would have some suggestions that would be driven by the liaisons on kind of a scope and suggested projects. and that would open it up for a fuller conversation here, does it feel right to the rest of the committee, what would other alternatives look like. >> i think we tried to do that and didn't get there. >> correct. >> that's why i wanted to remind everyone -- the spirit of this was let's see what the voters think about what -- either how we're doing or the bond programs are doing. i don't know larry if you remember the conversation, it had to be six months ago. >> i do. >> the more we talked about them when we got together, i kept wondering to what end. what are we going to do with the information. i think it's important to make sure when you do the work, it's actionable at the very end and it does seem -- i think this

does dove tail with the benchmarking report and web site design. >> one thing that occurs to me, a benefit from it, the course of implementing a bond various adjustments are made and as those adjustments are made, did that divert from what people expected was going to happen. so you end up saying well, you guys made a bunch of changes and suddenly we're in this park over here instead of this one over there and did you go back and let people know that's what was going to happen. it's a way of keeping in touch and connected to the voters who approve the bond to begin with. >> is the question as a voter did this bond, this 2008 bond, did the outcome meet your expectations. something like that? >> that's close. that's close.

it's also how has the out come changed. were voters kept informed of a change. let's take for example a fire station on the port which is on a pier. it's hard for the fire engines to get out of there. so there's always a question about is this where you really want to do more on the fire station or do you want it to be moved off of the pier and closer to some place it can move.

>> i thought in the last one or two conversations we had -- there was no objection amongst the group that this would be a good idea, number one, the satisfaction survey would be -- it's less to address what larry, you talked about, whether there are changes. it is pretty much a snap shot judgment of -- a report by the citizen of the donor to say how do you like this park or whatever program we're talking about as a way to render a measurement of satisfaction and some ways accountability for the fact that they voted on

something and the city delivered on what they voted on. i thought there was no disagreement, that this was a good idea and that's why we proceeded to work with the controller's office to try and create scope and possible courses of action. the other motivation we discussed as a group is that this would be a good thing number one. number two, since we have a very robust budget that this group hasn't used much of, this would be an opportunity to use some of the funds that we have in our budget to see how satisfied or unsatisfied is citizen is on a particular program. we talked about a particular program because that's kind of

easier to measure. >> i'm sorry, i just want to clarify. the origin of this really came from a set of facts and i realize you can overgeneralize from a set of facts but nevertheless it came from a set of facts. in the castro, my neighborhood, they widened the sidewalks which narrowed the amount of street traffic could go. traffic has slowed down, businesses have closed because they couldn't get customers as they had. when you ask people what happened, they said we were surveyed and this is what we said we wanted but what we got was something completely different. on the basis of that i began raising questions about are people having a post-bond experience analysis. and we weren't at that time. for there or anywhere else. there are other examples but that hits home for me.

so from that i realized that it's very easy for bureaucratic silos to exist and things start moving up a certain chain and stay within that small narrow area. and there is not an opportunity for the public to go back and say golly, now that you have done that and it's had the impact, how do we correct that impact. take for example the bart two going into chinatown and the impact on businesses at union square and elsewhere. they come back and say we can provide funding for some of these businesses. we can do more signage to get more people going there. but those thoughts come up after a series of a lot of complaints. they don't come up because you had a process. so what i had in mind and which i hoped the committee was

thinking about as well was let's take a look at whether people are getting what they thought they were getting and if they didn't, how did it change and how can we improve the communication to come closer to what we had in mind. >> i think it's addressing the very first part. how do citizens feel about a particular project now that it's done. and i think based on results, what we do with it, it's not something we want to post on the web site, it would be a beginning and end. >> and action report. >> this is the first time we're doing it, as discussed people seem to think it's a good idea. >> that's my recollection also. we discuss the basis for the merit and went on to say let's run a trial balloon so to speak

and see what comes out of it, we'll do a slow rollout and do an evaluation after that. and so in the scope of work currently, as suggested by staff, we have that there would be some analysis that measures users perception of the attractiveness of the facility, the safety, the use, the maintenance, the impact that the geo bond had on the facility, the conditions and efforts. so we further went on to say that there's a couple of things we might look at right now if we're going to do a limited rollout and we have the street bonds, which i don't think would be a good -- a good measurement

