problem with parking. furthermore, because parking is so important to our business, being able to be a part of this nonprofit board and having opportunity to give input to how the garage should be managed and operate really helps. i wish that there were more garages like this serving other neighborhoods in commercial districts in san francisco. i thank you and i urge you to support the lease. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. [speaker not understood], members of the committee, arnold townsend, reverend arnold townsend. i just wanted to very briefly support this nonprofit in japantown garage. it's been around the fillmore district for, getting close to 50 years now. hard to fathom, but it's actually true. and this garage is one of the most tremendous assets we have in our community run the way it's been run since i've been

in town. it is not just a parking garage, it is a community partner. they participate in every activity that goes on in fillmore from both sides of the overpass. they put in that overpass and kind of divided and separated communities that have never been divided and separated before. and yet we have overcome that overpass and continued to work together and rich hashimoto and the people of the japantown garage have been part of that. you may save $200,000, but what you would lose in terms of community involvement and community activity will be a far higher price to pay. and let me just say this, and no disrespect to mta and mr. reiskin. it will not be better run. you may save some money, but you will have a much less --

one, just because these folk devote their entire time toward the garage, and that's it. so, go ahead and approve this and let us do things the way we've been doing doing them. we really do know best. thank you so much. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. good morning, supervisors. my name is nancy, i'm the vice president of marketing for sun dance cinemas where we own and operate theater at 18 [speaker not understood]. when we took over the theater in 2006 we spent several million dollars on the remodel and i'm proud to say we're a very successful destination and part of the japantown fabric. i'm here today to state my support for the current management of the japantown garages. our patrons utilize a very large percentage of the parking in the two lots. when we first took ore the location, we met with community leaders in japantown and fillmore and we learned about all of the great events that took place * historically at our theater, including the

cherry blossom festival, [speaker not understood] spirit awards, annual day of remembrance you just mentioned, the asian film festival, san francisco international film festival. all of these events, it's very important to us that our patrons continue to enjoy the perfect experience they have based on the parking. we host a wide variety of events with high profile meetings and on several occasions large, well known artists including our group president. robert redford has been in attendance. all these events are different and they demand close attention to detail. we've had an excellent and ongoing relationship with the management of the garage. so, often we need to make special arrangements for events, coordinate hours, reserve spaces, and other important issues that come up within minutes of the event. they are responsive and cooperative and have been an important part of our success. i urge you to continue the garage corporation's oversight of the japantown center garage. thank you very much. >> thank you very much.

next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is [speaker not understood]. i am on the board. i am also a merchant in japantown. i own the [speaker not understood] photo shop booth. i also work at [speaker not understood]. so, i already know the benefits of being a merchant and having a garage and being on the board. it's great. * having that connection. but i think one thing that hasn't been stated yet is this $200,000 whatever line item, it's an investment in diversity. it's an investment in community. and it's an investment in all of what san francisco is. so, i think in that matter, you really -- it's hard to take that away. and i feel like this board is a great and integral fabric to what the community and what it is and what the city is. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

good morning, supervisors. my name is bob hamagucci, and i'm on the board of the garage corporation as well. i'm also a board member of the san francisco japantown foundation and executive director of the japantown task force. the task force is focused on the planning, preservation, and promotion of san francisco's japantown. we are a grantee of the mayor's office of the economic and workforce development providing advisory services to small businesses in the japantown area. i am here to urge you to support the amendment of the lease with sfmta. in my experience with the task force, work and cannot be

quantified. i urge your support. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. good morning, supervisors. my name is an son lee. i am the corporate manager for the uptown parking corporation overseeing the [speaker not understood] garage as well as the union square plaza and garage. prior to my over eight years of serving as the corporate manager for uptown, my experiences with private parking operators for over 13 years. we or i come from experience of parking management, but over this last 8 to 10 years of working with my nonprofit board really, really allowed me to

