>> good afternoon. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors meeting of tuesday, february the 26th, 2013. madam clerk, would you please call the roll? >> yes, mr. president. supervisor avalos? avalos present. supervisor breed? breed present. supervisor campos? campos present. president chiu? present. supervisor chu? chu present. supervisor cohen? cohen present. supervisor farrell? farrell present. supervisor kim? kim absent. supervisor mar?

mar absent. supervisor wiener? wiener present. supervisor yee? yee present. mr. president, there is a quorum. >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen, could you please join us in the pledge of allegiance? i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> colleagues, we have copies of the january 15th, 2013 board meeting minutes. could i have a motion to approve those anixctionv motion by supervisor campos, seconded by supervisor farrell. without objection, those minutes are approved. madam clerk, any communications? >> i have no communications, mr. president. >> and could you read our consent agenda items 1 through 12? >> mr. president, before doing so, i wanted to present a point of information. this morning our controller mr. rosenfield identified item number 3, the supplemental appropriations specifically the

district attorney positions on item number 3 to have originally been rejected by the board and the mayor in the annual budget for the current year. section 3.15 of the administrative code states that when any supplemental appropriation ordinance subsequent to the adoption of the budget for the current year contains an item which has been rejected by the board of the mayor and is then reintroduced for consideration, it must be subject to a two-thirds vote or an eight-vote threshold. typically the controller indicates that such within the title of these supplementals and we are able then to place it on the unfinished business pursuant to our rules as it is not appropriate for the consent agenda. it is before you today on second read. it was unanimous on its first reading. that concludes my point of information. >> thank you. colleagues, would anyone like to sever any of these items, including item 3? okay. why don't we take a roll call on items 1 through 12. >> on items 1 through 12? supervisor cohen? cohen aye. supervisor farrell? farrell aye. supervisor kim?

kim absent. supervisor mar? mar aye. supervisor wiener? wiener aye. supervisor yee? yee aye. supervisor avalos? avalos aye. supervisor breed? breed aye. supervisor campos? campos aye. president chiu? chiu aye. supervisor chu? chu aye. supervisor kim? kim aye. there are 11 ayes. >> the resolution is finally passed, resolution is adopted, motion approved. next item, please. >> item 13 is ordinance amending the administrative code, by adding sections 16.704 and 16.29-7.6, to mandate payments to city employees to offset federal income taxation on health insurance premiums for their same-sex spouses or same-sex domestic partners and to exclude such payments from the computation of compensation under the san francisco employees' retirement system. >> supervisor farrell. >> thank you, president chiu. and i want to thank my colleague from the budget and finance committee supervisor avalos, supervisor mar for passing this out of committee and sponsoring, co-sponsoring with me along with my other

co-sponsor, supervisor wiener and supervisor campos. this legislation mandates an annual reimbursement to city employees to offset federal income taxes on health care insurance premiums paid by the city for the same sex spouse or domestic partners. this legislation supports our lgbt community here in san francisco's -- san francisco and counters what is very much a discriminatory federal tax policy. and it provides a higher level of equality for same-sex spouses and domestic partners who work for the city and county of san francisco. currently city employees with same sex spouses or domestic partners elected to add their spouse or domestic partner to the health plan and additional federal tax is taken out of their paycheck. the federal government views health insurance coverage provided by same sex or domestic partners employers to be taxable income. therefore city employees in these situations are taxed more than other city employees simply because their spouse is of the same gender. this discrimination in our federal tax code has cost individuals affected by this tax thousands and thousands of dollars each year. and the number of city and

county of san francisco active members with same sex spouses and domestic partners is close to 400. san francisco has always been a leader in supporting our lgbt community. following the example of other municipalities such as cambridge, massachusetts, private employers such as google, who have already shown leadership on this issue and stood with our lgbt community, today we're asking to do the same. this legislation will ensure same sex domestic partners who work for the city and county of san francisco will not be burdened with these taxes. this ultimately is an issue of equality and is one of the many unfortunate results of the defense of marriage act or doma. this initial tax on married same sex spouses and domestic partners adds another sting to the injustice of doma. this year we are very hopeful with a number of decisions that are going to be coming before the u.s. supreme court when they will hear the proposition 8 case, perry case and various sdoma cases in late march 2013. however we should not and cannot stand still in san

