move on to item 10, which is review and approval of the minutes of the august 18, 2010 meeting. the minutes are approved. >> we are now on item 12. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices, and procedures, which are of interest to the commission. i'm going to bring up one that commissioner murphy had asked for for this meeting, and he needed to give the department time to be able to put the information together, and he

wanted a 90-day compilation of how many complaints we get and how many of those are anonymous, and how many of those anonymous ones are bogus complaints. that is he specific, or throughout the apartment? >> he had asked specifically for housing, but i do not know if he would want to include those. he was concerned about how many anonymous complaints we get. i can clarify with him exactly, if you won. >> if you could clarify it is just one division or two or five. what is the most interested? because the records are all in different places.

>> having a reference to the fact that some of the complaints come in, based on the bedbugs, that are separate from housing specific that have bedbugs. so we narrow down the target. >> right, i think rose mary provided that information already, but i will get it again. >> ok, great. >> are there any other inquiries to staff? item 12 is future meetings and agendas. i sent everybody an e-mail to let you know that we do need to hear the budget twice before it can be sent to the mayor's office board of supervisors, and i heard back from most of you that you are available on february 3, i believe, which is a thursday at 9:00. >> do we have a room for that already? >> right here in room 416.

9:00. and then we will have our regular meeting in february, which will be the second hearing, and it is also important that everyone attend the meeting because we do need five members to approve the budget. >> on that note, are we still trying to target the joint meeting with planning? >> we are trying to target a joint meeting with planning and the small business administration. >> is this separately or together? >> separately. >> two different meetings, or one meeting? >> one combine meeting. i think. mel had asked for one combined meeting, but i will check with him again. >> kansas clarify, it is february 3 at 9:00 in this room? >> yes.

-- can i just clarify. >> any public comments or other comments on item 12? seeing none, we can move to item 13, which is an adjournment. >> move to adjourn. >> second. >> we are now adjourned.

secretary boomer: director beach? director beach: present. [no audio] chair nolan: we are glad to have

our new member. we are delighted. director: good afternoon. i would like to thank former mayor gavin newsom for his nomination and for the board of supervisors' vote of confidence in me. i am thrilled to serve the citizens of san francisco. i am very passionate. i love the city. and it forward to working with getting to know the workers here for the entire agency, so i am excited and thrilled, and i cannot wait to get started. chair nolan: we are delighted to have you with us. ms. boomer, item 3? secretary boomer: we do not

allowed to have cell phone devices. please note that they cause disturbance when they are on vibrate. some items from the agenda have been removed at the request of staff. the first one is item 13, with regard to s.f. mda -- sfmta, non-sfmta vehicles parking on the property, and the next is item 17, of the contract and management of parking facilities. those two items are off of the agenda, but and moving on, item six, introduction of new or unfinished business by board members. chair nolan: members of the

board? director brinkman? director brinkman: chair nolan brought up something we talked about very, very briefly at the beginning of the meeting, and at that -- since that time, a former mayor newsom's office put out something concerning increasing items pertaining to safety. i just wanted to let everybody know that since we last talked about pet safety, that has happened, and now we have to get our heads around it and figure out how we work with the other city departments on those goals. >> it is our plan to bring before the board and one of your upcoming meetings -- i think it may be the february 15 workshop that you're being polled for right now to have a lengthy discussion about pedestrian

safety in terms of what is currently happening in the city, what are the mta's plans, and from the executive director, how we see moving forward, and we welcome your input in that process. chair nolan: bit -- secretary boomer: -- i think the memo that was put together was compelling about some of the problems around the non-profit -- the non-mta vehicles parking, so i guess we can go and talk about that. >> in the closed session, i think we beloved of the discussion on that. chair nolan: anything else? secretary boomer: moving on is the executive director support

-- report. >> i believe there is a 6.1. secretary boomer: there is, the election of the sfmta board chairman. chair nolan: are there any nominations? >> it is my pleasure to nominate you again, despite the secretary's attempt to on nominate you. chair nolan: anyone else? any comment? ok, then in that case, we do have a nomination. all of those in favor, say aye. now, for vice chair, are there any nominations for vice chair?

