ending november 2018. i respectfully request the committee to apply the residency waiver as is allowed for san francisco elections code for when a qualified resident candidate may not be found. the ballot simplification committee is a -- vital to the league. we have a permanent seat on the committee. it's part of the groundwork for keeping politics out of the election process in the ballot, and we did have a candidate, and unfortunately, the honorable chief judge karen cl clapton, who we put forth her nomination, is longer able to meet all of the committee meetings for an unforeseen reason. i am the league president, i

have been the president of the league of women voters for three years. i've been sitting on the board for eight years. when i started my work with the league -- excuse me -- basically working hand in hand with the ballot simplification sitting member, whereby i developed the pro and con guide for the league and helped distribute that english, spanish, and chinese. i've never been to a hearing committee meeting because of the nature of my relationship with the pro and con guide meant that i met regularly with adele for briefing. i guess speaking to the residency waiver that i'm asking for, i used to be a san francisco resident. i lived in district three, i lived in district two, and as we discussed at great length this afternoon, i had to leave the city. i couldn't afford to live here

anymore. i couldn't afford to raise a family here, and yet my dedication to san francisco continues now with sitting on the board and now acting as the president of the league of women voters, and thank you. >> supervisor safai: great, thank you. yeah, no, we often do residency requirements, particularly when we have appointments that have to come from specific bodies. have you participated in and gone to the process as measures were going to the ballot? have you sat through that, and are you aware of -- i'm sure you are. i just have to ask for the record, because when we did an appointment for a couple of people last time, they made it very clear that you know, you're essentially in some ways giving up about a month of your life, which is condensed into one period before the ballot, so is that something you can

commit to, and is it going to be okay? >> yes, i can commit to it. i would like to echo mayor -- >> supervisor safai: agnos. >> agnos, thank you. it's been a long day, call to this committee to the grboard supervisors to help dissect measures before they are brought to the ballot. 26 measures in 2016, we almost ran out of the alphabet, and that was just a bit too much. for the voters, part of what i do for the league is to help entice voters to participate, not just register, but to actually turn out and vote, and so i would like to echo that call to your committee as well as to the entire board, but know, i have not sat on a

hearing for specifically the ballot simplification committee, but i am well aware that it takes all day in some instances, and that it is an entire month that you are setting aside based off of research and attending and hearing. >> supervisor safai: great. thank you. commissioner stefani, do you have any questions? okay. great. can i entertain a motion? oh, wait, we have -- >> public comment. >> supervisor safai: i think there's something going on. it's your theme music. any other members of the public wishing to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. that's what happens when your committee meeting goes past a certain hour, there's events happening in the hall. so supervisor stefani, can i entertain a motion? >> yes, i make a motion to send this out to the full board with

full recommendations. >> supervisor safai: including a residency waiver? >> yes. >> supervisor safai: for seat two on the small business -- i'm sorry. i'm reading the wrong one, for the ballot simplification committee. okay. without -- no -- without no objection, that item is ordered and moved. congratulations, and thank you for your continued service. >> thank you. >> supervisor safai: did you get the full language of the -- >> yes, yes. >> supervisor safai: okay. great. please call item number 6. >> clerk: item 66 is the hearing to appoint one member and one alternate member to the joint bay powers authority. there are two seats and two applicants. >> supervisor safai: we can do it together. okay. with you let's just do this one, yeah, let's do this one first. okay. so miss -- wait, which one -- item number 6, right?

>> clerk: item number -- >> supervisor safai: right. so unless there's any initial comments from colleagues, miss nadia cisea, will you work forward and address the commission? >> good morning, supervisors, nadia cisea. it's -- for a number of reasons, particularly with the role i'm in right now as executive director of the office of community investment and infrastructure, and the role we play in partnering with the transbay joint powers authority as well as acting in consultations with city partners on developing the redevelopment area within the transbay, and the fact that we are responsible for aligning the assembly land to produce revenue to finance the transbay