grow, understanding, serving the community which this garage is not a stand alone business. it really is an amenity to the district and area including japantown, including the downtown area. although the controller's report did mention the initial purpose of the nonprofit corporation over 50 years ago of funding and construction of these garages, but the intent was to maintain the vitality of these shopping district, neighborhood district, and that commitment still stands today with the nonprofit board that i serve under, i've been privileged to serve under because they really are committed to bettering the community for which these garages are residing in. and one example i wanted to give you as far as really trying to quantify the knowledge and experience and commitment, retail [speaker not understood]. i'm happy to say we're fully

occupied and there's no vacancies at the sutter stockton garage currently with about 11 retail spaces. we conducted the last three retail leases with no brokers fees. we were with the experience of our nonprofit board. we continue to have full occupancy in our retail and that's because of their knowledge and experience in business, in the community. and i really want to urge you to approve this item. thank you. >> supervisor mar. >> i had a question. i know the community makeup for the japantown center nonprofit [speaker not understood]. could you just describe a little bit about what makes up uptown's nonprofit board? just like what types of merchants and who is involved. sure. the nonprofit board at the uptown corporation, we currently have 11 members. there's 13 available seats. majority of them are made up of

business management, property owners, hotel hospitality. we have a couple small businesses as well. majority of our board actually have served for numbers of years who have a history of the challenges of the downtown area. i believe several letters have been submitted to each one of you on the committee. our vice president who could not be here today, ms. linda, served as the executive director of the union square business district. our board president is about to speak behind me, mr. sidney good will, has been a business owner, property owner in the downtown area. we have various other retail and hospitality hotels, restaurants, so on, so forth. i myself who have been involved with the community is also currently serving as a director with the union square business improvement district. >> thank you very much. >> excuse me, a question for you, then. you're both the manager of the japantown and sutter stockton? no, i am for the sutter

stockton garage and we also oversee the union square garage with a lease pending for recreation and parks department. >> okay. so, you're not involved with the day to day of jpg town? no, i'm not. >> okay. thank you. thank you. >> next speaker, please. [speaker not understood], i'm the president of the uptown parking corporation. i served on this board upwards of 25 years. in answer to your question, our board makeup of people like neiman's and sak's and barnies. we serve the community, the customers that come there. i also want to point out that our corporate manager and the accountant, that's our entire staff. and we share that with our union square garage. and if the city were to take that over -- mta would take it over, they'd have to use those

people or hire somebody anyway. it's just normal bookkeeping, paying our bills and dealing with the tenants in the area. we're here to serve. i think we have a good [speaker not understood]. i think if we run -- it's a pleasure to come into the sutter stockton garage and i'd like to keep it that way. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. good morning, supervisors. coner johnston, legislative aid to supervisor london breed. i want to offer a brief statement on behalf of supervisor breed. the japan center garage is in district 5 and the members of the japantown community, many of whom are here today, have expressed how much they value having a community entity involved in the management of this garage. they want this lease to continue and supervisor breed wishes to support them in that effort. the nonprofit corporation wasn't created solely to sell bonds. supervisor breed served on the redevelopment agency commission which had a tragic legislate is

of pushing out japanese and african-american property owners in the city. as supervisor mar mentioned earlier, this corporation and its predecessor served as a check against that, a voice for the community. and supervisor breed thinks that's something valuable that should continue. the corporation incurs about $276,000 per year in management costs, which may seem excessive or unnecessary, but bear in mind that mta would incur some costs if they were managing the garage, perhaps not as much, but at least some percentage of an fte. the members of the corporation, all of whom are respected community leaders, do not receive any pay for their service and the corporation acts as a strong voice for the community and a booster for the businesses whose customers use this garage. their efforts increase the number of visitors to japantown and to the japan center garage and thus the garage's gross revenues. it's likely offsets much of the net costs of the corporation itself.

just as a side note, supervisor breed is not taking a position on the correlated lease with uptown parking corporation, but she does ask you to pay defrends to the mta and the members of the japantown community and please approve the new lease for the japan center garage. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> any other members of the public who wish to comment on item number 4? seeing none, public comment is closed. quick question for mr. reiskin. two item. one, i notice that in the bla report, they mention $2,000,000 was a deferred maintenance account that is getting transferred to the mta as part of this for operational expenses; is that correct? >> supervisors, steve lee. yes. if this lease is approved, the japan center garage corporation has accumulated $2 million in their capital improvement fund which they would transfer to the mta for mta operations.