. i think the other option park bonds is more likely to be -- result in comments that will be usable to us as to whether or not the park, playground, gymnasium, capital improvements to the park were up to their expectations or not and given the choice between those two, my suggestion would be we do the rollout to measure exactly as currently described in the project objections for the park bonds. >> couldn't it help inform the discussion earlier, about the broad bond and the funds can go different places versus a much more narrow bond and i think start ing with the park bonds

makes sense. the sunset playground for example, we know the scope of the project was reduced because of circumstances that came up. it's a real success but that's an example of a bond with a much more narrow scope. to see what the impact there. if we have a bond in the future, whether it's community health center or something else, we can get the feedback. i think it seems like a worthwhile endeavor for the committee to support. >> can i just add -- i didn't mean to jump ahead by providing the products. we just wanted to show progress on the committee's desire to do this. this is a good practice that we try to follow as well. you have a lot of hard data, did we spend what we intended to spend, was it on time and opinion data.

this is what we're trying to get with the biannual survey. we want to know what people think and spend time trying to understand if there's a difference why and how to address those things. we're excited about you doing the project. you may want to test a couple different stakeholders in any one project. in a rec center there could be local parks, neighborhood interest groups who have a clear memory of what the facility should be. you might want to have a focus group conversation with folks like that. general public, they probably don't remember but know their experience of the site. so you want to do intercept and site testing.

there's different data for what people are experiencing with bond funds. >> i agree with what's been said. my thought is, the scope seems very extensive so i want to make sure it's narrowed to what we think is going to best serve this committee and pick one neighborhood part project and pick one -- i would think resurfacing, i know on the streetscapes when they did -- my coffee shop, that is all they were talking about. i think you would get strong responses. you know, maybe pick two projects and narrow down your scope, let's do it and see what

the results are. i do have real concerns about, there's going to be public voters who have no thoughts at all on it. picking your population for survey is going to be really important but i think we should give it a narrow pilot study shot. >> i'll second what robert said. we should narrow this down. when i first saw this, that's what jumped out at me. this is enormous. there's a whole lot in here. just to focus on a small group, one or two projects that we think have fairly high visibility would make more sense to me on a pilot basis. if you just start talking to general public about everything, you're going to get mostly -- what do you think of this? well, it's okay i guess. i don't know. nea that's what i would say. what do you think of the fire station we just rehabbed? i don't know. i don't know, it's a fire

station. but if you go to something that is high visibility and robert named a good one and larry you talked about the 1 on mission street where there was input from the public, expectations were developed and then you've -- the project was delivered, this wasn't what i was looking for. something like that, follow up, see. we came to you at the beginning stage of the project, we asked for your input. we thought this is what we heard. this is what we delivered and what do you think. is this what you were looking for? it sounds like in this case at least we would find it's not. >> i always think about what happened at the stadium. the neighbors were very concerned about the fact that they were going to have a high school sports at night with big lights and all the rest of it. i was working for the mayor at the time and mary burns was head

of rec, what are you going to do about this. we're surrounding with trees and it will block out the lights. and he went back to the neighbors and said it's handled, the trees were like two feet tall. they would be ready in about 30 years. >> we've got time. >> i thank you for all your comments. i think we should put this to bed at this point. i do have two comments. the scope of the work and i read it, i was impressed by the comprehensive nature of this and obviously it touched all the points that one wishes to have as a deliverable in any kind of survey. so in that respect, i really liked it. i think what we can control is the selection of the number of projects, if we're going to have two, we still want the results and the measurements deliverables to touch all the basis that we want to measure. so maybe we could scale this