transit center, as well as incremental state parcels, to fund the ongoing state debt, as wg as ongoing funding for the transbay joint transit center. i should note that over the years i've worked on the project in various capacities, and i've been part of the city family that's worked with the tjpa that's worked first to setup the community's district that was established in 2014, and worked with a -- in the state, as well as locally to get information done and work with the developers in determining the rate and method of apportionment, as well as working on creative solutions to work to fund the gap that was announced in 2016-2017, so i have been actively involved in the project in various

capacities, as well as in my prior position providing the financial expertise and working with the city family to provide a funding -- bridge funding to meet at least the phase one of the development. and there's still work to do with phase two, so that we know -- as we know, phase two, the downtown rail extension is still being looked at in terms of the realignment, and that was in the billions of dollars, so there is a role for me and the board to think that funding options stis options exist. so i've worked with the tjpa folks on the -- in terms of all

the financial nuances and provisions and sensitivity to getting additional -- also carrying the same revenues for the loan that exists, so i feel i bring a different skill set to the board. the board is currently situated, including various representatives from transit organizations and public works, and so there's no one that's on the board that has the financial expertise that i will bring to the board, so i look forward to the opportunity to working with my partners and my alternate, so if this committee decides to put me forward to look in the best interests of the city's strategic fiscal solutions, and collaborate with the various transit agencies and various city agencies that would play a big role in this major project of connection

between the transit center and the 14th kings station as well as the other operators that would utilize the transbay transit center, the high speed rail, as well as caltrain. >> supervisor safai: okay. thank you. colleagues, any questions? i think her experience speaks for itself. now we'll hear from our second applicant, is director tilly chang. >> good afternoon, chair safai. >> supervisor safai: good evening, really. >> good evening, supervisors. tilly chang, executive director of the county transportation authority. i'm pleased to seek your support for my appointment to the seat four, the alternate seat for the same tjpa board of directors. i'm happy to present a brief overview although you have it in my application. i'm happy to speak to the tjpa, but i'm happy to serve as you wish. >> supervisor safai: i think we're very knowledgeable of

your qualifications, and we're happy that this is an applicant and alternate applicant. >> good. >> supervisor safai: any questions for miss chang? okay. any members of the public wish to comment on this item, please come forward, you have two minutes to speak. >> high, happy valentine's day community members. thank you so much for reviewing the qualifications of the two applicants we have here this eep evening. i'm a legislative aide for supervisor jane kim, and i'm happy to support -- [ inaudible ] -- and tilly chang. the supervisor has known both of these applicants for a very long time, and they both have a wealth of qualifications pertaining to issues relating to transportation and infrastructure. the tjpa board requires a 70%

of members being in attendance to make quorum? being that that's the case, it requires five out of seven voting members to be in attendance to start meeting and to conduct business. being that that's the case, supervisor kim will be introducing a resolution at the february 27th board of supervisors meeting? that allows the alternate appointed to serve on behalf of either of the board of supervisors appointed members to the tjpa body. we know that voters passed proposition h in 1999 calling for the construction of the transit center, and this center was supposed to open in 2017? our office is hopeful that with the added leadership of nadia and tilly, that there will be no further delays in the project, and thank you so much for considering them to join this board and we appreciate your time this evening. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment's

closed. supervisor, can we have a motion? >> yes, i'd like to make a motion to send this out to the full board with positive recommendation with 234 ad-- nn seat four, and tilly as the alternate. >> supervisor safai: for the transbay joint powers authority. >> yes. >> supervisor safai: so moved. thank you ladies for all your continued leadership as directors and your continued work on this project. it's very important. thank you. >> supervisor safai: please call the last item. >> clerk: item number 7 is an item to accept or reject melissa johnson to the planning commission for a term ending june 30th, 2018. >> supervisor safai: please proceed. >> thank you so much. good evening, chair safai, supervisor stefani. i'm happy to be the closer this

