probably one of the most proficient workforces, technologically proficient workforces on the planet and it's a travesty that we're underleveraging that workforce, not providing high-speed access. that's what i'd like to see and as a constituent of one, i've told the folks at at&t i'm willing to mobilize the 399 other folks on my grid so scott, when you say you want people to bring on an argument, i'll bring it on because i want uverse in my neighborhood. >> mary liz de young and i live out in the avenues. one of the things i missed most when i said goodbye to the cable company and got my satellite dish which is i don't have public, educational and government channels. i'm sure you miss the fact that my franchise fee isn't coming to the city but i've enjoyed

listening to this public government action and by having uverse, i'll be able to do it again because the peg channels play on the at&t but they don't come on satellite. so, yet again, another reason to get uverse as an option for san francisco citizens. thank you. >> good evening, my name is eric batteauxbahoe. 40 years ago i was an immigrant to this country from the philippines and i was fortunate to land in san francisco. many opportunities have opened up for me and i believe for today's immigrants, the young immigrants to this country, technology, access to technology would provide them the best opportunity and it's hard for me to believe that san francisco would deny that, especially for a city that has a large

immigrant population, so i encourage you to consider allowing at&t to provide that opportunity to allow technology to be useful for our young immigrants. thank you. >> good evening, i'm terry knight, an employee of at&t. i'm a uverse technician. i know the aesthetics has been an issue and there's been a conversation but i've seen far worse things in san francisco streets since i've been working over here. the boxes are there, you can barely see them. the graffiti, you have graffiti everywhere and as a lot of people have stated, it would bring jobs to the city, taxes to the city. it would bring a lot of good things to the cities of san francisco and one of the biggest things it would bring would be a good competition between comcast and at&t. but i believe at&t will rise above and will offer a lot for

other people. you go out and buy a car, you have a lot of cars to choose from, not just one. this opens the door for people to have more than one choice. thank you. [applause] president chiu: are there any other members of the public that wish to speak in support of at&t? at this time, why don't we hear back from the appellate who shall have up to three minutes for a presentation. >> hello, again, susan brand holly for the appellates. getting back to the question before this board, which is whether the categorical exemption is supportable, we all agree that a key question is presented by the exceptions to categorical exemptions, so basically, the class -- without parsing class three, it's not applicable if there's a fair argument before you that the

cumulative impact of successive projects of the same type in the same place over time may be significant. so that's really the question before you. your staff told you that cumulative impacts, after a question i think from supervisor kim, that the cumulative impacts, you only look at the present project and future foreseeable projects and that's not really the standard. ceqa guidelines section 15355 provides that cumulative impacts are defined as the incremental impact of a project when added to closely related past, present and reasonably foreseeable similar projects so that even individually minor projects can become significant, so it's true, you have to look at the existing street furniture in the right-of-way, the other boxes, the other problems with graffiti, and the cumulative impacts. you've heard from your staff, they don't know how many there

are currently present so how can you assess whether they'll be cumulative impact from the addition of 726 additional. i -- the person sitting behind me, lawrence rosenfeld, gave me a map. he spoke to you today and he's here to confirm what i'm saying, that he met with the at&t representatives in the last week and they showed him locations of two potential sites in one block so there's at least one situation and we can only surmise there may be many, many others in which they are going to place or propose to place two of these new utility boxes on one street which staff said it was not aware of. the question before you is not whether your staff has a reasonable opinion that there may not be significant impacts, but whether there's a fair argument before you, and i'd be delighted if i was asked a question about the case law on the fair argument standard as it relates to aesthetics, general plan and consistency or pedestrian safety. but clearly, if there's any

reasonable opinions based on facts, which can be the person's location in san francisco, their knowledge of the current situation with these boxes and opinions, subjective opinions about what it might mean, that's sufficient. beyond that, i think you have in your packets, planning commissioner miguel has given you an opinion about massive impacts from this project. you have former supervisor mcgoldrick who spoke to you and many supervisors tonight, if any of you presents a fact-base opinion about the impacts, that meets the fair argument standard. any questions? president chiu: colleagues, any questions to appellate's counsel? o.k. at this time, colleagues, unless there are any other questions to any of the parties involved in today's hearing, this hearing has been held and is closed. supervisor wiener?

