are adequately accounted for and contingency levels closely monitored and several levels of review and approval with entities before expenses are paid and the city's accounting system serves as the basis of reporting to the fta so that's the famous system of record what is the basis for those reports that the cost reporting tool that we're using is functional and that errors that were identified in the past have been corrected and have been accepted by the fta and i can tell you from our last meeting with the fta and the project management oversight consultant they also confirm that they are pleased with the progress that the project is making. the audit did recommend that we continue to improve the cost management and have written procedures updated which we'll have done by the end of the year and that we

meet with the controller's office to close all of the codes that we're that we're no that we're no longer using so the consulting company who they hired to do this validated what we believe is that to the extent there are any problems we're addressing them and the project is measuring its cost accurately and it's on schedule and budget as we've been telling you it is and then lastly we talked a number of meetings ago about the new light rail vehicle procurement so a little update from the survey from october 17th to november 4th we fielded a survey on the design of the new vehicles particularly the seating design but also a couple of other features got very good response nearly 9 thousand respondents

representing every zip code within the the city we got that level of participation because of outreach that we did with our city partner agencies with community partners stakeholder groups and even going out doing things online being out in person on vehicles we were out at muni heritage at the weekend and also solicited our own employees for this input and also had multilingual ambassadors at key locations across the city and also had direct meetings with some particular stakeholders including our own citizen's advisory council and our own accessibility advisory council and advocacy groups and we're in the process of reviewing those results and should have them to share with you within

the next few weeks. other than that the procurement process for those vehicles is going well since it was approved here it was subsequently approved by the board of supervisors and we're well underway and that concludes my report. >> what's the process on that one? you are analyzing the results now? >> we're gathering results from the public i'd welcome the board's feedback and share with you maybe this week getting input from the transit operations staff and from there i basically need to decide that we can lockdown the design because as you recall, we got a very favorable price and aggressive timeline and to the extent that we delay that decision-making we jeopardy ize

those elements of the procurement. >> i wish we had the time to to do that as well but i trust the lessons learned will be incorporated. >> they will be absolutely and we made particular attention during this process to reach out particularly to the disability community not just our own but we met with independent living resource center and other groups because i think that's really kind of a key stakeholder group that we want to make sure that their voice was captured and talked to the bart folks about their process and tried to learn whatever lessons we could to make sure we'd have strong support for whatever design we move forward with. >> i'm glad to hear that. that's extremely high value for the agency and i want to make sure it shows up in the design of these cars so caltrain is about to do the same thing so hopefully it will be all right.

>> the survey results it's great to have so many people sharing their opinion on that. will that about a staff decision or board policy decision i'm thinking in particular the longitudinal versus the -- you may not know yet. >> i guess it's really your call my feeling is it's more of an operational decision and not a policy decision unless you want me me to bring that to you for a board vote i was planning to make that decision based on public feedback internal feedback and board feedback. . >> from what i've heard the survey is breaking down 50/50 so no matter what you decide there are going to be some people that are unhappy. >> seems to me if you send the analysis around to the board

members let us know what it's going to be. >> we'll do it that way. >> okay. thank you. >> so i appreciate the efforts going into making sure the disability community is included in the design i can't stress enough how important i think that is and if it's possible and i'm not trying to create more work -- but if we could get a basic plan in terms of how that's going to go how the committee will will be informed or included in the feedback process in that loop i don't know if there's time by our next meeting to have -- >> we've actually already done that so in the report that we'll provide and i think we may have it ready this week. yes, i think we'll have it this week and we'll be very clear on not just the over all results but the specific other outreach

efforts who we talked to and what they said it will all be laid out there because i want the board to the the benefit of understanding all of the information what the transit staff think what the feedback was lrc and cac all those folks. >> thank you so much. >> we all appreciate that. >> members of the public wish to address? >> these are items that will be discussed only items mentioned by director as i say by by by director reiskin. >> mr. weiner? >> mta achieved the victories from proposition ad and l l to

the l to the long-term detriment of the public sadly mta doesn't show the same abilities in managing its daily operations. . this was underlined make others and myself wait more than a half hour for the bus and perhaps muni is flexing its muscle over it's passengers. despite the the triumph longer distances to the buses perhaps the greatest beneficiary will be the bicyclists with greater political power and for this reason it should not be transit first but bicyclists first making the mta a more honest agency and exercised every day and no service no apologies no

shame. >> next speaker please. >> last speaker lance ca r.n. es. >> good afternoon mr. ca r.n. es. >> i wanted to comment on the director's report on the controller's report on the central subway finances and reporting. i had a chance to look at that last night and seems to me there's also a set of reports called pomc reports which is the federal transit administration hires a contract or to manage the subway project and they did this because they have granted sfmta 942 million $942 million and they are very concerned that this project be successful so issued these