evening, and i really just appreciated all of the testimony today, which resonates with my own personal background and so much of what i've advocated for during my career. i am honored to be nominated for the san francisco planning commission, and i am so excited to express my desire and present my presentations to serve. to under my desire to be a part of the planning commission, i have to get a lull vulnerable and take you back to a form ative experience in my life. i grew up in queens, new york, and was raised by an amazing mother who worked hard to give me the best of everything, even when it was hard to make ends meet. she believes that getting a best education was the best that she could give me in life, and so when it came time to send me to public school, i remember her doing research on nights and weekends to find the best school in queens to send me to. she eventually found that school, but it was in a district that started just three blocks away from where we

lived. as my mom began to describe the district process to me as a seven or eight-year-old, i realized that there were invisible lines drawn around certain communities to keep them from opportunity. that realizization has really been a northstar throughout my career in wanting to create opportunities for others. in college, i created my own major in social justice studies, and i wrote a thesis on how's discrimination in housing in the u.s., including hud. i went onto work for a state representative, where i chaired several interagency working groups on housing development, code enforcement, public safety and land use. this is where i really came to

understand and participate in the planning process, including those long, nine, ten-hour meetings, and it's there where i deepened my commitment to developing resource rich communitied for all. i came here to work for green line institute, i worked throughout the state of california traveling from sacramento to bayview, hunters point to the inland empire, talking with residents and community organizations about how the foreclosure crisis and predatory lending was rachblg ravaging their communities. i used those stories and solutions to bring together legislators, financial institutions and other financial stakeholders to create win-win partnerships

that invested in those solut n solutions. fast forward, i have worked with organizations like tipping point community, and bringing together multiple stakeholders in our community to strengthen our region. as planning commissioner, i want to use my skills to be a translator and community builder, and my passion for equitiable access to affordable housing and opportunity, to u unite our community around a multitude of backgrounds. so with that, i'd like to open it up, and i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. >> supervisor safai: thank you. supervisor stefani? >> thank you for your desire to serve our city. as we discussed, your background and personal experience is extremely impressive, but your actual

experience with zoning and actual land use is less than some of the other commissioners, and i'd just like to know if you can talk a little bit about how you believe your experience will help facilitate a robust conversation at the planning commission as the items come before you. >> great. great question. you know, i would say i didn't necessarily study planning in college, but i have done my homework. i have attended planning commission meetings for about a year now. i know actually what's up in the next planning commission meetings, the fact that a transportation study is umm canning through, really looking at our long-term transportation and how that affects housing, looking at car ownership rates in our city, looking at retail in our city, and vacant storefronts, which are issues in multiple districts in the region. i also know that, you know -- and i have worked on the facts that we have a housing crisis -- an affordable housing crisis, and also a homelessness

crisis. and i also have a long track record of working to bring different stakeholders from different parts of our communities together to create community-based solutions. and finally, i would just say that i bring a fresh and new perspective to the planning commission, one that's balanced, one that really looks at systems and how we can transform them and how we can make all our processes more equitiable, and so i think that will benefit the commission. >> supervisor safai: great. any other questions? okay. great. well, then, why don't we open this up for public comment. any best testimoniers of the public wish to comment on this item, please come forward. in the spirit of valentine's day, be concise, be direct, and be brief. >> good eepg, supervisors, your meeting stamina is very impressive. my name is ed center. i am a long-term resident of san francisco, a parent of two

kids, one in public schools, a recent homeowner, all is to say very invested in the city. i'm here to advocate for my colleague and friend, millicent. i would like to address the question you asked. we worked together two years, and she is an incredibly fast study, and she raises the game of the people around there, if i'm in a meeting with her, i'm researching and coming in with game because i know she's coming in with it. i will say that an appointment of millicent is a deep belief in equity. she is the most thoughtful and passionate person around racial equity that i've ever met. we work together to bring a greater racial justice lens to

the organization we work for, tipping point, which is a nonprofit foundation fighting poverty. and as an example of that, milicent convened corporate stakeholders who donates money to tipping point and was able to move the conversation from money to money and jobs, getting them to hire low income people of color into high salary, secure jobs in san francisco. i -- she will bring that passion to this commission, and in concluding, i will say that on valentine's day, unlike our child care advocates, i didn't make you cards, and i apologize, but i think elected milicent to the commission would be an act of love to san francisco. thank you. >> supervisor safai: great. thank you. next speaker. >> good evening. my name is gail gilman. i'm the president of housing

