chairperson nolan: good

afternoon and happy new year. welcome to the january 3 meeting of the board of directors of the san francisco municipal transportation agency. please call the roll. director bridges: [resemt/ -- present. director oka: present. >> announcement of prohibition of sound-producing devices at the beginning of the meeting. pagers and similar devices are prohibited. anyone responsible for one going off may be asked to leave the meetings. item four, the approval of minutes of december 6 regular meeting. chairperson nolan: all in favor? >> item 5, communications. there will be no discussion of anticipated obligation under a closed session today. item six, new or unfinished

business by board members. >> i was aware of the advertising leading up to new year's eve. there were television commercials which were very well done. from my point of view, it worked out very well. it was like a trial of our boarding, since it was free, despite the fact it's sort of like a cocktail party. but it was great. well done. chairperson nolan: thank you. other directors? >> item 6, -- seven, executive directors report. executive director reiskin: welcome. i am happy to be here with you. this is the first reading of 2012. happy new year, everyone. we will start of the year acknowledging some of our outstanding employees at the as

78. we are going to start with the transit division. i would like to ask patsy came -- cain and ricardo del barrio to step forward. they are the dispatch team at the green division, the division out of which most of the trains run -- the lrv's as well as the f line. the dispatch function is not well known or understood, but these are the folks responsible for getting service on the street every day. it is a very challenging job in any of the divisions, but green more so, because it is the focal point of all of the train service that carries the large percentage of our public. we have not the number of trains we need to be able to meet our service needs every day, because we have trains that are failing due to maintenance problems, or

out of service due to rex -- wrecks. and we often do not have the operators we need because of people who are not available for duty because of the challenge of getting people trained and ready to be rail operators. you put those two things together -- often not having enough trains or people -- and that is when coco and ricardo go to work, making phone calls, shuffling, doing whatever it takes to get service on the streets so people can get to where they need to go every day. really, it is an amazing feat that accomplish everyday. throughout operations, and they are well known for their dedication in an extremely challenging role. coco is the lead dispatcher. she has been with the agency 38 years. is that right? 38 years.

ricardo is the new guy. i think he has only been around about 25 years. [laughter] so he is still learning from coco. they have done amazing things for special events. but the day-to-day service would not happen without the work of these two. i want to ask john haley to say a few words and to join me in congratulating them on learning this award. -- earning this award. >> i would say happy new year, and turn it over to the professionals. i think you would guess which one is miss coco. thank you. congratulations on behalf of the mta for your fine work. 38 years, correct? thank you. >> thank all of you for this. and i think you all on behalf of all my staff as well. without them, i could not make

it. i could not do what i do, especially my son, as i call him. [laughter] >> mr. delbardo? >> what makes their accomplishments even more significant is being a dispatcher with the number of rules we have in our contract, and being able to apply them on a day-to-day basis and stay within all the regulatory rules, such as hours of service -- not only are these individuals masters of charm and wit to get people to come in on their day off, they are also very savvy in applying the rules of a very complicated working agreement. with that, thank you. congratulations. >> thank you so much.

happy new year's. thank you for this reward. i would like to also thank the staff and my mom here for pulling some of the miracles we do. some of the people are not here on the team. the bread and butter, the operators -- they are the ones with the good working relationship we have with one another, and the cooperation they give us. we can do some of the things we do. without them and their cooperation, there is no way we could do it. i found myself calling people sick this past week because of the holidays and other things. "are you that sick? do you think you can help me out?" believe it or not, i get cooperation from some people who are not feeling so good to come back. it is really a good feeling,

rewarding, should i say, for a lot of the operators, who put out so much, who operates so much with us, to pull it all out sometimes. it is difficult with all the special events and lack of equipment or one thing or another, especially when all departments are so short because of the budget crisis or whatever. again, thank you so much for the award, and have the new year. -- happy new year. [applause] >> i think that says a lot about the employees of the mta, that you have people who are sick and are still willing to come to work, with the right amount of persuasion, to make sure the service gets out on the streets. and i want to assure the department of public health the we do not have anybody coming in

who creates and the contagion. the next group we are going to asked to come up is from the administration division, the marketing team. i want to ask them to join debra johnson at the microphone. communications is an area that, before i joined the mta, a recognized as one that had a lot of opportunity here. we serve and interact with so many people here at the mta. the way we communicate with them is important to their experience using our system, or just living in the city. this group of folks worked together as a team. they are part of the marketing department within the administration division. and what they are being recognized for today is an effort that they had in developing the anti-crime campaign but was up inside our vehicles, and i think on some of

the bus shelters, in response to a real safety need we have at the agency, said the being the most important thing for us to be addressing to make sure people feel safer riding or system. -- our system. working with the police department to identify people being robert on board of their smart phones, this group got together to develop a campaign that by all accounts was very successful. we are not only ourselves feeling this was a successful campaign, but this group was recognized by the american public transit association in getting an award. they were first place for public relations awareness or educational campaign for the crime campaign. they have also gotten five awards over the last three years, so their value is recognized not just in san

