may serve three times that number so wall it 15,000 people coming through our doors. >> they come and go? >> right. if you look at a 12-month span the average number of months on cap is seven or seven and a half months. that's the average. of course you have at either end of that you have people who have been consistently on. we even tried to insentavise spokes away from workfare with a higher grant. we have grant differration. you can do something else and get a higher grant and we had people chose work fare. >> there are a lot of people who say i want something more. i'm able to work 30 hours a week and i want to do that.

i share your concern and i kind of see the angle you are going at and look, they're doing six hours a work and they're not getting anything out of it so job training is not preparing them for the next step. but for some, that's all we can do and they appreciate the structure and they get their cash assistance and benefits in exchange. >> do you think these individuals that do this workfare and it seems to work for them because it's enough for them to live on in their living conditions with some other assistance? don't you think a part-time job, a steady part-time job would have better outcomes for these folks? >> absolutely. why is why we offer that to them. you have the option. you can go into jobs now and go to a part-time job. you can go to job training and you can volunteer at a non-profit. giving the client a choice in

every step. reaffirming that choice when they come in for benefits. nevertheless, you still have a couple hundred choosing workfare. >> and a question, are you proposing increase or decrease in the number of g.e. positions? >> we are flat. >> ok. are you proposing an increase or decrease in the number of civil service positions? >> flat as well. are there positions that would be transitioning from permanent to temporary or being contracted out? >> not contracted out. we have a whole series of substitutions. it's really too early in the process to know how we're adjusting that. we often have from year to year you have different departmental needs and you may need to substitute positions so we do that constantly and it's part of the budget submission in june. >> thank you, very much. i appreciate it. now i think we will hear from

sherine. from the department of aging adult services. >> good afternoon supervisors, sherine, director of the department of ageing and adult services. i'm just going to go over some caseloads first. so, just want to start with in-home supportive services which sour biggest program at d.o.s. ih. we serve about 25,000 clients or we served about 25,000 clients last year alone unduplicated and we had about 22,400 independent providers serving that clientel. on average, clients get 98 hours a month, which on the private market if they had to pay for that it would be almost $3,000 a month. it's a really great benefit for those people who need it. i wanted to talk about integrated intake in referral.

in 2016, with the support of mayor lee, we were able to open up our dos benefits and resource hub at the corner of goff and otus and we wanted to help streamline the intake process for people who need our services and make it easier for them to find us. we constantly are up against people not knowing where to find senior services or services with people with disabilities and we wanted it to be our hub for those services. what we have are people can access home delivered meals, they can come in and sign up for those and they can call in and do it online. they can also make reports of abuse to adult protective services and they can get support of services and also we co located our county veteran service office there. so, last year we had about close to 15,000 intakes for those

programs. we received close to 28,000 calls. we were able to work with about 2800 veterans and file 5700 claims for veterans, which result inside about $4 million in retroactive benefits for those veterans. in office on the aging, we have now served over 34,000 people in the last fiscal year and that is an increase of more than 10,000 individuals annually since five years ago so we've really increased in those services and those services are things that really help people engage in communities such as senior centers, meals and those things. i know, you are all very familiar with those. just wanted to highlight some of the things we're doing in our various programs. thank you to mayor lee, he put that into the budget last year

and so we were able to get it up and running last year and it has a clinical focus for clients who can't provide for their own basic needs due to substance abuse. the unit was launched in may of 2017 and we've since served 285 clients in that program. in that unit. about 50% of the clients were referred because they were at high-risk of loosing their housing. and to date, almost 80% of the clients whose cases have been closed were found to be safe, stable or thriving at time of closure as a result of their a.p.s. intervention. we're really excited about the results of that unit. you've heard a lot about conservatorship today and if you asked questions. we continue to work in partnership with the department of public-health, community behavioral health services within d.p.h. and the homeless department to assist people who