reports monthly and give direction to the project on things that can that can rectified so when i read the report last night there were at least 2 or more major items in conflict with the pomc reports that's also a company that does financial analysis and reporting. the first issue that struck me was that the controller's report gave the central subway a pass on using excel for cost controls excel is a pc-based program and doesn't have that audit trail you can actually go in and make things look whatever way you want and the august report strongly indicated central subway must begin using the cost control software as soon as possible

and the second item that the report indicated was that the project is on schedule and on budget and the latest reports from august and september indicate the central subway is not on schedule and not on budget. thank you. >> anyone else care to address the board? >> randall block. >> good afternoon. >> hi board i just wanted to say about the mac i'm the vice chair currently of the mac and we and our executive committee started the conversation to have a subcommittee on on the lrv's and so our meeting is on thursday and we plan to go forward i think as a committee to vote and probably try and get an lrv subcommittee established to talk about some some of the issues i heard on your report so if that happens i'm sure we'll circle back with you and start working with

staff and with your concerns. >> thank you i look forward to your report. >> the citizen's council report i don't see mr. weaver here today and public comment within the jurisdiction but not on today's calendar. mr. chairman you have quite a few people who wish to discuss with you today certain matters. those are the first three speakers. >> i wish to commend miss atkinson a whistle-blower she exposed the complicated fiscal magic and actual expenditures.

this cooking the books also occurred with the falsification of statistics and arrival times and she faces potential retaliation. mta should protect and reward her for her public service. if i had my way i'd appoint her to a seat on the mta board and please commend her for her courageous act. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon mr. chairperson. my name is joyce calegas and i'm representing senior disability action and a member of the san francisco organizing project and i'm also currently active with the san francisco inter-faith council

and the california a alliance for retired americans and i see some of my people here from the senior disability action. i know i told people before from sda that we were first working with the youth to get their free pass and i told them -- they had free lunches i think but and you can get there by bus but some people might not have money to get on the 54 bus but thankfully we had the youth pass it's free for a whole bunch of young people and now it's the turn foreseen i for, seniors and i meant to go online i know when i went down for a funeral for one of my relatives, i believe long beach

had free public transportation and for myself being a senior i'm thinking this year starting july 1st all my utilities went up and i'm thinking of that $23 to be able to pay for the increase and everything else so please pass free muni and congratulations on the aa standard rating standard poors rating and support us too. >> thank you. >> next speaker please? >> good afternoon. charles minster first i want to give a shout out and salute to the union members of muni who keep the system running and it's nice that the report of the director that muni sounds flush. it always sounds poor

when it comes to contract negotiations. when it comes to free muni foreseen i for, seniors we were always told that the budget constraints were the problem and we couldn't have it i think it amounted to 7 to $7 million per year and meanwhile you spend money useless ly for these shake down artists and you can save lives on the street which is a priority i believe of the mta and you have got apple and google 45 to 55 miles a way now basically them and the rest of the tech industry is running this town. and it's about time getting the money from them you got twitter here riding free there's plenty of money in this town obviously

as you get your credit ratings boosted and there's no reason whatsoever that we don't have free muni for, seniors considering all the hits we seniors are taking in this town due to all the cut backs. thank you. >> next speaker please. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon sir. i am a senior and the increase in population and of course we ask to muni for us to transport. thank you. please please consider it. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon miss torrez.

>> good afternoon. i am a disabled i have impaired vision and i have a broken left arm so i have so many appointments going to the hospital so i think i i need the support of this government for free muni and also for our owe [inaudible]. >> thank you so much. >> next speaker please? >> good afternoon mr. torres. >> i hope and pray -- i am i am a disabled i have a disabled wife so i hope and pray you

will approve the free transportation for all the seniors and disabled because we have so many appointments in the hospital. thank you very much. >> next speaker please. >> good afternoon mr. heal y. >> good afternoon. i'd like to discuss the proposed cancellation of other forms of innovative insurance by you guys i guess this actually makes no sense. well, am vest doesn't give ratings until a company has been in business for several years i would like to point out this was setup a couple of months ago with the help of mta and director hiashi and this has been a low cost

method of getting insurance in a sky rocketing insurance market it actually makes no sense to get rid of this because this actually is an a rated insurance company it simply hasn't been rated because it hasn't been in business long enough further more you are precluding the possibility of anybody else coming here with an innovative solution and we've been besieged besieged by uber and everyone else and actually this is the uninsured -- san francisco has become the uninsured vehicle capital of the world thanks to the innovation of 20 or 30 thousand of these people i think you should be supporting the taxi business rather than undermining it. >> thank you next speaker please.

