back very soon and today, we're going to take you to a san francisco french restaurants but we'll have to call out for fast food if you like (laughter) and please join us in the reception if you're people have the time good evening and welco

the wednesday, february 19, 2014, meeting of the san francisco board of appeals before we begin i need to ask the folks in the aisle to take a seat and there's seat in the front row we need to keep that clear for the fire marshall's. the board president is joined by your commissioner lazarus commissioner lazarus and commissioner hurtado pr commission darryl will be absent and to my left is the deputy he'll provide the board with legal advice. i'm cindy that grolg gold at the

scene we're represented by the cases with the representing the planning department and planning commission. we'll be joined by hanson tom with the building of inspection and norman wong with the san francisco transportation agency division of sustainable streets. typed i'm sorry we have the transportation of taxi services please go over the boards guidelines. the board requests you turn off outline pagers and cell phones. please carry on conversations implicit the halfway. appellant and department representatives each have 7 minutes to present their cases and 3 minutes for rebuttal. party must conclude their

comments within the 7 minutes and those who are not affiliated with the cases get 3 minutes. the public are asked but not required to give a card who coming up to the podium and pencils are on the left side of the podium. there are customer satisfaction survey forms on on the left side of the podium. please speak to the board staff if you have questions. the board office is located at 16750 mission street light 304 between van ness this meeting is broadcast live on sfgovtv cable channel 78 and dvdss of this meeting are available for

purchase for sfgovtv. at this point we'll conduct our swearing in and if you wish to have the board give our testimony please stand race our right hand after you've been sworn in or affirmed. any member of the public may speak under the sunshine ordinance without swearing in. >> we have one case dealing with an appeal of a questioning question at the suspension and that matter has been withdrawn. item number one is general public comment for any member of

the public who wants to speak on any agenda not on the calendar. item one no comments. item 2 commissioners. item 3 is the adaptations of minutes commissioners for your consideration of february 5th, 2014. any comments sanchez >> i'll move to approve the members. a any public comment on the items >> on that motion to adapt the minutes commissioner fung. commissioner hurtado. commissioner lazarus and commissioner honda is absent those minutes are adapted.

weeping we'll call a motion we received a letter appellant requesting a hearing for appeal and it is for the transportation agency versus the city. at the time the board vote 12 to zero for the taxi medallion and color scheme permit for best cab. we'll start with the requester. you have 3 minutes >> just before we got started a preliminary matter i noted there's not a full panel of commissioners is it possible to be heard by the full panel? >> we have a young if anyone wants to pipe in we generally have a board policy if there's a need for a fifth commissioner we'll continue it until it commissioner has an opportunity

to vote. my inclines is to go ahead and have the matter heard >> okay worth asking. good evening. i'm asking for a rehearing for appellant and best cab company. during the january 15th hearing i heard commissioner fung and commissioner honda ask whether sfmta would be treating the cab company differently and mr. murphy stood here and said no other medallion holder had so you get to move from his own color scheme to another color scheme and they were not treating him differently. the appellant says this is a misrepresentation of the facts

and we were not prepared to creditor because we didn't have institutional knowledge as mr. murphy would have had we'd last week to present different facts at the time of the hearing would have made a difference. in fact, your i'm sure you're aware of the briefing gold star taxi owner left his color scheme in 2012 concurrent with his color scheme. although mta has not disclosed or divorced volunteered the information there were other such transfers as well concluding 626 taxi. here i'd like to ask mr. omaha a question on page 3 of respondents brief it says you never approached mta with a

transfer color scheme permit to anyone else along with transferring our medallion to soto is that true what actually happened >> at the time i tried to transfer my medallion to soto on september 6, 2012, and mta said the only option available for me was to shut down any color scheme. i asked if i could transfer my color scheme to my pattern lewis >> what did mr. leon say. >> told me i couldn't do so because it was illegal but he wouldn't put that in writing. >> did you ever try to transfer our color scheme to anyone else. >> yes there was a man alex.