are experiencing acute mental illness or grave disability because of that. we're continuing to expand the community independence participation program that provides for community-based conservative o.p.p. ship and we work actively to keep people who need conservatorship at the settings. you asked about placement. half the people in our program end up being out of county but we're really working on this community based program that helps people stay here if they agree to conservatorship and you know, we're really able to serve them better in support of housing or places like that within the city. so far we've assisted over 50 people in that program. the number may be lower but the threshold is very high for someone who can towell actuallyn that so we're excited about that number. we're participating, the inner

agency high priority case review meetings and we're very excited to be involved in those meeting. it's clear you are asking questions about someone who has been 5150 multiple times. the key is getting the resources in place at the right time. right when that person needs resources we need to have the placement and we have been given the jurisdiction, the authority to serve and all of that has to happen and it's really great we're doing this inner agency collaboration and looking at each individual needs. also just the change in representation from the district attorney to the city attorney that supervisor sheehy, you referenced that president reid was in the legislation related to that. we're working closely with both teams to make sure that the transition happens as smoothly

as possible. and then in home support of services, home bridge is our provider that does what we call contract mode so they work with people who really can't manage their own worker. they provide the workers, they train the workers, et cetera. so it's kind of our highly vulnerable i.h.h.s. population they're working with. one of the issues they've been facing is just this very, very high turnover. of course the economy has been good and people can find jobs elsewhere and working with this population is tough. it takes great workers and dedication and commitment and passion and so, we wanted to work with them. they were having a 60% or 70% turnover in their home care staff and so, we helped them to implement a tiered wage and essentially, we're study the

tiered wage and see if it helps that workers are getting paid more. they start off-the-record with a $2 increase and then some of them will be able, with extra training, will get access higher amount so up to $3 over the minimum page. and then moving on to our community based services, i know everybody knows about the dignity fund and we just finished the dignity community needs assessment part of the dignity fund legislation. we will be reporting part of the legislation says that there needs to be a joint hearing of the aging and adult services commission and the oversight and advisory council of the dignity fund so we'll hold that on apri6 here in city hall. and there are some highlights from the report that i just wanted to point out to you. and one is that toss is serving

1-4 of the community based programs. this doesn't include inhome support of services, it's really that 34,000 people we mentioned and the equity analysis is factors are accessing services at higher rates. in particular, we're really pleased to see that toss is serving half of the low income seniors and this ind indicates we're doing effective strategic targeting of populations that we know really need our services. and then we've identified research and analysis such as breaking out the communities in color to see how we're really doing within and across those groups. and also, the lgbt population. we just started really collecting the sexual identity

and sexual orientation identity. we don't have good data how we're serving that population. we expect to have better data around that next year. when the aging and adult services commission has approved the community needs assessment, i'll be bringing it to a committee of the boards and it will go to the full board for their approval, before june. and then lastly, i just wanted to mention the support at home care pilot and that was really interesting that was championed by erik mar, former supervisor, before supervisor fewer. what we're doing is focusing on a middle-income population that can't afford home care outright but may be able to pay for a little bit of that home care. these people don't qualify for in home support of services or

community living fund but we want to see if they can really benefit and stay at home more easily if they had up to 18 hours of home care per week. and so, we're really still recruiting people. we want to find more people with disabilities who are under 60 to participate in this study, it's really a study. we're working with the institute on aging who is administering the program for us and they've engage ucsf to do a thorough evaluation and looking at utilization, looking at quality of life indicators, et cetera. so we're going to be very excited to find out the results of that are and see if it's making a difference for people. when we talk about making a difference, is it keeping them out of the hospital. is it keeping them at home, et cetera. and then lastly, we're enhancing outcomes. focusing on performance objectives in our community contracts. and just trying to do this while

not over taxing our community providers. of course we always want to ask for more information but we hear from them that we are trying to do things without a lot of margin so we want to make sure we're not asking too much, at the same time we want to move to a much stronger focus on community impact on client impact, et cetera. i want to give one example. we're piloting evidence-based measures to track loneliness and nutrition risk and implementing follow-up procedures to ensure clients have access to appropriate further resources. i think that's the end of my report. unless there are questions i'm going to turn it over to september gerard. >> any questions? >> yes, i had a couple. one does your eviction prevention unit work with the sheriff? i did have a conversation with her where she mentioned that for

