ramos. i am a member of the san francisco transit riders union, which is a new organization, and the reason i am excited about the organization, which joel is also a member of, is it tries to put together a group of citizens to help get over the problems we have. we are passionate about public transit and very interested in transit first, but we recognize there are issues in our transit system. i want to talk about two things today. we have only had one meeting so far, and i think we were both nominated at the same time, but he is extremely knowledgeable about transit issues, and i think that's he will bring the wealth of knowledge he has to the mta as well. second, i do not have a car. i do have two children. my youngest learned to read

going out to the school and back. i really appreciate the idea that you actually can be a family in san francisco and ride public transit. it does take a little extra push, and, yes, it is getting very expensive for families, so i appreciate the idea that public transit is not just for a certain group of individuals. it should be for everybody. that is the idea. the last thing i wanted to say is that we have -- i think it is nice that we embrace safe, diving, an inclusive, which is also our model for the neighborhood in the lower haight in the sense that safety is for pedestrians, for writers, and pedestrians -- for pedestrians, and for riders. i am pleased to be here to

support the nomination. thank you. >> hello, good afternoon, supervisors. in the community planning manager at chinatown cdc -- i am the community planning manager. i think the whole spectrum of transit improvements, also including recent advocacy for the central subway -- i really want to talk today about how we support jolt -- joel as a transportation justice advocate at how our communities of color are really the ones writing transit. in chinatown, over 80% of families do not own cars, not necessarily by choice, but by necessity that they need the transit system to get to work, to get to doctors of what it's come to see their family that lived in other neighborhoods,

and really commend the mayor and sfmta to give these communities a chance to speak for themselves, to make decisions about what kind of transit they have access to, what their neighborhoods look like in terms of crosswalks, traffic lights, all of that, and to really have time for there to be really dedicated outreach to these communities. i think a little bit of need for creative thinking about how to do it and appreciate, hopefully, working with him in the future on these issues. supervisor kim: thank you. >> hello. i have been a transit advocate for the last couple of years and just wanted to come forward as a member of also the transit riders union, until the zero weeks ago, we voted to endorse joel's candidacy -- two weeks

ago, we voted to endorse his candidacy. he is really well spoken about transit, i just wanted to -- sorry, thank you. supervisor kim: thank you very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am very pleased to bring you our support for joel ramos and his appointment to the mta board of directors. i want to thank the mayor for what we think is a really great combination, shaping up to be stronger and getting some great work done. joel is the real deal. you are hearing that. he is a transit advocate and transit lover, a champion for equity and social justice. he is very qualified to join the supporting body and led his intelligence to it. i have personally worked with him on a number of matters and always been deeply impressed, but not just as smart and strong advocacy, not just his

commitment and diligence, but his skills as a team member and a coalition builder, and the great respect he earns from even those who may disagree with whatever the policy particular is maybe at hand. again, we are very excited to see this nomination come forward. we hope you will support it, and again, we are really excited to see the mta board itself become stronger, more involved, and really, a more capable body. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> hello. i am executive director of walk san francisco. our city's charter says the san francisco is a pedestrian first city, but with 800 people a year are hit by cars and three people killed in four days last march, we have clearly not reached that goal of pedestrian priority.

with that in mind, we are pleased to support joel ramos and his candidacy for the mta commission. mta is the agency most responsible, among many, for the safety and walk ability of our streets. there has been a tremendous amount of attention to pedestrian safety and, i think, supervisor kim among others who paid a lot of attention to this recently, and the appointment of joel ramos to this board could be a step forward in making the real change we need, translating the synergy into real change for our streets. we feel confident that joel ramos will speak up for sustainable streets, and we also know he will speak up for underserved communities to face a disproportionate risk of being hit by cars on our streets while walking and who depend most on transportation and on walking,

so we urge you to make joel ramos the newest member of mta's commission. thank you. >> madam chair, fellow supervisors, i am with the san francisco transit riders union. rather than reiterate what has already been said, i want to just hit on one point in particular, and that is the importance of having someone on the board vote actually write strands it -- someone on the board who actually rides transit. a lot of times, i hear people bragging about how they ride muni sometimes as often as four times a week. that really bugs me. i feel like you need to really understand the issues. the transit in washington, d.c., is just light years ahead of what we have here. we really are a world-class city, but not when it comes to transit.