francisco while this discrimination continues. i'm proud this legislation is supported again by my co-sponsor, supervisor wiener, campos, chiu, avalos and mar, as well as the alice b democratic club and harvey milk democratic club. and san francisco we have always been the city that has prided itself on being ahead of the curve and one that is willing to tackle difficult unjust issues in the name of equality. as a city we shouldn't stand idle contributing members continue to be discriminated against purely because of their sexual orientation. with hope and uncertainty that the supreme court will find prop 8 and doma unconstitutional, there is no time to wait to pass this legislation and, colleagues, i ask for your support. if there are no other comments, i will note that i have a few technical amendments that i have to -- have been advised by our city attorney we will have to delete a few line items. this is nonsubstantive. but we can still vote on the matter today. >> supervisor farrell has circulated amendments to item 13? >> yes. so, i'd like to make a motion

to, in this legislation, delete section 3 as well as in section 4, delete starting online 22, starting with the words "and section 1" and ending at the end of line 25, and notion to delete those items. >> so, supervisor farrell has made a motion to a medv. is there a second to that? seconded by supervisor chu. colleagues, any objection? motion to amend? amendments are made. supervisor breed. >> thank you. i'm really proud of my colleagues for taking the leadership in this role. * any further discussion? and i ask that supervisor farrell please add me as a co-sponsor. >> thank you, supervisor breed. i'd actually like to be added as a co-sponsor as well. with that, if there is any additional discussion, colleagues, can we take this item same house same call? >> as amended, mr. president. >> as amended. this this item passed in the first read as amended. item 14.

>> item 14 is an ordinance appropriating $6,589,395 of state revenue loss reserve to fund the de-appropriation of state revenue of $534,406 at the department of public health and appropriating uses of $50,000 to the department of juvenile probation, $2,424,528 to the department of public health, $3,180,461 to the human services agency, and $400,000 to the art commission in fiscal year 2012-2013. >> same house same call? this ordinance is passed on the first reading. item 15. >> item 15 is a resolution approving a lease agreement between the municipal transportation agency and the city of san francisco japan center garage corporation for the japan center public parking garage with an initial term of 10 years for a base rent of $1 and two 5-year options for a base rent of $1 for each option. >> any discussion, colleagues? supervisor farrell. >> thanks, president chiu. colleagues, this came out of budget committee last week and admittedly this is a very tough item for me. as i thought about it in budget committee, i think a few issues here, we have these leases with different garages throughout san francisco. and as i articulated to the mta

and a number of the community members, from my perspective there is a little bit of of consistency on how we handle these leases and to have a nonprofit agency manage them, to me, i had a lot of questions around that. and whether we should be sending additional money or the mta should be spending additional money to pay for this operation to me was very questionable. however, in speaking with a number of folks, i think two things. one, if i was asked should we be spending x amount of money and the same amount of money just to improve our neighborhood commercial corridors or certainly neighborhood commercial districts that especially japantown and the next item represent, but especially japantown, the answer is absolutely i would spend that in a heart beat. i think having thriving commercial corridors in our city, especially one such as japantown which is very ethnically oriented i think is critical to our city and i think something that i -- i know something i will always support. it's just the america nic many

here seemed a little bit off to me but i want to thank the members of the community that came and spoke with me last week and for taking the time to do so. * it meant a lot to hear from you how this board was structured, how much it meant i think to the merchants but also to the community members and the board members and how it really facilitated i think what i said almost in essence a better japantown and a more thriving community. so, for that reason i will be supporting this legislation today, but i want to note why i had some objections earlier on. but really want to thank the members of the haunted that came out to speak with me. >> supervisor mar. >> thank you, president chiu. i also wanted to echo some of supervisor farrell's points. i think the japan sebastianver stir showed that they had tremendous support and they gave us a sense of history of the neighborhood from the geary boulevard that cuts the fillmore district off of japantown historically and how community-based nonprofits running some garages, whether it's [speaker not understood] square in chinatown or the