commissioner wiener: thank you, mr. president. i first want to thank everyone who took the time to come out today and for those who were here earlier and couldn't stick around, and i say this at every hearing, but it's true, that you-all have things to do in your life and jobs and families and t.v. shows to watch on comcast and i do -- it shows a commitment to the city, with everyone's opinion, that you spent many hours here today. as i've learned and as i know my colleagues have learned recently, there are unbelievably strong opinions on both sides of this issue. and it's a really -- seems like a really big divide but i think the divide actually is not as big as it might seem. i think there's probably broad

agreement that we want this technology in san francisco. but i think it's pretty darn important that we have it here as competition to comcast as a new product. and i think there's also broad consensus that we don't want blight on our sidewalks. so if this is going to happen and, you know, the reason i was asking the questions about state law is, it's really unclear to me that even if we unanimously wanted to stop this that we even could stop it, and i haven't really heard anyone dispute that. the appellates really didn't present even an argument that we can definitively kill this even if we wanted to do that. so i think a good outcome -- and i was very, very interested to hear what at&t had to say about

the permitting process that i had not really heard it at that level of detail before, and if that's real, if there is going to be true community participation so that people who want it can get it and neighborhoods that don't want it don't get it and that neighborhoods that want it but want to control where it's going to go are able to do that, if that is real, then that could be a very good resolution. but i think that at this point it's unclear to me that that process -- how that process would work and how real it would be. so i would like -- i do move to continue this matter for four weeks and the clerk can let us know when that date is and if it's a bad date, so that we can give ourselves time to work with at&t, to work with others who

are interested, the appellates, anyone else, to make sure that the protocols around these installations and the locations would actually be strong enough so that we don't just have to rely on at&t's word that communities would be respected and so that would be my motion. i don't know if the four weeks is a good -- if that's a good -- president chiu: four weeks would be the day that park merced lands back here so we could do it that day or five weeks to june 7. commissioner wiener: why don't we say june 7. president chiu: that's also

treasure island? i thought treasure island hits. commissioner wiener: three weeks might be sufficient. president chiu: i got to tell you, every week is looking super busy. there are four special orders on may 17. we don't have any good dates. i would suggest may 24, four weeks, unless people think we can get it done earlier. commissioner wiener: that's fine. that's my motion. president chiu: is there a second? seconded by supervisor campos. colleagues, any further discussion? supervisor mirkarimi?

supervisor mirkarimi: i support supervisor wiener's motion and we haven't had a chance to do this but i want to extend a compliment to at&t because there was only three of us on the board then when this came before us a little more than two years ago and there had been a dramatic shift in at&t's demonstration of outreach to neighborhoods throughout the city and county of san francisco, a much better, i think, effort had been extended over the last couple of years. that's noticed, even with neighborhood groups that i know are opposed to this as well as groups that didn't even really know or care about it had been touched by at&t. and i appreciate that effort very, very much. but i also want to say, in recognition of the fact that the city still plays it safe and will continue to do so most likely on questions of cumulative impacts and while that may not be as relevant to

this particular thread of discussion, i think that the best possible option that we have here is, i think, an option of working with at&t nord get them to have enforceable protocols so that if there are neighborhood groups or swaths of san francisco who do not want these boxes that somehow there has to be some obligating mechanism to make sure that is respected. otherwise, this is all just sort of a blind-faith discussion and i'm afraid it would almost be completely unenforceable. so along those lines, supervisor wiener hits the nail on the head for a few who are concerned about a lot of gestures that may not amount to the kind of deliverables we would like. president chiu: supervisor elsbernd? supervisor elsbernd: thank you, mr. president, and i appreciate the desire to continue and try to find common ground. that said, i find myself in a

place of really trying to do what we're supposed to do here which is simply interpret ceqa and the issues in and around ceqa i think are crystal clear at this point. the issues desired for discussion over the next few weeks are unrelated to ceqa and unrelated to whether or not the categorical exemption should apply so while i wish everyone luck in their discussions over the next three weeks, i'm ready to vote on the categorical exemption and affirming the application of the catax today. i don't think there is need for continuance. president chiu: further comments? >> i want to present a slightly different perspective. i have to say i'm still undecided with regards to the ceqa issues. i do think there has been a lot of question on what cumulative