partnership, and a proud resident of district three. i'm here to ask that you send milicent forward with a full recommendation. i had the honor to introduce her to the late mayor ed lee, back this summer, when he was considering making the switch on the planning commission. the reasons milicent came to my mind when i had learned that mayor lee was considering putting a new person on the planning commission to replace christine johnson was her diligence. she looks at all sides of a community issue. she looked at community input, what's best for the city, and she played that role both at tipping point, also when she worked at the sharing economy, and her role at the women's collaborative. i am impressed by her dill jeps -- diligence and thoughtfulness on matters. her dedication to spend one

week -- one day every week at commission meetings, i will say is dedicatition in itself. i really hope this commission sends her forward unanimously, and i hope she gets a full 11-0 vote by the supes. >> okay. anybody else wishing to make public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor? >> thank you to those who came out for public comment, and i just wanted to say that when i met with milicent, she's got a lot of heart, and i think you can tell about that with someone right away. with that, i would like to make a motion to forward this out to the full board with recommendation. >> clerk: mr. chair, we need to amend the motion first to

approve the nomation. >> supervisor safai: we'll make a motion to -- >> clerk: make a motion to strike the rejecting language. >> supervisor safai: oh, oh, is that -- right. >> clerk: it's a mayoral motion. >> clerk: you need to make the motion to amend the motion to strike all rejecting language. >> supervisor safai: okay. so let's make a motion to strike all rejecting language first. >> clerk: yes. >> supervisor safai: okay. so that's ordered and moved without objection. now we can make a second motion. >> clerk: recommendation as amended. >> supervisor safai: and recommendation as amended. >> clerk: okay. let's try this again. third time's a charm. i'd like to make a motion to move the mayoral appointment nominee out to the full board with positive recommendation. >> supervisor safai: for milicent johnson.

>> supervisor safai: okay. without objection, that item is ordered moved. congratulations, miss johnson. as i said earlier today, we had a great conversation. i think the thing that's the nicest -- at this point, you can clap, there's no one else here. i hope you bring that smile and positivity and it lasts. for all four years, you're on the planning commission. any other business before us on this commission? >> clerk: that is it for today. >> supervisor safai: we are adjourned.

♪ ♪ ♪ >> the san francisco playground's hitsvery dates back to 1927 when the area where the present playground and center is today was purchased by the city for $27,000. in the 1950s, the sen consider was expanded by then mayor robinson and the old gym was built. thanks to the passage of the 2008 clean and safe neighborhood parks bond, the sunset playground has undergone extensive renovation to its

four acres of fields, courts, play grounds, community rooms, and historic gymnasium. >> here we are. 60 years and $14 million later, and we have got this beautiful, brand-new rec center completely accessible to the entire neighborhood. >> the new rec center houses multi-purpose rooms for all kinds of activities including basketball, line dancing, playing ping-pong and arts can crafts. >> you can use it for whatever you want to do, you can do it here. >> on friday, november 16, the dedication and ribbon cutting took place at the sunset playground and recreation center, celebrating its renovation. it was raining, but the rain clearly did not dampen the spirits of the dignitaries, community members and children in attendance. [cheering and applauding]

♪ ♪ >> the meeting will come to order. welcome to the february 14, 2018 regular meeting of the public safety and neighborhood services committee. i'm supervisor jeff sheehy, chair of the committee. to my right, supervisor ronen and to my left supervisor peskin. the clerk is john carroll and i would like to thank -- jessie larson and knowna for staffing this meeting. clerk, do you have any

announcements. >> clerk: thank you, please make sure to silence all cell phones. items acted upon today will be on the 2017-18 board of supervisors agenda unless other stated. member peskin? >> present. ronen? sheehy? present. all members are present. we will be calling 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to allow supervisor cohen to attend her items. please call number one. >> hearing to consider the transfer of type 21 offsale general beer, wine and distilled spirits liquor license to verve holdings, doing business as verve at 2358 fillmore street, will serve the public convenience or necessity of the

