>> the annual celebration of hardly strictly bluegrass is always a hit now completing itself 12 year of music in the incredible golden gate park. >> this is just the best park to come to. it's safe. it's wonderful and such a fun time of the year. there is every kind of music you can imagine and can wander around and go from one stage to another and just have fun. >> 81 bands and six stages and

no admission. this is hardly strictly bluegrass. >> i love music and peace. >> i think it represents what is great about the bay area. >> everyone is here for the music and the experience. this is why i live here. >> the culture out here is amazing. it's san francisco. >> this is a legacy of the old warren hel ment and receive necessary funding for ten years after his death. >> there is a legacy that started and it's cool and he's done something wonderful for the city and we're all grateful. hopefully we will keep this thing going on for years and years to come.

(calling roll). >> mr. chairman, you have a quorum. item 3, prohibition of sound producing items during the meeting. sound producing items are prohibited during the meeting. any person responsible for one going off in the room may be removed from the meeting. please be advised that cell phones set on vibrate do cause microphone interference so the board respectfully requests they be turned off. item 4, approval of the minutes of november 5, 2013 regular meeting.

>> all in favor say aye. thank you. >> item 5, communications. >> members of the board, ladies and gentlemen, i'd like to ask that the board today adjourn our meeting in memory of david forest. dave drove a taxicab for nearly 50 years for the city, first for desoto, later as a driver for the luxor company. at this time i'd like to ask director i'd like if you'd like to say a few words about mr. deforest. >> i'll be brief. dave deforest was a high school basketball star, he held a business degree, he held a degree in computing before anyone knew what computing was. this january 3rd he would have celebrated 50 years as a tax

driver, almost all of which he spent in the city of san francisco. i was privileged to know dave and through him i was privileged to know other great drivers at luxor who remember him as a kind and generous person who liked to smoke a big cigar. even younger drivers remember him who took the time to teach them the tricks of the trade. he will be affectionately remembered by a lot of people for many years to come. thank you for this opportunity to remember this ciefer. >> with members' consent we will adjourn the meeting in memory of mr. deforest. >> items 11 and 16 beth call for the board to take approval actions within the meaning of chapter 31 of the san francisco administrative code as it was amended by ordinance 161-13. as to each of these items the planning department has issued

a determination that the items are categorically exempt from the california quality act. the exemptions are posted on the planning department's web site. these exemptions determinations are subject to appeal within the time frame specified in the admin code section 31.16, which is typically 30 days. for information on filing an appeal a member of the public should contact the clerk of the board of supervisors in room 244 at city hall or by calling 415-554-5144. in a later challenge you may be limited to raising issues previously raised in a hearing on the item. >> i notice the cameras don't appear to be -- right here. >> all right, let's, we'll contact sfg-tv. there we go. okay, item 6, introduction of

new or unfinished business by board members. >> members of the board? >> thank you, on june 21 the policy and governance heard the polk street repaving pedestrian safety and safety improvements project and tag gave the staff feedback so we really prefer to see the options moved forward which have the greatest safety improvements. we clarified staff will be able to work on a block by block bases on parking plans to be sure specific business concerns are addressed. the 5 year pedestrian and bicycle injuries statistics are really chilling and we deserve the best so i'd like to ask with member consent when the polk street project comes to the board we have a pilot plan option similar to what's on the agenda ka for

folsom street. i think we really need to have a measurable way to determine what the impact will be on safety and on business and the best way to do that is with a reversible pilot project so with member consent i'd like to ask we have that. >> any other new or unfinished business, members of the board? seeing none. >> item 7, director's report. >> good afternoon, chairperson nolan, members of the board, staff and members of the public. three quick items to cover today, we have a big agenda. i did want to let you know that we successfully sold the $75 million worth of bonds last week, these are the bonds you had authorized a month or so previous. we had very strong interest both at the retail level which we opened up on november 13th and then at the institutional level. we had,

although we only had $75 million worth of bonds to sell, we had orders of more than $350 million dollars so a lot of folks eager to invest in the sfmta, which is great. so the market environment combined with that strong demand for the bonds resulted in a true interest cost of 3.8 percent and an all-in interest cost of 4 percent over 20 years, which equates to average annual debt service of about $6 million dollars, so it's as good as we could have hoped to have done with that bond sale, again reflecting the strong credit rating, the strong market and a clear desire of investors to invest in securities such as ours. with regard to the central subway, just wanted to mention we are making better progress than anticipated in terms of the tunneling, having hit as

much as 100 feet per day, sigtsly more -- significantly more than we had expected. it is possible we will be tunneling under market street this weekend. it's a pretty big milestone for us, there's still some vetting to be done to be sure we have the full sign off but so far all of the instrumentation and everything we've been evaluating suggests it's been working as designed and only happening better than anticipated in terms of schedule, so great news, big milestone for the central subway. if not this weekend it will likely happen soon thereafter. then finally, just for those who weren't able to attend and for the public and employees, we held our safe driver awards ceremony this past sunday up in the presidio and what the safe driver awards is is a program

to recognize the muni operators with 15 or more years of safe driving record. very pleased to be joined by our board chair as well as directors lee and ramos and this was an event we did collaboratively between the agency and local 258, the transport workers a union, the folks who represent our operators. we had 174 operators who were eligible for the award, six of whom had more than 35 years of safe driving with the mta, one of them i think had 41 years of safe driving with the mta, really phenomenal given the challenges we have here. we will be bringing some of those operators to our next meeting for this board for some public recognition but just wanted to acknowledge really the superior commitment and skill that so many of our operators have

operating in san francisco. we're happy to bring back this award program and it was something that we did again in conjunction with local 258 and i did want to thank the team that led on this, it was led by janice ewan from our communications group and included eric williams, mark deanda, lavinia, helen low so happy to have brought that back to the mta and that's something we will resume as an annual event from here forward and that concludes my report. >> thank you, director riskin. >> i know there was a chronicle article blaming us for the rat infestation. did we have an opportunity to talk to the board of public health to see if there's anything we can do.