and vehicle maintenance programs to keep at the high level. in the middle of the craft area, you see the dips, for example, on june 21. that is, to borrow a phrase, a day that will live in infamy for us. our sander host incident, long delay on the system. some of you have the opportunity to make suggestions as to how we might improve our communications as a result of your experience that day. again, it is very important that we have continuing to make incremental improvements. i would submit to you we are never going to be at 100% because we are coming in off the street into the system. again, there are some things -- this is why i stressed the first of other projects to continue to bring before you to improve the performance of the train control system. first phase of this project -- by the way, this is a project

that will be just over $900,000 to be completed. first phase is under way. we are doing it with our own in- house forces fear they have been working in the subway at night. what they are doing is the preparation work to go through. the cable sits on a set of struts. they are replacing all the struts, building in new ones. by the end of the month, we expect the first phase to be completed. next week, on september 28, we will have engineers from the manufacturer of the system here who will over two or three nights go through the system, set up a testing plan. what they will do is walk through the system with something that looks like a divining rod that you look for water. as he will test the integrity of the cable. what they are looking for is any kind of splices and background

noise that comes as a result of the slices in the cable. what they will then do is give us a baseline report. it is our intention because of the nature and importance of this to -- the project approach to replace the cable with the splices. there is no need -- the splices have occurred in certain areas or segments of the line, so we will focus on cleaning up the segments. the work next week will give us a sense of a preparation plant and what we need to do to get ready for the third phase of the project. they will prepare this baseline and proof of concept plan. then, what we will do is prepare with their oversight -- they will play a role in this because of the significance of the signal cable. we expect some time later in the beginning of november to begin the work.

we will work within the time windows that we have at night that works once we have our baseline. we identify where the areas are that we have to replace. we will do that -- each time we replace cable, obviously, given the function of it, we have to test it immediately. we will have test trains in to test every section of cable that we go through. this will take place over approximately four months so that we should be done sometime in late spring, pushing towards mid-2012, four or five months. excuse me. what will we have when we're done? again, an improvement. in service reliability. it also positions us for the radio replacement project, which is coming down the road. there are probably three or four other train control projects in the queue that we will be bringing forward to you to keep

the system in a state of good repair. splices remain the weak spot in the cable, in the sense that we want them to be absolutely as reliable as we can. striving to keep all of the signal system in a state of good repair. we thought it was important to brief you on this project that is ongoing right now. given the importance of this project to the subway and the subway, of course, to our entire transportation operation. director nolan: thank you. excellent presentation. very thorough. members of the board, questions or comments? director heinicke: i have what i am sure is an easily answerable and dumb question, but the wire system -- is it rubber or plastic? what is the coaching? -- coating?

>> it is plastic coating. director heinicke: we have seen antennas and sander hoses and things splice it. should we in case it in something else or something more so that that does not happen or does that just make it too hard to get it to wire or repair and that sort of thing? can we not put some sort of kryptonite around it so it does not happen? [laughter] >> given the market value of kryptonite, from what i understand, it may blow our budget, but your idea is a sound one, and we are looking at how to protect perhaps the shield both as the top of the cable -- we are looking at a couple of things to do to protect it, yes. as well as to get at the source of the -- >> obviously, retrofitting the sounder hose is one thing, but the reality is a lot of these problems we do not know until they happen.

retrofits are hard. it seems if we could protect the cable and prevent the problem, that is two ways to go about it comes to protecting the cable makes sense to me. director nolan: other members of the board? members of the public? thank you. >> item 15, discussion and vote as to whether to conduct closed session. director nolan: is there such a motion? second? all in favor? we will >> bod discussed anticipated legislation but took no action. >> we are adjourned. thank you very much. good work, everybody. >> you even that the board running on time.