>> why didn't that happen. >> several months later. >> why. >> the mta and a member told he couldn't own the cab cap because they were going to shut it down. >> in conclusion if we could have a rehearing in order to belief the commission we believe were misrepresented in the last hearing and misinformation in that context for the prevention of injustice. we're here to answer any questions the commissioners have >> okay. thank you. seeing none. well, i actually have a question. the testimony your client just provided were you aware of that

at the last hearing? >> not really. >> well, i think it's yes or no. >> yeah. i can there were so many issues in this case. and we had not before heard mr. - we had not heard mr. murphy say that no other taxi go medallion holder had tried to move his permit from his own color scheme >> i understand that but you're not answering my question do you know about the fox your client is briefing us here today. >> kind of i kind of had an understanding something had happened but i'm not sure acquit sure exactly how it played out. that seems evasive but there was

a lot of things flying in this it entirety of the facts so when i sat down with my client and find out that gold star had actually tried tried to do the same thing and the mta asserted in its brief it handed in for the purpose of this hearing that my client had never made a request to transfer his color scheme permit to anyone. and i went back to him and said is this true and he said no. i don't you remember i tried to get lewis to come onto the color scheme and this guy overlooking election >> was that request ever put in writing anywhere.

>> why wasn't it put in writing. >> he told me he wouldn't accept it. >> who is he. >> leon. >> and scott leon was a first line investigator. >> most of the time a lady jen at the front window showed - won't attend to my case. >> so when was the xhfrgs on. >> on september 6th. >> was anyone else present for this communication. >> the lady at the back window scott come out in front of the

window so i'm not sure if she followed with the communication. >> okay. we do building this alex if asked would be able to back up but he attempted to buy the color scheme >> alex for the purpose of color scheme i went and said to alex not to proceed. >> that what's alexs last name. >> if this progresses i'm going to ask him to testify. >> what did he look like. he's a russian a white guy also in the taxicab industry >> what's his age.

>> been 59. >> hair color. >> gray i think. yeah. tall guy >> tall guy yes. and the other popcorn that you attempted to sell our medallion to who was that? >> it's my partner lewis. >> when. >> the same time it was was at the same date that scott nonverbal told me the only option i had to shut down my company and lewis was ready to take over the company. >> is this the same you tried to sell observer medallion to alex. >> when alex fuller and a alex

fuller. >> at the wouldn't let alex take over the color scheme. >> when. september 5th >> not the purpose on or after with letter. >> yeah. >> in 2013 or 2012. >> 2013. yeah. and a i don't have anything further we have nothing further >> we'll hear from the department now. mr. murray >> thank you, commissioners. this hearing request should be live because mr. ojai and his 13

attorney hadn't presented any new or material facts that would warrant a rehearing hon on this matter. mr. ojai is trying to putting point to every company and wanting to open a case on outline companies in the industry. he's now bringing up 626 was sold by mohammed and another gentlemen but it was turned into eco taxi. both of them has sold his medallion since and the other one is still in the industry desoto was once a cooperative and now bought by another gentleman. we're in the middle of considering a purpose of s f

super and each of those circumstances we have several other companies that have sold and if that's what we're going to have to do and go over the sale of each company beyond how that effects best cab at all because this isn't what medallion owners are doing each the medallion holders said i'm selling my medallion to get out of the business or going into semi retirement. that's not what mr. ojai has done. in terms of the request to sell his company this is the first i've heard of a formal request made i'm not aware of any

request mr. o 81 hi, may have you that talked to people in the industry alex i have an idea who he is but no requests come in and we'll have to have a business plan are there any changes in the numbers or will you be changing the name of the company that's individualized so we don't get into that. all that being said none of that has anything to do with the driving requirement for the wheelchair picks up or the focus operation of best cab. there's no new evidence that shows oh, i was driving and showing i was doing x for the

cheer community so no request for the hearing requests thank you. >> okay. thank you. is there any any public comment on this item?. seeing none, commissioners the matter is submitted >> any comments. my original vote was be prebltd that the appellant hadn't showed any waiver on the circumstances so i would not grant the rehearing request >> our standard is very clear there's nothing new that couldn't have been presented in their opinion and nothing material to our decision that was presented today so i don't see a reason for a rehearing. >> i would concur the question that was attributed to me was one of many most of the other