japantown fillmore district community as well, we had a lot of great testimony from business leaders, not just from japantown, but also from the fillmore district as well. i think they also emphasized a lot of the points that ed reiskin from the mta did about the tremendous relationships that have been built up over the years and in some ways they quantified the economic benefits of having nonprofits run important institutions like the garage, especially in the japan center. so, i just wanted to thank the community reps and the business leaders for coming out to show why it's a real benefit for the city to support leases like this. >> supervisor breed. >> thank you. i am a strong supporter of the japantown center's garage new lease with mta. the garage is in district 5 and i know how valuable the nonprofit corporation is to the community. i served on the san francisco redevelopment agency commission and i grew up in the western addition. i know the tragic legacy of redevelopment all too well. for years african americans and

japanese americans property owners were pushed out of the western addition fillmore area and japantown neighborhoods. this corporation comprised of business owners and leaders in the community has served as a check against the injustice, a voice for the neighborhoods. that voice is far too important, too valuable to silence it now in the name of cost savings. more over, i am not convinced that eliminating the corporation would actually generate savings. the corporation acts as [speaker not understood] for the japantown and fillmore communities thus increasing the number of visitors to the area and paid customers to the garage. * the increases the garage -- the garage's top line revenue. and without the nonprofit corporation, the mta would have to manage the garage, which would certainly require some similar expenditures. so, any potential savings are, at best, ill-defined. i want to thank my good friend sandy maury for her hard work in japantown overall and

especially the japantown garage, but most of all i want to thank the members of the japantown center corporation who volunteer their time day in and day out to serve japantown and the fillmore communities. i ask my colleagues to please support this item and maintain the valuable voice for the japanese community in supporting this particular lease. thank you. >> thank you, supervisor breed. supervisor yee. >> yes, thank you. i'd have to say that not all nonprofit corporations that run these garages are created equally. and i would say that i would take it a case at a time and that some of these corporations that have been set up, i would vote against it. but in this benefit to the community such as the one in japantown, you cannot measure the value of that. * when this there are others that are in similar situations. so, therefore, i'll be supporting the renewal.

>> supervisor campos. >> thank you, mr. president. i'll be very brief. i appreciate all the comments, including some of the issues that were raised by some of my colleagues. for me, on something like this, i do give deference to the district supervisor and i know that a number of members of the community have come out in support of this. you know, i think ultimately the district supervisor has, you know, a better sense of the benefits that would come to the community for something like this. so, you know, out of that deference i will be supporting this item today. >> supervisor kim. >> thank you. and i appreciate all the comments that were made. i know that this has been a long-standing discussion at budget committee in terms of how we actually lease our parking garages here in the city and county of san francisco. and we're always looking for as

many savings as possible to go towards transit needs within the sfmta. so, i really appreciate that there has been such a robust discussion at the budget committee and i plan on supporting these items. i just had a quick question, and maybe this was answered already at budget committee. but i was curious about the difference and the cost of management between the two garages. and i only ask that because i know with sutter and stockton, they also seem to manage retail leases as well. and i'm not sure if the japantown garage does, but i notice that the japantown garage management cost is close to double the cost of the sutter stockton garage management. i'm not sure if that question was answered at committee. thank you. >> mr. reiskin? >> mr. president, members of the board, ed reiskin with the sfmta. through the supervisor chair to

supervisor kim's question, they manage two garageses so they're able to amortize their costs essentially over those two garages. the sutter stockton garage as well as the union square garage. so, they're able to spread those costs differently. that's the main difference between the two leases. >> and, so, the 154,000 is almost the 50% between the two garages because it's one management company? >> that's correct. >> that makes sense. and i just hope that as we continue this long-term discussion around our garages, i know that this initially came forward because we needed other entities to bond on behalf of sfmta. i'm happy to support this, this ten-year lease for both of the garages, but i hope we can keep having a continual discussion with our off-site operators to ensure they're running efficiently. i certainly know the benefits of the j town garage offers to its community and supervisor breed really articulated those needs very well. >> supervisor chu. >> thank you very much.

colleagues, i think this is one where we all appreciate how hard some time our votes are here at the board of supervisors, especially in light of all the relationships that we have built over time. this is one where i believe that i would be voting in the minority. i believe that the -- both leases will have the votes to pass today at the board. but i did want to explain why. i have a lot of respect for the people who are here today who showed up, who have worked on the japantown garage, but also the uptown folks who have done the work at union square. sandy maury, of course, [speaker not understood] i admire and have a lot of respect for. so, this is a hard vote for me. in thinking about this item when it first came to the budget and finance committee, it first came up and we continued this item to get more information about this item. i think the city -- we had gone through audits in the past