the commission for up to three minutes each. >> good afternoon, commissioners.

my name is paul wormer. there was a lot of activity a while back on a universal notice process and a lot of good work that seems to have dropped. and i would like to encourage it to continue. what brought it to mind and split off from the john f. kennedy towers that is apparently owned by the housing authority that they are planning to sell. and apparently this lot is being a proposal from rn1 to ncd. there is no proposal to do anything other than to rezone it. i'm concerned that we are having rezoning a lot absent a project because of perceived commercial opportunity or advantage.

and i am concerned because the public is being asked to submit comment on something where there is no content to base the comment on. it's essentially following a nice, legal position where requesting public comment, but not clear to what end, to what purpo purpose, and is there going to be a follow on e.i.r. after the rezoning if indeed something is going to be large? and so i wanted to raise that as a concern and as an issue as a community member. i have no idea how to respond gently to this. and that's a little bit frustrating because it makes me wonder what's happening. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> my name is ray and i am the

commissioner of the open government. this is a copy of the united states constitution, one of those constitutions that you took an oath to defend and protect when you joined this board including that and the state constitution. i rise in this issue because of the same issue and the reason i did so in the historic preservation commission. and that is because i feel that people are being denied their right to speak in an equitable fashion. i will point out a contradiction in the own agenda and know your rights under sunshine. and in public comment section g it says you cannot comment on items that are on the agenda, you can only do so in general with one exception. when the agenda item has been reviewed and members were allowed to testify and the commission has closed the public hearing and the opportunity must be commissioned. and that makes no sense.

if you say you can't talk about it and in the same body has been closed and with the matter of the public agenda, which is it? i think that will discourage people from discouraging this resolution and the same goes to closing public comment in general and to deny the members of the public. in doing so and violating and disrespecting the rights of the individuals to speak. most of you may consider it's easy for you to make your schedule up in attending but for members of the public who may be concerned about item before you, it is often difficult to make arrangements for their job, family, and other commitments to

come. and if you restrict them and say we'll have four different times to discuss an item, but only going to allow you to talk at one of them, what you are going to do and have in the past is restrict members from the public from exercising the first amendment rights. those first amendment rights including freedom of speech and the right to petition government and i do not think you have it in your authority as members of the commission to restrict people who want to make comments during public comments and any item that comes before there. and one of the things i did is protect and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies. and the only way to protect the rights of others are respected.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. peter cohen from the triangle. and i actually am glad paul wormer brought up universal notification and that is not why i was here, but i want to reinforce that because i spent time on the initiative and realized it was 50% there and there are resourcing constraints but it would be an excellent set of reforms and i would encourage that to move forward. and i did come here to address this orphan block and the last block about the market between noee and decastro and just to acknowledge that we've got some good movement on this and that seems and working the coalition

and fixed to that zoning issue. and we are going to have a committee meet iing and understanding that this is technical kind of stuff. and we'll be having that meeting. want toing a knowledge it's happening. looking forward to that. president miguel: and if you could let the commission know the october 25 time and place. the neighborhood groups are working hard on that.