seniors because she has to do it and she comes across folks that are not aware of what is happening to them. >> we do work closely with the sheriff and we can make sure the deputy sheriffs understand how a.p.s. works and we work closely with that. >> my understand question was the dignity fund. so long time survivors of h.i.v., the interface isn't working well? >> we're very interested in working with long-time survivors of h.i.v. the request that came to us didn't quite fit the dignity health funds. i'm continuing to work with the h.i.v. and aging task force and find ways that we can help we as

a coming up next through dignity fund or other ways help support them and it didn't quite meet the criteria what we're doing and also i think there was another issue with the panel and volumes we're asking and we're interested in working with them. >> it's a challenge for that community to manage this system and i know that there's a lot of confusion on where people should be going for this support and they don't fit in the dignity fund so many of their request have health components but from the patient or client standpoint, they're not really separable. you have people living with h.i.v. 20, 30, 40, well not 40, well actually, some are 40. so you have people who are aging

with h.i.v., you know, 60% of the people with h.i.v. are over 50 and that will be 70% soon and we're not finding a place for that community within the city funding structures and they don't seem to fit here and don't seem to fit there. given what people have survived, and given the support, the enormous amount of support that that community drummed up for passing the dignity fund, it's a challenge trying to figure out what advise i can give to that community to try to participate and have some sort of relationship -- you know, just to have something happening for them as they age. >> i mean, what i would suggest supervisor, is that if maybe through the h.i.v. and aging task force, if they set up a meeting with me and we can just literally talk about what the challenges are, maybe we can help them -- i could help them

figure out what the right path is. and i think so that didn't happen. so we had some asks that came in and they didn't seem quite related to dos but if they were able to just have a conversation about how they might go about it, maybe that would be the best way to do it. i'm happy to have a conversation with them about that. >> it's hard if it ends up being something i have to deal with in the add-back process. you know, it's -- >> i can talk to them. >> this community has been through a lot. and the trauma that they've experienced and the loss that they've experienced. the effects of aging and h.i.v. presents unique burdens to this community and the ability to self-organize and really direct is a challenge. at the same time, to maintain some sense of community when so much of, you know, so many people have lost so many people.

the social isolation is a huge issue. and so it just feels like rather than help it's like you guys pull it together and figure it out. they've been pulling it together and figuring it out for 30 years. >> they have, but i think we have to work within the constraints of our funding and so i think if they came and talked to me about it we can figure something out. i really do. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. i just have. you said the report is going to be coming out on april 4th or the results? >> yeah. the report is public and i believe that we have already sent it to each of you through your aids. if you haven't received it i'll make sure it went down. i thought it had. it's public. >> just very quickly in a couple sentences, what do you see as some of the gaps or trends that we will have to address in our

budget cycle probably in the years to come? i know that there have been estimates that the senior population is one of the largest growing populations in san francisco. i know in my district it is. and the need is going to be great and that we're seeing, we just had a report on home care. we've had a report on skilled nursing beds, we've had a report on a lot of these homes that take care of seniors and they're closing because of a high cost of san francisco and so can you give us a snapshot of where do you think this is trending and what some of the gaps are. [ please stand by stand by for captioner switch ] s

lot of the jobs are going to be, and that's where the need is going to be. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. and now, i believe we have last but not least, the fabulou is

the office of early care and education. >> good afternoon, supervisors. again, i'm september jarrett. our city is home to about 48,000 children under the age of five, and we believe thatbyy getting our youngest residents off to the strongest start, we can avoid some of the challenges that they face later. with that start, they'll be productive citizens. with that, i would say just a few things. a key point of the critical piece of early years is access to high quality care and early childhood education.