>> we're coming today to join all of us as we kick off our san francisco 2011 fleet week. and i'm pleased to welcome all of you here to celebrate the 30th anniversary of our fleet week.

and it's been a long tradition, but one that we're very proud of in our city and county of san francisco. it's an opportunity for us not only to see great air shows, but i think most seriously, to thank our women and men and our armed forces for all of their dedication to our ton and to the safety of everybody in our country. thank you very much for being here today. you know, fleet week is, as i said earlier, it's a time to celebrate our naval history and our maritime traditions. san francisco has always been a town that has honored its military and all of its women and men who serve in uniform. this year's event not only does that, but it also does something that we started last year, general, and that was to focus on our city's emergency preparedness and do it with our partners in the armed forces. so we're celebrating and supportive of this whole goal as fleet week is looking at the

mission of teaching all of our residents and first responders of how to prepare better for emergencies and that's something that all of us san franciscans understand and we can always do better to prepare ourselves. our fleet week also commemorates the 100 anniversary of the birth of naval aviation. and so i want you to know this because here is the history buffs. you got to put this one down. did you know that the very first airplane that launched off the deck of a boat happened on the u.s.s. pennsylvania in 1911 right here in the san francisco bay area? that's a fact! it wasn't just mayor ed lee capsizing a.c. 45 off the bay in preparation for america's cup, so that was not could memoryor tiff. this year's fleet week will see

an unprecedented number of ships from the u.s. third fleet including the u.s. aircraft carriers, the coast guard and others which will participate in the practice raid of ships in saturday and will be available for our public to visit throughout the weekend. i want to say, also, that i just want to give a special shout-out in addition to all of our armed forces that we work every single day with our local san francisco coast guard. they're out there every day checking and inspecting our peers -- piers that making all of the events that we have, especially on fleet week weekend that they're securing the area. they're in that fine balance of looking at and making sure as the ships come in, whether they're sailboats or commercial vessels. they're doing all of the appropriate inspections and balancing. i just want to recognize the coast guard for doing that and doing that every single day as

we lead up to increased security precautions leading up to america's cup 34. and, of course, what we celebrate every year and what i personally look forward to, not only during the weekend, but their practice sessions throughout our bay area, and that's, of course, our world famous blue angels who also, of course, contribute to the thrill of all of the visitors we have here and even those practice sessions are amazing and we take a break from our work because it is a little different than hearing the latest protest from front of city hall. this is another one that we look forward to is the practice sessions throughout the week and that starts, i believe, tomorrow. and so i look forward to that. as you know, there is another point of history, i don't know if you know this, there is another one that i'm proud of, is that in our tradition of having the u.s. military here in the bay area, you didn't

know that chinatown's portsmith square is actually named after the u.s.s. portsmith which was one of the very first official american vessels to visit the san francisco bay area. so i want to acknowledge that and i want to also give special acknowledgement to our fleet week's chairperson, general myatt who has brought special emphasis with connecting up fleet week with the humanitarian assistance and the disaster response that now it's been known to have. i also know that all of our departments are very proud of and very much looking forward to this, general, as we do the leadership training that starts tomorrow. it is the senior leaders seminar, which is one of the highlights that we look forward to in this year's 2011 fleet week. and that is, allows our federal, our state, and our local officials to review our

response plans in conjunction with emergency management personnel and responders throughout our city agencies and to make sure that we can integrate that with our military relief efforts and that's a very special, i know we get the practice because it really is a practice of when our natural disaster will be on us and we want to make sure that we practice everything that we can possibly do and take advantage, full advantage of our military personnel being here in the bay area. you know, this is a very truly unique learning and relationship building that we have an opportunity to do every time we have fleet week here. and the represents from a broad range of agencies whether they're local or regional or state or federal can come together on the seminars and exchange tabletop exercises as well as interact with our own city's department of emergency management. i want to personally thank our honorary fleet week co-chairs.

