francisco sfgtv meeting of the san francisco budget and finance sub-committe occurring march 27, 2013, will begin shortly.

>> good morning everyone, and welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors budget and subcommittee, for march 27th, i'm farrell and joined by avalos and we will be joined by eric mar in a few moments. i would like to thank stgtv for covering this meeting and also the clerk, mr. young. >> do we have any announcements? >> please, silence any cell phones and electronic devices and complete the speaker cards to be as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted upon today will be on the board of supervisor's agenda, unless otherwise stated. >> i know that we have a number

of people for item four and we will call a few items and have a chance for public comment could you call one and two together. >> authorizing the issuance and delivery of the multifamily housing revenue bond in an aggregate principal amount not-to-exceed, $23,900,000 for the purpose of providing financing for the acquisition and construction... and item two, resolution approving and authoritying the mayor's office of housing, as auk ses forhousing agency to the redevelopment agency to amend an existing term ground lease with broad way sansome associates, lp, a california limited partnership... >> thank you, very much. we have kevin, from the mayor's office of housing. >> thank you, chair, farrell, and good morning supervisors and thank you for giving me a chance to present on the resolution, first, this resolution is follow up from the june, 2012 endusment

resolution authoritying the office to comply for a bond allocation of $23.9 million. that allocation was approved by sidlac in 2012. and these bonds are allocated for the construction development of the apartments and you should have received the various accompanying legal documents. it is important to note, like similar deals, these transactions do not require the city to pledge, replayment of the bonds, rather the only recourse for the payment are the project payment themselves or any credit enhanced by the lenders. they are sponsoring the apartments which as the clerk mentioned is 75 units of housing, and all will service householding earning 50 percent emi and below, it was formally

homeless households. it consists of ten studios, 31, one bedroom and 23 two bedroom and 5 three bedrooms. the mayor's office is pleased to present this affordable development and also received positive community support. we anticipate the closing of this transaction to happen on april 11th, 2013, slated to begin construction in mid to late april of 2013. developer is in possession of all of the project approvals. we are ask for your approval. we look forward to any questions that you may have. we have members of the development team here, and members of their consultant team here. i can also speak to the ground lease if you wish or close here and you can call them. >> we call it already. >> okay, great. the ground lease which you will

be reviewing and approving is the same operation, 75 units of affordable house, the initial term of the lease is 7 years and to extend another 29 years for a total of 99 years. in december 2006 mo issued a request for proposals and selected china town as the developers. they have all project approvals and financing in place, which enables them to commence construction in mid to late april. it is integral to the success of the apartments and we respectfully ask for your approval of the ground lease and ask for any questions that you may have. you should have all of the legal documents and we are available for any questions. >> supervisor avalos? >> any questions? >> okay. >> thank you very much. the budget analysts report? >> mr. chairman, supervisor

avalos, as we report on page 6 of our report and indicated by the mayor's office of housing this morning, although the city would issue the proposal multifamily housing revenue bonds the obligation to repay the bonds would rest on the project and the obligations of the project developers are such that the city will incur for financial liability from the issuance of such bonds. we also report that the city would based on the amendments to this ground lease the city will potentially have received an estimated $161,000 from surplus cash under the existing ground lease, in addition to base rent, as compared to an estimated $78,506 under the proposed grounded lease that is a reduction of $82,500 over a 15-year period. in addition, as a result of the

proposed amendment to the surplus cash, the city would be some what less likely to receive any surplus cash which the project may generate each year. we do recommend that you approve this legislation. >> okay. thank you very much. any questions? >> okay. seeing none, at this time i would like to take public comments on items one and two, any members of the public that wish to comment please step forward. >> good morning, supervisors, my name is douglas yep and i have lived in san francisco for 61 years. when i think about how the city and other government agencies have increased or influenced in economic activity, it reminds me of a series of discussions back in dc. and basically, it brings up the

question of whether there is too much expansion where any local government agency somehow has too much influence in future developments, especially economic develop.s like this one, and then a certain sense crowds out private industry. there is a lot of argument these days why private industry is not flourishing in the so-called economy. and i think that this is a good example of it. if this was such a nice development, it is an obvious, high-rent location, then why hasn't a private developer done this type of project, of course, following the guidelines of the city, and then, this way, it would encourage private companies to expand rather than having the growing influence of the government and whatever partnership it chooses to partner with.