i have spoken many times about this, and he has great ideas. he understands the connections between transit and land use and how also things like pedestrian safety play into the whole picture of having walkable communities where everyone can really have a neighborhood. so i would definitely encourage you to confirm his nomination. he would be a great addition to the board and can really bring that transit riders perspective. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is now close. ok, we have a motion to move forward with positive recommendation to the full board without any opposition. mr. ramos, again, congratulations on your nomination. i was very impressed when i met with you for your background and also for your excitement on serving on a challenging board

of directors with a lot of very important issues at the majority of san franciscans care deeply about, so we appreciate your willingness to serve on the committee, and i look forward to working with you, so we move this forward to the full board. thank you. so. please call item 3. >> hearing to consider appointing one member, a term ending march 20, 2012, to the pedestrian safety advisory committee. there is one seat and one applicant. supervisor kim: thank you. i believe mr. frausto is here today. if you could spend a couple of minutes introducing yourself and your background and your interest in serving. >> absolutely. first, thank you very much. to the other members of the border supervisors, i appreciate given the top -- being given the time an opportunity today to express my aspiration to being

part of the committee. i am currently a member of the board of directors of walk san francisco, the largest pedestrian advocacy group in san francisco. i also worked as an emergency medicine physician at highland hospital. it is essentially the same type of hospital. we focus on primarily underserved communities, and unfortunately, as a worker in the emergency room there, i constantly have to treat injuries that are suffered as pedestrians on a daily basis. as a resident of san francisco, i am committed to helping improve the safety of our streets and reducing the overall number of injuries and deaths that occur to pedestrians. i ask that you consider me to represent a pedestrian advocacy organization. i believe that my background in

medicine and public health and my involvement through walk sf could be a big benefit. i have become very familiar with the community's work and also with the numerous recommendations to the board of supervisors. i am also aware of the mayor's directive on pedestrian safety and would very much like to get involved in moving that forward as well. again, thank you very much for your consideration, and i'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. supervisor kim: thank you, and i'm sorry, doctor. are there any questions? at this time, i will open up for public comment. >> walk san francisco. not surprisingly, we are pleased to support kenneth frausto's

application. he is a strong advocate for safer, healthier streets, especially for the seniors, the low income people, and the people of color who are most at risk on our streets. we strongly support kenneth as an excellent candidate for this committee and a conscientious and committed advocate for pedestrians in san francisco, which, after all, is all of us because we are all pedestrians. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. thank you so much for applying. as i mentioned, this is a really important issue for our office, so it is great to have really engaged committee members. i know there is a meeting next wednesday. maybe we could move forward as a committee report so we could have you start next week. so impressed that i did not have any questions. i think it would be great to have a position on board who gets to interface with many of the victims and injuries in

hospital. i think it is an import the perspective do have. so i'm happy to support you serve on this committee. any other comments? >> i'm sorry, supervisor, in order to move this forward as a committee report, we have to have a request supporting that. supervisor kim: ok, so, we will not be able to do that then. my apologies. you will still be able to attend the meeting, but not as a member. we have a motion to move forward with positive recommendation to the full board. so moved. thank you. madam clerk, can you please call item four? >> item four, hearing to consider appointing one member, a term ending october 19, 2011, to the eastern neighborhood citizens advisory committee. there is one seat and one applicant. supervisor kim: thank you. is mr. conde -- mr. grande here?

yes. thank you so much for being here. again, if you could talk briefly about your background, your interest in serving our eastern neighborhoods cac. >> sure. good afternoon, supervisors. let me tell you a little bit about myself and by i am really interested in wanting to be part of the eastern neighborhood cac. my background or my roots in the city go way back from working class blue-collar -- my family of immigrants got their start in the ne mission, right across from the levi plant. my roots are in the mission. like many immigrant families, we later moved to the excelsior district where housing prices were a little bit more accessible, and we did plan our roots there. but ne mission, my brother grew up in jamestown.