that's been, of course, a very good friend and still our senator, senator dianne feinstein as well as our former secretary of state, george shultz, both of overwhelm are very business today and can't be here. i want to give a personal nod to their leadership as being our honorary co-chairs. both of them have been working really hard behind the scenes to make sure that we put fleet back into the term fleet week and they have been instrumental historically to make sure that we honor this tradition and found the support to grow this very big event. i also want to thank the many sponsors and government agencys that have come together to have stepped up for the fleet week, all the activities, especially our public safety departments, our police and fire, our management of our transit authority, our sfmta, our port,

our recreation and parks department and our airport and, of course, as a mentioned, our department of emergency management. and today, we have representatives from the u.s. navy as well as the canadian navy in addition to the marines, the u.s. coast guard. i want to thank all of them for being here and helping us kick off our 30th celebration of fleet week. and now i would like to introduce the chair, someone who has been working very hard and continues to remind me to make sure that i put time aside for all of the numerous events that will occur in our wonderful city at this time and that is, of course, the general. come up, general. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. i really appreciate that. i will tell you that when you do have an honorary pair of co-chairs like senator feinstein and secretary shultz, you get a little rudder guidance to put you on the

right track. we have had that. the focus on humanitarian and disaster response is the right thing to be doing. we have the best humanitarian assistance providers in the world. they're the member of the naval services and actually the u.s. military. so why not take advantage of their expertise and their skills. they have demonstrated it and actually used it as recently as here in japan with the major earthquake that took place in japan. i will tell you the members of the military here today have been working with us all along for a long time, not just this last week, but it's been months. and to my right, your left, advice admiral manson brown, he is in charge of the coast guard from the west coast to china. his folks have been crucial because the coast guard will probably be the first responders in a maritime environment in the bay area, so i'm really pleased to have him part of our team. to his left is major general

melvin species. he is the deputy commander of the marine force in camp pendleton. he has been working with us and really driving the scenario we have had on the tabletop exercise of medical search. how do we deal with the large number of casualties if we have a large catastrophic earthquake. to his left would be rear admiral jerry huber. he is the commander of the expedition nature strike force and part of the third fleet and the navy, as you know, the third fleet, they're coming in today. will is one ship already here and he is here representing advice admiral beman and advice admiral beman would be here but he doesn't fly in until 1700. the third fleet has been terrific in this whole process. i want to thank the u.s. naval services that are represented here today, but i also want to thank this wonderful committee i have, we're all volunteers. they have day jobs. i think our day jobs have

become our night jobs with fleet week because we believe it's very important. and there is an aspect of what the city's cooperation here, this department of emergency management in the city and county of san francisco put on the most marvelous tabletop exercise, everybody learned so much and the skills that they bring to the table to help us get ready, i'm just really, really impressed. there is one other thing i would like to focus on, and that's these neighborhood early response teams. we are actually showcasing what they do in san francisco, in oakland, in san jose, and all of the communities. all of the cities have these volunteer groups that help the neighborhoods get ready. we're going to have 60 of their team leaders with us during the senior leaders seminar on friday and they're actually going to see a presentation by the deputy dorkt of fema on the role of these emergency response team members in the disaster that occurred in

joplin, missouri, and how critical they were in saving so many lives. it's our chance to really recognize those folks, elevate in other people's ayes the importance they're going to play when we have the big earthquake and to thank them so much for what they do. i mean, they were all volunteers. nobody pays them anything. they just do it because they believe it's important. with that, mayor lee, thank you for your support for fleet week. it is going to be one of the biggest ever. i think our air show will be the biggest in north america. it will be well done. it will be safe. everybody will have a good time. thank you all very for coming. [applause] >> the general was absolutely correct. this is an opportunity for us not only to celebrate our military and the women and men that are in there, but also to bring our city even closer together, to train them, and to constantly build those relationships through this program. that's a wonderful thing. with the thousands of people that will be here throughout the weekend, we, of course,

have our general protocol and that is going to help me acknowledge the participation of so many people here today that have really used their personal time to help make our fleet week very successful. with that, i would like to present a certificate of honor to our united states navy. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. i'm going to keep working down to the heights and my height so i can get something going here. >> and my secretaries. >> oh, yes, yes. >> and, of course, as you know,

she meant that our former secretary of state george shultz was a retired marine. >> never retired, always a marine. >> so we would like to present a certificate of honor to our united states marine corporation -- corps. [applause] >> i'm sure he can run faster than me right now. as i mentioned earlier, we want to give a recognition to the ongoing work that we have with presenting a certificate of honor to our united states coast guard. [applause] >> yes, and, of course, as you know, i said earlier that it's in addition to our u.s. armed forces, we have joining us the

