>> along with cmac, they held a supervisor candidate forum. i think district 6, 8, and 10 pander to the entertainment community. it was great to see them support the community and talk to the entertainment. it was nice to see it.

and to help orchestrate that. good job. >> we are on commissioner comment and questions. pass? public comment? we will go to item 8, future agenda items. you already have info on it? there's not enough to get into it. we're just talking about at some point in time scheduling -- we had talked about this before, finding out what is on the market. we'll just wait until you have more information. i don't know where the technology kid -- is.

i don't want to put a financial burden on them, it is unrealistic. that concludes tuesday, september 28, 2010 meeting of the entertainment commission. thank you.

commissioner mar: good morning and welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the san francisco city and county transportation authority. we will be joined shortly by the chair of the committee. please read item one. >> item 1, roll call. adding two, approve the minutes of the july 13, 2010 meeting. commissioner elsbernd: any comment on this item? seeing none, motion to approve this item. please read item 3. >> item 3, recommend approval of

a budget amendment to at $100,000 to the authorities adopted fiscal year 2010-2011 budget for the purpose of partially defraying the cost of a management performance audit of the municipal transit agency of order of a consulting contract to the first ranked firm in an amount not to exceed $200,000 for audit services for a limited scope management performance audit of the mta. >> this item is on your agenda packet starting on page 5. essentially, there was an initiative by the board of supervisors -- i'm glad that the chair of the authority is here because he was one of the key proponents -- to do a performance audit of the municipal transportation agency. this was several months ago, and at the time, there was a request made through the plans and

programs committee to allocate funds to match other monies that the board of supervisors was earmarking for this purpose. $100,000 got earmarked for that, and the authority was asked to approve the procurement of the management performance audit services. we work very closely with the office of commissioner david campos, who was the lead on this item, i believe, together with commissioner mirkarimi. the board of supervisors put together a scope of work. we issued an rfp, and were very clear that this would initially be dealt with by staff, but it would be directed by the board itself, and at the time, during the recess, for the sake of not waiting until the legislative

recess, we went ahead and issue an rfp for the amount that i have the authority to contract, which was $70,000. we include the entire scope with the verification that we did not think the entire scope could be down for $70,000, but that there would be a further round of discussion with the board to see if there was a need for more money -- or the authority, for more money. that amount generated only one bid. i'm not talking about one responsive bid. just one bid. i did not feel comfortable moving that forward on a single bid. it would not have been a sole- source contract, but still, i felt there had to be more interest out there than just for a single bid, so we canceled that procurement and restated it in the second rfp, where we did

more work estimating how much money would be needed to really do that scope, so that is how we advertised this as a $200,000 effort. a more realistic sense of what it would take to do this right, so the action today -- that generated the kind of response we direct -- we expected. three response of bids. what we have done today is brought you a recommendation for a top-range from, and there is a representative from that firm today. the firm is ctr. -- cgr. we received bids from cgr, a management consulting firm based in oakland with a fairly extensive track record in this type of work, and we had a proposal also from ktmg, in this

case, it's sacramento office, and we also have a proposal from moss adams, another accounting firm from seattle. the action than would be to -- for you to recommend the award of a contract for the top-rank from that would require -- the top-rank firm that would require $100,000 because that was the difference between the action that was taken back in june compared to the money we actually need. this would be matched by an action at the plans and programs committee later this morning to appropriate the one other $100,000 to the authorities so we can cover the whole budget. i want to welcome the chair of the planning committee, commissioner mar. the action today would be two steps, to both recommend approval of the contract with

cgr management service and also to amend the budget by $100,000. let me clarify a couple of things -- amending the budget usually means moving money away from the reserve into the operating budget of the authority, so that the expense which was not anticipated at the beginning of the year is actually covered. the other thing i should point out is that the preliminary social services, the ones that were actually bid on, are detailed on pages eight and nine of your packet, and it focuses on three main areas of activity. one is the capital program management area. the other is construction projects, and the third is fleet and systems procurement. these are three large, key areas that i would like to highlight as areas where a management performance audit can

actually provide significant help in defining improvement opportunities in ways in which the mta can function better to help us do a better job from this and of allocating funds -- from this and -- from this end of allocating funds to do a better job. things like making sure we have a streamlined process. these are topics that are not new to you because we have had a lot of questions over the years about issues related to the mechanics of having things when they are needed, of planning ahead for the large investments to happen in the maximum amount of money to capture them, maximum federal and state money possible, and it is -- the same is true for things like the effectiveness of the planning and design for construction

projects so that risk is minimized and overruns are avoided and so on. these are an attempt to generate a picture that shows trends, that shows how the agency compares with its peers, which is always a challenging thing to do, but also important as a benchmarking exercise that can provide useful guidance both to management there and also to you here. finally, it is my expectation fully because of the large amount of involvement of several key members of the board that it will be the individual board members that will be providing periodic guidance to the consultants on how to carry out the audience -- the audits. commissioner mirkarimi: welcome back from your trip as well, and i would like you to address the

