about this. there are real, substantial reasons about it. >> absolutely. as i said, it has been the number-one priority for these 10-year capital plans for some time. right now, we have a situation where we have of a deficient building housing prisoners in our jails. if we were to have a major earthquake, that building would likely -- or it is possible -- the building would become unusable. then we would be in a situation more we would have to make internal accommodations for those prisoners. it is a large jail. we would be left with a time with no facility where we would have to reconstruct or construct a new facility in the aftermath of an earthquake. from a planning perspective, not replacing the hall of justice is generally viewed by the city as

a large risk financially, but in terms of not having an alternative place to house prisoners, and also to force ourselves into a situation where we have to rebuild for an earthquake and not in preparation for an earthquake. on the question about voter approval of bonds, there are a couple of nuances for that question. when we asked voters to approve the gao bond, we are asking them, do you want to do this project? and another question is are you willing to make a marginal increase a senior property tax rate to pay for it? when voters declined to approve a gao bond, i think there are two ways to interpret the results. one is, i don't want the project. the other is, yes, i want the project, but i do not want to

pay for it out of my existing taxes. we do not necessarily get a clearer assessment of which category their response falls into. i think that being said, is our responsibility to communicate to the voters cases in which we absolutely have no -- we have a very significant legal or financial reason we need to complete these projects and in cases where it does fall to the city, i think we have to clearly communicate about what that means to have been. if we are unable to secure gao bond support, we need to look at that. supervisor farrell: do we ever articulate as a policy matter,

as a policy matter the city and county has decided this is something we need to do and this is not approved, our borrowing expenses will go up five x, because we're going to have to use c.o.p.'s, and that is what you are also voting on? >> yes. ben is reminding me he was part of the conversation on san bruno, and i think that is something we can probably do better. it is also a complicated message when you're talking about communication about a bond measure that most people are not spending a significant amount of time on. " we've tried to do as part of the capital plan is to do a better job -- what we have tried to do as part of a capital plan is to do a better job communicating, to look at the capital plan, to be more up front about some of the analysis about the trade-offs, what the

costs are through her a gao bond, what the costs are if we do nothing. i take your point. we could do a better job in this case is about been very explicit what the trade-offs are for gao bonds versus c.o.p. >> on this question, the case study of the jail going forward, i think it might be the case of the jail -- the san bruno jail, where at the jail provided frankly unconstitutional living conditions for inmates. so, we had a federal order pending against the city. we were near receivership, frankly, on this question. we went to the voters with the general obligation bonds to

replace the jail. i think it was made clear that's absent voters approving, this would go into our borrowing budget and cause other problems. shortly thereafter, the city issued certificates of -- to rebuild the jail, because we had to. we may find ourselves in that exact situation going forward with a much larger jail. the most -- our largest jail is the one in our most seismically-on state building. it is the most daunting financial challenge the mayor and the board will be making in the coming years. decision time on that is probably the next 18 months. supervisor farrell: right now, given the spread of 45 to 60

basis points, these are real numbers. i look forward to looking at this to make sure that is clearly articulate going forward. thank you. you know -- do you have any questions? i want to thank everyone for participating. everyone in the city attorney's office, our budgets analysts, the mayor's office for coming up. the issuance of our debt structure, but in particular non-voter approved debt is something people have not focused on in the past, but when you see the numbers, they do have real concerns. for me, the take away is the least revenue bond may not be the most pressing thing. i think the two issues going forward -- in terms of how do we

limit c.o.p.'s from a financial point of view for things that are not for ongoing maintenance and repairs? i am not sure if it is a huge priority for me. how do we go forward with that? we will work on that in the coming weeks here. also, how do we as a city grapple with on a policy level going to voters and having them generically reject the bond measure? i think it is something where there are instances where we feel it is very necessary from a legal point of view that we do this, have an open and transparent dialogue about what we do that. in particular, when it comes to legal obligations, the difference in cost the city is going to occur and the real penalties the city is going to

occur on those. i look forward to that discussion. i want to thank everyone for participating. i appreciate that. chair campos, we're pretty much wrapped up. maybe we can ask for public comment. the one thing i would ask that we keep it open when we talk about the ratios of san francisco compared to other jurisdictions. why don't i make a motion to continue this item, so we can hear from the budget analyst, to make sure we have a grip on rescind as a city compared to other -- ripon where we stand as a city compared to other jurisdictions? supervisor campos: that is to the call of the chair. before that, i would like to open it up to public comment. if there is any member of the public would like to speak, please come up.