now, i mentioned this just to bring up the question of whether local government has too much influence, especially how it wraps together with non-profits. because, when you get too many connections, there is always the possibility of accessive, maybe it is legal, maybe it is not legal, influence pedaling, and i would like to bring up for the record and hopefully it will be discussed and also i would like to thank the subcommittee for not canceling this hearing like the last one, thank you. >> thank you very much, any other members of the public that wishes to comment on items one or two? seeing none, public comment is closed. we have a motion to approve item one and two and send it to the full board with

recommendation and do that without objection. >> could you please call item three. >> resolution providing the sale of certificates of participation evidencing undivided proportion nature interests in the right to receive and concern rental payments to be made by the city and county of san francisco under the lease agreement to finance capital projects at the moscone convention center providing the sale of the certificates by om petive sale, approving the form and pub bli indication of the official notice of the sale and notice of intention to sell the certificate... >> and we have the controller's office here to speak. >> good morning, nadia from the controller's office of public finance. federal security's law imposed on the city, the obligation to insure that is offering documents are accurate and complete. this obligation applies to the individual members of the

government bodies approving the disclosure documents as well as the city staff charged with preparing the documents. in 2009, the board of supervisors approved the execution and delivery of the certificates of participation of up to 45 million to partially finance, 65 million to the center. the project has... up to 35 million today and we have used commercial paper to fund the improvements. the remaining $20 million was paid from assessments from (inaudible) district that was established in 2009. the board last approved the distribution of offering statements for and independent day in june of 2012, and the resolution in connection with the issuance of general bonds, 2012, of approximately 290 million for san francisco general hospital as well as (inaudible) emergency response

bonds. this resolution approves the form and authorizes the approval (inaudible) and the form of appendix a, which is contained in the offering document. appendix a to the official statement covers the general information about the city government structure, the budget process, and the property taxes and other tax and revenue sources, the city expenditures and label rerelation and employee benefits and retirement costs as well as investment bonds and obligations. i will give you a highlight of the changes that occurred since june of 2012. the (inaudible) financials were released early this year. the board accepts the budget in the fall of last year, we issued 290 million dollars in general obligation bonds, it has been updates to set the state section as well as the federal budget piece, and it is also being controlled by the budget updates that are now

reflected in appendix a as well as the five year financial plan and the ten year plan that were released this march, additionally, i just wanted to highlight this as the result of commercial paper, we have resulted in a savings of three to five million, and at the time that the board had approved the original transaction we had estimating issuing up to $40 million, and (inaudible) with the final maturity of 2018. and so the structure and the strategy that we have been using in the past has really worked in our favor, and so thank you for your indulgence. >> so a question here, just where do you see where she is in favor of commercial paper does that add to the discussion around the paper program is there another reason that we are doing it now. >> we have been using the commercial paper and the project is complete and we are doing the take out and this

will free up the capacity for the future capitol projects of the city. >> avalos? >> okay. thank you very much. we do not have a budget analyst report on this item, so this will be opened up to public comment. any members of the public that wish to comment on item number three, step forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. do we have a motion to send three forward? >> full recommendation and we can do that without opposition. will you call item four. >> item number four, resolution finding that 20,000 net rentable square foot is suitable and sufficient for the law library, authoritying the director of property to enter into a lease with van ness post center llc for the law library at 1200 van ness avenue and finding that the proposed relocation of the law library to such space is in conformance to the city's general plan and

priority of the policies of planning code, section, 101.1 and authoritying the director of the property to find the alternative comparable space if the lease with van ness post center cannot be finalized. >> thank you very much, mr. clerk, let me tell you how we will be going into item four, we will be entertaining closed session. first i will have public section, i have a number of speaker cards, they are available here and we can submit them there. and we will call you up and we will have two minutes for everyone to speak in public comment. after public comment, the committee is going to entertain a motion to hold a closed section to confer with the city attorney, the committee will not take action during the closed session, but at the end of the session, we will reconvene and hear the budget analyst and consider taking action on the resolution before us. so at this point, i would like to open up to public comment. for item number four, and what i am going to do is call speaker cards, please line up

in approximately the order that i call you and you can line up on the far wall. public comment can relate to any aspects including whether the board should adopt the resolution or not, whether or not we should confer to the attorney and whether or not we should disclose any or all of the discussions. if there are additional cards feel free to come up. and i apologize if i butcher names it is not intentional. >> julite., barciad. michael oconol,. and bill herbert and steven miaki. >> that speaker over there. >> yes, i think that i can.