francisco, but across the country. the team is jimmy lee, our one- person shop when it comes to graphic design. he has been with the agency five years. mark is a public-relations officer in marketing. aaron likewise has been in public relations for years. -- for four years. they are newcomers to the mta relative to coco and others, but are already having a positive impact. i want to ask debra if she wants to say a few words. >> good afternoon. thank you for those kind remarks about the team. it is my pleasure to stand before you and it is fitting in reference to director bronfman -- brinkman's comments. it was the creativity behind this team -- we have our own advertising agency. when you talk about receiving an

award, it is very highly coveted, for the simple fact that it is not done by transit professionals. these are market professionals -- marketing professionals from the private sector. that is the talent behind us. i would be remiss not to recognize the leader of this team and the deputy director of communications group. they have done a yeoman's job. it is my pleasure to work with them and i can attest to their skill set and talent. it is to die for. with that, it is my pleasure to provide iraq with his award today, january 3. thank you so much, eric. and then mark as well. thank you, mark. last but certainly not least, our graphic designer.

chairperson nolan: gentlemen, thank you for what you have done. i also understand you were responsible for the program for identification, which was done extremely well. thank you. love to hear from you. good afternoon. >> thank you, members of the board. thank you for this wonderful honor. i would also like to thank the director of corporate communications for his stewardship, wisdom, and guidance. to -- >> debra, our marketing director, -- to echo debra, our marketing director helps us to craft compelling messages that reflect the strategic goals of this agency. my colleague, jimmy lee, whose creative contributions are nothing short of amazing. eric molina, our logistics

expert, who has insured our offense come out without snafus. and finally, moran, who has done great work for the agency. >> good afternoon, chairman and board. thank you for this award. i do appreciate it. it has been a challenging few years. i want to thank my team. i can count on them because they always have my back. somehow, we turn sows' ears into purses on a daily basis. i also want to think the management here, because they challenge us every day. it is amazing the amount of work we can put out and win awards for. thank you very much. i appreciate this opportunity. chairperson nolan: mr. lee? >> i want to echo all the things they said about our team.

i am just one part of the cog that pulls the expertise together the presented. i also want to thank the board and my team, and murray and deborah. it is uncommon for an agency like this to create a very creative environment that we feel it is easy for us to do the work we do. that are very encouraging. they are wonderful to work with. chairperson nolan: thank you all very much. [applause] executive director reiskin: thank you. finally, from our finance division, i want to ask jason lee to come forward. one of the things i have found is we have strong operations people. we move people every day, and take care of our rights of way. but what we really need to move the agency forward are smart,

analytical people, people who can dive into the data, analyze the policy, and come up with good recommendations based on a sound foundation. i think jason really epitomizes that within the agency. he has only been here since 2008. he is a manager of financial contract services, which i do not really know what that means. but i know what he does. he has a great understanding of transportation and transit, a great capacity with numbers and analysis. as one example, when we started looking at all-door boarding and wanted to understand fare evasion and how that might impact all-or boarding, and i started asking questions about what we knew about it, they whipped out a report jason had done two years ago, a thorough

report that shows where, why, and how it happens and what countermeasures we might put in place -- a thoughtful, professional piece of work, which is exactly the kind of thing we need to make good decisions in this agency. i am very glad to see jason up here and want to invite him to say a few words. >> happy new year and thank you. jason just won an award from the transportation research board for the study he did on fare evasion for under 35. he is going to washington, d.c. to get the award, a prestigious award for great work. jason's commitment to transit is unparalleled. he does not own a car. he is always in my office bugging me about why can't we do this or that on transit. i sometimes, him down -- calm him down. he worked for cta and bart.

i am proud of his commitment to the agency and system. thank you for everything. chairperson nolan: on behalf of the board, thank you. we appreciate it. >> thank you very much for this honor. i would like to acknowledge the sponsorship of the proof of payment study by our leadership from finance and technology. some of you who might have been around when the study was conducted -- it consisted of surveying over 40,000 customers on over 1000 vehicle runs, all over the city, all times of day. that level of effort could not have been done but a single individual. it required transit operations and sfpd. i wanted to thank them for that. our survey team consisted of city hall fellows and interns,

as well as the 78 staff in this room today. -- as well as some of the sfmta staff in this room today. i want to acknowledge their effort, and the proof of payment officers. often, the only in counter the public has with them is unfortunately negative, getting a citation. but they do and not standing job helping keep our fair regulations -- fare regulations in place. they do a lot of things work. i want to acknowledge them. i got to know them personally, and they do a great job for this agency. on behalf of all the people who helped in this effort, thank you very much. [applause] executive director reiskin: if i may, a few quick other updates. on the central subgrade --