i'm telling you all this because a lot of this really shapes my world view, shapes how i view and interact with my city, and i love my city. and also, as a homeowner, i look at it as a collective homeowner because i own my home with my brother, with michael w. sisters and my parents, which is probably the only way to do it in san francisco, but i think that gives me a unique perspective, and also, just my upbringing in the city and really recognizing the city-wide mosaic. i went to sacred heart. i hope that will not be used against me, supervisors. but i state because as a blue- collar and moderate income school, i was exposed to communities that i would not have been if i was stuck in my community, and just my upbringing in the excelsior

district as a working-class community. similar to joel ramos, who we just heard from, and i'm so glad you guys are recommending, my focus has been of the latino community, on youth, on seniors. basically, on community that have not been represented throughout urban planning. development issues. i cut my teeth on helping develop the eastern neighborhood plan. i spent 10 years on it. got my first gray hair is while doing it. had four kids. so i feel like using my role is preparing and organizing people to take part in these opportunities. but i feel it is my turn, and i feel that i owe that to my city and to the people, the thousands of people that participated in developing the eastern neighborhoods plan. specifically to the constituents i work with in the mission district. we spent thousands of hours,

many, many nights, you know, breaking down of urban planning. what is an urban planning? when you talk to the professionals, they say every day people cannot understand these concepts, but we live these concepts every day. we just need to put it in popular terms. i feel i bring that perspective and experience of breaking down of urban planning policies, design ideas to youth, elders, spanish speakers. i have launched many participatory-based research project in the northeast mission where we are going out there with neighborhood residents, attracting a lot by lot what is there, what are its impacts. we spent many years developing ideas on how we bring affordable housing resources into the neighborhood. because my role here is i do not want to limit on the past and

what the mission was or continues to be. as always, a working-class entry point for immigrant residents, from throughout, from ireland, from spain, from mexico. i do not necessarily want to limit on that, but i want to move forward and how we uphold the eastern neighborhoods, guide it, adapt it? because we have a diverse community now, and everybody is clamoring for the same thing. maybe you got a little bit of money. maybe you are looking at open space. maybe you are looking at some other amenities. families i work with, living in sro hotels, living in cramped apartments -- my role is to bring that voice forward because there is a lot of -- there could be potentially a lot of unity, once you get past all the stuff and all the drama, and i think we are all clamoring for the same thing, for the best

neighborhood, for a healthy neighborhood, a sustainable neighborhood from here on forward. supervisor kim: thank you. are there any questions for the applicant? supervisor elsbernd: you told us where you went to high school. we do good grade school? >> corpus christi. though, buccaneers -- go, buccaneers. supervisor kim: any other substantive questions for our -- [laughter] -- for our applicant today. thank you so much. very familiar with your work. thank you for the work you do as an applicant for our community. at this time, we will open up for public comment. please line up. two minutes please. >> madam chair, supervisors, good afternoon. i have attended more than my

share of eastern neighborhood cac meetings. it is unfortunate that there is not a lot of passion on that cac for their neighborhood plans because the community really had nothing to do with writing those plans. they show no ownership, so they are basically obsessed with deciding how to spend money, and it is money that they do not have. i have gotten to know oscar very well through the trailing years of the eastern neighborhoods process where we desperately try to put people back into the planning process, and i would like to wholeheartedly support his nomination to the eastern neighborhood cac, so that he can bring some passion to that group. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you.

>> good afternoon. i have lived in san francisco for 59 years. listening to mr. grande speak, i feel it is obvious he is well qualified. anyone who has done what he has done is obviously committed to the neighborhood. obviously, the reason why i'm speaking for him is i am also a graduate of sacred heart class of 1970, and i would also like to mention that since he graduated from corpus christi, corpus christi was also the site of that very important service for mr. oscar giminez, who also graduated with the class of 1970, and i think replacing one oscar with another is good for that neighborhood. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed.