point that this contemplation of was moving forward with an audit is the second phase of an mta audit. the first, which was done several months ago, had a slightly different approach to it, and as a result of that audit, i had approached you to think that maybe it could be more advantageous to have a transit-oriented company, who is used to doing audits in this bit of an industry, would add well to the consideration of those pursuing this audit, but it comes at a price because it is more money. but i think you should try to make some distinctions if you can as to why there might be some advantages in pursuing this particular route with a from outside that has also done transit-related audits -- with a

firm outside that has also done transit-related audits. >> i thank you for reminding me of that. i think the most common observation we make when we look at audits that are done of public agencies, but especially transit agencies, is that they tend to be either fiscal audits, which just look at the numbers, or those are an annual occurrence. in the case of the mta, those have been through the city system, but then, there is a tendency to confuse compliance audits with management performance audits. compliance audits, which you typically see a round here, are those reviews for the agency's following the federal rules for state rules for procurement. as you can imagine, in this very complex day and age, it would be quasi-suicidal if the agency did

not follow federal or state rules because you do not get reimbursed. typically, those audits do not generate terribly useful information. either the agency is complying, or it is not. those are not always addressing the issue of effectiveness, which is really the order of the day in government today because of the issue of budget cuts, and we need to do more with what we have or more with less, so the bottom line is that in order to find the areas of real promise, where you can do improvement and processes or do things as simple as connecting the dots between the investment and improvement services -- why are we buying equipment? what are the ultimate goals? the real goal is to provide better service, so management-

related issues are the ones that need to be address, so in order to do that, you want to have one's with experience in a fairly complex field of transit orientation so they know what they are looking for and they have a sense of what the range of reasonable currencies would be in other agencies. there's also the issue of comparing san francisco to other places. it is not impossible to compare. if you have the right consultant looking at the information with more of a compass of where we should be looking and how we should be approaching the information, we have a better chance of generating good results that, as i said before in my opening remarks, it is useful to you as the policy- making body, and hopefully to the mta board and management as well. areas where there would be a direct impact on their own effectiveness, not an exercise

in finding blame, but an exercise in finding opportunities to do things better. for that, i think it is better to have people who have seen these variables before and understand how the variables operate and are able to zero in on this quickly. it is worth paying the extra money to get that kind of mileage so that in a few months, you can have a useful document to move forward. that would be the basis for suggesting that this extra amount of money was spent. certainly from the perspective of authority, we deal with all of these issues. compliance performance was too much, but management performance looks at the facilities -- we have been talking about utility's plans for a long time. these are multi-billion dollar investments. you may recall that about a decade ago, when the authority decided to match the cost of the

replacement of the entire fleet, and that was a $750 million investment with a lot of federal money in the, matched by the prop k funds, there was a 22% increase in productivity as a result. there is a potential for a big payoff. it is important to understand that we would be looking at three key areas that can generate that kind of pay off, at a time when people are worried about stretching service, and there's a question about the role of transit into the future. there is a potentially very good tool for looking at these options going forward. commissioner mar: any other questions? seeing now, let's open up for public comment. is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. without objection, we are approving this budget amendment.

the process is it goes to the plans and programs committee, and the deliverable or october 29 initial report. >> that is right. the plans and programs usually takes measures with this one to approve the appropriations so that the money is flowing through the proper channels. the schedule potentially has the consultant producing and initial preliminary assessment very early on, which is standard for the board to react to, so you understand what they found and the show looked -- an initial look and what they plan to do in more depth. so the early warning sign gives you an opportunity to have input. say what you would rather focus on, and it is actually an audit intended for you, so that is the idea of the early look. commissioner mar: thank you.

please call item four. >> item four, recommend amendment of the administrative code. this is an action item. >> good morning. deputy director for finance and administration. i have an update to the administration code. the authorities administration code directs the authority with a method of appointment of employees and policy consisted of the authority's operations and management. the last of the administration code was in july 2007 -- the last review of the administration code. we made two changes to the administration code. the first, where you can see on page 12 of your packet, is related to the employee performance evaluation of the executive director conducted.

we would like to recommend a change that the executive director's performance evaluation take place on december 31 instead of july 1 of each year and where the recommendation should be for the prior 12 months instead of what the pack it indicates as the current year of the evaluation. this was a request made by share --chair mirkarimi in june. the other changes relate to consistency within the codes -- updating the date the actual committee and board meetings take place, and just a few updates to promote the consistency with in the documents. with that, i would like to seek a recommendation for the amendment of the administration code. commissioner mar: thank you. any questions? and we are joined by commissioner alioto-pier.