subway, some good news, one in terms of the relocations. we had purchased the building, or were in the process of purchasing the building on stockton street, at stockton and washington. it was occupied by both residential and commercial tenants. i am happy to report, to the great work of our real estate team and city attorney's office, but all 19 households have been successfully relocated to new homes. seven of the eight businesses have been relocated, and we are about to close escrow on the building this friday. an extremely challenging environment to operate in to smoothly and relatively seamlessly move folks, many of which are in a much better place. if you are moving from rental to ownership. -- a few are moving from rental to ownership. it was great to be able to move

forward in the project that sits on the site of the chinatown station. other great news has to do with funding. we got word that state crop wannabe -- 1b bond funds are coming in to the tune of $16 million. that our funds in our spending plan that we had anticipated, but until the bonds were sold and the checks got to the city, we hold off on celebrating. we got the $16 million. the $20 million we got earlier, last year, consistent with the requested made the year before -- that is good. we are working actively with the state and through the mtc and caltrans to try to make sure the rest of the bonds committed to this project continue to be sold in line with our cash flow needs. we will be working on that.

but the fact that this money came through in an -- even when the state is in a difficult fiscal situation is good news for our project. we have prepared an ordinance that would amend the planning code as part of the special use district for the chinatown station site. we need some changes to make our project work there, including allowing demolition of the building in advance of beginning reconstruction there. the ordinance was introduced by the board president in november, and will be going before the planning commission on january 26 and to the board of supervisors in march. that is something we have done in community work on with the planning department. it is another step on the ladder of things we need to make the chinatown station move forward. it is good news that that is moving. finally, you may have seen the press release on it.

we have initiated, or will be initiating, a route of the 30 and 45 buses to the west side of union square, starting on january 21. for the time being, we are not changing the eight. but the 35 will loop around the west side. that will be in place for about four years to facilitate construction of the central subway. the central subway does have a new website that was launched on december 21, so i encourage you to check that out at www .centralsubwaysf.com. it is user-friendly, with a lot of product information. we hope that will continue to improve communication with the public, with regard to arguably our largest and most significant capital project. a few other points on service

improvement. i may have mentioned this briefly before, but i am happy to announce we have finalized the plans for expansion of the 14l to daly city bart. it was a pretty big gap to have a major station and transit line so close to connecting, but not actually connect. to extend those extra blocks will be a huge connected with the improvement between unique and bart. -- muni and bart. the was a lot of communication to make that happen. we are happy to see that scheduled to start january 21. it will run during the morning and evening peak. the 28 and 28l -report- did earlier we took a number -- the 28 and 28l, we are happy to

report we took a number of pieces of the back, and as a result changed the schedule to better match the flow. we put some provisions in place. the initial results are promising. the on-time terminal departures exceed 85%. they were far from it before. on-time performance has improved 4%. we are maintaining all of the runs filled. we are monitoring it closely from our management center. the approach that mr. haley and his team took to focus on that route, making improvements and measuring the success, which we will continue doing as a march through the system, in this case has paid off. then a couple of revenue issues.

you have established at -- i think it may have been your last -- but you established a bond oversight committee to authorize the issuance of debt to support agency capital needs, a power given to the mta through previous voter initiatives but not previously exercised. with that power in place, you authorized the establishment of a bond oversight committee. today on the consent calendar, you are going to be considering appointments to that committee. you had given the director of transportation one appointment. i have made that appointment in the person of jackson long -- w ong, who is currently the chief operating person at the airport. he has a long history with the city and capital delivery. he is very knowledgeable.

a longtime san franciscan. he is going to retire from the airport, but was still willing to serve with us. the comptroller has an appointment to the committee and has appointed his head of public finance, who i know from my time on the capital planning committee is extremely knowledgeable about all things public finance on bond financing, and will be a great addition to that committee. the final two appointments will be from the citizen's advisory committee and counsel. they will be discussing them at the january 5 meeting. once you have made yours and they have made theirs, we will have the seven member body established. it will meet some time in the spring after we have gone to the next legislative steps to get the revenue bonds moving. finally, i wanted to report back. when we had our board workshop

on the budget, one of the things i recommended to you was to authorize us to move forward on convening a stakeholder panel to look at our budget issues, our structural budget issues as well as our regular annual budget issues. we have since put together a group of stakeholders from business, from labor, from community groups, from stakeholder groups. we have our first meeting today. the outcome of this process will be recommendations to the mta board sometime in the may timeframe. i wanted to let you know that process has started, and hopefully will get us some consensus recommendations with political support to help close the gaps that we face here every year, and in a more structural sense. with that, i will close by saying i enter 2012 with a great

deal of optimism. i think this will be a great year for mta and transportation in san francisco. there are a lot of stars aligning that give us a great opportunity to advance the ball in a meaningful way. we have a strategic plan for your consideration. that will drive us in a direction. under your leadership, with the great work of the staff, and working with the public, i think we can expect good things in transportation in 2012. chairperson nolan: we conclude on december 28? >> that is right. we have started our 100th year of service on december 28, 2012. chairperson nolan: there will be things in the course of the year to highlight this? executive director reiskin: we brought a preview for you. we will bring more events to