>> my name is municipala and i'm a member -- manuela and i'm a member of power and i do outreach on the buses and talk to people who ride the buses. and i hear from parents that buy fast passes for their youth and other parents that actually don't buy fast passes for their youth and there have been cases where i heard that youth sometimes have a fast pass but they actually lose it and a parent will say i'm trying to make my child responsible. and i won't buy them another one. [speaking spanish]

i think that the youth should be able to ride muni without having to pay because when you think about how it is for youth, you know, they're doing a lot of things often. sometimes they actually lose their fast pass. i met a girl who had lost her fast pass. she was too afraid to talk to her mom and ask her for another one so she didn't know how to ride a bicycle but she'object it and she ended up -- but she

ended up on it and she ended up hitting a car. so students should have fast passes regardless of their income status. and thank you. and we count on your support in making this a reality. supervisor avalos: gracias. thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. bob allen with urban habitat. we've been working with the last few years on a number of these campaigns around getting youth passes and i want to say you heard from the real experts today. i think you heard from the folks who know best of what's going on which is the youth of san francisco, the or thing we do know is when we don't make these passes free, and we make them "discounted passes" that there's always upward pressure immediately. and what i can tell you is if we don't do a free pass, in a year or two years or three years, we will be back with the same problem. which we'll have upward pressure on those passes to go from $10 to $20 $to $30 -- to

$30 to $40. and important that we make this pass free and we make a generational commitment to the youth and the next generation of transit riders. the second thing is you know that the region is counting on san francisco to take on a lot of growth for this system which is the largest system in terms of moving passengers from muni to take on that growth and move people in and out of the city and throughout the city. and we feel that the region has a lot of resources and m.t.c. particularly that they can bring to bear to make this a reality. and we're committed to working with you and allies, not just in san francisco but allies outside the city who want to see this happen. because there's a lot of expectations that the regional agencies are putting on you and a lot of effort to facilitate this in terms of funding and doing some of the research you all want to do about the impact so we're committed to working with the supervisors here and everyone else on the board of supervisors in this city. to make sure that the region fulfills its obligation and that they don't just expect san francisco to do more with less,

but they actuallyand actually pe resources. we know they are making those resources now. >> i am george williams. i know i am the oldest one in the room. i hope you listen to me. i volunteer at rosa parks school. on wednesday, we get food from the food bank. we put it in 160 bags. the kids take it home, because they need the food. that is for all week. certainly, they do not have extra money for buses. we want to keep our people educated.

one way is to get them at school, have them eat and function. i think this is great. i am proud of what the positions here, that you are bringing this up and worked on it. i want to thank each one of you for your time. supervisor avalos: thank you. >> my name is steve williams. i believe this has been an enlightening conversation today. we have heard from people who have direct experience about why bringing back passes for young people is critically important. there have been a couple issues raised that are important to underscore. this proposal is for 3 past losses -- three fast passes for

all young people. we do not want a means test, because it could create a stigma where people begin to see me as poor people transportation. low income people who qualify for free and reduced lunch often do not apply. it is both because of the stigma and because of the red tape. it makes no sense to try to create a bureaucracy that has to gauge which young people qualify for free fast passes and which young people do not. what do we do when a parent loses their job in the middle of the year? if we are concerned about finances, it makes more sense to provide free passes to young people. with that, it makes sense to provide passes to young people k-12, not just 17-year-olds, because some people are still in

high school when they turn 18. to be clear, there is urgency. when i went to school, most people took courses. [laughter] -- horses. for those who were lucky enough to take the yellow school bus, it was free. it is not radical. socialist organizations like google provide free transportation for employees to get to work. they think it is important. if san francisco thinks it is important to raise a new generation of leaders for this society, it is critical, in light of the cuts happening to the yellow school bus service -- it is critical that san francisco fill the void. that is the boy that was killed -- that was filled -- that was the boy that was filled.

we will be making priorities. the mtv -- the mta decided to allocate $1.8 million for a bus that had already been built into the budget. that was responding for a particular need. people who were not able to get on the bus -- it was right to provide the special express bus. it was also right to provide free fast passes. >> next speaker, please? >> i am the chairman of the san francisco youth commission. >> the reason i support a free muni resolution -- i looked at

all my friends from my neighborhood. i feel the need for affordable public transportation. at this point, every single day, i have to walk to school. i do not feel i want to pay for the bus today. that is not affordable for me. that is why i feel the process will be helpful for youth in san francisco. it is not just low-income youth. it should be for all youth. we need to bridge a gap so we can have more stigma and more social justice. i hope this will be for all public high school students, because i am going to turn 18 in

december. i know a lot of my friends and my school -- we want this to be for all public school students, regardless of age. we need to make sure that we have a good public reputation system. i sincerely support free muni for all youth. i hope that i can get it very soon. thank you. supervisor avalos: are there other members of the public who want to comment? i have seen you walk to school. a lot. we will close public comment. supervisor campos? supervisor campos: thank you,

mr. chair. i think now you understand the urgency. i think your birthday is coming up. is it the middle of december? we do not have a lot of time. on an unrelated note, let me say what is amazing about this hearing is what it says about how lucky we are we have youth of this caliber living in the city and county of san francisco. [applause] one thing is for sure. one thing is clear. the city is going to be in amazing hands. we're very lucky these young people are going to be the leaders of the city. i want to say i am very proud to live in the city that provides this kind of a forum to the young people.