in frisk frissan francisco, vil of our children are growing up in households where parents are working, and half of our household struggle providing hey quali high quality learning that they prefer. san francisco's stepped up to meet the challenges. our work next year, like we and my colleagues shared, we're lucky enough to really steward and san francisco's a leader nationally in drawing down state and federal funds to close the early learning gap for families, and we are also a leader in investing local dollars because in a national context, the state's as far behind other successful industrialized countries that really invest in families when they're young, in that critical standardup period where lifetime earnings of parents are low because they're early in their career, typically, and the cost of really giving the

kids that education and support that they need is high. so many other countries, the u.s. has yet to catch up, really invest publicly in that critical window, and in san francisco we're proud to make a difference and demonstrate some good practices. some of our priority, laies, l year, we created an enhanced san francisco tradition of closing the gap for children and families and launched a new program called early learning scholarship, continuing to leverage state and federal dollars, and trying to meet families' needs with a sliding scale, early care and education program that draws down and meets our lowest income family needs but works up the income ladder to more working families that might not be eligible for state and federal assistance but can't yet afford the high cost of quality in san francisco. with this reshaping, we're now

reaching 7500 young children and their families under the age of five, and we're serving about 680 more kids than we served year to year with the same dollars and we're drawing down -- we're closing the gap and drawing down more state and federal dollars, about 18% more than we were with this new approach. looking ahead to next year, early care and education, we do want to try and offer the many small businesses and nonprofit child care centers that do the hard work of educating and caring for our children a cost of doing business increase to meet their increases expenses. we're also really working hard to try and get better information out to families and programs. we don't right now -- finding early care and education is one of the most difficult choices a parent or a caregiver can make, and finding quality timely

relevant information about your program options, what your share of cost is, and whether or not the city's financial assistance can help you and your household is so really hard to navigate. so we're actually through the mayor's start-up and residence process, we accelerated building a new digital portal, one-stop shop in three threshold languages so parents, on their schedules, nights and weekends, not just days when we're working, can really be empowered to know their range of options and the financial assistance we offer? i hope to be sharing with you -- we'll actually have beta testing of parent programs and professionals and we'll be happy to share that with you and engage your districts and networ networks in testing that new information portal. like director mcspadden shared, we have a workforce challenge in san francisco. education and early childhood care is among some of the most

physically demanding work and among some of the lowest paid in the city, and we have a lot more to do in recruit, retention and compensation work? we're looking to expand the number of spaces in early education programs to prove sprisk's a leader in planning policy that really support and promote the employment of family home child care centers, and lastly we have an opportunity because the city's children are everybody's responsibility to further some public and private partnerships to close the gap for families, and with that, i'll take any questions. >> supervisor fewer: so thank you, miss jarrett. actually, i just have one of the same questions that i asked for sherreen, which is what are we seeing about urgent needs and gaps? >> well, there -- we -- we're

fortunate enough to have a san francisco citywide plan for early childhood education, which was endorsed by the nature yo and board of supervisors in 2016, and we setup four prior areas and northstars that we're moving our system towards. first, we share the vision that every san francisco child will have access to an affordable high quality learning setting. within that, we have several thousand low income subsidy eligible families who've asked for child care financial assistance for whom were not receiving financial assistance from the state or federal government, so one unmet need is really clearing the list essentially of families that have the need and are working. the second is because of the social policy framework, we're having this middle income or missing middle where there's working parents working hard that quite -- can't quite

afford the full cost of quality, so there's a missing middle that we have an aspiration in this early learning scholarship approach if this were available where parents are paying a portion of cost but getting if financial assistance. there's kind of a hard cliff right now. you hit that wall, you meet that dollar an hour base, and you could lose your child care assistance. i would be remiss to say our third priority is really our workforce. folks work hard -- there's nothing harder, i think, than managing a classroom of young children, at least for me. excuse me. but we have some recruitment and compensation challenges. one example, the cost of living in san francisco is high, as we all know, for -- for all of our san franciscans and families in