city and county of san francisco. >> good morning, supervisors. they have applied for a type 21 license and if approved this would allow them to sell beer, wine and distilled spirits. there are zero letters of protest. zero letters of support. they're located in plot 295 which is considered a high-crime area. they are in track 135 which is considered a high saturation area. alu approves with the following recommended conditions. number one, sales of alcohol beverages shall be permitted between the hours of 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. number 2, the petitioner shall be responsible for maintaining free of litter the area adjacent to the premise which they have control. number 3. loitering, loitering is defined,

lingering aimlessly without lawful business. it's prohibited on sidewalks or property adjacent to the licensed premises under the control of the licensee. and number 4, graffiti shall be removed from the premise and all parking lots under the control of licensee within 72 hours of application. if the graffiti occurs on a friday, weekend, or holiday, the licensee shall remove graffiti within 72 hours of the beginning of the next weekday. it showed be noted that the applicant has agreed with the conditions. >> supervisor sheehy: the applicants are invited to present if they wish. >> hi there. my name is dustin wilson, i'm one of the operating partners of verve wine. we have this california location is our second store.

we have a small store in new york. where we sell really high-quality wines acrosses board, i couldn't consider us just an average wine store, i would like to think we're more upscale than that. we bring more of restaurant hospitality approach to the way we sell wine and are very excited to be part of the neighborhood. i think we've had a great impact in try becca, new york and our neighbors really love us and we're looking forward to being part of this neighborhood as well. >> supervisor sheehy: before we go to public comment, any questions? is there any public comment? so do i have a motion? seeing no public comments, it's closed. >> i'd like to make a motion to -- positive recommendations.

>> no objection. >> objections? the motion passes. still learning this. now, i think we go to item 3. >> clerk: i'm happy to call the item. agenda item 3, addresses cleanliness, safety and availability of social services as at the bay party rapid transit, usedly many people. hear department presentations on the efforts and achievements in contributing to a new baseline for 16th street bart plaza, whether hours of power washing or numbers successfully diverted by the law enforcement assisted diversion. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you, i want to thank supervisor ronen

for introducing the item. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. i wanted to thank everyone who came out today for the hearing. we're going to briefly hear from presenters from bart, hut team and the lead program in san francisco. i don't see director dusty, but i know he's here and coming up shortly. i want to give my profound thanks to bevan who -- there he is. he just walked in the room. i'm giving you my heart felt thanks because from your one year on the board, i think you accomplished a record amount. and about five months ago, director dusty called me and he said, you know conditions at the 16th street bart station are really bad and i've come out here and decided i'm going to clean it myself. i was wondering if you would

like to join me one week. i said that's a great idea, i would love to join you. that first week that i joined director dusty, i have to say it was a particularly -- i don't know if it was auspicious time to go, but it was the day after halloween. it was one of the most unhealthy situations i've seen. when you're a passenger, you just kind of walk through, look straight and try not to touch or see as little as possible, because it's a station that has been historically plagued by many difficult issues coming together in one. so when i became like the amazing janitors who work full-time for bart, and got my

gloves on and started cleaning the station myself, i started looking at the problem in a whole new light. and the bottom line is, that for a transit hub as big as the 16th street bart station is, it is absolutely unacceptable that the residents of san francisco and the transit riders have to subject themselves to those conditions on a daily basis. it is a public plaza. and there were used needles, human waste. the stench of urine was overwhelming. heaps of soiled clothing. dead animals. i mean i could go on and on, but i'll spare you all. what i'll say over the five months that the director and i have been cleaning the bart station, joining the janitor biron who does this as a living and does an amazing job to the best of his ability every single day, we have made it a crusade

to change the conditions at the station. we have really good news. i'll leave that good news for bart to tell us all. but i will say that this morning before i came here, i was at the bart cleaning the station and it's looking better than i've ever seen it. it is clean, sanitary, no longer dangerous. i want to thank bart for listening to us and working with us to fix this problem. which was long overdue. i will tell you every week when beavan and i are cleaning the station, we get stopped by countless transit riders. we've made friends with those who hang out in the station and they say it's never been better, safer, cleaner. and we're making a big difference. but we have a ways to go. the bart station at 16th street for many reasons is a place