i have always said that whenever you have young people in the room, and you have young people engaging in this type of discussion, it is a lot more substantive and thoughtful than a lot of what you see in that building. i am proud of you, and grateful for all the different perspectives. i look forward to continuing this discussion in the spirit of what we heard today. this resolution simply calls for a collaborative process among all the city agencies. it is my hope it will come out of this committee today. i want to acknowledge my colleagues who are co-sponsors of the resolution, supervisors avalos, cohen, kim, mar, mirkarimi and president chiu.

we want to have additional co- sponsors to make this a reality. there is a lot more to be said, and a lot more will be said. i believe the issue of whether or not they should be for all youth are targeted for low income -- i understand the perspective. i think the young lady who spoke about that was eloquent and articulate. i simply would respectfully disagree, because i do worry about the possible stigma created, in addition to worrying about the burden of enforcing some of that. i do believe this is about investing in a future generation of writers. i do think there is something to be said about a young person growing up using public transit. i think there is a certain investment that comes with this. it is an investment you see played out in something like the

social security program. the fact that it applies to everyone means that everyone is invested. we want everyone to be invested in public transportation, which is why i believe we need to make this happen. with that, i leave it to you, and respectfully ask for your support. thank you for your patience. i know it is late in the day. thank you to the young people who have come out, and to the parents as well. supervisor avalos: thank you. and i want to thank the commission for working on this resolution and bringing it to us, and of course the supervisor, for bringing this over, and all the youth who are here and not here who worked on this issue. i know it is a citywide issue. i look at the petition sent to us and i see virtually every zip code of san francisco on the petition. i probably can assume it is not

just young people, that adults have signed on to the petition, so there are allies supporting young people supporting the idea of free muni. i want to congratulate you on your effort and coming to speak in front of us. i will be supportive of the resolution. i believe it is thoughtful, because it asks the city to come together to figure out how to make that happen. it is important to know we have to figure out how to do it. >> if i may add, i was very touched by the 82-year-old gentleman coming here to support our youth. you can see this crosses all generations. it is really great to see that happen in san francisco. [applause] supervisor mar: i acknowledged a bunch of organizations that are the main core of the movement

that is building for a free muni for youth. but i also wanted to thank coleman advocates, san francisco organizing project, the bike coalition, and others that are here. thank you for building a movement with youth in the lead, from the bottom up. supervisor elsbernd: i get to be the bad guy this afternoon. i think somebody has to. i think somebody needs to put forward some of the dissenting views on this. not that this is not an important issue. not that i do not recognize the need. but the board of supervisors rarely -- the first time in a long time the board would pass on -- would pass a resolution urging the mta to fund something. this is saying this is our budget party, what we want to see happen. the question in front of us -- if we had an extra $5.80

million, is this how we want to see it spent? with respect to everybody in this room, we have tens of millions of dollars of unfunded mandates at the mta. somebody brought up the city survey. the reason numbers are so low is because service is so unreliable. the city spent millions of dollars over the last five years putting together a document called the transit effectiveness project. i appreciate that supervisor campos made reference to that in his resolution. if i had $5.80 million, i would put it into that project, and into the service improvements it recommends. i would like to see that happen first. but that is not the reality either. i think the practical reality and what is possible here is a blend. i understand we do not want to see a stigma, but we do not live

in a perfect world. governments -- governance is about doing the most with what we care and to achieve the ends here. i think we can achieve a lot for those of you who need this. but i really appreciate the point of the young woman who said, "what is needed." we can achieve the end of helping those who need it in and improve service for all san francisco if we appropriately spend our dollars. but just saying this is our budget priority, i think is a mistake. i would like a roll call on the resolution. supervisor avalos: ok. supervisor campos: i look forward to continuing this discussion. i remain hopeful that supervisor elsbernd continue to engage in this discussion.

we are making sure that as we proceed with this it is not just pie in the sky, the we identify a way in which we can make this fiscally responsible. i think it is possible. i think we should definitely do what is needed. i think we have heard today from our young people and families that there is a need. the city needs to improve our public transportation. the city needs to keep families in san francisco. the city needs to make sure young people are not forced to choose between walking to school or evading the fair. we need all these things, which is why i look forward to continuing the discussion. you make some very good points, and i hope we have an opportunity to convince you this makes sense. again, thank you all for being here. supervisor avalos: just a question on need.