impact is, whether this fits into a class three category, and i do understand and appreciate, though that, where we are, i think, many of our colleagues feel that the either/or decision we could be faced with right now is not where we want to go in that we all know we want to build a 21st century technological infrastructure and we all know we want a beautiful city and if there are things we could do in the next couple of weeks to move that forward, i would be happy to be part of that conversation. i think supervisor wiener articulated one issue around ensuring there is a neighborhood-based process that respects our neighborhoods. i also think there have been issues around ensuring that we're maintaining the existing right-of-way infrastructure and questions that have been raised about past providers and historic performance in being able to address this and i want to make sure some of those issues are dealt with but we have a couple of weeks hopefully to resolve this in a way that i

do hope we'll be able to capture all of these different interests but clearly to members of the public, there is a wide diversity of opinion on i think what we think of this appeal and what we think of this broader issue and i want to thank all of the members of the public and i want to thank at&t for your tremendous patience in this very long hearing and in working with members of the board in the coming weeks to hopefully see some good resolution by april 24 -- i'm sorry, may 24. so with that, colleagues, do we need a roll call vote on the motion to continue? roll call vote, please. madam clerk: supervisor chu? aye, cohen, ii, elsbernd, no. farrell, aye, kim, aye, supervisor mar, mar, aye,

supervisor mirkarimi, mirkarimi, aye, supervisor wiener, wiener, aye, supervisor avalos, his avalos, aye, supervisor campos, campos aye, president chiu, chiu, aye. there are 10 aye's and one no. president chiu: motion to continue passes. madam clerk, are there any in themmiums today? madam clerk: today's meeting will be adjourned in memory of the following individual on behalf of supervisor campos on behalf of the late sandra ravety chiu ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned.

>> welcome to culture wire. the city rolls of the red carpet to host the international film festival. the actors, directors, and others in among luminaries around the globe.

we will get a sneak peek of this year's exciting program. >> welcome to "culture wire." in april, the 50 forces and francisco international film festival will be taking place. joining me to talk about the programming is the director of programming for the san francisco film festival. rachel, welcome to "culture wire." i look forward to this every year. my first question is, what will be the opening night film? >> we have a terrific film for opening night. it is called a beginners and as

an american independent film that stars ewan mcgregor and christopher plumber. >> what kind of music is that? >> house music. >> it is a hard to describe story with a lot of humor and heart. >> what are the other highlights? >> there are so many great films. it is hard to pick out the favorites. we have over 200 films and the festival. we have some other wonderful american independent films like the centerpiece premier that stars john c. reilly. including the closing nine film that really shows the crossroads of internationalism

that the festival. >> it is not just about the two weeks of the festival. you guys also run really fascinating programs for the bay area. >> really don't stopped screening films. we have a series of festivals in the fall for the fall season. and we often do week-long runs at theaters around the bay area so that people who want to see the kind of films that we show at the festival can see them all year long. and we have a wonderful filmmaker services department. we can provide fiscal sponsorship and a lot of great advice. finally, we have a really robust education department. people that want to learn about filmmaking can take some of our

fantastic glasses. >> one of the things that impresses me about the film festival is sort of the impact that it has. i know you guys are the longest running film festival in the americas. >> it was always a great festival for the city of san francisco, so our constituents are the people of san francisco. we want to do what we can to reach out to as many kinds of populations as we can. one way we do that is by bringing in guests. that is one of the things that makes a festival exciting. not only do get to see films that you might not otherwise see, but you can meet a director or an actor and hear about their prospective making the film. the one thing that i always like to tell people who have never been to a film festival before

is that it can sometimes seem daunting from the outside because he will pick up the program guide and it has 100 name movies and seems a bit hard to navigate in the beginning. but it is really worth it as you know from coming. the atmosphere in december, the interaction with other guests, the films themselves make it a great couple of weeks. >> it is important to participate and take advantage of this treasure trove of films from how many countries? >> is usually between 40 and 50 countries. >> it is an impressive range of filmmakers and the national perspectives that gets represented in the film festival. thank you for bringing this festival to san francisco every

year.