is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. moved and seconded without objection, colleagues. so it is approved. >> item 5, state and federal legislative update. this is an information/action item. >> good morning. just to put this into context, the legislature wrap up its regular session three weeks ago today. legislation that passed in the last week or so leading up to the last day was received by the governor. he is allowed until the end of september to deal with those bills. in his history, he has not let a bill become law without taking action. the other surprising information is that in the three weeks since it passed, he has only dealt with a few bills, and it was principally the lieutenant

governor who handled a couple of the bills. as you can imagine, there is a stockpile of several hundred bills on his desk that have to be dispensed between now and the end of the month at the same time they are going through off and on budget negotiations. it is kind of a difficult time in sacramento trying to get your voice heard on specific legislation. there is no new bills added, but some of the bills, by virtue of the legislative session having completed, have been dispensed with either one way or the other, either passage or failed passage. i wanted to update you on a couple of high-speed rail bills of note and some other bills of interest. in the transit of arena, there were essentially two bills worth note moving through. let me take a step back first. in the transportation policy arena, after the passage of the gas tax swap back in march, not a lot of heavy duty policy bills were advanced in the wake of that, so there's not a

sustainable amount of significant new policy year. speaker perez has a bill, which is on page 26, that would increase violations for weapons possession at transit facilities. this was a very closely watched bill. it did pass the legislature. it is on the governor's desk. the other bill of note, and maybe of interest in the future -- it does not relate directly affect san francisco, although it affects a transit carrier that travels to your city, ac transit -- sb 1830 as an administrative adjudication process in lieu of the process most transit agencies go through, and it streamlines the ability of the transit agency to get to closure on pending

violations, minor violations. in addition to adding ac transit as a couple of other transit agencies, i believe muni is already in the statutes with this authority, but we have ac transit now as well. in the high-speed rail area, there were at least 18 bills moving through the end of session, and only a couple actually made it through. probably the more interesting is 8619, on page one, and that would require prospective high- speed rail contractors to disclose whether they were ever involved in involuntary deportations in world war ii. it represents an area that has a lot of world war ii survivors that are concerned about some of the european companies building the high-speed rail system here. it is a very sensitive issue. there is a perjury process that

would be involved if the disclosure was not done appropriately, so we will see if the governor approves it still. sb 455 is probably the most highly watched high-speed rail bill. it does not do much. that is found on page 10. the bill simply subjects gubernatorial appointees of the high-speed rail authority to senate advice and consent. i'm thinking that this governor will not sign that bill, so we will see. it is hard to take away discretion from the governor unless you have discretion. it did pass legislature and is on the governor's desk. interesting bill that emerged toward the end of session is sb 1371, found on page 16. that allows prop 1a, the high- speed rail bond, the preliminary category where there is a former -- formal distribution to

provide connectivity to high- speed rail systems when eventually develop. this would allow a community to advance on projects with the prospect of later being paid back when the bonds are sold. this deals with the gap between if you have a late budget and do not have the ability to put a marker for bonds, it allows if the project is ready, for the local agency to move forward with that project and have the prospect of being paid. on behalf of another client, i'm anxiously trying to get this signed by tomorrow because the commission is trying to move forward on this. this is right now high on my list to get done. that is pretty much it for the high-speed rail. there were a couple of other ones. i will not mention the ones that failed because they were watered down as they got toward the end of session and just failed to move through. there are several other bills we watched carefully through the year for you. ab 744 found on page two, dealt

with mtc's hotline program. they pretty much abandoned that bill midway through this year, and that did it fail passage. they will be pursuing that funny, scaled-back -- they will be pursuing that funding. ab 987 passed through, and that deals with transit village and expands the radius of the area of improvement within the transit village from a quarter mile of the parcel to half a mile. a little more flexibility for transit village development. your other local members has been very active, mr. amiano, pushing the bill that would kill -- pushing the bill that would

deal with right turns, pushing the mechanism there. that did pass handily. we do not expect problems because i think he worked out his issues with the state and highway patrol. the other bill we watched, ever since it has been introduced, ultimately did failed passage -- fail passage, but having said that, we have all suspected that some flexibility will ultimately play itself out in the budget, although sb 10, as a vehicle, is no longer available. the constant may still find its way into the budget process. >> but more likely not, that money is not going to go to the county. is going to go through the state. if it does work its way up, that money is more likely to go through the state. >> i think that likely as well. probably under realignment, yes.

senator jaime carried a bill that may have to import to this agency, that started off a little more rigorous in what it tried to do. this is sb 474 on page 10. by the time it made its way through, the opposition have watered the bill down to a somewhat acceptable position. this bill requires p-3 project sponsors, after they have approved a contract, to adopt a resolution defining the goals for the project, so at the future date, you will have some metrics to put back and see whether the metrics or goals were met or not. it started as a much more rigorous bill, and was thought to be a way to thwart p-3