is to say, you are 52. whenever you have been caring for the first 52 years, it is time to let it go. really, here, they have given me carte blanche to do this. i think it is nice for me, in the sense of coming back 25 years later and seeing personally my own evolution as an artist and thinker. the whole effort to put the chicano or indigenous woman's experience on center stage is, in itself, for euro-american theaters, a radical position. because of the state of theater, it is a hard roll to hold up in institution. it is a hard road. i am looking at where we are 25 years later in the bay area, looking at how hard it is for us to strive to keep our theater is going, etc.

i like to think that i'm not struggling quite as hard, personally, but what i mean by that, the intention, the commitment. particularly, to produce works that would not be produced in other places, and also to really nurture women of color artists. i think that is something that has not shifted for me in those 25 years, and it is good to see that brava remains committed to that kind of work. ♪ >> when people talk about the reflection of the community, we can only go from what we have on our staff. we have a south asian managing director, south african artistic director, latino community out rich person. aside from the staff, the other

people, artists that we work with being a reflection of us, yes, the community is changing, but brava has always tried to be ahead of that trend. when i came in, i tried to make it about the work that shows the eclectic mission district, as well as serving the mission. those are the types of things that i feel build one brava is

>> when there's good children's theater, it is good theater. if it is good theater, you would like it. even if it is for children that, is what i think. i know for the velveteen rabbit, i feel it is a story for kids and much older people. it is about being a young

child and loving a toy or friend and it is also about what it means to get old. in 1986 my son was 2. i decided i would like to adapt the velveteen rabbit. mind you, i had never read it as a child but heard it as a mother. my first time was a bedtime story recording. it was through that that i defined the theme and really determined how i was going to produce the story. is it true listening to it. when i made the dance i watched my son, since i have been taking him to

live performances since he was 6 years old. he loved it when he saw his peers or when someone was reading to him or he heard language. early when the bunny first comes out they go, ah, the rabbit. i think talking, flying, something they can relate to. and the adults love nana. nan na is the main adult figure in the show. the fairy is played by the same person. fair is very much like the love for your first child. pure love.

nature is a beautiful thing. all wild rabbits come from nature. i think nature is mysterious, beautiful, not something our kids get very much these days. there's fantastical spectacle because of computers and film. i think in live performance, in a way being paired down, you can be more successful and ask everybody to buy into the world you are in. if it is a simple world they will buy in, as long as the world is consistent that you have on stage. in some ways i also want that message for kids. it doesn't have to be spectacle but how you feel and having fun and taking things seriously, not about being blown away.

>> what is real? it is a thing that happens to you when a child loves you for a long, long time. >> i think it is a success. for the most part if you are three to seven, you sit in the seats and most of the time the kids are engaged. they laugh and ask questions. i think that is success. the fact we tour it and do it here, it is lasting. i really want to say the reason it is lasting is because of the story marjorie williams wrote is a gem of a story. if it was just an okay story, it wouldn't have lasted this long. i have had people say that is the first show i ever saw, that is why i am a

choreographer. i have had people that have come back when they are 20 and 23 years old. little kids and people in their 50s and 60s are telling me how much they love it. they come back more than once, they come back year after year. >> good morning, everyone, and welcome to the tuesday, november 20th, 2012 meeting of the san francisco county transportation authority. my name is david campos and i am the chair of the commission, the authority. we are joined by the clerk of the authority, erika cheng, and we would like to thank the following members of sfgtv staff for covering the meeting today.

nona and jessie. madam clerk, if you can please call item 1 roll call. >> commissioner avalos? >> present. >> [speaker not understood]. cohen present. elsbernd present. farrell present. kim absent. mar absent. olague present. wiener present. we have a quorum. >> great, thank you very much. if you can now call item number 2. >> item number 2, approval of minutes of the october 23, 2012 meeting, that is an action item. >> before we take action on this item i'd like to open it up for any member of the public who would like to speak on item 2, please come forward. you each have three minutes. mr. chair, i was reading the minutes and normally i don't comment on the minutes. but when we comment on something that is critical and

important and if just a few sentences are put in the minutes, maybe that's the style of doing it. but i think it's really important when you're talking about the third street light rail, the first street starting at fourth and king and ending in the middle of visitacion valley, that that connection from visitacion valley to balboa station is very critical in having a system that really works. so, again and again, i take people on the third street light rail and we stop at visitacion valley, there isn't a town there, there isn't anything there. and i know one of the supervisors who represents district 11 is pushing for it, but there seems to be no concerted effort to listen to his pleas. but i tell you it's high time

that we in the minutes, when somebody says something about that thing it reflects -- it reflects [speaker not understood] that there should be some short term and long-term goals regarding connecting balboa station to visitacion valley. and then bringing that all the way to fourth and king. thank you very much. >> thank you. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. we can take our roll call on this. [roll call]

minutes passed. >> item passes, thank you. if you can now call item number 3. >> item number 3, chair's report, this is an information item. >> thank you very much. i have some brief remarks today. as you know, we are about to enter the holiday season and i want to begin by wishing everyone a happy thanksgiving and hopefully everyone here and those who are watching will be able to spend some time with family. i do want to thank our staff at the sf county transportation authority for all the work that they have done this year. i think that we have accomplished a lot and i look forward to having a more in-depth discussion about some of those accomplishmentses at our next meeting. as you know, we had an election on november 6 and we had some interesting developments in terms of revenue, at least, at the state level we saw some relief being brought by prop 30. we also saw a couple of transportation measures that failed in alameda county and in