is the service not based on whether you need to pay it or not? it is whether you need to get across the city are not. the need is transit. people have to get to school and work. i looked at it in that way. we have a motion to have a roll- call vote on this ordinance, so we can move it forward with recommendation. we will have that vote. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor elsbernd: no. supervisor avalos: aye. the motion passes. [applause] really have any other items before us? we are adjourned. thank you.

because we have a great waste water system here in san francisco, we do about 80 million gallons of waste water here in san francisco, which means we basically fill up 120 olympic sized swimming pools each and every day here in the city. we protect public health and safety and environment because we are discharging into the bay and into the ocean. this is essentially the first treatment here at our waste water treatment facility. what we do is slow down the water so that things either settle to the bottom or float to the top. you see we have a nice selection of things floating around there, things from

bubble gum wrappers, toilet paper, whatever you dump down the toilet, whatever gets into our storm drains, that's what gets into our waste water treatment and we have to clean. >> see these chains here, this keeps scum from building up. >> on this end in the liquid end basically we're just trying to produce a good water product that doesn't negatively impact the receiving water so that we have recreation and no bad impact on fish and aquatic life. solids is what's happening. . >> by sludge, what exactly do you mean? is that the actual technical term? . >> it's a technical term and it's used in a lot of different ways, but this is organic sewage sludge. basically what it is is, oh,

maybe things that come out of your garbage disposal, things that are fecal in nature. it's sludge left in the water after the primary treatment, then we blend those two over and send them over to digestion. this building is built to replace tanks here that were so odoriferous they would curl your hair. we built this as an interim process. >> is there a coagulant introduced somewhere in the middle of this? . >> this coagulant brings solids together and lets the water run through. that gives us more time in the digestion process, more time to reduce the amount of solids. these are the biggest ones in the world, like we always like to do in san francisco.

they are 4 meter, there's none like it in the world. >> really? wow. >> three meters, usually. we got the biggest, if not the best. so here we are. look at that baby hum. river of sludge. >> one of the things is we use bacteria that's common in our own guts to create this reduction. it's like an extra digestion. one of the things we have to do to facilitate that is heat that sludge up and keep it at the temperature our body likes, 98.6 degrees. >> so what we have here is the heat exchanger for digester no. 6. these clog up with debris and we're coming in to -- next wet weather season so we always come through here, clean them out, make sure that we get maximum heat exchange during the colder wet weather.

sludge season. >> rubber glove. >> right here. >> rubber glove, excellent. all right, guys. >> thank you. >> good luck. >> this is the full on hazmat. . >> residual liquid. we're taking it time to let it drain. we don't want to get sludge on it necessarily. take your time. stand on the side of it. . >> should we let it release for a while? . >> let it release. >> is that the technical term? . >> this is the most important bolt on the whole thing. this is the locking bolt. it locks this thing right in

place. so now. >> take your hammer and what we want to do, we get rag build up right in here. the hot water recirculates right in here, the sludge recirculates in here. the sludge sometimes has rags in it. all we want to do is go around the clean the rags. let me show you how. take the slide hammer, go all the way through the back, go around. >> got you. >> during the real rainy season, how does that change the way dealing with this job? is it a lot more stuff in there? . >> what we do, charles, we do this quarterly. every four months we go around and clean all the heat exchangers so we don't have a large build up. . >> go around?

. >> yeah. (sound of hammering). >> what i'm trying to do, charles, is always pull it out on the low stroke. >> right. so you are not, like, flying out. now talk about clean up. . >> then where does this stuff get deposited? . >> we're going to dump it in a debris box and it will go back to the plant. >> if you think back, the romans came up with a system of plumbing that allowed us it use water to transport waste away from the hub of civilization, which enabled cities to grow.

. >> you have a large bowl, a drive motor and another motor with a planetary gearbox with differential pressure inside there. the large mass up there spinning separating the solids from the liquid. we have to prevent about once a month, we go in there grease those, change the oil, check the vibration levels. the operators can tell just by the hum of that machine that it's a harmonic noise emitted that it's out of balance and the machine needs to be cleaned. it will start vibrating and we have vibration analysis machines that will come over here and check the levels. so it's kind of an on-going thing that you have to stay on top of on a daily basis.

>> handled properly, you take organic residuals, as we call them, that are leftovers of our society and turn them back into some energy. and we have another ability to take that sludge and get a nutrient value for crops there. we actually are running a kind of composting energy recovery system. >> well, this is a dirty job. we try to do it safely and we try to do it without imposing too much on the public. people want to flush their toilets and have things go away and not be bothersome again. we do a lot to try to accomplish that. i'd like to invite you to come back any time you want. once you got this in your blood, you are not going to be able to stay away. the raging waters are fun and when we do digester cleaning i really hope you can come back. that's quite a