lightweight, fully electric, free rides in google bugs. we won't need buses in 15 years. thank you very much. >> thanks. next speaker. good evening, supervisors. my name is john fitch. i'm a native born of san francisco. i say san franciscans are [speaker not understood], pacified, pampered. you need remove that pacifier. sunday is a day of rest, and clearly everyone in this room needs one. every person in here need one to worship their god, whoever they praise. the [speaker not understood] needs their rest just like we do. and we sit here, we go back and forth. this is 2015. this is where most people hair

is green, blue, red. we're not living in the dark ages. we're coming into the new millennium. one day it's not going to hurt without having the meter maids. most people that are issued tickets on the meters, they're not getting revenue through cash, it's through swap. so, one day without swap it's not going to hurt you. thank you very much. >> thanks. next speaker. ladies and gentlemen of the audience and directors, good afternoon. for the record, my name is emil lawrence. i've been a resident of the city and county of san francisco for 40 years, 43 to be exact. i've been locked in this charade on the budget analysis

for the sfmta. i want the pros and conses are for metering on sunday. i'm a taxi driver in san francisco and i'm regulated by the sfmta. they don't allow taxis to raise and lower their taxis to raise their fees any day but they allow ubers to do so. they allow an instant cab to do so. they raise the signage by 6% on an annual basis while they shrink taxi driver performance and income by 30 to 70% on given days. we have an agency here that is technically out of control, a out of control from the performance office [speaker not understood]. their performance is 55, 50%. [speaker not understood]. the whole muni transportation system should be sold outright

to google. then we'd get on-time performance without a problem. they're competing with taxis today. they're competing with buses today. and they're competing with delivery systems today. and the mayor supports it. he supports it on both sides. the issue here we have today is the sfmta qualified to manage this glowing and growing bureaucracy that sucks up money nonstop faster than their expenses. and at the same time is growing faster than it has the ability to pay for it all. i bring this to your attention because i've been a taxi driver 16 years and i've watched all of it. i thank you for your time in this matter. hello, my name is matthew [speaker not understood]. i'm hoping you're having a good day today. i agree with some of the

concerns raised before, but i also believe that the publicis item should -- public users should be run and owned by the public, not by some private entity. that's an aside. now i'm here because i have ridden the san francisco municipal transportation agency bus line since i moved here in february and i am a native. i have raised this issue directly on the seventh floor [speaker not understood] and i finally put in a sunshine ordinance whatchama-call-it, to get this information to get to the bottom of it. i've gotten on those buses. ifill gotten on those train cars. i was told by an operator i am not allowed to do ti was told by another operator i have a legally allowed to be new [speaker not understood] on this bus system. it is not funny. it's my right and this is what i personally believe in.

there are [speaker not understood] who would love to get on the trolley car system or any of the buses, but they're not allowed to because the operator does not feel comfortable to it. so, i could you guys give me something in writing that states i'm legally as is every nudist in this city, free to ride a funded and nonfunded area. i'd like to be insight of city hall to [speaker not understood]. i've been kicked out. please get down to the bottom of this and please get it in writing because this is ridiculous how i'm being treated and how my fellow [speaker not understood] are being treated. thank you, and have a good day. >> next speaker. good afternoon, mr. president, members of the board.

i had not planned on saying anything, but the more i listened at the colloquy between the appellants and the representatives from the meeting, i felt compelled to issue one word at least. there are a number -- my name is [speaker not understood] phillips and i live in the western addition. there are a number of faith communities [speaker not understood] if you out law some day parking. we simply must have access to get around that area and to man othererv. to uphold the man's decision would be a testimony to the nation and san francisco that san francisco is truly [speaker not understood] to all persons living in the city. thanks for the consideration. have a great day. >> any other members of the public wish to speak? please step up.

~ good afternoon, president chiu and members of the board. i'm chris bowen and i'm a member of the broad based coalition of san franciscans who want to restore transportation balance in san francisco. we are circulating an initiative [speaker not understood] calling for restoration free parking on sundays, holidays and [speaker not understood]. if anyone is interested to learn -- >> mr. bowman, you know you're not allowed to [speaker not understood]. i'll get to the point. on behalf of our coalition, i urge the board to reject the appeal for you. first, the appellants are trying to do an end run around the trolley by not [speaker not understood] the decision of the sfmta board.

