this is an important topic, and other audits that will be bringing back his priorities. i will like for you to narrow down the focus and in terms of timing, how much time will be dedicated, how many hours. what does that mean for the entire portfolio for the audits that we have on-site for the 2013 year? >> i like to answer all of that but the scope recommended in the motion is broad so that we could make the assessment and determine what are the highest priorities. what will benefit the city? what can have a real impact? that will frame the questions we ask as to how we conduct our risk assessment. in terms of the logistics,

and we would develop a much more refined work plan based on that, we would want to complete this by may, before the budget review in june. there is no benefit to dragging it longer than that. i am assuming that this will go to the board on tuesday, the following tuesday. we will be prepared to begin as soon as it is approved. we are already reviewing other documents. in terms of the overall audit program, we have to present to the gao shortly a work plan for 2013. i believe it will look similar to the work plan in 2012, allocating 5000 out of the 17,000 or contract to special projects in audit. some of that a special requests from the supervisors; also perhaps 3000 hours, -- we

would bring that shortly. this is one audit to be conducted during the course of the year. in terms of where we are now, we are completing today the final draft on the public safety realignment audit, submitting that to departments to get written comments.we hope to present up to the board of supervisors next week. we have an outstanding audit on the redevelopment agency that we want to discuss with this committee. our goal is to -- the amendment is looking at 12-1500, we cannot do all of it by may.

we want to discuss with you what are your priorities and help you decide what some of the highest cost and risk issues are. in terms of the work both supervisor campus and cohen talk about working in tandem with the hud audit, in some of the findings to inform this process as opposed to duplicating this. i imagine it going to this risk assessment that we could narrow the focus with intention not to duplicate some of the work done by hud, correct? >> correct. >> chair: supervisor campos? >> supervisor campos: thank you for your comments supervisor cohen. it is important to take all those points into consideration. we welcome any additional feedback not only for members of this committee

but also from members of the board. other members of the board. i wanted to get a better sense sort of what it means to work in tandem with hud for instance. one of the items that we have this compliance with applicable laws, federal, state, local. i imagine that would mean that hud is focusing on how federal law is being followed. and that for you to focus would be more than what is happening with local compliance. is that how it would work? >> anything specific to hud, the governing agency, we would leave to them. but i say that sort of

looking over not just laws, legal compliance, might be in hud's purview. we would take much more of a focus on the city's priorities. i do know - especially when we talk about policies % there are many city policies and priorities that are different from what hud wants. we would look at that and how it fits together. i say that because i think that there are things about rent collection, tenant eviction policies, housing replacement policies that are important to the city that maybe hud has a different point of view on. >> supervisor campos: supervisor cohen mentioned the issuing of grants, purchasing, contracting. i assume policies around those issues

would be things included in your review. >> that is correct. part of the government accountability office auditing standards are to consider what other audits have revealed. to some extent it is just an efficiency issue. they will be coming up with findings in march. we will be completing i work until probably . sometime after that we can look at some of their issues and say they are addressing it or, there is a city perspective on this and we want to take a step further. i had a discussion with mr. peterson from the housing authority about the fact that the housing authority said they are not meeting their asset management program. how hud has dealt with that is to say that we are going to reduce your allocation; this is a punitive action because you have not met the strict area. he described some of the issues about them not meeting

their asset management program makes me think that the commission and the city they want to say that this is the way that you should be meeting it and you could be meeting it and go a step further with that. i don't know all of the conditions. i know what he said to us about some of the failures. those are things the city could address quite easily. those are some of the areas where we might take what they do and then move a step further with it. >> supervisor campos: last thing i want to say, and i hope that you will also look at, not only sort of the performance of the agency. but i think it would also be appropriate, and i think it is very timely given the housing audit that you did last year, how the city can also better support the agency itself because there is an interconnection between what they are doing and what we are doing. i am certainly interested in that piece as well. >> okay. thank you and final piece.

my colleagues mentioned some great areas to focus on from their perspective. one area i think just to flush out that i think is interesting to me as well that would be informative is what the housing authority's financial planning processes look like, whether following best practices with regards to find, budgeting, these are things that to the extent they are successful in that arena they are able to deal with a lot more the issues that people care about, day-to-day, how our units maintain, are repairs done in a timely way. those of things that can be strengthened if they have a firm financial planning and footing. there is a place we can look at as well. thank you. >> supervisor campos: i forgot to add, wondering if have any thoughts on this.

a lot of information we get not only comes from the agency itself but we also hear from the residence. i don't know if there is any opportunity at times to hear from some of the folks that may be impacted by it in a more direct way. >> they are already calling us. there are advisory committees established by hud. one for the voucher payment program; one for the housing program. we including any work plan no matter what the risk assessment focus group meetings, talking to the residents, because they can inform us about how effective the management is of the properties themselves. >> thank you supervisors.

