i have used muni forever. chairman nolan: thank you for that. >> it has become known that sustainable transit is the best development you can have. right now, there is excellent transportation. you can get to any part of the city from 19th and holloway. the plans will enhance transit in that area by providing shuttles to the residents, to local shopping areas. it will also provide retail with in parkmerced, so there are fewer trips outside of the area, and any opportunities for the improvement of transportation, as well as traffic improvements, as far as

rearranging entrances into the area for automobile traffic. of course, the hallmark is the m-line street car, the hordes of people from parkmerced do not have to cross 19th avenue. thank you very much. chairman nolan: next speaker, please. >> hello, i am elizabeth keene. ditto on everything anne-marie said. this really makes 19th and holloway saber. there are so many older, disabled residents in parkmerced

who have been there for years and years and years. it helps everybody. it helps the business is, and it -- it helps the businesses, and it will hopefully will encourage students to bring it less cars into our neighborhood. i think it is a great program. >> my name is jeannie scott. i am faculty at san francisco state university. i agree with everything the other two said, but what i really want to see happen is the m-line get out of the middle of 19th street and come to the side of san francisco state. i use the m, as well as the

students. it is narrow and dangerous. there are a lot of backpacks, a lot of jostling, a lot of waiting. thank you. chairman nolan: ok, then we have a recommendation in front of us. is there a second? >> second. chairman nolan: all those in favor, say aye. >> item 12 -- chairman nolan: before we do that, our distinguished former chairman is here. i do not know if you would like to say anything. would you like to address the board? [laughter] >> you did not think he was going to say no, did you? chairman nolan: i did not think there was a chance of that? thank you for greasing a room

this afternoon. >> good afternoon, mr. scherer and the members of the board of directors -- mr. chair and the members of the board of directors. earlier, i shared the news of mr. ford's moving on, and it was painful for me because i sat where you set when we went through the work of replacing the former director at that time, mr. burns. we did a national search, and we believe with all of our hearts that we found the top tier of candidates for our agency. i believe mr. ford did an excellent job under all of these circumstances in which he had to labor, and i wanted you all to know, and i wanted to stick with you because i understand how difficult these decisions and transitions are. you hear all these people --

this ought not happen, this is unfair. i wanted you to know that you were in my prayers as you make the decisions for the agency, as i am praying for mr. ford as he goes through this time. thank you for being as fair and just as equitable as you can with one another. chairman nolan: we appreciate it. good to see you. i could not agree more with your comments. ok. >> item 12 -- discussion as to whether to conduct a closed session. >> is there a motion? >> ok, the commission will go into closed session. to discuss the troy and wheeler

cases. on the 14 directors, we will not disclose the information discussed. >> we will not disclose. >> i am sorry. just for the record, both cases were not unanimous. uofd wheeler case was not your man -- unanimous. it was a 6 to one vote. chairman nolan: any further discussion? all in favor say aye. >> are you ready for the next item? item 15? >> which one is this? >> item 15 is for the public interest item, also with regard to appointing an acting executive director. that item has been continued -- chairman nolan: i will come back

to that one in a second. >> item 15, approving a separation agreement between nathaniel p. ford executive director and the city in any of san francisco, to end his appointment effective june 30, 2011. directors, you do have members of the public who wish to address you on this matter. james bryant. anthony thomas. chairman nolan: mr. thomas? >> good afternoon, mr. chair, members of the board. i am here on behalf of mr.

mcgee. he did not be here today. i have a petition from 12,000 voters opposing the golden parachute you are voting on today. is equivalent to giving the entire city of san francisco free parking for three days. i just want to make clear that our issue is that with mr. ford, personally. our issue is with the management of the mta. six months ago, the board approved the contract with mr. ford. the mta has no business signing a contract that rewards poor performance superviosr wiener -- proof -- poor performance.