where people have hung out historically. it's surrounded by many sro hotels that don't have indoor space for people to congregate and to be together. and so that public plaza is a place where people come to hang out. there are homeless residents who have been living in the plaza for quite some time. and it's a place where we need a whole other level and host of social services. the continued work that i'm going to be doing and i'll be there every wednesday until we accomplish this next goal of ours, is that we get hot tea members that primary job is focused on the station. director dusty and i are in the process of talking to bart, mta and other city departments about funding full-time hot team members at the station. we have the navigation center in the mission, so we have places that hot team members can direct

people to sleep and be safe and have all-day access to bathrooms and showers and food and services that they need. but we need to improve the situation at bart. we're also going to be hearing from the lead sf, which is a program that has been piloted in san francisco and one of the hubs of the program is the 1th street -- 16th street bart station. we were out there talking to the lead team that is contracted out through sultan agency and they're out there, diverting people, and low-level -- that have low-level drug offenses, not to the jail, but to services to improve their lives. that's the type of partnership we have between bart and the city going forward that will finally start making a difference in this station. let me be clear. we have no desire to kick people out of the station, but we do have a desire to make sure that people are getting the services

that they need. the last thing i'll say before i turn it over to the presenters and then i'll have questions for them. there was a woman named alice, and heather knight from the chronicle tt wrote about alice, who had been living three years in front, in a chair, in front of the burger king in the bart plaza. how this 63-year-old woman who is very, very ill, was able to live for three years in that station, without getting the help she needs, is beyond me. it's something i want to hear about today. it's something that i've dedicated myself to working on going forward. we, thanks to ann gallagher, a volunteer in my office, and her husband dr. dan, who is retired but used to work in dph as part of homeless health services made it their personal mission to work with alice every single day until they got her inside.

i'm very happy to report that for the first time in three years, she has a home. she has the medical care that she needs and deserved, but i don't understand why it took the supervisors' office and volunteers that were dedicated specifically to alice, to intervene in her life and get her inside. she would have died on the streets if we hadn't intervened. that's just not acceptable. we need to do better. i think the situation at the 16th street bart station is an example of government failing. bart of the city of san francisco not doing our jobs. and i'm glad to see that we have fixed that and that we're going to do what we should have been doing all along, but if we can't keep our transit stations clean and we can't provide services to seniors and homeless people who have mental health and substance

abuse, that is a failure of government. it is our job to fix these things and that's what we're doing and going to continue to do. without further ado, if my colleagues don't have any comments, then i'm going to ask paul overseer from bart to start us off. >> good morning, supervisors, thank you for giving bart the opportunity to talk about the initiatives that we're taking to provide both cleaner station system-wide and specifically 16th street in mission. i want to start by thanking supervisor ronen and bart director bevan dusty for their sweat equity in the issue and really providing leadership and focusing the staff's attention on the problems at 16th street and helping us to get to what i think is a major step forward in addressing the conditions there. i'd like to start just by

talking about station cleaning in general. and then zero in on what we're doing at 16th street. you know the backdrop and context of this issue is that bart's 430,000 riders a day have been speaking loud and clear over the last couple of years about some of conditions that they find in our stations and even on our trains. the level of customer dissatisfaction about station cleanliness and social conditions in some of the stations, they have become increasingly vocal about their concerns and it may have contributed somewhat so a levelling off and slight decline in the overall ridership. so we have started sometime ago with system--wide campaign to professionalize the function of station cleaning. we had an outside consultant come in, they made a series of

recommendations. we went from there to making, for bart anyway, a pretty significant change. we have 148 cleaners. it's a fairly large function. we made the decision to move them out of one department into a maintenance department. and i think that set -- that caused a series of profession things to occur -- positive things to occur as we had a new set of eyes and higher degree of commitment really in the area of cleaning our stations. we've set up a dedicated management structure. previously there was nobody directly in charge of station cleaning and nothing but station cleaning. it was a function that was spread out with other responsibilities. so we now have a superintendent and two assistant superintendents whose sole responsibility is to make sure the stations are clean. that helped with the span of control. obviously that established the