royal canadian air force, so a certificate of honor to the royal canadian air force. [applause] >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> and representing our, the country of canada, a certificate of honor presented to the counsel general of canada and she'll be accepting the certificate of honor for the royal canadian navy. [applause] >> and of course, something that the mayor always gets to

do, we get to make a proclamation which means free parking for the whole weekend? [laughter] >> and i would like to really make this a special one because i know that the general has really put his heart into it. it's not just the weeks beforehand. all year-round we're talking about how to make fleet week successful, how to make the honor and tradition to be even more visible to everybody here because we know that this is the time in our country's history where we really need to show much more appreciation for all of the people that have been done here and all of the history that we have with the armed forces. general, i want to thank you for our great leadership, and your personal perseverance in volunteering all of your personal time to do this. on behalf of the city of san francisco, we declare this fleet week and thank you very

much for your work. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. i appreciate it. >> ok, thank you very much. we're kicking it off. it's all sunny and look out and start listening for the blue angels. they'll be flying before you know it. thank you very much, everybody. [applause] >> you come around here up these stairs and then -- and give us

some remarks here. please welcome our mayor, a deadly -- ed lee. [applause] >> welcome back good morning. welcome to sunny san francisco. thank you again, in general, for your work as a chair of our fleet weak association. you have really done a tremendous job. i wanted to add to your personal story. you know, i was sent over by former mayor gavin newsom to new orleans a few years ago, and we studied what had happened there, and we realized that one of these things that had occurred in new orleans was a breakdown between city government and the neighborhoods. and such that when the hurricanes it and the flooding happened, so many people left that city, and then they did not come back, because there was no relationship between local

governments in many of the neighborhoods and many of the residence. that lesson learned in my mind for a very long time. it is that much more important, general, that when you put this fleet week together, that you made disaster preparedness a theme, in an addition to the celebration of our armed forces. you really have touched not only our city government, you have helped me touch every neighborhood in this city. that is what we need to do in all of our cities. so thanks very much, general, for your leadership on this. thank you. [applause] i also want to thank again our honorary chair, the former secretaries. you have been such a great leader here. i want to thank you for helping us put this together. i know senator feinstein cannot be here, but again, your leadership is extremely helpful in guiding us and reminding us that we owe a great debt of gratitude to our armed forces in

everything that we do in the city. i also want to thank our chief protocol officer for helping welcome all of the visitors and elected officials here as well. i also want to thank captain hardin again for an impressive ship we're on here today. you are occupying the very space that, in a couple of years, will hold the ships that will raise in america's cup 34. some of the 18 ships will be located right here. for now, this is a great occupancy of this particular pier, and i look forward to this afternoon when i have time to be able to see all of the equipment located upstairs as the sun comes shining out. you know, every year, fleet week is, of course, paying tribute to our women and men that are probably serving in our navy, coast guard, and marines. it is remarkable that in recent years, this week has developed into much more than just a

sights and sounds of the parade of ships and the blue angels, as i said earlier. the newly established focus on disaster preparedness is an ina valuable thing for our city. since 2004, our city has conducted approximately 100 disaster exercises with the department of emergency management. approximately 250 training exercises and workshops city- wide have been conducted with first responders and other key city officials. many of these training and exercises have gone well beyond our government agencies, and they now incorporate non- government, eight -- faith- based, and it committee-based organizations, businesses, and schools. we have revamped our cities outdoor public warning system, using homeland security funding, and today, there are 109 sirens with voice and tone capabilities

located throughout the city. as part of our regular exercise on tuesday afternoons in our noon testing, we record announcements and announce them in english, and there followed by announcements in spanish and chinese in some of the areas. we also enacted alertsf, sending a personal use on a weekly basis to make sure that things are correctly being sent out to all of our citizens who sign up. that text-based message system delivers emergency information to cell phones, pda's, e-mail accounts, and to date, 16,500 have signed up for alertsf. we also have our award winning website, 72hours.org that provides information on how to a great family emergency plan, build a disaster kids, and get involved in training before disaster occur v