down a bit but i think it's very comprehensive and touches upon the relevant pieces we want to learn from. now, how the surveyor, the contractor designs the actual questions of focus groups, that's what we're hiring them to do. but as far as touching all those touch points that are relevant, i really felt this was good. i think we can control not just the scope but the multiple projects. if we're just going to have two, we still want the results of each of the two to give us the touch points that we want. the other point i would like to make and peg you said we could do this and i'm sure you can, parts of it in the controller's office, you have done it before. knowing that all the existing work that you are doing on our behalf, staffing us and plus

other departments, plus the fact that we have the funds to hire a contractor to do this, i strongly believe we should have it out to a special survey company, one of the said you have used. obviously we still need your assistance to manage the process. >> i agree. i just -- expertise and survey design is what we're buying with the pool. they'll be good at it and will give you good options. something like the standard thing, you may spend a lot of time having a consultant educate themselves where it's not worth the money, where we can do it. we can narrow it down. >> i apologize, i have to leave now. i have another meeting. do we need to take a vote or is this just moving forward? >> i think all the remaining agenda items on the calendar were just discussion and quick

updates. we can rip through them quickly. if committee members need to leave we can accommodate that. >> get out of here. >> so we'll keep working on this and produce another draft and share it back with liaisons. and have it on -- the same item on the next calendar. by that time we can get to a good scope of work i think. the project choice, we will -- if i'm correct that the universe of possible projects to choose is completed bond projects, then, you know, we'll try to get a comprehensive list of that so you feel you have the whole universe to think about and share that list. >> just fellow members, when we started talking about this at last meeting, i believe kristin and i were kind of volunteered

to kind of lead this survey -- >> you're doing a great job. >> i would like to invite to open it up to other members who have a specific interest. you could join us or you could also e-mail kristin and myself some specific ideas of follow-up ideas based on our discussion, either the type of project -- everyone seems to have their own idea what is the perfect program to test to survey. so i encourage you to do that and i think that will kind of speed up a little bit of this process so by our next meeting when we have an update there will be some clearer idea of whether the consensus of the specific two programs would be. >> remainder of item six. you requested for the calendar,

that's there. public finance office, if you haven't met him before. >> good morning members of the committee. briefly walk you through the projected issuances over the next few months. as a reminder the 2014 transportation and road improvement bonds and 2012 clean neighborhood park bonds are both in progress. the legislation is currently going through the board of supervisors process and i expect that it will be considered for full board final approval at tomorrow's board meeting and then we'll move forward with that in february. and then after that, in later spring, early summer, we'll have the 2014 earthquake safety emergency response bonds, full remaining amount 189.18 million. health and public safety, that

amount is estimate, it may change depending on the review of expenditures which they're still in process. affordable housing about $82 million for them. we're hoping to go through all three of the programs at once to combine them into a single sale. if you have questions about the upcoming calendar. i'm happy to answer them. >> any questions from committee? >> i may have a question. ben, are you going to let us know what is going on with the new accounting system? >> yes. i was planning to provide a quick update in the other matters and agenda items. >> i'll hold off. >> this memo is really helpful, thank you. >> i don't need to give updates on f and g, just to say we're

progressing as planned and we'll update as we work. >> i should note for the record, there are no more members of the public in audience. we do not need to take public comment. >> number c, the web design. >> we discussed it. >> at the request of the chair and mr. carlson, i wanted to provide brief update on the status of the financial system conversion. we are for the committee members who don't know, the city replaced our long standing financial system which we called famous on july 1st. we went live with a new system that we had been working on for a couple of years. that was installed in 1980 and the last significant upgrade was 1997 which mr. carlson will remember from his time at public

works. at the time of initial adoption by the city, it was the best in breed and by the time we cut off, we were the last county to use it. a very significant upgrade. we only go through these every 20 or 30 years in the city. we're still in the middle of it. we're transitioning in different parts of the system at different levels of stability and working to stabilize the system. the piece of the system that i think most directly pertains to the work of the committee is conversion of data from one chart of accounts to the new chart of accounts and what it means for reporting. so you go through a massive crosswalk of data between june 30th and july 1st cutting from one system to another. inevitably in a conversion like this, you have data conversion