director heinicke? director heinicke: yes, i would recommend that director lee state in the position. chair nolan: congratulations. thank you. ok, now, ms. boomer. secretary boomer: the executive director's report. director ford: we look forward to working with you in the future, so welcome aboard. the first item i need to bring before you is regarding our state budget and its impact on b.p. -- on the mta budget. jerry brown proposed his new

budget, which talk about fiscal year 2011-2012. they were facing an 18-month shortfall, and this proposed a wide range of spending cuts as well as extendingthe tax increases that are set to expire. as it relates to transportation, the proposal includes a reauthorization of last year's gas tax in order to protect funding sources for highways, local streets, and roads, and for transit. the gas tax must be approved and renewed by two-thirds of the vote due to the proposition 26. the package includes provisions to have bonded debt service and funding for the state transportation attempt and the state assistance program. under the proposed budget, $329 million, which would mean an estimated $30 million for the

sfmta. it also includes more in bond appropriations. the key to the budget is the two-thirds voter approval. there are several tax increases that are set to expire without that approval. these funds would support a realignment of some of the government services, for areas such as court security, mental health services, foster care, and child care. an election could be held as early as june. the budget also includes a controversial proposal to eliminate a redevelopment agencies and redirect so-called base property tax funds in fiscal year 2011 to the general fund. and then back to local jurisdictions for general funds support. local governments would be given a future opportunity to place these on the measures on the ballot to support infrastructure and economic

development projects. this proposal will not likely be in effect until 2011 -- 2012. we will continue to monitor the budget as it progresses, and we will keep you apprised of any developments or changes that will have an impact on the mta. any questions on the governor's budget? chair nolan: the $329 million, does the legislature put that on? is that how that works? director ford: that is a good question. i would like to turn to kate. >> are you talking about the extension of the taxes or the authorization? chair nolan: the $329 million. >> that is due to the reauthorization of the gas tax that was passed by the legislation last year, so none

of the things that are in the governor's budget relative to transportation can actually be fully effective until the gas tax is reauthorized, and as director ford said, and requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature, which is recommended in the governor's budget. chair nolan: ok. director ford: thank you very much, kate. the next item is concerning a presentation that was made concerning switchbacks, and in trustee -- an interesting thing. we will do switchbacks to try to get the system back on schedule in maintain our head winds, so, in fact, just to give a

perspective on this, hundreds of thousands of troops that we run over the course of a year, literally one half of 1% are ever switched back -- hundreds of thousands of trips. we try to manage debt and do that unless that is the only solution possible to restoring our service. the presentation that our head of transit operations presented to the board of supervisors committee, i would like him to come up and give the presentation at the board and give you an opportunity to extend -- and stand -- understand why we need to do it and about the actions in the future we may need to take to try to mitigate these, so i would like to turn over to our director of transit operations, john. hoyer --

that committee that we presented to was chaired by supervisor carmen chu, and we have had numerous meetings with your talking about these switchbacks. it was also attended by supervisor avalos, whose district is also impacted by these switchbacks, and john will walk you through why they occur, when they occur, and what time of day they occur. chair nolan: while we are getting ready, talking to supervisor carmen chu, while it is a small number, it is not a small thing at all to those it happens to.

trying to find a taxi late night. -- late at night. half -- director ford: we understand this is no small matter. we understand that any disruption, while it may be important in terms of balancing the system, it has a negative impact in terms of individuals. director haley: please feel free to stop me. in the meantime, i will go through this quickly. this is an introduction to the system, and all want to say is the our system impact is a mixture of surface and subway operation.