>> i'm just wondering how to think about it kind of capital improvement account going towards operational expenses. that to me is one pool that's not fit for the other pool of money and i'm just trying to get an understanding of how you guys are thinking about this that and why it's appropriate. >> well, the garage itself, in terms of operations and the operating budget and the capital account, for any amounts that exceed their capital limit of $2 million automatically flows to the mta as net income. so, this in a sense would also be considered overflow that would support mta. so, all their net income comes to sfmta. >> is there no deferred maintenance here and other garages that it would be more appropriately used for? >> well, that's what this bond issuance is for, in terms of an mta wide, so we can address concerns related to all the garages, not just japan center. or sutter stockton. so, that is our main concern, is that knowing that not only this garage needs improvements, but city-wide as well.

>> i understand that, but that seems to me like you're taking bond money, then, and transferring it through a wheel to operational expenses. to the budget analyst analyst. >> mr. chair, as we understand it, the bonds that have been issued are taking care of their capital improvement needs. * so, this in effect winds up as surplus and can be transferred for operating expenditures to the mta. so, they're not short changing their capital needs as we understand it. >> thank you, i appreciate that. i guess my question is but by issuing the debt, you say you're not short changing the capital needs, but tame point in time you're [speaker not understood] and you're issuing bonds against it for operational expenses. you're floating bonds to float for operational expenses which we should not be doing. >> you're correct in that sense. >> well, our mta operating budget also supports the

repayment of the bonds itself. for garage operations in terms of the capital improvements, we would be doing the same amount of work there as well in term of what would be available. >> okay. thanks. and to mr. reiskin, just one more question. obviously, and i absolutely understand this board and number of restaurant owners that we've gone through quite a bit and love the restaurants and people are involved in the community have influence and i think that's terrific from a neighborhood input. i can see the value there. why not, though, have just a board, maybe not a advisory board, but a board of directors on the garage itself, but not paying the nonprofit organization a few hundred thousand dollars? you'd still have that in place, you can have all the community input you want, but not have -- one way to look at us siphoning off a few hundred thousand dollars to pay for a manager or so forth, when you can still

have that board involvement, local merchant involvement, but you're just not paying folks. >> as i mentioned before, that's possible to do. that's an arrangement that we have elsewhere. it would really i think remove the board one step from directly overseeing the individuals who are managing the garage. i think you heard from the speaker who spoke on behalf of the sun dance. they have some day-to-day operational things where their ability to deal directly like that allows them to facilitate changes they need or operational things that they need in support of events or businesses or other activities. so, it's absolutely possible that we could operate that way. i think that the way that these two corporations have been acting and providing that direct oversight of the garage operator gives them a closer connection to the operations of the garage that bring the values that the public speakers referenced.

>> okay. supervisor avalos. >> thank you, chair farrell. i have a lot of difficulty just trying to figure out what material benefits there are for the community from these nonprofit organizations. it seems like there's a benefit for people who run the nonprofit organization to be able to see that the garage can work in their favor. these garages are public garages. therefore, everyone in the public can be able to use and be able to access. and to me it doesn't mach a lot of sense that we're making decisions or the nonprofit is making decisionses about how these garages can benefit the businesses themselves. really people are trying to find parking close to perhaps use these businesses. i just haven't really heard anything to me that shows that there is a real material benefit. people are talking about community. people talk about input and decision making ability. but i don't hear anything specific about what that is. i don't feel comfortable approving what seems to be just