questions was related to the non-perform of the medallion and the licensed had he this issue they're bringing up would notarize to the same level of decision making for me. >> i've not got any further comments. another motion >> deny the hearing request on the basis of no new material. >> on that motion from the vice president to deny the request. commissioner fung. president hwang. commissioner hurtado. commissioner honda is absent the vote is 4 to zero and this rehearing is denied >> thank you. we're going to call item 5. julian vs. the department

transportation agency between thomas more and more drive appealing the issuance to a special traffic permit authorization to depart from organizations to travel to remove the tree reformer monday through friday 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. you have 7 minutes >> thank you, commissioners we're once again on the issue of brotherhood way. this is a first for the board in considering an appeal of a mta permit. we believe the mta people that are in anchor and responsible for issuing this permit does not due their due diligence on this issuance to shut down one lane of traffic on brotherhood way to

remove trees and have been laying there for the last 6 months we believe those trees should be on the hillside. i'd like to start off will i saying that we believe that the mta didn't consider the safety record of arresting berry well, they're been cited by cal osha. a year ago a tree fell by our bus stop and they still issued the permit to the company. there's a construction zone which is pictured here on the overhead. that the gentleman will refer to that. this is from yesterday's chronic.

this is a construction zone with or berry well wants to cut detain trees and there's an ongoing construction go on for one hundred and 82 condominium unit on the way. we believe they didn't consider the construction zone. the lanes to brvld way have significantly narrowed since this construction enhance. there's no sidewalk in front of the of this construction zone that's another issue. we believe the mta has really not done their homework on this and not evaluated the site. we have a standing objection regarding the fact that a number of blocks on park merced we are

not notified. we were not visited >> of tonight's hearing. >> that's correct. i've gone on the record with ms. goldstein we wanted to put this off and make sure we're going to do the best we can. we have a standing objection with or berry well, they have a $600,000 contract to remove trees in golden gate park. a number of mta imply book violins that i want to go through quickly if you'll allow me to i have only 3 and a half manipulates. or berry well, is spoept to have a certified flager. they don't have one that person

needs to be certified by the state they've never provided a flager especially one that's certified and they have to provide a san francisco police officer to direct traffic that's required by the blue book session 3.4 of the blue book. another issue not considered by the mta is the fact increase has to be a sidewalk closer. generally accordingly to the mta blue book they'll not issue a permit if the entire sidewalk is going to be shut down. that hadn't been credited in the issuance of this permit. also when a walk is shut down they have to have a police

officer there directing traffic you might ask or berry well, if they're willing to pay for a san francisco police officers. another issue is the transit operation we have muni buses we have muni buses that go how shall i say it east and west along brotherhood way to their various lines. no consideration was made this is one of the conditions they have to credit the public transit and another issue is the school zone along brotherhood way we've got four or five schools on brotherhood way. they're required to have a police officer directing traffic along brotherhood way when

they're shutting down a lane of traffic no provision in the plan. their supposed to contact the various administers to make arrangement to reroute traffic they haven't done that. i might mention there's a preyed pedestrian walk out there. generally when you shut down a sidewalk you need to have a police officer out there to direct traffic and finally we have bicyclists going in and out of brotherhood way it's an inpainted lane but it's part of the bicyclist network a that'll they've not made provisions to accommodate the bicyclists. so i want to end on those

various points and their violations in the issuance of this and another thing we want to say we have a possibility of erosion along brotherhood way and we believe those trees that they've cut down and are resting on the hillside are the only things that's keeping the held from e rhodes that's another argument we're going to again g argue >> we want to establish the physical connection driving past there their pouring a new situation and that's correct. >> part of one lane is closed. >> that's correct. >> the new sidewalk is

connecting to an existing sidewalk. >> actually, it doesn't look like it it looks like a wider sidewalk to accommodate their project. >> he the trees you're referring to are east excuse me. west of the construction site. >> yes we're going to show a video of the rebuttal of those trees laying on the sidewalk there. >> okay. >> we can hear from anyone else from or berrarber well