those, again, that we were talking earlier about, that have equity and equitable distribution of resources available to transportation. some were laid to come on board. there are still hiccups. there are challenges of connecting the parkway into the larger transportation system. my concern is, one, that i will continue to echo every single time i see it and bring it to your attention until staff finally gets it, that we need to be including all neighborhoods in our plans, not just the downtown, not just north beach or the chinatown area. it is very unfair, and it sends a message to people, like myself, that live in these neighborhoods that we're not important, not included, not part of the overall plan, or that we are a secondary thought. i know i threw a lot at you, but i am making a statement to

everybody in this chamber and making it my voice that this is critical and we need to start modeling our behavior and our thoughts need to be more inclusive of everyone in san francisco. so, i would love to have a map. >> i have a map, but i can also follow up on information on how we arrived at the service area. we did a detailed analysis. supervisor cohen: i would welcome if you could speak to that analysis now. >> we did a city-wide suitability analysis for bicycle sharing, took into account 11 different factors. things like population density, retell job density, the bicycle network, a transit coverage -- retail jobs in city, things like that. we created a heat map of the city showing where the most suitable places for bicycle sharing work. this is a methodology which has been used in other cities, and these factors have been shown to be correlated with the success

of bicycle sharing. it is relatively new way to get around, but there has been some work done, and we're trying not to reinvent the wheel. what we came up with was this map of the city. really, it is no secret that the downtown core is the most connected and most successful area to choose. aside from that, there was an additional four that we sort of put on top of it. this is a regional pilot project. the other partners are the valley transportation authority in the south bay, and then the other locations where bikes will be deployed. palo alto and mountain view. lined up around the caltrain corridor. that is worthy partners are. that is for the caltrain terminal is. supervisor cohen: i would like to remind you that there is a caltrain terminal at the bay

shore and just outside the border of san mateo county. there is another station at 22nd. if we're successful, there will also be one at oakdale. we need to be able to build for the future and not, i believe, to be the easy way. yes, it is easy to design the nine downtown and it is almost a guaranteed success. -- it is easy to design in a downtown. but we need to get worse schools are being built, where homes are being built, where families are selling -- we need to look at where schools are being built. it is not in downtown san francisco. it is happening in the bayview and visitation valley. families are already there. so the data what, if you were to look at the data, it would explain that you could extrapolate that this pilot program may not necessarily be

as successful here as it would be in another place because of a myriad of reasons. but i am here to challenge staff today. it's not always take the easy way out. let's build something where there's nothing already. that also could potentially be a recipe for success. thank you for receiving my comments. supervisor avalos: supervisor kim? supervisor kim: thank you. i had a question about the street maintenance and the new trees being planted. but quickly on the bicycle share program, i am excited to see this coming forward. i have seen as in other cities like in minneapolis, in the downtown areas. they are incredibly helpful in helping people who are already downtown who commute to other areas of downtown where there is vehicles, caltrain, or buses, but during the daytime, the short term bike usage is appropriate for that area.

i want to be careful when we talk about equity in different neighborhoods. we do want that, particularly around the transit modes that are needed, whether it is transportation, muni, sidewalk repairs, or even the green wave corridors. we need to make sure there equitably distributed throughout san francisco. when we talk about bicycles sharing programs, they might be more useful in certain neighborhoods more than others. my understanding is it is about short-term usage during the daytime. correct me if i am wrong, but i want to make sure we are appropriately placing programs by the needs of those neighborhoods. but equity is incredibly important, and we have applications that are being put in for the sidewalk repair for the green wave corridors. we need to make sure we have balance applicants. if we do not get applications from certain neighborhoods, we need to figure out how to work

with the supervisor from that district for them to do outreach to certain groups to make this application available or to submit applications. i saw in the summary that the bay area air quality management district actually is planning to deploy bicycles in kiosks throughout the caltrain corridor, not just fourth and king. it seems to imply that these other areas will have a program similar to the one happening in san francisco. not just at that station. could you clarify that? >> that is correct. supervisor kim: did you talk in more detail about what other spots -- i assume a planing process was in place before this was brought to us. >> right, and this was funded also in part by a transportation fund clean air grant from last year. this request would be funding mta staff during the deployment portion of the project.