and some of the actions that we took it to improve that service, because when you run the best and most reliable service, you minimize the need to intervene and make service adjustments. as you can see, on this page, there is a dramatic drop. the point here is that the majority of switchbacks occur at certain times as we go to rebalance the line. as mr. ford mentioned, it is an industry practice. in our particular case, what options do we have proved our system, in its configuration, makes skipping stops or trains

and impractical, because we do not have, number one, express tracks, and in our system, unlike, say, a system with closed architecture, you cannot release get stops. reassigning trains simply is something that we do from time to time, but it ships the problem. stand by trains would be effected to a limited degree, but we would have to put them in a limited number on city streets, and finally, and do not make any adjustments at all, and we certainly believe that not intervening, especially now the we have the technology to do it, where subleasee the delay escalate -- will simply see the delay escalate. waiting to be coming inbound, and you had a delayed outbound, if you did not make an adjustment with a train, whether having a delay of 8 to 10 minutes, you would probably have a delay of twice that long, so

it is important to intervene, not only to minimize the particular delay but because we have the ability to better serve our riders. the decision to turn a trade is something we think about carefully. it is coordinated with centers, do not turn a train unless there is someone behind it. when we turn trains, how return trains, and when we make the decision to return trains. kraft -- this is a map that

comes out of one program. it is difficult to see at sunset, on the far end of that, where the ridership is very low, and at the same time, by turning the train, which benefited people in the other direction.

these all match, and now, with the reprogramming, we have the ability to give people lead time so that we know we are going to turn a train. if we make no initial announcement. the announcements as early as the embarcadero station, and, again, we will not turn trains unless there is five minutes behind us, so, again, with this practice, we feel it is necessary, and we are trying to run the most reliable service we can, and that means using

service management techniques that are available to us to make an adjustment. just under 50% of the delays were caused by factors that were not nearly related, such as travel, accidents on the street, cars on the rail, those kinds of things, so you're dealing with those, in switchbacks are a technique that are available to us when the others are not. we have to look at our own practices. also, we need to look at the

greater use of parking enforcement, transit lanes, and some of the issues that we've been talking about. chair nolan: thank you. members of the board? director beach? director beach: i just wanted to say that i attended a meeting along with supervisor chu, director haley, and others, in the concern is that they had concerns. the switch that issue is not limited to the rail lines. we do this on line struck the city. it certainly seems to have had more attention given to it on the rail lines, and in the case of supervisor avalos, he is concerned about one reaching the

end of the mine. i think we need to give him the time to take a look at this. one of the things that was mentioned in the meeting with supervisor chu was the ability to use stand by trains or stand by buses, and i pointed out that we would probably not have the resources to do this for probably a fair amount of time to come. chair nolan: thank you, director beach. these are not new, right? director haley: we tested these in september, so that gives us a neutral, if you will, to resolve a complaint, so we are

not consistent and clear with the announcements, so we need to try to correct that as well with falling bond with additional instructions to make sure they supplement the announcements. chair nolan: it seems to me that since two supervisors have asked about it and are concerned about it and could be significantly inconvenienced, i think it would be good to have a report back in a few months. supervisor chu had suggested of taking the absolute number and having a goal of having it or something like that. >> yes, i think john hit the nail on the head when he said that the more reliable system is, at least for the newly- created issues right now, the less we of needs for switchbacks -- at least 40 -- for the muni- created issues.

john was also working to see that if we have a switch back, we're is it? -- where is it? this will minimize the impact. >> i have been to command central, so i have seen the great screens, but for the benefit of the public, can you confirm, mr. haley, that the people issuing the turn back can tell where the next train is, and they can see if there is a train five minutes back? or the begin see where a train was turned back where it was not five minutes behind it? director haley: it is beginning to get dividends to activate the center.

they work in tandem with the control center on the street, so depending on where the delay is and how long it is, they made a decision, and the benefit of what is in the management system, whenever you make an adjustment, it has an effect on the entire system in both directions, and you can balance it, so that is something that gives us -- again, we do not get up in the morning and say we're going to have tens switchbacks. this is a technique to make adjustments to serve us. chair nolan: anyone else? director? director: i understand the idea of the advance notice vacation, so why do we not have what