a very unquantified activity of the nonprofit does. and we had decisions like this all the time to come before us. i think a majority of our decisions, we decide we're not going to be able to fund [speaker not understood] perhaps a superfluous type of activities. so, i don't feel comfortable supporting these leases. but i'm willing to send this to the full board without recommendation so the board can take a whack at it. i'm okay with that. it's not a whole lot of money. me personally, it's not something i feel comfortable with. >> thank you. last question. we now have a bit of -- i think you said earlier, but a bit of inconsistency how we're dealing with some leases and how we're deal with others with nonprofits involved. could you talk a little bit more about that, kind of the policy and rationale behind it, how the mta thinks about that? if we terminate the lease yesterday for the fillmore farrell garage, and now we're

coming forward approving these leases again. can you talk about the difference? >> yes. each garage and the corporations have evolved differently over time. [speaker not understood]. they serve very neighborhood specific needs. so, we do have different ways that we're and they're really suited to the needs and history and the context of the individual neighborhoods that they're serving. and what we don't think is necessarily a need for a one size fits all model like we do in many areas of the transportation system. * these are taylored somewhat to the specific needs and desires of each community. * >> okay. supervisor mar? >> yeah, i just wanted to respond to my colleague's great questions and points. but again, move back to the history and context of -- i'm not so sure about the sutter stockton garage and the

nonprofit that runs it, but i just know that for the japan center nonprofit and japantown in general, that there is a sentiment that reverend townsend mentioned that way back in the western addition, the fillmore district and japantown felt devastated by the redevelopment of the '50s and '60s that the building of the garage and even the so-called redevelopment of the area meant that we created nonprofits and community based institutions whether strong voices from merchants, but also residents as well. and i do feel that the strong community relations built not just from the newer businesses like the kabuki theater, and i'm really happy that they've continued the supportive community-based events. but i think the nonprofit has been a key player in ensuring that the ethnic community in japantown but also the connection with the african-american and fillmore district are maintained. and you can't get that done by an mta running a garage.

so, there's that historic context, but also those i think tangible benefits that many of the speakers brought up as well and that's why i strongly support japantown and [speaker not understood] comes up in chinatown a little later, that's another one that has a similar history, but not exactly the same. but i think for the did evastation of redevelopment and japantown community having to rebuild itself and the african-american and fillmore district building those ties that that's why this is such an important lease that we continue as a nonprofit and a community-based partnership. >> thank you, supervisor mar. and i think to distinguish portsmouth, some of the members of that nonprofit agency actually work in the garage itself. so that is different. here to me this seems to be a middleman thing. i appreciate the history and involvement. my question is why are we paying a few hundred thousand dollars. we can still a have a board, everybody involved, ties to the african-american and japantown. i appreciate that, i grew up in the fillmore district but i don't see why we're spending a

few hundred thousand dollars to pay for this. that to me doesn't make sense. but i associate myself with supervisor avalos' comments. i am uncomfortable right now with this. but what i would suggest is we move this forward to the full board without recommendation. we can deal with it there. to members of the japantown board and so forth, i'm happy, i would love to meet with you guys to understand more about the rationale behind this. i think the community involvement is absolutely terrific and it would be great if our more chartctiontionv were more involved with the garages in our neighborhood and merchant requestor doors. * i agree with that. the reason we're paying a few hundred thousand dollars doesn't make sense to me. let me make a motion to send this forward to the full board without recommendation. i apologize. we have a few amendments. first we have a few technical amendments we'd like to make.