as far as specific questions about the locations along the corridor, and may invite mta staff back to discuss. i would also like to point out in response to the geographic distribution of projects, this pertains not only to prop k funds but also to prop aa funds, the vehicle registration fee, and the one bay area grant, in which there will be calls for projects in the next couple of months, something else to think about in addition to prop k programming. supervisor kim: i am not sure if mta wanted to respond to the larger regional plan that caltrain is proposing a ride bicycles. as supervisor cohen has brought up. supervisor avalos: it is great that we have other opportunities from other funding streams. i just think the authority needs to look at how -- we might not

get applicants that come from the southern part of san francisco. we want them to see some infrastructure that can be developed to meet our transit goals moving forward. i would love to be part of the process. i think that is the way to change how we are -- not waiting for applicants, but looking to make sure we can get projects to meet our goals. >> we heard about this last time. we have assembled together a list of candidate projects for the vehicle registration fee and the one bay area grants. we will read your offices ensure that list. if you do not like it, we will work with you to get the right projects on the list. supervisor avalos: ok, thank you. >> the other cities are the city of redwood city and mountain view and palo alto. two stations in san jose. those are the other caltrain stations. and the areas around the

caltrain stations that will be served. supervisor kim: how is that determined? >> those stations were not determined -- and they were determined by the partners. caltrain and the ta decided whether to choose those cities instead of brisbane, for example. they looked at it in terms of daily boardings and trip generation. basically for the pilot, the desire is to see this be a smash hit success so we can do a positive evaluation. we believe it will be positive, but it remains to be seen. then we can expand it to other locations. supervisor kim: it would be good to have a copy of the plan and the data that explains why these locations or pig. i know you have caltrain stations in supervisor cohen's and my district.

we want the data that backs up what this election was made. if we want to respond with other information, that might be helpful. >> i can follow up with this suitability analysis for san francisco, and i can request that the other materials from other participants can be provided. supervisor kim: thank you. i think this is a step forward. i have seen it in other cities. i look forward to see how it is utilized in san francisco. i have a question about the tree program. i know you have an explanation, but for the sake of the public because this is a controversial issue, we have a process where we are starting to relinquish the maintenance of our trees, and this is asking us for it tree replacement and maybe some additional trees. i am wondering if someone can talk in a little bit more detail on how we plan to continue to maintain those entries in our city budget or if we are going

to relinquish the maintenance of those injuries is all to a private residence? >> absolutely. i would like to invite staff from the department of public works to address your questions. concerns have been expressed at the citizens advisory committee and members of the public last month and at the cac a couple of weeks ago in regards to how dpw is balancing maintenance and planting efforts during a time of limited resources. also, some of the conversations at cac came up around, during the relinquishment implementation, if dpw has a method to evaluate economic hardship for folks who may not be able to maintain the trees that might become the responsibility and the ability to provide input into maintenance responsibility prior to trees being planted. i will invite douglas legg from the department of public works to address your question.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. we have been before you a number of times talking about our need to align our resources with the work that we have to do, so we have started the transfer of maintenance responsibility to private property owners for the approximately 35% of trees they're not already private property owner's responsibility. i would like to start by reminding you that most of your constituents with a street tree ready have responsibility to maintain that tree. the circumstances, there are a number of people who have been lucky enough to have the city maintain their tree. because of reductions in our staff through many years of budget cuts, we simply do not have the ability to maintain the

trees that are in the public area of responsibility. i have been doing a little bit of research. right now, the general fund and gas tax are paying for tree crews with about nine people. arborists and truck drivers who are taking care of those trees. the city of minneapolis where i come from, a population of about 380,000 people, about half of san francisco's population, they maintain all of the street tree. they actually have 200,000 street trees in minneapolis. they have street crews totaling 80 people. we have nine people in a city twice the size that are taking care of these trees. minneapolis has a fantastic urban forest. all of the neighborhoods are well forested in that city. that is what the department of

public works would like minneapolis to look like. we really are going to be coming to you in the near future and talking to you about -- how do we take care of not only the trees were talking about relinquishing to private property owners, but all of those trees that are already the responsibility of private property owners? many of them do not want the responsibility to maintain, do not necessarily have the knowledge about how to maintain those trees. it would be our dollar, and i think we have also talked about a study -- it would be our goal, and we have talked about a study to look at our urban forest. if it is a priority for us, we really should be looking to see how, as a city, we can maintain this urban forest and all of the street trees so we do not have the inequity of having some people taking care of their trees and others not having to. it'll take an investment. it may take a new revenue stream

or read prioritization of the city budget priorities. but to do that, we really -- we need to get it together. supervisor kim: thank you. to be more specific, this is a grant just to replace existing trees, not for new additional tories. >> this is essentially replacing trees that have died. they are in d -- empty tree basins. something has happened to them. they have been hit by a car. there have been vandalized. they got a disease. something has happened. this is to make sure we do not have empty tree basins. supervisor kim: i want to make sure that we have a process for new trees, because we are relinquishing many of the maintenance of trees. i want residence to know if we are putting up new trees, they might be responsible for them.

