and whether they are ubde or local business enterprises. supervisor cohen: let's hear which you have got. >> 10% to 15% of that contract for ubde is a women-owned firm based in oakland. ktl lennoz is a disadvantage to this -- disadvantaged business enterprise in the area. a graphic design and marketing firm is also dbde as well and women owned. transportation ltd. is another partnership that is ubde, ddde, and women around. on the switch point planning for nelson niagara, it meets the lbe and women requirements. red hill group and trans-metro

are small business enterprises that fit sbde requirements. delling associates fulfills dbe and lbde requirements. supervisor cohen: these are people that qualified or people that have received the contract? >> received. and as far as how this will work in terms of awarding actual work, none of these are guaranteed anywhere. it is a matter of work being assigned on a task-order basis. they will need to maintain and week that 8% hiring goal of work being assigned to them with each task order. supervisor cohen: so, who manages the tasks and work orders? >> the authority. supervisor cohen: the authority. my friends over here.

i guess my message to the authority is that, you know, i sit here, we pass contracts and have a lot of money. there are a lot of things happening. a lot of changes happening. but we have a lot of businesses. women, minorities. i need you to make sure that you are stepping up to the plate and making sure that people are getting a piece of the action. it is deplorable that this is such a straight white male- dominated field. as a city we need to make a commitment, a statement that we are fair and equitable in distribution of opportunities to continue to do work and build up san francisco. particularly when we think about the part of san francisco we are specifically talking about. i do not want to dance around

the issue or just part of it to make people feel uncomfortable, but we have a very serious crisis here and we need to do something about it. >> i want to let you finish, commissioner, first. supervisor cohen: thank you. whenever you see me on this body will hear me speak of this consistently. when we have opportunities to issue contracts, i want you to talk about the specific outreach. if you have to go into people's places of business and pulled the is out, then that is the type of work that we need to do. >> commissioner -- supervisor cohen: loss for words? >> i just want to say that your comment requires a response from

the agency head. you need to hear the most unequivocal commitment to what you just ask for. this is not a new commitment. i think we have demonstrated it amply with of the project that we are leading. i attended an event on friday where he recognized women-owned enterprises. it was precisely the goal of encouraging that kind of partnership and relationship between sbde of land and disadvantages' city business departments. at that event i met yolanda

jones. who has a company that she started barely a year and a half ago. these contracts are a provision of machinery. construction contracts. she impressed me with her tenacity and the way that she conducts herself. a totally viable business. an african-american woman. to me she looked in the last couple of days to explain an e- mail that she got from a couple of other businesses in the bay view. something you are likely familiar with. what -- the other being the dwelling group. we talked about the importance of mentoring and so on. our programs have conditionally been about connecting people. connecting large contractors

with small ones, bringing them to the table to make that called col. if you are a contractor with no experience in your portfolio and you talk to a large construction firm, we have the ability to bring them together. both of the small and large ones, disadvantaged, they know that they need to be in a good relationship with the issues that sign their contracts. i believe in that seriously and we are going beyond the letter of the lot and we have done it on that contract. as you know, the vast majority of the millions of dollars approved by the authority through your actions passes through money that goes to other departments. the city also has a very ambitious goals as far as local contract in and so on.

in these consultant contracts the challenges are a little bit more because we are talking about generally specialized technical services where the issue becomes -- does the content of the training, the special knowledge, the technical support work as well that must be designed in recruiting people to field surveys in the street and so on. as mentioned before, we require each task, each task order by task order, complying. otherwise you get to the end, you leave it, and that really a federal law. we do not believe in that.

we will leave free opportunity. in the case of apparent missing grants, we have to be careful. there are certain things that we cannot do. as i said before, where there is a will, there is a way. my sense is that when the commitment comes from the top, from the board, the contractors know that it is not about playing games. it is about finding the right match. it tasted little extra work to make it happen, but they can happen. supervisor cohen: i agree with you and your opening statement.