>> good afternoon everybody. my name is cecilia-i represent the seniors. i've been going there now for the last 33 years we have a lot of seniors who are happened handicapped and sometimes they have not enough money because their ssi is very low and we would beg for you to approve a free muni because we go we go to the hospital a lot of times and for us some of them are really handicapped and financially not supported and they can not supervisor themselves support themselves

so many i would appreciate if you could approve that and god bless all of you. i'm glad we can express what we feel about it. thank you. >> next speaker. >> is j u.s. tino david here? adam pavlaka and anthony ballister. >> i'm a resident of the palms a condo building at brannon and 4th street one of the reasons i purchased the building was because of its accessibility i have a number of family members with disabilities so i wanted an accessible unit so on 4th street the sfmta intends on removing the loading zone directly in front of the building i know our building management is working with members of the sfmta but i

wanted to bring it to you guys because you are the ultimate decision-making body. it's in front of the building allowing for passenger pickup and drop off for residents and wheelchairs being able to wait in the lobby is key they have the safety and security of the building lobby while still maintaining the ability to use public transit or ride sharing services like uber and when they arrive at the building it's a very short walk to the front door. they intend to move the loading zone to around the block zero protection from the elements and poorly enforced and it's also a location where car break-ins have happened over night. . taxis are not likely to wait for someone with limited mobility to walk around the block. it discourages use of

transit additionally while i'm not a legal expert the regulations seem to indicate that such a change could be a potential violation and we've been told that this was a decision already made and i reviewed the resolution records from 2005 to 2013 and i could not see any mention or record of the bod making the public notice to remove the loading zone thank you for your time. >> thank you sir. >> good afternoon. i am the general manager of the palms and we did receive notice that our white zone would be moved from the front of the building to around the block i received several e-mails, letters and notices from our handicapped and disabled residents that this would be dramatically

drastic to their livelihood and how they make their way from their front door to this unit and having this notice -- we've moved our white zone temporarily and we discovered that it will not work. the communication between sfmta to building management and members of the hoa has not been cohesive and it's underable we know that with construction things may change from 1 day to the next however parking enforcement has been an issue. we've been told to call 311 if cars are parked there over night we have taxis ambulances fire trucks basically blocking 4th street not allowing if i of our residents to get into taxis or our handicapped residents

who are unable to use side entrances and require elevator accessibility are not able to wait for pickups on the side of the building basically our residents are having a very tough time with the communication as well as management and we're looking to maintain our white scone white zone at the front of the building and allow our residents to keep the accessibility that they currently have. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon chairman nolan and director reiskin. i'm not here representing sfmta about 2 months ago director ramos suggested that i read the bart report and

recommendations. it recommended that a strategy mechanism be set by both parties as well as checkpoints to keep the board updated on on full details of the collective bargaining process and there was and probably always will be a culture of management as the enemy and management doesn't look out for neighbors best interest this culture may exist here at the sfmta i know we can change some of these perceptions one item that will be discussed in the negotiation process is wage progression for new hires as i mentioned before -- i feel one way to improve labor and management relations is wage progression for new hires after 19 months

after training. remember today's new hires are the new leaders of tomorrow we must begin trust building. thank you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon sir. >> good afternoon. i'm a long time taxi driver and also board member of san san francisco taxi worker's a alliance i need to know why you guys are not helping us after selling 250 $250,000 medallions why are you not helping us? uber etc. are competing with us non stop 24 hours a day and now operating at at the airport i don't think we could make loan

payments on medallions you need to give us a free color scheme a lowering of our expenses and reduce the insurance for all other expenses. thank you. >> next speaker please. >> good afternoon mr. lee. >> good evening. we pickup. we don't want to bother the public service we're a very good driver and trying to make it. i went to the airport commission meeting this morning and a lot of drivers are going to get crazy very soon if you don't want to see the group please take care of free color scheme and this kind of

procedure so driver's can lower the expenses of our operating the taxi cab business and also i hope that that you can see about five clock at the train station how mess the traffic because you make a lot of bicycle lane so you should tax the bicyclists in this town and make special medallion for the bicyclists they pay a hundred bucks because they are occupying a whole lane in the city now why don't they pay the tax? this is not right we all pay the tax but they use the whole lane that you spend a lot of money on the lane this is not my business anyway they should pay a little bit for their fare nothing is free in this country if obamge