this $80,000 golden bears to -- we argue, plus the 1200 boaters -- voters -- argue that this is one. please agree with us. to the right thing. did the right thing for the city and for muni. chairman nolan: would any other members of the public like to address the board? simenon, public comment is closed. we should have talked about it in there, but in terms of going forward, are we ready to talk about that? >> we might want to ask if it is appropriate. chairman nolan: 2 we have legal counsel here? -- do we have legal counsel

here? >> on the advice of counsel, i refuse to answer that question. actually, we will of more on that topic -- >> mr. chair, i do not know if this is permissible, but as a matter of personal privilege, one of our long time unique employees did want to speak -- one of our long time muni employees did want to speak on the items. i do not know if we can reopen the items for public comments. >> do we want to vote on that? [laughter] >> well, he was "ed" when i knew

him. >> hello. i am james ryan. u.s. seen some of my group earlier today, -- you have seen some of my group earlier today. i asked you all to think about this. whenever someone has a contract, you have to honor it. the only way to not honored this contract would be malfeasance. that has not happened. he has done things like "clipper." did you all see that move? [laughter] i have become proficient of the clipper machines, and i think

that is a great tool for the the subway. he sees me almost every night. ladies and gentlemen, we must support mr. ford. we must send anyone a signal that if he or she were in the same situation, we would support them. we ask the citizens of the city and county of san francisco -- we recognize the many good things he has done and we recognize we have to as a group support mr. ford. let me tell you this. the best ride that we have is our ride from castro to fort hill station. i have spent many of my 35 years going through a real bumpy ride that he has moved out. i asked you again to support mr. ford in his separation deal, and

thank you for your time. >> that includes the business before you today. >> ok, thank you everybody.

>> there has been an acknowledgement of the special places around san francisco bay. well, there is something sort of innate in human beings, i think, that tend to recognize a good spot when you see it, a spot that takes your breath away. this is one of them. >> an icon of the new deal. >> we stood here a week ago and we heard all of these dignitaries talk about the symbol that coit tower is for san francisco. it's interesting for those of us in the pioneer park project is trying to make the point that not only the tower, not only this man-built edifice here is a symbol of the city but also the green space on which it sits and the hill to which is rests. to understand them, you have to understand the topography of san francisco. early days of the city, the city grows up in what is the financial district on the edge of chinatown.

everything they rely on for existence is the golden gate. it's of massive importance to the people what comes in and out of san francisco bay. they can't see it where they are. they get the idea to build a giant wooden structure. the years that it was up here, it gave the name telegraph hill. it survived although the structure is long gone. come to the 1870's and the city has growed up remarkably. it's fueled with money from the nevada silver mines and the gold rush. it's trying to be the paris of the west. now the beach is the suburbs, the we will their people lived on the bottom and the poorest people lived on the top because it was very hard getting to the top of telegraph hill. it was mostly lean-to sharks and bits of pieces of houses up here in the beginning. and a group of 20 businessmen decided that it would be better if the top of the hill remained for the public. so they put their money down

and they bought four lots at the top of the hill and they gave them to the city. lily hitchcock coit died without leaving a specific use for her bequest. she left a third of her estate for the beautify indication of the city. arthur brown, noted architect in the city, wanted for a while to build a tower. he had become very interested in persian towers. it was the 1930's. it was all about machinery and sort of this amazing architecture, very powerful architecture. he convinced the rec park commission that building a tower in her memory would be the thing to do with her money. >> it was going to be a wonderful observation place because it was one of the highest hills in the city anywhere and that that was the whole reason why it was built that high and had the elevator access immediately from the beginning as part of its

features. >> my fear's studio was just down the street steps. we were in a very small apartment and that was our backyard. when they were preparing the site for the coit tower, there was always a lot of harping and griping about how awful progress was and why they would choose this beautiful pristine area to do them in was a big question. as soon as the coit tower was getting finished and someone put in the idea that it should be used for art, then, all of a sudden, he was excited about the coit tower. it became almost like a daily destination for him to enjoy the atmosphere no matter what the politics, that wasn't the

point. as long as they fit in and did their work and did their own creative expression, that was all that was required. they turned in their drawings. the drawings were accepted. if they snuck something in, well, there weren't going to be any stoolies around. they made such careful little diagrams of every possible little thing about it as though that was just so important and that they were just the big frog. and, actually, no one ever felt that way about them and they weren't considered something like that. in later life when people would approach me and say, well, what did you know about it? we were with him almost every day and his children, we grew up together and we didn't think of him as a commie and also the

same with the other. he was just a family man doing normal things. no one thought anything of what he was doing. some of them were much more highly trained. it shows, in my estimation, in the murals. this was one of the masterpieces. families at home was a lot more close to the life that i can remember that we lived. murals on the upper floors like the children playing on the swings and i think the little deer in the forest where you could come and see them in the woods and the sports that were always available, i think it did express the best part of our lives. things that weren't costing money to do, you would go to a picnic on the beach or you