>> we will be notifying property owners who eventually will become responsible for that tree. if we're planting them, we are taking responsibility for establishing the tree, for making sure that it is healthy. as it grows, that we are watering of those trees. and then after a number of years, the private property owners, we're planning on it relinquishing these trees, and they are responsible for maintaining the. it is our intention for letting people know that it will eventually become the responsibility. i want to say that everything about trees -- your property value is greatly enhanced if you have a street tree. the livability of your block is enhanced. there is a benefit for having a street tree.

having an empty tree basin is a symptom of urban blight. that is worse than planting a tree, establishing it, and eventually asking the private property owner to take care of it. supervisor kim: i appreciate your comments. i am thinking about the future and residents coming to us for money. i appreciate your comments on this issue. i want to talk again about the equity issue. i think it is important that if we do not have strong organizational capacity in certain neighborhoods and we are not seen applications submitted by the, i think it is important that departments and the ta then identify locations in the projects themselves. this is something that occurred with district 6 in the previous park bond. we got very little of the money in the district. the response was that no one in the district applied. i think that sometimes residents do not have the technical

capacity to come up with which open space and which playgrounds are failing and what projects they can put together. sometimes i have to provide that assistance, if -- especially if we see an inequity. thank you. supervisor farrell: i would like to ask a follow-up in question. regarding these trees, when we did it in front of our house with the friends of the urban forest, it took a while. you talk about relinquishing that a certain point. maybe it is a gray area. well you hand it over when there is active -- will you be handing it over when there is active work being done being donetree? i wonder what the time frame will be. >> i will have our urban forester respond to that. that is a technical issue. i think i know the answer, but

she definitely knows. >> get afternoon. department of public works. generally, a tree requires three to five years of water to become established. at that point, it basically can survive on the seasonal rains. we choose trees that can survive on in the rain after the initial establishment time. before the trees are transferred to the property owner, we inspected them. we would do that initial care, that three to five-year time span. supervisor farrell: thank you. supervisor avalos: ok, we can open this up for public comment. >> what i have seen here with the presenters is that they have no idea whatsoever about the demographics of san francisco. and while some of you supervisors arbitrarily are

asking some questions, you really need to encourage young people to ride, and we have facilities, for example, in district 11 in the district 9 and maybe part of it in a district tend like mclaren park, allow young people to ride. but if you have the mentality that you're looking at only one segment of the population, it does not help. that is what i am seeing. if you look at the san francisco county transportation authority, there is no real representation from, say, the black community or really the asian community that lives here. we have like 10,000 businesses in district 10. they pay a lot of taxes. what do we get? nothing. the sewer system in our area,

something else in our area. what do we get? nothing. as long as they get $1 from the federal government or they get some money from the state government, they have to help. but you have all these the mormons here, and a lot of them are looking at -- you have all of these departments here, and a lot of them are looking at fte's. they're not looking so much as to the trees or to the infrastructure or to giving opportunities to our young people to bicycle, to address obesity, to help quality of life issues. no. the focus on fte's and payroll. no ability to look outside the box. [bell rings] supervisor avalos: anyone else who would like to comment? the seeing none, will close public comment. thank you for your presentation. i am pretty excited about the bike share program.

we just approved a contract for that. there's something happening in my district -- actually on the border between district 11 and district 10. actually, it is in supervisor cohen's district of a discussion about doing a bike skills program on the muni turnaround. there is actually an effort to actually reach out -- we have to do more, but reach out to more folks in the area to be part of that program. also the excelsior. you can teach about cycling and create better cycling in that area of the city that can link up to the transit as well. there is an organization doing advocacy around that called the san francisco urban riders. i think that would be a good place to put some infrastructure

in on cycling in the southern part of san francisco. >> thank you. we will look into it. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. this is an information item. we can go to our next item, which i think is general public comment. >> item number 10, introduction of new items. this is an information item. supervisor avalos: colleagues? seeing none. open it up for public comment. >> you know, supervisors, during your vote session, some of us who are tested and follow whatever you do -- who are astute cover public comment. now you do not see many people coming for public comment during the voting sessions because it is going nowhere. i am is dating to you all that occasionally i come here so that -- i am stating to you that

i occasionally come here so that i can write something about you do. cities that -- dizzies sad to say, year after year, despicable. -- it is sad to say. they talk a good talk, but they do not walk the walk. as you saw today, when the representatives are giving information that the last moment -- i was here. i did not get part of the presentation, because -- god only knows what. so we can not drafted in our blogs, because we can get it later online and address it. but if you have three or four members of the public here, give them the presentation to give them the information. because you keep making blunders and wasting our money. always remember, it is because of us, the constituents, that you all get your salaries. and always remember, public comment is meant to shed light.

[bell rings] shed light, sunshine. if you do not shed light, then the more people that really do not have morals and ethics, they do things behind closed doors. they do not represent us. people are suffering. people are really suffering. there will be a revolution. people are suffering. you do not seem to care. you do not seem to care. [bell rings] thank you very much. supervisor avalos: thank you very much. seeing none, we will close public comment. next item. >> item 11, public comment. general public comment. supervisor avalos: ok, seeing no one, four, we were close. >> item 12, adjournment. supervisor avalos: we are adjourned. thank you very much.

the regular meeting for the san francisco board of education for may 8, 2012, is now called to order. roll call, please. >> thank you, commissioner. ms.