saying that we needed to reiterate or articulate the commitment. i want to see the commitment. even when i am on transportation authority staff, i do not feed -- do not see this commitment that we articulate from week to week. when i speak, i do not necessarily speak -- yes, i am the only african-american on the board, but i am also representative of the asian and api community. san francisco is a diverse city. i am not here to rape you, but to publicly ask you. the next time the two had a staff higher, making sure that we are physically representing all constituencies. those constituencies we are

looking to do business with. and not just the constituencies that we have to talk to, educate, and share about trade. i wanted to feel that with me you can have a very thoughtful conversations about race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, as it is critical that we direct this in the city when it comes to business. if people do not have a job, families will not be able to stay here. on that note, i will leave. we are only on item #3. we have a full agenda. thank you very much. supervisor mar: i totally support the supervisors' efforts to place high levels of transparency in hiring and

contracting. especially given the history of the old boys' network city-wide. not just in san francisco, but in the country. i also support an equitable and fair process. you do not need to be defensive. you and others in leadership have tried very hard and i know that is a challenge in the entire industry. i also know that other mechanisms in the past still support the strongest possible efforts to make sure that there is fairness in equity. even for a process like this, do not assume that we know which went through in terms of contractors and sub-contractors that have strong -- i do not think that if we use mbe wbe

anymore, making sure that those disadvantaged groups use those terms. maybe we could have a broader discussion about how the pa goes through the process of hiring and contracting for the future. >> mr. chairman, i would be happy to do that. i would like to point out the diversity at the transportation authority as being a great source of pride for me. my guiding principle has been confidence and making sure that we have the brightest and most qualified people in every position. with that as a guiding light, i have two who are asian and probably more women on a percentage basis than any other city agencies.

we have gay people, a trans gender employee. i do not think we have an african-american right now. yes, of course, my god. see, that is my problem. supervisor cohen: what african- american, that is the problem. supervisor mar: faugh supervisor kim has a comment supervisor kim: -- comment. supervisor kim: maybe we should give a breakdown of the ubd's over the last year. if we are going to start talking about staff, i am curious about the breakdown. >> ok. supervisor kim: not right now. >> we will be happy to provide

that. i guess my comment, i just made a mistake in that one of our key principal planners, the lead person on the brc and high profile projects, i do not think of my staff in those terms. they come to the authority through a selection process that i think truly exemplifies post- identity politics that we live in in san francisco. in some areas of transportation and engineering there has been that perspective of a private club, but that is changing as the reality changes. there are a tremendous number of people from minority backgrounds.

you see them at berkeley. many in terms come from there. -- intern's come from there. supervisor cohen: -- supervisor cohen: let me interject. there are so many historic black universities. trust me, if you are in a position of power and have the ability to influence, we need to make sure that we are doing exactly just that. when he talked about stellar engineering programs, there are many schools that i would like to see considered. i am here to be your resources. as a colleague, i can help you expand your reach to really begin to turn the tide on what to discuss with identity politics.

when you see someone there that looks like you and could possibly reflect your value system, it breeds a certain level of confidence. as an argentinian man, you could probably relate his soul of this work. >> i have had to walk through more closet doors in my life than anyone. hispanic, gay, jewish, i have to come to my engineering friends as it is a significant issue that i still struggle with and i

think it would be more important for a more broad discussion. moving beyond at the fed vanity with others that have more privileges based on identity, once it is reduced to tokenism and people from other disadvantaged groups in explaining why the goal was only 8% this planning how that would be helpful for me. >> as it relates to this compound, as i said before it

is the commitment that is imported. and i think that 8% is really low been and i think that is an important discussion to have and i am glad that the commissioner brought it up. none of us about identity politics. we are not in a post-said that the politics world. you hear that a lot and as the verse as we are, there are

tremendous inequities in our community. it is also important that we hire locally as well. business in our infrastructure community should be building from business booming and i went to see incursion, group -- food,, going to transportation, but the problem is there are not enough contractors with that expertise. and i think it is a long-term discussion that i am glad the commissioner rubout. perhaps something that we can have a longer discussion on in terms of outreach being done in any kind of work being done in terms of training young people.