would do something in the woods. my favorite of all is in the staircase. it's almost a miracle masterpiece how he could manage to not only fit everyone, of course, a lot of them i recognized from my childhood -- it's how he juxtaposed and managed to kind of climb up that stairway on either side very much like you are walking down a street. it was incredible to do that and to me, that is what depicted the life of the times in san francisco. i even like the ones that show the industrial areas, the once with the workers showing them in the cannery and i can remember going in there and seeing these women with the caps, with the nets shuffling these cans through. my parents had a ranch in santa

rosa and we went there all summer. i could see these people leaning over and checking. it looked exactly like the beautiful things about the ranch. i think he was pretty much in the never look back philosophy about the coit. i don't think he ever went to visit again after we moved from telegraph hill, which was only five or six years later. i don't think he ever had to see it when the initials are scratched into everything and people had literally destroyed the lower half of everything. >> well, in my view, the tower had been pretty much neglected from the 1930's up until the 1980's. it wasn't until then that really enough people began to be alarmed about the condition of the murals, the tower was leaking. some of the murals suffered

wear damage. we really began to organize getting funding through the arts commission and various other sources to restore the murals. they don't have that connection or thread or maintain that connection to your history and your past, what do you have? that's one of the major elements of what makes quality of life in san francisco so incredible. when people ask me, and they ask me all the time, how do you get to coit tower, i say you walk. that's the best way to experience the gradual elevation coming up above the hustle and bustle of the city and finding this sort of oasis, if you will, at the top of the hill. when i walk through this park, i look at these brick walls and this lawn, i look at the railings around the murals. i look at the restoration and i

think, yeah, i had something to do with that. learning the lessons, thank you, landmarks meet landmarks. the current situation at pioneer park and coit tower is really based in public and private partnership. it was the citizens who came together to buy the land to keep it from being developed. it was lily hitchcock coit to give money to the city to beautify the city she loved of the park project worked to develop this south side and still that's the basis of our future project to address the north side.

commissioner mirkarimi: welcome to the san francisco city and county trent titian authority. thank you to sfgtv in their excellence of covering the happenings at city hall. please call roll call. -- transportation authority. >> [roll call] we have a quorum. commissioner mirkarimi: thank you. item two. >> item 2. approval of minutes of may 24, 2011 meeting. this is an action item. commissioner mirkarimi: comments or questions? public comments? public comment is closed. approval of the minutes seconded

by commissioner campos, avalos. roll call. >> [roll call] there are nine ayes. commissioner mirkarimi: please read items 3 and 4. >> item 3. chairs report. this is an information item.item 4. executive director's report. this is an information item. commissioner mirkarimi: the region is now in the throes of an important policy discussion about the way that growth will occur in the next two to three decades and the focus is on dealing with climate change and assuring we invest in truly sustainable transportation

infrastructure and services. this is a debate that has been taking place at mtc and abag. last week, at a meeting, we had a clearer look at how the debate will go. san francisco already is and will increasingly be a leader in the region baker's the pushing policies that encourage, reward local jurisdictions that make a real commitment to sustainable growth and affordable housing. it is also clear we will be a significant amount of strife getting to a plan that we can all live with reasonably but it will require extra effort on the part of those jurisdictions of lagging behind in these areas, and because we're going to continue to make a very forceful case for san francisco to get shared transportation dollars, that it is fair and commensurate with the city's longstanding commitment to sustainable transportation and responsible land use and housing policies.

i want to point out in this context the importance of defeating assembly bill 57, which would reduce san francisco's modem influence on mtc, just at the time when a fundamentally important decisions about infrastructure investment policy are being made through the regional transportation plan. thank you to the mtc commissioners for certainly representing our interests. we are working closely with the mayor's office and with our delegation in sacramento to make sure this is the case. let me also point out the city of san francisco, speaking in one voice at regional issues. we have been doing just that and i would like to thank commissioner campos and weener, as well as commissioners and avalos, wiener, and mar, representing us ably on those bodies, and for staff for helping us to find a clear policy as we coordinate our advocacy strategies at abag,

mtc, and other districts. this concludes my report. mr. executive director. >> thank you. my report is on your desk. i have several items i would like to highlight. please bear with me. the first one is to echo the comments that the chair made about the latest happenings at mtc with regard to sustainable committees strategy. unfortunately, i was not able to be at the last meeting last week, but i understand the authority provided forceful testimony and gave the region a bit of a run for its money on issues of equity and on the makeup of the samaras being considered now. i understand