thank you so much for being here today and also for your willingness to serve on this committee. i know it has been a very challenging committee to serve on. you have big shoes to fill. as you replace another great advocate. thank you so much for your willingness to serve. any other comments? we have a motion to move forward this item with a positive recommendation to the full board, and that is without objection. thank you. madam clerk, can you please call item five? that item five, hearing to consider appointing one member, a term ending march 31, 2013, to the commission on the aging advisory council. there is one seat and one applicant. supervisor kim: thank you. is ms. halee -- haile here? thank you. same format. if you could spend a couple of minutes telling us about your background and your interest on continuing to serve. thank you so much for your

service already on multiple commissions for the city of san francisco. >> thank you. in my experience, i worked in senior agencies in chinatown, self-help for the elderly, and the tenderloin. so i say my two main interests are aging and immigrants. i am on the immigrants rights commission. in aging, there seems to be no end of stuff to do this year. the advisory council is mandated by the older american debt, and we have certain things we have to do like review the area plan. we have to also select california's senior legislator -- legislature representatives from the city, but we find other things we need to do, too.

currently, and chair of the legislative committee, and i have tried to avoid being chair of anything since i retired, not wanting to conflict with anything else, but nobody would do this, and people kept saying, "well, why don't you?" there are so many legal issues affecting seniors this year that i feel it would be important to stay on. we are faced with reductions again in social security, and in ssi. there are 45,000 people in san francisco who are on sso, -- ssi, and it is about half people who are elderly and have people with disabilities. with the possibility of service is being reduced, and the state has already said they are going to eliminate adult day care, we feel we have an extra amount to do. i had been in sacramento twice this month, which i do not like to do.

but one was on the domestic workers rights bill, and many seniors need domestic workers to stay in their own homes. so that is important to them. and on the other economic security index that would give a more reasonable basis for the income needs of senior citizens. san francisco has already approved this, but it has been a problem to get the state to approve a so that we have some indicator beyond the poverty index, which is pretty outdated, especially if you live in san francisco. so i want to continue to work on those and a number of other things in the years coming up, and i always enjoy being on this advisory council because i can go around and visit agencies. now that i have become a senior, i go to senior meals program, and that is where i discovered

how awful the muni fare increase was going to be for seniors. everyone i went to said, "no, no, i do not do it again." so we helped organize the opposition that got the second fare increase for seniors ended. so you will have to keep watching all the time. supervisor kim: thank you so much. and you have already touched on some of these already, but what do you view as some of the pressing issues for the senior community in san francisco this year? >> i think the income and cuts that are going to force people back into isolation -- that is especially worrisome. you may say that you did not see any effect, and they do not die right away. but you may notice that people do not come out as much, and they did not do as much. we have a lot of elderly who

live alone in san francisco. not everybody is with a family. only about 40% of the seniors in the city are with a family. so i think we need to kind of have a way to deal with them to cushion some of that. supervisor kim: thank you. any questions from my colleagues? seeing none, thank you so much. we will now open up for public comment on this item. there is no public comment. public comment is now closed. thank you again so much for your continued service. and advocacy for our senior community here in san francisco. i know you serve on multiple committees and commissions and have dedicated your career to advocating for community, so i look forward to supporting you again for the commission on aging advisory council. thank you. so there is a motion to move forward this recommendation -- a

move forward this item with positive recommendation to the full board without opposition. thank you. can you please call item 6? >> item 6, hearing to consider appointing three members, terms ending october 21, 2014, to the local homeless coordinating board. there are three seats and three applicants. supervisor kim: thank you. i believe all three applicants are here today. could you please come up in the order you are listed on the agenda? first, we have windy phillips -- wendy phillips. same format. you could talk about your interest and experience. >> thank you. i work at a community-based organization in the mission, and i have been a member of the local homeless coordinating board for the last three and a half years. i am very interested in continuing my service on the board. i have been involved in homeless services, supportive

housing services, as well as advocacy for folks who are homeless and low-income in san francisco, for many years. about 10 years. started as a volunteer with the coalition on homelessness. i also was an intern with the local homeless coordinating board when i was in graduate school and then have done everything from doing tenant organizing in sro hotels to direct services, and i am very interested in continuing to be involved in the policy aspect of things. i feel that my last three years have helped me understand the federal picture and how the local interact with it and how important it is for us to continue to advocate for services for the most needy folks in our city, so i appreciate your time and consideration. supervisor kim: could we next supervisor kim: could we next have kim armbruster?