thank you. >> hi. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is george wooding. i'm not a financial expert. i think more about what neighbors think. i will try to be brief. first, c.o.p.'s seem just like debt to me. i've heard everyone explain it. i have read about it. i have studied it. it seems like a big runaround to prop 13. that is the first thing. i think sentences go has to be more careful about -- i think san francisco has to be more careful c.o.p. pfunding.

politicians need to become more responsible. c.o.p. money should be spent on capital improvements, not maintenance projects. due to the higher finance cost in the drain on the general fund, we should send a message about financing long-term programs. i want to speak briefly about how neighbors feel about road repair. this is an example of a terrible financial wasted for several reasons. citizen tax dollars are already supposed to pay for road repairs. we already paid for it. second, we feel is ill advised to use 20 years of long-term debt to pay for short-term readiness. and understand what the gentleman said earlier about

roads and the difference of sweeping the road, but to us, that is a meanness factor. third, it costs $83.4 million dollars -- {chime} supervisor campos: thank you very much. next speaker, please? >> good afternoon. my name is douglas. i have lived in san francisco for 59 years. i would like to thank supervisor farrell for having this hearing. i think it is long overdue. even with my college education, some of my folks back east overwhelm me when they talk

about financial subjects like this. basically i rely on their interpretations rather than my own knowledge. one thing that bothers me -- when i looked at this item, there was only one sponsor. if i remember correctly, there are supposed to be to other supervisors who have the reputation -- two other supervisors to have the reputation of being fiscal watchdogs. i would like to pose the question for the record whether the two of them are in support or whether they have no opinion on the hearing? i think hearing from them would make all of us more comfortable about this budget. one of the things that has interest me -- interested me lately is the general economic theory that is unproven. a lot of people refer to it as "voodoo economics."

my own take is the manipulation of the accepted economic principles for some questionable future use. of course, that could be interpreted all kinds of different ways. during today's presentation, the statement that c.o.p. debt per capita is the highest for san francisco -- i saw the figure of the second city. that is pretty noteworthy. a thing that is something that needs to be explained. i would also like to mention that even though -- [chime] supervisor campos: thank you very much. next speaker? is there any other member of the public would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor farrell, i want to thank you for bringing this item for work. this is a great discussion. i want to thank you and your

staff for all the work you put into this item. i look forward to getting additional information, and i hope that people watching and here in the audience found it as informative as we did. >> i would like to say thank you to everyone who participated. with that, i will make a motion for a continuance to the call of the chair. supervisor campos: we will make that motion without objection. why don't we do this? supervisor campos: we're back on. welcome back to the government audit and oversight committee meeting. wyden go back to item no. 4? we had asked for more information. do we have that? >> we have a new spreadsheet

many of the prices are less than a penny. several in the 1 cent or 2 cent range. the out lyres are 6 cents. the award all of these papers, everybody that is here, you will get a circulation of 300,000. for better outreach to the neighborhood papers, we will make better use of the newspaper association.

and there is an organization called new american media that i understand we will make use of them as well. supervisor chiu: is their recommendation on if we should move forward at this time or wait for additional conversations? >> i would recommend that you go forward now. we have the information they need unless there is more you want. >> go forward in which direction? as you recommended? >> i am a prisoner of the administrative code on what we can recommend. but based on what the committee and the board have done in the past, i would think you'd want to awarded to all of the vendors that submitted.

the number of responses is small. less than half, probably, of the interviews that we have. historically, the reasons that the vendors are not responsive, and the committee has encountered them in the past and has not consider them a barrier to awarding a contract. >> it could be laid, but some of them were late because they weren't notified in time. and others were compliance issues that they have corrected. >> none of those. the main reason among the average papers as opposed to the neighborhood papers, they are not printed in town. the administrative code is quite clear on that. that is not flexible -- fixable.

when it first came in, the only problem is that any of them had was that it was lake and one paper had not registered. the fixed that and we consider them irresponsive bid. supervisor campos: any thoughts on how to proceed? supervisor chiu: is there a discussion that oca can have with the newspapers as you continue your negotiations with them? gosh we did not negotiate with them. -- >> we do not negotiate with them. supervisor chiu: you just accept the bids. and what is the total price of what we are awarding today if we do this? >> the information that i have, the average spending for last

fiscal year was 31-32,000 verso. -- 31,000 to 32,000 or so. there is a month and a half ago. gosh and projected for next year based on -- i would project less. i don't know how much less. but the board expects to place or spend significantly less money on advertising this year than they did last year. supervisor chiu: i would suggest that we move forward with all of the newspapers in the neighborhoods that have submitted the bid. that includes north side said francisco. supervisor campos: 0 have a motion. -- we have a motion.