los angeles, and i think that as we are analyzing the reasons for those results, it's important for us here in san francisco to have a better understanding of why perhaps that happened as we think about our own transportation needs going forward. of course, the most significant development at the federal level was the reelection of president obama. and i think that what that means for transportation, not only in the state of california, but nationwide, is pretty significant including, of course, what it does to high-speed rail. and the president has been a very strong supporter of that and that's something that we have been pushing for here in california and we want to make sure that we continue our efforts. but that certainly is a positive development on that -- on that front. as we move forward to the next year, one of the things that i'd like to ask my colleagues is to simply think about some of the priorities that we should have as a body, not only priorities in terms of the

individual projects or needs that each one of our districts has, but also collectively the priorities for the city. i know that we have seen a great deal of cooperation between the county transportation authority and the sfmta and i think that it's important for us to continue those efforts. and one of the things that i wanted to see next year is to -- and focus more on how we improve some of the coordination that is taking place among the various city agencies, especially around some of the major projects. i thought, you know, in the last few months we have seen exactly how that coordination, that cooperation has worked well. we also have seen examples of how it hasn't. and, so, to the extent that what we as a funding agency can play a role in facilitating and enhancing that cooperation i would like to see that. and that's one of the items i'd like to have at a future meeting, to have a more in-depth discussion and a conversation, really, with all

the different agencies that work with the county transportation authority about how we can improve that level of cooperation and corroboration. i think it will lead to greater efficiencies in how some of these projects are delivered. so, that's it unless you have any questions. i will open it up to public comment. any member of the public who would like to speak on item 3, please come forward. mr. chair, i like your comments. what i want to focus on are the youth that we have here in san francisco. with the mtc, the san francisco county transportation authority, the mta, together with the board of supervisors and especially this body, if we focus on our youth and hug them as much as we can to meet their transportation needs. * help them and one of the ways we can do that is by having a lively

discussion as to how our monies are spent and have a broader view. we seem to be more focused on the operations and the machines rather than the living and the human beings who are [speaker not understood]. thank you very much. >> thank you. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. madam clerk, if you can please doll item number 4? >> executive director's report, this is an information item. >> now we will curran it over to our executive director. mr. moskovich, i want to thank you and your staff as we near the end of the calendar year for all the work that has been done this calendar year. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my report was a couple of additional handouts as well. i'm only going to focus on five of the items in the report in the interest of time. the first thing i'd like to comment on is that we have on

the van ness vip project, bus rapid transit project, we've submitted the revised exception fact sheets to caltrans. as you know, caltrans has jurisdiction over the design on van ness avenue because it is a state route. and we are working very closely with the mta to make sure that we have a really top notch design for this bus rapid transit route in san francisco, the first fully featured vrt project to come through, probably in the north american continent of this kind. and we anticipate getting an approval from caltrans in early january. the publishing of the final eirs is now slated for february and that should allow us to bring the certification actually into this board on both the federal and the state

documents by march 2013. in addition to that, i want to point out that we spent the last month and a half or so negotiating with mta on a transition plan. as you may recall, the plan all along has been for the authority to clear the project environmentally and then turn it over to the mta to finalize design and get it built. and that moment has come and i'm very pleased to report that we have reached agreement. i signed the transition plan document a couple days ago and, so, we are on schedule with that and will be a further action that will take place with an updated memorandum of the agreement between the two agencies which will come to you [speaker not understood] in december and that will memorialize at the policy level what we have already agreed to

at the staff level. so, i'm really delighted about that and very confident that we're moving forward with the van ness vrt project in a most positive way. there are people who are interested in looking at the details of where the project is can go to www.van ness vip, all one word, dot-org. the bayview [speaker not understood] study has continued to advance as well as community outreach related to that plan. in collaboration with the department of public health and their bayview zone initiative, the next meeting -- there was a meeting of the community, working group, earlier this month. and the next one will be on december 11 at 10:00 a.m. at the bayview ymca which is located at 1601 lane street.

the san francisco transportation plan, which as you know is our long-range planning document for favors thaition in the city 30erctiontion -- 30-year document under development. and as you know, we had an online survey the last month and a half or so that provided essentially a budget gain for people to provide their input on how to prioritize the over $3 billion in discretionary funds that will be available over the life of the plan for transportation priorities in the city. we have tremendous -- response of over 600 people took part in the game online and provided the detailed answers. those, of course, are going to be used in the process of refining the list of projects and programs that will be proposed for the next stages of the plan.

also in response to agency comments, we have integrated pedestrian bicycle and travel management programs into the performance evaluation so that we have more complete picture. the results along with input received in the course of the public outreach will be used to inform [speaker not understood]. the next meeting of the advisory committee for the san francisco transportation plan is on november 28 at 6:00 p.m. at the authority's offices. 14 55 market street, second floor. the target for completion of the plan is summer of 2013. and will go entirely with the adoption of the regional transportation plan. in connection with that online to and for public input, got submitted to a national competition that was organized by the transportation research

board, which is the branch of the national academy of scienceses that deals with transportation nationwide. and we actually won among four national initiatives as one of the best public outreach tools in the country. so, we're going to be receiving a recognition for that at the january meeting of the transportation research board. and i want to congratulate my staff, our deputy for planning and all the people that participated in the process of putting that together, our deputy for technology services as well, elizabeth. it really is a great opportunity to bring people closer and make it real for them how we make decisions in terms of transportation priorities. and my final item is about the [spe