particular. our workforce right now in a community based setting or a family child care home may be ashi as earning on average, even with a b.a. or b.a. work, less than 40,000 a year. that's far below an average two bedroom rent right now plus important. so while it's noble work and important work, the pay is below what the professionals need to thrive. as one of our family child care advisors reminded me, she said i can't pick up my family child care business and commute in from oakland or alameda or somewhere more affordable because child care homes they're home is being licensed and operated to care for other san francisco children. so those are the three pressing gaps. we do have additional challenge, which i think is important to lift up? because of fragmentation in different program and see some challenges in state and federal policy, our early care and education is hard for busy

working parents of diverse cultural backgrounds to navigate. and so a fourth priority is to lift up and make better, more clear information available and also make our programs easier to understand, access and engage with and retain. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. a lot of similarities between daas, also. thanks. so let's open this up for public comment. are there any members of the public that would like to speak on these items. seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, any questions, comments for our presenters today? seeing none, thank you very much. can i have a motion, please, to file this item? [ inaudible ] >> supervisor fewer: oh, supervisor. are you making the motion? that's great. okay. so we will file this item. thank you very much. and madam clerk, are there any other items before us today? >> clerk: no, madam chair, there are no other items on

this agenda. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. the meeting is adjourned. ♪ >> supervisor jeff sheehy and i represent district eight, the castro, diamond heights. ♪ ♪

for me i think district eight is different than other districts because of the castro, right? that is really the birth place of lgbtq civil rights movement in san francisco. it's historic for that reason. it's a great district because it's very diverse. you have booming night life in the castro, a lot of families, we have an amazing array of parks, rock climbing wall in glen canyon is super cool. it was the first facility with a rock climbing wall. the book stores are treasures, charlie's corner is unique. >> charlie's corner is a children's book store but so much more, community space where care takers and children come together over storytelling,

books, it's a gathering center. i am charlotte and we are at charlie's corner on the corner of castro and 24th. the type of books we carry at charlie's corner range from prenatal to young adult, 18. we have musical books, art books, all built around children of course. history, nonfiction, we have a wonderful picture book section. >> i love going to charlie's corner, number one, because you can find a whole range of books. my kid loves to read books. >> i always envisioned a space like this, surrounded by children's books and storytelling. we offer storytelling four times a day.

we do curate well, we do a lot of time reading, researching, beyond the story time, it's going back to picking out a book, helping someone find the perfect book, unwrapping it and sending it off. there are people from all over the world and that's what i find so exciting. you see that every day in our story times. it's literally a melting pot. >> more and more families come into the district, whether it's the castro, strollers every where in the valley and tons and tons of kids in glen park now, with the canyon and a great library. >> i describe it as this village, i tell people i live in a town but i work in a village. >> one thing i really think is great about this district, it's a safe district, it's a clean district, it's great for kids, it's great for families and has

a bit of wild life in it, too. >> i look forward to watching these kids in this neighborhood grow up and new kids come in and meeting new people from all over the world because that's what we're all about. ♪ ♪ >> my name is naomi kelley, and i'm the city administrator for the city and county of san francisco. it is my honor to be here today. we are finally in the home stretch of seeing this moscone expansion completed. so it's my honor because i am -- two of the departments that oversee this project, the convention and facilities, and the department of public works all report up to the city administrator, and also, as a -- we have a representative on the tourism improvement

district, which was very instrumental in forming with the hotel -- with the hotel community and sf travel to create this district that provided the self-assessment that's paid for by the visitors of san francisco to finance this project, and it's very important to the city and san francisco. it's an economic engine, and we're very happy to be here today for this topping out ceremony. when i look at the crowd today, we will be doing the finishing touches and signing the theme later on when we get through this program, and we'll be able to sign our signatures on it. get the fattest pen so you can pet your name, like john hancock, so one day, we can tell your family and friends that your signature is on this building. so up next, i'd like to introduce our mayor, mark farrell, to give a few words. >> the hon. mark farrell: thank you, naomi, and kim.