supervisor farrell: did we have a motion earlier? supervisor chiu: to clarify, the staffers go bayview, the type of press, and the journal for the spanish-speaking community. maria times in the north side. supervisor campos: we have a motion, we can take that without objection. can you please call an item number seven? >> hearing on the municipal transportation agency's climate action plan. supervisor chiu: just a quick introduction --

>supervisor campos: over to president chiu to introduce this item. supervisor chiu: a quick introduction, a significant goal was established to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions related to the san francisco transportation sector to 80% of 1990 levels by 2012. we are all concerned about not just a global warming but what we can do as a city to bring these numbers down. and what to think the staff for your presentation. >> i am the deputy director of planning. in the interest of time, i would like to walk through this point. we submitted the climate action strategy submitted to the clerk cozy office a month ago. -- or the clerk cozthe clerk's h

ago. it is a very exceptional project in terms of the collaboration with the city department. we have the transportation authority in the department of the environment that has been instrumental in assisting us and participating in the various strategies and i will walk through very quickly. this is the information outlined to reduce emissions of them as an operator and an ambitious goal for the city to reduce its green has gas emissions. from the operator side, we have a plan that we submitted to the department of the environment and we are well on our way to

meeting those goals. i am proud to say that we are 21% from basically purchasing a more efficient transit vehicle. on the transportation sector itself, it has been a bit more complex and has required a fairly robust analysis of what makes transportation amid its emissions and how much is coming from which node. when we get our analysis initially, we found that automobile travel was about 90% of the emissions from the transportation sector. which is significant. the amount revised because of the methodology, the goals are still there and the amounts are

still significant. the challenges are just as great. as a look at the missions for each type of vehicle, there was a pound of co2 per mile. bicycling is the most efficient form of transport and because the human power of propulsion and the distance you can travel. the agency itself has gone through a pretty transformative shift in terms of how we look at transportation policy in moving towards the pyramid of focusing on walking and bicycling. and the transit rights share, we are really using the automobile for a special trips. here are the strategies we have outlined, and these we felt

really fell into three areas. what needs to be done to reduce the emissions through programs like more information to the customers, the man the management of travel through a pricing and oriented development, making them more pedestrian oriented. within that, there was a need for more supplies. those are really what is needed to underpin the strategies. in the actual report itself, we have strategies that run through. we looked at the potential cost effectiveness of this project and their overall potential effectiveness. each one goes through the various elements. for the interest of time, i will

run through them. this strategy was on pricing and the transportation authorities leading the study on congestion pricing. we have the demand project for parking. the city has been a leader on various development projects and they are really helping us create the demand for more sustainable mode. the whole premise of this climate action strategy is to underscore the needs of transition. what ever we do creates demand for transit and we are one of the few cities in the country that has a system at full capacity. what ever we do, we need to make sure that we have the adequate supply of the transit system. next is the negro the complete

streets program. that includes making our areas more safer walking. and your leadership on setting those goals, we really need to do these types of projects to see those goals have been. this is an area that we thought would have limited input from the city itself, but the influence on taxis and the provision of a lecture charging facilities. the average 10 times more than the resident vehicles in the city. we looked at all these different measures and we put them together with what they actually achieved by 2025. the reason we chose 2035, it is an area that makes more sense all about long-range planning to make sense with the regional plans.

we looked at the benchmark of 50% below 1990 levels by 2035 would be 80% below 2015 levels that were also in. even with these ambitious policies and programs, we are only half of the way there. in conclusion, the board's role in reducing the transportation sector is really these key areas. to continue upholding the transit first policy ha, to really optimize the transit system to really help us create the policies for information and data, to support the efforts of demand pricing that provide not only the behavioral change but the needed revenue to support these active transportation into transit projects.

we need to look at reforming our parking policies. and continuing to lead by example of all of the different innovations that we have. we looked at the things that would take a long time to employment or cost a lot of money. for the advocacy of the board, we put together some things that we thought were a short-term improvements, mainly policy changes that would be coming to the board over the next year with our other partners to have these policies enacted in to get these improvements in the ground sooner. and continuing to put the findings, this climate action strategy will help inform the capital improvement plan. a the climate action plan