level of accountability within the management structure of the agency that didn't exist before. we followed that by partnering with outside experts. there is a group called the worldwide cleaning industry association, which is like the biggest group in the world. some 7,000 members. they have offices in asia and europe, and it's basically a trade group that specializes in cleaning facilities. they helped us in terms -- or are helping us in terms of developing standard operating procedures, kpis and methods and procedures to make us more efficient and effective in how we do cleaning. another thing we were lacking was a formal training program. as we hired new cleaners, it was sort of on-the-job training and we've now hired a formal trainer, who does nothing but train new employees who also trains existing employees. we ultimately hope through this

industry trade group to get what is sort of an iso type certification. that's a ways off, but that's where we're headed. one of benefits of moving the function into maintenance, they're responsible for maintaining the equipment, so we're looking closely at the type of equipment we give to the clean staff to maximize productivity. we're putting in place a quality assurance program, we're doing audits and inspections, it's management 101 stuff we're doing to professionalize the function of cleaning stations at bart. now as it relate to 16th street station, another thing that we did that had a direct impact on the resources available for 16th street, we looked at the work program. work program is just 148 people that clean stations, where do you put them, when do you put them there?

we did as a result of objectively looking at that work program, we categoryized our stations based on the side, based on the complexities that exist, whether they were above ground or underground. we went through that process, and then after categorizing the stations we allocated what we thought were the appropriate level of resources to each category of stations. it's about reallocation. this is, i have to say, even though the bart board added 35 cleaning positions since fiscal year 14, we're still at about the same level we were when we first opened the san francisco airport extension and that's because when the dot.com hit us so hard, we had to make tough choices. was it going to be service,

reliability, safety are cleaning where we cut services and unfortunately, at the time we had to reduce the cleaning resources pretty significantly. so we're back up to the point in terms of the number of positions that we have that we were at then. but anyway, when we looked up the stations and allocated the resources there was a major shift from sort of the outlying suburban areas into the core system. two-thirds of bart riders get off at one of the four downtown stations, and 16th street, although not a downtown station, has a lot of circumstances that required attention. there are 14 shifts, two shifts a day, 7 days a week, 14 shifts a week. at 16th street in mission. prior to the change that we're in the process of implementing right now, 6 of the 14 shifts

did not have a dedicated cleaner. that meant that during those 6 shifts, somebody had to worry about, usually it was 16th street and 24th street. when you're trying to keep two major stations like that clean, you know, you can barely have time to empty the garbage and not do a whole lot more. as a result of the changes that we've made and the reallocations, i'm happy to say that we have dedicated coverage for all 14 shifts during the week. number one. and number two, instead of having six shifts with no dedicated coverage, we have six of the 14 shifts a week with two cleaners dedicated to that station. so it's a pretty significant change in the amount of cleans resources dedicated to 16th. the other thing is patio steam cleaning which is important. we do that late at night when there is not as many people around on the plaza level. that used to be a one-hour job,

we upped that to four hours, 7 nights a week. and in april, we planned to come in and do a major job of again doing very deep cleaning at the two plazas at 16th street and going through and sealing the area, so that when we do steam cleaning after that, it will be much more effective in terms of dealing with some of the smells and other issues that are there. so a lot of things going on. again, i want to thank the supervisor and director dusty for being the champions of this and for allowing us to go through the process of really making district-wide changes in terms of what we do with our station cleaning. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much, first of all. i could not be more excited about these changes and i just really appreciate you for hearing us and working so hard and not just looking at this one