errors where despite testing and the rest, data ends up where it wasn't intended to be. so in any project, you have an element of cleaning up the data conversions. we had a significant number of data conversion errors in one specific part of the world, relating to capital accounting and reporting. the most complicated financial structures in the city exist in this space, multiple projects and multiple departments and in many cases, specifically the department of public works, using new chart of account functionality to retire some of the subsystems they had been using in the past. that added to the complexity of

this. we need to look ahead for the next fiscal year end and get back to running reporting for you and other stakeholders that gives you a sense of budget for example the level of detail you need without having to do significant am of manual data to get it. so we're in the midst of that. it is affecting some of the reporting you're seeing. we do need to get there in coming months, the complexion of it and working with department of public works and our own department team to develop stricter calendars to let me communicate a specific date. i would be happy to answer questions around the process. >> my understanding is it's not limited to just department of public works but virtually all -- focusing on general obligation bonds all of the previous, general obligations

bonds responsible for reviewing. >> i think it's true. within the amount of data, the data conversation are working with those most affected, public work issues are the most acute. you do see it in other cases. for example, the level of inversion requirements are more limited, it is mostly felt in capital departments. >> m.p.a general obligation, their capital reporting or expenditures are fine? >> housing is more straightforward. remember that in many cases here

-- public works is the delivery agent for most of the geo bonds you're seeing. housing, mt, there are clean up activities, i just meant to imply it is most acute in public works. >> because i heard when you talk about the old structure, the new structure, crosswalks testing, someone said there wasn't testing of that conversion data. can you confirm there was testing? >> yeah, there absolutely was -- >> prior to july 1st. >> prior to july 1st we went through multiple testing. >> i appreciate that. that's helpful. and then my concern with regards to the february bonds sales, the bond documents discloser requirements, would that require -- because we can't right now report on bond proceeds

spending, would that require any kind of discloser in the bond process and if so, what would be the impact on potential interest rates? >> i think we've had conversations about any of this triggers discloser events. that is part of the ongoing conversation preparing our os's for each sale. i can't answer that kind of what the specifics would be. there may well be a discloser of some form in the documents. others can speak otherwise. i can't imagine this is material enough in any way to trigger changes in kind of the bidding we receive on documents. >> yeah, we're currently in the process of updating discloser documents. there may be some narrative description of what's going on with the transition of financial system, but i think all of the

numbers are going to reflect what has been recently published. those are reliable numbers and i can't quantify any potential impact to our interest rates based on this situation. >> i do understand an effort is underway to fix this. but we don't know when it will be fixed at this point. but if for any reason it wasn't fixed by the end of the fiscal year, it would impact the ability to produce i suppose. >> absolutely. this work needs to be completed by the time we get to the close next year. i can tell you it's a matter of months and not deeper than that because it needs to be. we have priority of resources to make it happen but i can't give you a specific date which is what i would like to know and i'm sure you would as well.

>> yeah, because again, in our bimonthly reports we used to get a bond fund status summary report and we haven't had one since june and again, i think one of our primary responsibilities is to be able to say bond funds are being expended, if we can't it's difficult to do that. i appreciate the efforts and hope you can keep us appraised of successes. >> i will plan to do so with this item on future meetings. >> any public comment on the items discussed? if not, let's adjourn. >> all right. ♪ ♪

>> hi everyone. welcome. we're going to start our program today. i'm captain paul yep. i want to welcome everyone here today. elected officials, department heads and thank you media, i know you're getting wet. thank you for being here. first of all, happy up coming lunar new year of the dog. some characters are loyalty and honesty and principles in helping and serving others, thus they make good police officers, scientists, politicians and judges. the office at central station must be convinced i was born in the year of the dog because