>> supervisor cohen: i also was going to highlight that each property has a tenant association and there is a large association, the public housing tenants association which has representative from all across the city. they have a citywide perspective and meet on a regular basis. this is outside of the commission that i'm talking about. what you are talking about is having feedback from the tenant, those persons on the ground receiving these benefits. i find it most helpful to attend the tenants' meeting on a fairly regular basis. >> we would do that. we did the audit of the communities we did meet with a tenant association. we have already that connection. >> chair: thank you very much. without any other questions why do we open this

for public comment. are there members of the public who wish to speaks? >> i am requesting to speak more than 2 minutes. i am an authority. you check your records, and you will see ace washington. you're looking at someone that has authority and knows exactly about housing authority, knows what the tenants want. the scope back to what we were talking about this history here. it is no secret that number one, public safety is what the most important thing of the tenants there. they don't have the money to do it. hud cut off their money. i appreciate campos what you are doing here, but i'm ready to get to the quick.

10 years ago, we had a public hearing. the tenants marched down to have hearings here. i know the rules. what i'm seeing now, i want someone to pay close attention to what i'm saying. i'm not new to this; i am true to this. you go through your process. myself, ace washington, i'm going to do my own independent. with the social media here hud knows that they are in trouble but they are doing the right thing by cutting off the funding. the mayor has to get rid of the of ministration, we all know that. have to get rid of alvarez. let him sleep out there with the tenants. right now the bottom line is the tenants.

this audit will show that they are out of compliance; it would show that there are total violations and it is going to show the reason why i'm going to file an injunction, i'm going to hire angela alioto the stopple procedures in the city and county that relates to african-american tenants; you are playing around here like we are playing games. those tenants are the one suffering. the authority is out of compliance. >> chair: thank you. >> i will come back of another chance. >> chair: any of the speakers for item 2. seeing none public comment is closed. gvl(gavel) we have a motion on the motion? >> i make a motion to move this item

with a positive recommendation. >> chair: supervisor cohen do you want to say a few words? we have a motion to set the item forward with recommendations, narrowing down the focus of this item, many members of this board whether on the committee or elsewhere will be feeding information to the analyst. we can move this forward without objection? thank you. do we have any other items? >> clerk calonsag: no other items. >> chair: thank you. we are adjourned.

>> let me welcome everyone for coming out to this great kickoff event. mayor lee, supervisor chiu, distinguished guests from the community, city family, all of us coming together. last year we held a pilot project on stockton street to help the merchants and support the merchants in selling their merchandise. we were able -- we were very successful. we got a lot of great feedback from the pilot. so this year again, we are doing the second year of the pilot. all the agencies and the community and the merchants, we

got together, and talked about how we can do better. and without further delay, i will ask the mayor to come and say a few words, who is a big supporter of this project. mayor lee. >> thank you mohammed. [ applause ] >> i am very happy to be here. is this okay? all right. all right. [ laughter ] all right. first of all, happy new year to everyone. this is what i'm looking forward to every year and i know the merchants and residents and all the small businesses are excited. a year ago board of supervisors president david chiu and i and members of the community discussed how we can continue

the economic vitality of the city and clearly we registered a big support for small businesses. i wanted to make sure that everybody neighborhood in the city has a chance of cultural celebrations. when it comes to chinese new year, there is a huge celebrate in chinatown. we're a huge destination for visitors, a lot of people come to chinatown to celebrate chinese new year. as people come here, we wanted to help our small businesss with offering some additional space for them, but also make it even safer for our pedestrians. because if you have ever observed chinatown during the chinese new years, and david and i have been quite specific observers about this. you will see families and kids walk into the street in the middle of big buses and cars

coming in. we didn't want that to happen. we didn't want anybody's safety to be compromised as we celebrate this new year's. because that would obviously be a serious hindrance. our public health director barbara garcia and transportation director ed reiskin, public works agencis, our wastewater management, our police department, we have all gotten together to say how can we do this smarter with our small businesses, our chinese chamber, our stockton street merchant association and all work together to make this a safer experience for everybody? we came up with the idea that maybe we could simply expand the sidewalk by allowing everybody to use the sidewalk properly, but that the storefronts could have some additional space to offer their

goods, when the chinese new years is happening, and when people are wanting to buy all the things that they want to do to celebrate the new year's and to come down here and be safe. so this pedestrian expansion of our sidewalks was the idea that came forward. we piloted it last year as mohammed explain and thank you to dpw's great work, the pilot was successful. it was successful all around, particularly with our small businesses, particularly with our chinatown youth center and the people who are here to protect pedestrians. all the agencies got back in a very enthusiastic way to say we can do it better this year and get everybody's involvement. so it isn't just the pressure on the police department, that says we got to be safe. it is everybody working together on the front-end to produce an experience that is positive for everyone. so i want to thank supervisor chiu. i want it it thank him for his

leadership and the leadership of our constant street leadership. they get a little economic bump. that was the year of the dragon that we wanted to do something bold. the year of the serpent is like the mini dragon. it is there to also continue that great experience, but also make sure that we're safe for everyone. and so i want to register that we're going to do this again beginning this saturday. it will go for a couple of weeks before the actual start of chinese new year's, which is february 10th, but that leading up to it, all the merchants and in particular the small businesss along stockton street will get that economic bump as we work with chinatown youth center and all the wonderful non-profits that keep everybody safe on our sidewalks and have that positive experience. this is a great time for the city to celebrate. of course we'll be there from february 10th leading up to