rather they are repealing the planning commission's decision [speaker not understood] to reverse the decision that the sfmta board suspend sunday meters for two years. second, the c-e-q-a determination report weren't required to the imposition of sunday meters, why would it be required now for the suspension of sunday meters? there seem to be some confusion on the part of the appellants and when is the c-e-q-a determination should be made the need for ceqa determination defies logic. yes, greenhouse gases are emitted when people have to circle around the block to find parking and shopping it districts. how greenhouse gas is emit ped [speaker not understood] because of sunday shoppers used to park free in san francisco on sundays now drive up to 20 miles round trip to westlake [speaker not understood] where

parking is free and literally available. suddenly the appeal is about merit. i urge you to reject it to restoration of free sunday parking in san francisco. >> next speaker. hi, mary eliza with csf and [speaker not understood]. good afternoon, supervisors and public. i just wanted to be here to represent all the people who are not here today who have filled out the the [speaker not understood] sfmta request and i wanted to bring to your [speaker not understood] and extending hours of enforcement in the neighborhoods. and thank you very much. all the supervisors have agreed to that. our second request was that you staff enforcing sunday parking meters. so, we're here to request that you deny this appeal and do

that. and then we'll get a rowedv to a request later which i know you're familiar with. we hope you can [speaker not understood] this appeal. thank you. >> supervisor avalos? >> thank you. wanted to follow-up with some questions or really one question i have. first a statement. it's kind of ironic when there was a discussion about repealing sunday meters at the mta board, it was all in context of the vlf going to ballot. yet we don't have the vlf going to ballot. i have a resolution approving the mta budget. i'm not sure [speaker not understood] line items or not, but there is a whereas clause that discusses sunday metering. so, if the mta board decides to eliminate enforcement, packing meetings on sundays including time limit for parking, a meter

sunday, [speaker not understood]. it's coming soon. [speaker not understood]. so, it seems like there has been a real, you know, vote, decision, and not just looking at the entirety of the budget, but there are references to line items here that the mta board voted on. we also have not just meeting operating expenses certainly but there has been a service increase that the mta has implemented the next fiscal year which i think is very commendable. we know we helped the mta to actually meet that, but there is rejection of that $11 million. it seems like we don't really have the real basis for, i believe, a statutory exemption in this case. so, i will be voting with the appellants.

i expect i'll be voting in the minute art. >> before we continue on, i did want to give appellants an opportunity to do final rebuttal. you have up to three minutes. >> thank you l. i'll just make a couple quick points ~. briefly, the san francisco bicycle coalition had sent a message supporting the appeal to the board of supervisors. please check your e-mails. with regard to the legal arguments that have been presented by the other side, i'd like to address two things. one is that, yes, the statutory exemptions, the question is are they properly invoked. the statutory exemption has specific readings which i'll read from. [speaker not understood] an exemption under this statutory exemption is claimed, setting

forth with specificity, [speaker not understood], which is the exemption code that we're looking at. and the question there is have the agencies done so? well, attachment a says it has an itemized list that is being exempt. the attachment a to the budget coffers only revenue sources. so, a i'd from being em [speaker not understood] an aye itemized list that doesn't include the decision. the difficulties for the purpose of [speaker not understood] attachment a is really a decision. [speaker not understood] figure out what the c-e-q-a exemption is applying to. the second point i want to make from the legal side is it appears the mta would like this to be considered an appeal of the entire budget. there is rarely necessity under c-e-q-a for the board to do so. you can treat this as an appeal of the c-e-q-a decision to

cease sunday meter parking. k-5 by the planning commission that has you have to look at the whole [speaker not understood]. projects were being proposed with 10,000 units and the agencies were trying to segment that project into different pieces the idea of looking at the project as a whole was designed to protect the environment, it was designed as a shield so agencies couldn't avoid -- agency couldn't shish you your project [speaker not understood] within an overall budget proposal. the other thing is on my letter that i submitted yesterday, there are a number of cases there on page 4 of the discussion of why the board has the discretion to treat this as a limited appeal, object to decision on sunday meter parking. the last point i would make is my colleague has mentioned that free muni for youth is an important initiative that they

support and i believe there's a number of ways to avoid having to go through the same process that is here under c-e-q-a, that their data grid exemptions are common sense subjections, [speaker not understood] avoid the process. thank you. >> thank you, kiloton. ~ colleagues. any final questions to any of the parties involved today? seeing none, this hearing is held and is filed. is there a motion? supervisor wiener. >> thank you, mr. president. i want to thank the departments and also the appellants not just for being here today [speaker not understood], but also for the incredible work that i know the folks who are here today do argue on a basis to try to improve san francisco. as i mentioned before, we worked together on those issues and sometimes frequently it's been an uphill battle. as i mentioned at the