>> i really appreciate the frank discussion and i would like to thank the commissioners and saying that she thinks the bread was an eve for understanding. i think it is something that we will have to schedule allowed for several meetings. we will explore and get guidance from you as we move along. i am not defensive at all about it. it is what is and it is

dedicated to making are there other comments? if not, a close without objection. can we open this for public comment? ok. we already did. thank you. >> please read the next item number. >> item #4. recommend authorizing the executive director to negotiate and execute annual contract renewals with city and county of san francisco departments and exercise contract options for on-call modeling services, in an amount not to exceed $297,536. >> thank you. is there a staffer for on this? how is this another contract item for other contract renewal?

with it in her agent agencies smattering. currently we had a contract valued at $60,000. the second contract we are seeking approval for is a contract with the department of technologies. the people that actually record and caption these meetings, authority staff, a committee, we would like to continue to contract through fiscal year 2012. we would like to exercise the option for modeling on col. this is an on call task order betweenp pd america and

workplace schematics, assisting our departments. we are looking to see if there is assistance for the next year with of the value of a $200,000 contract to work on projects like central subway. with that, i forgot to mention this item. there was no objection to any of the items in terms of fiscal impact. 44% of the contract will be funded by federal sf. with that in seeking the authorization for the director to approve the value not to exceed $297,000. supervisor mar: colleagues,

questions? we spend about $30,000 televising the meetings from the committee to the general audience. sf chap is the travel model. can you explain that tool to was and how it is utilized? >> we have the truth -- the principal transportation planner here with us. i would like to have them described to you. supervisor mar: thank you. >> the morning, commissioners. technology services maintain the travel demand model. it is the tool that allows us to analyze the different

transportation investments we are making in the city with the environmental analysis and impact. it is used as a tool that is federally mandated, essentially, to model our resources for funded projects, including the central subway extension as well as security brt's. we use those not only to fine tune the description, but to finalize environmental reports and submit our funding of proposals to fda to get funding agreements on this. supervisor mar: colleagues, any other questions? seeing no one, let's open this up for public comment.

>> let me make a few points very clear. i heard a debate that was kind of meaningful. talking about this, that, and the other that i would like to connect with that this issue. here you have certain people that no legalese and are going to deliver, they should have a checklist. so that in the deliberations, the agenda items that have just popped, which i think i motivated, drowning so much so that you forgot, people came over here and were very incensed. this is san francisco. we all know that it is a very

diverse city. we all know that it is very progressive. what i want to make very clear to you supervisors and the people of all is that the people who are illegal, people in the executive field, of they neutralize this position and it is happening right before our eyes. we have a man that came in he was talking about behavior that he has no clue about. for example, [unintelligible] a black person some major project in an area where there are predominantly whites? i know this, because i worked for the city of san francisco and was in charge of some major departments. people would come searching for me thinking i was a white person, only to find out who he was.

i have worked with superintendents, [unintelligible] , lots of important people that think i am white. people listening at home know that when i say what i say, i cannot make them. what we have here is a convoluted manner in which things are done. people come here and project to you know. if you look at the transportation authority and you investigate the department, the department that has fiduciary and fiscal methods, you would see the turnover. as one of you said, you just have to look around here. for example, this is an entity. the entity is a white woman. white women are minorities, did

you know that? supervisor mar: can you connect this with the agenda item? >> in connecting it with this contract. -- i am connecting it with of this contract. supervisor mar: thank you. public comment is closed. colleagues? without objection. thank you. next item. >> item #5. recommend exercising the second one-year option of the professional services contract with cordoba/zurinaga joint venture by $1,000,000, to a total amount not to exceed $4,574,000, to provide on-call project management and oversight services and authorizing the executive director to negotiate the contract terms and conditions. supervisor mar: thank you. >> good morning. in the direct it -- deputy