my name is brendestobin you got close and thank you for the apology and i want to thank on behalf of the law library, i think that in times when the money is short that is the time that we need to expand the law library, especially now, you know the 50th anniversary, i think that we should be thinking about the fact that the type of justice that he receives should not be connected to the amount of money that you have. and i can tell you a a sole practitioner i can no longer afford west law in my home office than i can fly. and the guidance and the knowledge of the law librarians is critical to my ability to be able to do the amount of probono work that i do, to be able to serve some of the populations that i serve. half of, there must be dozens of cases where i would have been wasting a frightening amount of time on google scholar trying to figure out

what cases were still relevant and what cases have been over ruled and times that i would have gone off or down entirely the wrong path of research, but for the guidance of the librarians and so i would just have to urge you to really think about the type of justice we want to have in this city. and how difficult even for someone with a law degree to wind their way through the pitfalls of our legal system and if we don't make a serious commitment to having a very robust, law library, i think that we are failing ourselves in a very grievous way. and i would like to point out there is a lot of talk about the civil gideon that the people should have some sort of assistance when they are facing civil case and right now for most people all that they have got is the law library and as the times being as hard as they are, there are more and more people who cannot afford an attorney and more and more

attorneys who cannot afford west law or any real space for a paper library. that is all that i have got to say. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker, please? >> good morning, i'm julet,, ai lawyer and a former member of the reference team of the library, i could say 100 things about the indispensebility but i will limit myself to a few examples of all of my resources cannot replace the books by the degree that the city districts by a third. the need for 30,000 square feet is real and failure to house the law library necessarily results in a fracture of the connection not being able to be available to the public. on-line resources are still very much in need of

development and every data base that the law library describes to has different ways that the materials can be accessed and retrieved and they are not as intuitive as books. for example, if you want to print something you have to hit save and cancel until you can get to a place where you can print. it is not really the way that it works in books. furthermore, the organization of the on-line resources needs a lot of development. there are problems with just being able to view a table of contents, for example, on-line. you have to do 100 clicks just to get an at a glance view that you would get in just a few seconds by turning a few pages. also index is an important resource that the lawyers use and litigants use to conduct their research and very often, the index is not even available on an on-line source. >> more over, more importantly, a popular on-line data base

does not replace a popular book in the collection and so no space is saved with on-line resources, often it is just duplicated in an attempt to meet demand, this takes me to my next point is that 30,000 square feet is the magic number that was driefd based on the number of volumes in the collection and the linear space needed. >> thank you. appreciate it. next speaker, please? >> good morning, my name is michael oconoll. >> could you pull the microphone down closer? >> sorry. >> good morning, i have a solo practice here in the city. i find the law library essential to my practice. but, i am only a tree in the forest. so the forest is pretty easy for the supervisors to see, the

law library is right over there, and you could take a walk across the street and have a free minute, you will see three things. one is you will see a great many people from the public and lawyers using the resources. in fact often the tables are crowded. the second thing you will see is a library that is now 30,000 square feet and bursting at the seems. and the last thing that it might take a little observation is watching the library staff, and they are incredibly helpful and courteous and never have seen them not help someone who is there for help that gives the time, as an attorney, i find their help, helpful. that is all that i have to say, thank you >> thank you, very much. next speaker, please? >> good morning, my name is kathleen lord black and i am an

attorney licensed in california. my office is in vancouver and that is where i have my immigration practice. when i am in san francisco which is more than half of the time i depend upon the library for office space by the hour, where i could meet with clients in a quiet business-like setting. and i have also believe that this is good income for the library. i have used the law library on market and (inaudible) until its closure. and for many years. but what i did notice is that it was used by many who are not attorneys. and with the cut backs in the courts, and now, cut backs in the libraries, in terms of space and services and budget, that fewer people of the ge