beginning, this is -- this appeal is not about whether members of this board would like sunday meters or don't like sunday meters. this is not about the vlf. we all have a lot of us and develop these issues this is whether they applied a statutory exemption to its decision to no longer enforce sunday meters. i won't repeat some of the questions that i asked to the appellant before. i do think that the appellant's lawyer did the absolute best job that he could do in trying to turn what is a policy disagreement into a c-e-q-a argument. i don't think anyone could have made that argument any better than the appellants' attorney did, but i think that it is pretty clear that this is not a c-e-q-a issue.

the statutory exemption was correctly granted regardless of what thing of a substantive policy decision. and my concern is there are times when it's tempting as a member of the board of supervisors, if you agree on a policy level, you can say [speaker not understood]. there are times this board has done this over the past i think 12 or 13 years, at least the [speaker not understood] will come to the board of supervisors. it doesn't matter. that affects that appeal and i'm done with it. i'm very concerned to say if we [speaker not understood] cannot [speaker not understood], it would start a broad precedent and we would see appeals around all sorts of decisions around fees and reductions and so forth. and we would end up probably

seeing higher levels of c-e-q-a review. mr. tyler mentioned negative declaration. negative declaration, it's a big deal. that is not such an easy thing to do. they are expensive. they are lengthy. we went through a negative declaration on the lois park renovation and it added a year and a half to the project and cost a lot of money. and so that's not a reason to do c-e-q-a review if it's required. but i think rejecting a correctly statutory exemption because one might disagree with the underlying policy decision and trying to force it into a higher level of c-e-q-a review has profound i ~ implications not just for this issue, but others that mta and other agencies deal with situations around fees and fines and fares and so forth. and, so, i have tremendous respect for the appellants as a legal matter. i believe we have a

responsibility to apply c-e-q-a consistently and consistent with state law. and, so, i don't think that a broad c-e-q-a appeal has been stated here. and, so, i will make a motion to reject the appeal to move item 30 and to table items 31 and 32. >> supervisor wiener has made a motion, he [speaker not understood] affirm the statutory exemption. seconded by supervisor cohen. any further discussion? supervisor campos. >> thank you, mr. president. i do want to thank all the parties in this item that have spoken on both sides of this issue. and i certainly want to thank the appellants who i think have raised some very important questions. and i have to say that for me it's been a difficult thing, this item, because i think that

a number of issues, legitimate issues have been raised by the appellants. and i actually think that even if you don't want to see sunday meter parking irrespective of where you are on the issue, i actually think that the way in which this matter has been handled by the mta respectfully is not something that anyone on either side of the issue should be happy with. because i do think that the appeal points to the fact that we do have a muni mta system that, in my view, is broken in terms of how we say board decisions are handled. and i think that the way in which muni, the mta board of directors came to essentially not make a decision on this

illustrates that the forum is needed. and let's be very clear, that the reason why the mta budget included the -- an item that basically did not include -- did not provide for funding out of sunday meters is because the mayor wanted it that way. we have a budget system that essentially is run by decisions that are made in the mayor's office and the fact that the mta board of directors did not expressly vote on that issue is precisely because that's what was wanted by the administration. and whatever side you are on the issue, i don't think it's a good way of transportation policy to be made. i think that there should have

been a robust discussion by the mta board of directors. whatever you felt about the issue i think that the public deserved, the opportunity to have a public debate about the issue. and the fact that under the current governance structure, something like that doesn't happen points to the need to reform that governance structure. i don't think that irrespective of who the mayor should be that those policy decisions should be made out of [speaker not understood]. i think they should be made by the governing body of this agency. and that's why, you know, for quite sometime i have been saying and will continue to say that we need to restructure the governing body of the mta, that we need to provide more accountability so that these kinds of decisions are made in the open and not behind closed doors.