the great parade that we have that invites thousands of people here. i know the merchants association, the neighborhood associations, the chamber of commerce all see this as a positive way to celebrate our new year's and get everybody involve in a positive way. i'm here with all the different agencies, our parking and traffic to mohammed and his wonderful staff working with our police department, working with sfmta, and the private sector as well. we're already looking at even better practices of picking up the garage earlier, getting the streets cleaner and making sure that we do everything to celebrate positively. everybody clean their house before chinese new year's. get rid of all the bad stuff that happened last year. [ laughter ] bring in the new spirit. this is the way to do it. as we celebrate and i am looking forward to not only a

great new year's celebration, but something along the lines of some local football team that we want to celebrate as well [ applause ] thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, mayor lee. and like the mayor said, when we work here in chinatown or in district 3 there is someone that is always there with us, whether it's the broadway streetscape improvement, or the many projects that go on polk street or all around the neighborhood, please ask supervisor david chiu to say a few words >> good morning everyone, happy new year and happy new year of the mini dragon. i want to thank the chinese community coming together for today's announcement, as well as members of the honorary chinese community. this is a conversation that did start as i recall in one of the first meetings that i had with mayor lee when he was elected last year.

we talked about how do we ensure that the oldest, historic and most amazing chinatown community in the country can continue to offer a new year's experience that is authentic and reflects the community? and i want to thank the city departments for working together for the pilot program. we learned from that and hope to build from that. special thanks to our dpw crew and our police department and our department of public health to make sure that our pedestrians are safe and our private sector partners from ecology. all of us have come together and of course i have to thank the incredible diversity of our merchant community. bennie,pius, all of you who represent the community here. as our economy continues to recover, to make sure our merchants are thriving and this is the idea that will ensure that. i want to thank the folks that represent our residents who are

here. we need to make sure we're creating not just a vibrant marketplace and a vibrant community, but we want to make sure that pedestrian safety first and foremost. we want to remind folks that our pedestrian accident rates are still much higher than they need to be. so we'll make sure as we move forward with the program that everyone is safe, the merchants are displaying their wares that leave room for all the different transit vehicles to get through. thank you so much for being here. happy new year. >> thank you, supervisor chiu. you heard from the mayor and supervisor chiu, one of the major concerns is pedestrian safety and our partner agency, the san francisco police department has assured us again they will be here and working with everyone to make sure that everything is safe. let me ask captain tom come to the mic to say a few words.

>> thank you, mohammed. i wanted to wish everybody a very safe, happy and prosperous new year. as the new year comes we look for ward to the stockton street market. we want all the ped steins stay within the sidewalk. we'll have it barricaded off so no one gets into an accident. since this fair will bring in lots of people and business, we want people to be aware of their surroundings. be aware of pickpockets. put your wallet in your front pockets and just have a safe and very prosperous new year's. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. also as many of you know, stockton from corridor has got a lot of merchants and many of them sell food and merchandise. and enforcing compliance and making sure that business goes well. i'm going to ask dr. garcia to

come up to say a few words. >> happy new year. the department of public health as you heard pedestrian safety about three or four times again and i will say pedestrian safety is one of our major goals in the health department, along with food safety. we believe pedestrian safety is the utmost importance, but we also believe that the safety of the food, the people will be selling is also important to us and we'll be working closely with the merchants to ensure that they also follow the local and state law as round this issue. expanding the sidewalks and allowing for merchants to sell their important goods is such an important process to bring those two together. we're also looking at the bicyclists and pedestrians and walkers and those using transit to ensure safe passage through this new year's celebration. i want to thank the merchants specifically in terms of

bringing this idea forward and working with the city departments to ensure that we have a wonderful new year's in chinatown. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> and stockton corridor, mayor bus corridor, mayor major work to ensure that they run on time and a huge partner mta, ed reiskin is not here, but bond yee is here as they were last year. bond, would you come up and say a few years, please.&good morning everyone. on behalf of my colleague as the sfmta, we need the cooperation of everyone, pedestrians, merchants, the motorists and everyone else who uses the streets. so looking

forward to another successful two weeks. happy new year. [ applause ] >> thank you, bond. as you heard, it's a huge partnership on stockton street, there are many, many merchants, but representing the merchant group and someone that we have worked with in all details, making sure that the barricades are in the correct space, making sure that all the merchants understand what the rules are, making sure that everyone knows how things are going to work. if there are complaints, who to go to? our partner in the community, pius lee. >> thank you. mayor ed lee, supervisor david chiu, president of the board of supervisors. dpw mohammed, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of chinatown neighborhood association and merchants of stockton street, we want to thank you for your support and

also especially our commissioner bennie. our chinatown chamber of commerce is here. and chinatown merchants association for their understanding, cooperation and joint effort to help the chinese community continue a long standing cultural traditional program. the chinatown sidewalk merchants display program from january 26th through february 9. as you may know that it is the chinese tradition and custom throughout the world, merchants would close their businesses for the first seven days to celebrate the chinese new ea