station, but making changes to improve the entire system. i'm excited about the news. just one question. when do you expect the -- all of changes to go into effect? >> so i think the biggest change the added cleaners at 16th street. we're going through the process of meeting with our employees so they understand what the new schedule looks like. then we have to go through a bid process. we have to have a few more discussions with the labor union. so we're looking at april. that's a pretty firm date. which is the same month we want to do the sealing of the plaza. >> supervisor ronen: fantastic. thank you so much. any questions? >> so i live in glen park, so i'm a regular bart rider. perhaps maybe the most regular bart rider on the board. while i appreciate what you're doing at the 16th street and

mission stop, which used to be my stop, i appreciate what director dusty and supervisor ronen have done. i have experienced that on a daily basis for a while. but you know, i wonder if what the thinking is at bart addressing the issue of homelessness more holistically. my daughter will not get out at pal street to go skating, because it's disgusting. and then what is even worse, it's heart-wrenching, just as a human being, when you have bodies, some of them partially dressed, passed out, injecting. i mean the number of people i see injecting in bart stations is staggering, open drug-dealing at the top of civic center bart. i can go there now and there will be drug dealers doing deals.

people sleeping on bart trains and in a way, bart has become a moving homeless shelter. and then the pushing of people around from station to station. you know, i can kind of tell when there is heightened activity at civic center because i see homeless people getting off at glen park. i've never really understood, you know, i see it, at glen park where we have occasional spikes, likely we haven't had one for a few years in crime surrounding the bart station. we've never gotten a response

from bart in terms of making it safer. you know, we get sfpd, but the responsibility of bart for the homelessness and cleanliness on the trains, it seems like either you should set up your own homeless response mechanism with navigation centers, outreach workers, mental health and law enforcement response, or more directly coordinate with the jurisdictions that you travel through, because i can tell you from both personal experience and from my constituents, what you're doing is not working. and the trajectory is downward, not upward. i see more homeless people on bart. i see more people on the platforms. who are obviously mentally ill and have issues. i see more stuff in the stations. and i don't know -- what is the plan? so you've got this great plan

for one station. but -- and just cleaning, you know, when the root of the problem is really the homelessness problem. so i just maybe some -- maybe director dusty was flagging me. but, please -- >> you're welcome to answer. let me just start, respectfully, >> we're a transportation agency, that being said, our customers are telling us just as you told me, that what they're encountering on our system is not acceptable to them and they don't care whose responsibility it is, they're encountering it in our stations and on our trains and they expect us to deal with it. i can tell you without reservation whatsoever, that right now, bart as an agency, has four major priorities and

they all sort of relate to what you just discussed. the homeless situation, cleanliness and public safety. i could go on much longer than you want to hear me. i could go on and on about all the different things we're trying and there is no guarantee that any particular strategy or tactic is going to work, but believe me, we are investing a huge amount of resources and a huge amount of the general manager's attention and all the management's attention on dealing with the very issues that you outlined. i'll just finish by giving you one very small example of what i think is the out of the box thinking that we're employing now to try to deal with the situation as best we can. we're on the verge of making an -- signing an agreement to have elevator attendance at civic center station. we have two elevators there. it's a joint station that we

share with sfmta. i might say that the level of cooperation between bart, sfmta, stpd and the other agencies, public works, i've been at bart for 28 years, it's at a higher level than ever before. we're at the general manager level, the police departments are there, the city agencies are there. so we are working very closely together. but back to my one example. so the elevator attendants, as pal street and civic in particular, that elevator is only as clean as the last person in there. we just came to the conclusion that given that situation, we needed to have somebody in there all the time. so we are going to prototype a program for six months. we are hopeful that sfmta will partner with us and handle the two elevators as pal street and

the idea is from the family foundation, there will be an attendant in that elevator -- or both elevators, for all the hours that that station is open. we think that's going to have a very positive impact. granted, it's a limited space, but believe me if you're in a wheelchair, and we hear it from the disabilities rights groups all the time, it is a horrible experience to have to use an elevator at those two stations. that's one very small example of some of the things we're trying. there are a lot of other things, but i know time is limited. >> supervisor sheehy: do you have hot team from any jurisdiction on bart trains? because i see people -- usually there is one -- if a train comes through, there is one car, you can always tell it's the one that is half empty, but there is one car in the train that has somebody sleeping on