and i think that if we have a governing body that was not controlled by one branch of the executive, or even by the legislative that actually reflected the interests and the needs of the ridership, i think that you would have a different process. that said, i am appreciative of the fact that the appeal has raised those questions. the question, though, is, you know, what is the right -- the right solution. and i don't think that c-e-q-a or environmental law ultimately provides the solution here and i think that even if we were to grant the appeal we still would have a fundamental problem. and it's a fundamental problem that goes to the very governance of this agency, and that's why as much as i appreciate the intent of the appeal, i don't think that c-e-q-a is the solution here. i think that the solution is to

actually perform the way this agency is governed. and i think that if we did that and we made it more accountable and transparent that we would actually have a better result irrespective of which side of the issue you're on. and it's not, by the way, just issues around parking, but about service and how service is -- decisions around service are made. under the charter, the board of directors only have to make decisions on certain items. . and the way that service decisions are made, they're made in such a way that the difficult decisions are voted in terms of public discussion ~. and i don't think that's right either, so, notwithstanding the good intentions of this appeal, i don't believe that legally this is the best way to resolve this issue.

i appreciate that the fact that the appellants brought this up, and i would encourage the appellants -- and i would encourage the appellants as well as the people who are on the other side of this issue to work together on reforming this agency because i think that there is a lot of common ground irrespective of how you feel about the underlying issue. but based on how i see the law, i will be voting against the appeal even though, like i said, i think that some very important issues were raised. thank you. >> supervisor wiener. >> thank you, mr. president. i just, i just need to -- i appreciate supervisor campos' perspective. i don't think that the struggles that we've seen with the mta and with muni have anything to do with transparency or lack thereof. i think the mta -- it's an

imperfect agency like any large agency, but it is quite transparent in many ways. the struggles that this agency has are because, let's really be real about this, because of political decisions that are made in this building by elected officials including the board of supervisors and including the mayor, and not just this mayor, but mayors going back for a long time. and systematically, the elected officials in this building have not prioritized transit funding, period. and the fight that we just had about the vlf, the fight that we had about the transit impact development fee and the conversation about free muni without finding a source to actually pay for free muni on sustainable long-term basis, those all have real impacts on transit delivery in this city. so, i think it's important to recognize that and not just say we have transit problems. let's just blame it on the agency so it needs to be more transparent f. this board of

supervisors appointed all 7 members of the board of directors of the mta muni would still have $2.2 billion in deferred maintenance and the system would still be struggling. so, i think it's important if we're going to be discussing what the challenges are around transit in this city to look at the political dee significants that get made by elected owe fishedv in this building that for many years have placed muni at the bottom of the list when it comes to budgeting priorities and making sure we're a transit first city. >> supervisor campos. >> i do want to respond to that because i think that there's been a lot of rhetoric about how we're supposedly transit first and how we don't make decisions that prioritize public transit. but the fact is time and time again, some of the same people that are making those statements have refused to hold developers and other interests accountable when it come to public transit. so, i think we have to be clear about where the facts are. i do believe there will be a difference if you had a

different governance structure at the mta. i do believe that there is something to be said when your entire appointment or reappointment is dependent on one elected official who gets to decide whether or not he or she likes decisions you make. i do think that's relevant. but i do think that what's happening here is that you have a budget that basically -- a proposed budget made the decision for the board of directors, a decision that quite frankly should have been made in the public by that board of directors which is the policy setting body. i don't think that we are elected or appointed to run away from important decisions. i don'ttionv those should be made by staff, they should be made by policy makers and i don't think that happened here. >> colleagues, we have a motion on the floor on whether or not to affirm the statutory exemption. supervisor mar, final comments. >> thank you. i'll speak against the motion. i'm supportive of the appeal.

i'm in agreement with supervisor campos that having a split appointment of the mta board would have allowed more of a thorough discussion of the environmental impacts of rolling back a great policy on sunday parking meters. that was a compromise from noon to 6:00. i do feel it important to respond to supervisor wiener's points. i don't agree that this would -- that his rationale to reject the appeal would be wise. i think the precedent set by tucking a bad decision by the mta board within their full budget without any analysis and great points brought up by the appellants, and also other entities like walk s.f. and the bicycle coalition and others. it's a bad precedent to hide the political elephant in the room, which is a mayoral decision to roll back a policy that was to protect the

environment and lots of important benefits without any discussion and without a thorough review of the environmental impacts which i think are significant. and i'll just read from the december mta report and i think there is tremendous contradiction with the mta's decision given their december report which i think needs to be referenced more and more. i'm just reading from the street blog article from aaron [speaker not understood] from january 16th where he questions whether rolling back the sunday meters would lead to significant environmental impacts. he's asking in the article that the mayor's position could be framed in another way. do we want to double the average time drivers take to find commercial parking spots on sundays? do we want to reduce turn over by at least 20%, meaning that fewer customers can park in each space? do we want to cut the availability of commercial parking during sunday business hours in half?