they have been circulated for item number 4. make a motion to approve those amendments. >> second. >> okay. we can do that without opposition. >> [speaker not understood]. >> we're going to do 5 afterwards. we haven't called 5 yet. motion to forward item number 4 to the board without recommendation. and we can do that without opposition. >> item number 4 is referred without recommendation as amended. >> thank you very much, mr. clerk. please call item number 5. >> item number 5, resolution approving a lease agreement between the city and county of san francisco and the city of san francisco uptown parking corporation for the sutter stockton public parking garage, for an annual base rent of $1 plus surplus, with an initial term of 10 years with two five-year options. >> thank you. mr. reiskin, welcome back. >> thank you. i actually thought the clerk previously called 5 and i was speaking to both. and i think there were two public speakers who were speaking for the uptown. so, i have nothing more to add. happy to answer if there are other questions. >> okay. can you distinguish, then, between the community of japantown which seems to me very neighborhood centric and

so forth, certainly within a very rich ethnic community within our city compared to sutter stockton, seems to be very different in terms of core of downtown. maybe distinguish between the features there. >> yeah. clearly the union town, union square area and this corporation manages as i said both sutter stockton and union square garages, the latter on behalf of the recreational park department. they are arguably more dependent on the garages in terms of the neighborhood commerce that they serve. there's less street parking in the area, there's more congestion in the area and as the speakers referenced, it's business leaders small and large in the general greater union square area that are serving on this board to make sure that the operations of these garages serve that neighborhood and it's not serving the businesses of the neighborhood. it's serving everybody who uses the neighborhood. >> okay. colleagues, any questions? okay, thank you, mr. reiskin,

appreciate it. to the budget and legislative analyst? >> mr. chairman, committee, we consider this to be a policy matter for the board. >> thank you. colleagues, any questions for the bla? okay, at this point i'd like to open it up to public comment. any members wish to comment on item number 5. seeing none, public comment is closed. at this point, colleagues, i actually suggest we do the same thing we did with item number 4, forward this to the full board without recommendation. we can deal with it at the full board. >> i'll move that. >> okay. mr. clerk, do we have the same -- >> the same amendment. >> we have a few same technical amendments with item number 5. so first i'd like to make a motion to approve these items to item number a. -- 5. we can do that without opposition. and we have a motion to move item number 5 to the full board without recommendation. >> same position. >> we can do that.

thank you. please call item number 1. >> item number 1, resolution authorizing the police department to retroactively accept and expend a grant in the amount of $200,000 from the california emergency management agency for the anti-human trafficking task force program for the period of october 1, 2012 through september 30, 2013. >> thank you very much. and ms. gannet? >> yes. >> all right, thank you very much for being here. >> good morning, supervisors. we're here to request your approval on a grant, 200,000, for anti-human traffickinging. this is the continuation of a grant we had in the prior year. * the grant budget supports personnel on the police department of about 150,000 of nonprofit that we partner with for about 50 and some small operational needs for about $3,000. i'm happy to answer any questions on the grant. >> colleagues, any questions?

thanks, appreciate it. all right. at this point i'd like to open up to public comment. if there are any members of the public who wish to comment on item number 1? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> motion to [speaker not understood]. >> second. >> okay, motion to move aye number 1 with full recommendation to the full board of supervisors. we can do that without opposition. mr. clerk, can you please call item number 2 in >> item number 2, resolution approving the boarding area "f" specialty store lease between avila retail development and management, llc, and the city and county of san francisco, acting by and through its airport commission, for a seven-year term with a minimum annual guarantee of $162,000. : * >> thank you. we have ms. wiener from the airport. >> yes, member of the committee, cathy widener with the san francisco airport. the airport is seeking your approval for a new seven-year retail lease with avila retail development for 9 47 square foot specialty retail store in terminal 3. the proposed lease is the

result of a competitive request for proposals process with avila receiving the highest point of the three companies that responded to the rfp. avila will pay the airport either a minimum annual guarantee of $162,000 a year or a percentage rent formula based on their gross revenues, whichever is greater. airport staff does estimate that annual sales for this location will be in the amount of $1,580,000 a year. this will result in avila paying the percentage rent formula instead of the mag, estimated at $223,000 a year or $60,000 a year more than the proposed minimum guarantee. the proposed resolution does require retroactivity to january 1st. we've had some construction and some refurbishment activity going on in terminal 3 and