good morning, everybody. i am incredibly excited to be here today. as someone who remembers moscone center constructed over 30 years ago as a child, to celebrate in san francisco now the topping off of the new and improved moscone center. what we're doing here will keep san francisco at the forefront for visitors, for the tourism industry. over 30 years ago, this center was constructed, and so think about what it has meant for our economy here in san francisco, for our businesses large and small is truly incredible. and what we're here today celebrating in my mind is the future of san francisco. this is the future. just look around you. just look at all the construction that is happening, all the crews that are working as we speak right now. we had a choice. moscone center, as the years went on was getting smaller

compared to the conventions that were coming to san francisco, smaller compared to some of the conventions that were being diverted to other cities, and we had a choice. we decided to make the invest. the voters decided to make the invest in a new moscone center. so what we're doing today is celebrating the future of san francisco. the future of our workforce, the future of our economy, the future of our tourism industry, the future of our city, and that's exactly what we should be doing. this expansion to the moscone center is increasing our convention space by 20%. the construction that's going on inside these walls is unbelievable, will make truly for a 21st century experience. you think about the streetscape and improvements that are happening for pedestrians that will finally be able to walk-through this street by the end of this year is going to be unbelievable. we did this, as well. we are going to be the highest

lead certified convention center in the entire country, which is something incredible, and please give a round of applause for everybody who made that happen. [applause]. >> the hon. mark farrell: we have on-site water capture and treatment. we're going to have the biggest solar installation in the city of san francisco, and this entire moscone center will be zero emissions, which is an unbelievable feat for a project this size. you know, last year moscone center held over 39 events and aaccount traed over 500,000 visitors to the city of san francisco during construction. imagine what this is going to do in 2019. this is a project that will be delivered on time and on budget, and i'm going to hold people to that during my time as mayor. mohamed is closing his ears, but we'll have a chat later today. but really what i would like to do more than anything is thank all the people that have been involved in this project for so

many years. so first of all, so naomi kelley and the entire city administrator's office, nye owe me, thank you for your leadership. please give them a round of applause. [applause]. >> the hon. mark farrell: so mohamed nuru and the entire department of public works teams, mohamed, thank you so much. [applause]. >> the hon. mark farrell: to all of our partners in this effort, and there were so many. first of all, jodell underers is here from sf travel. thank you to the entire board of supervisors. supervisor shsha satisfy sigh is here. thank you for your support. to the moscone travel district, this has been a truly collaborative effort. to webcor and all of the subcontractors, thank you for all of your hard work to making this happen here today. to our architects, skidmore,

owens and yerrell, and really, i would like to thank -- and i want a huge round of applause for the men and women that come here to work every single day, those that are behind us here with our hard hats and our vests, thank you. thank you for what you do. [applause]. >> the hon. mark farrell: i know that has been years in the making. as we said earlier, this has been a baby of people for many, many years, and thank you for your work on behalf of the entire city. lastly, as your 44th mayor, i do want to pay homage to mayor lee, who was a huge supporter of this from the beginning, and was a huge supporter until his untimely death last year. to mayor lee, to all of you who made this happen, and to the

future of san francisco, congratulations, everyone. [applause]. >> thank you, mayor farrell. speaking of mayor ed lee, it made me bring back memories of moscone west when he was the director of dpw, and here we are in this project, and he kick started the moscone expansion, and it's just thank you for the tribute to mayor lee. up next, we have jodella sanders, who we had a lot of conversations with, and we'll be working together to improve this facility. got to make sure that we always have money for that, joe. so up next, joe del aunderers. >> thank you, naomi, and i don't know why you looked at me

when you said the on budget part. thank you so much. we have been looking forward to this for a very long time. topping off of this project, this incredible project for san francis francisco, and as the mayor said, this incredible project for san francisco. others have been talking about this for a very long time, and only ten more months left, and we're going to open the doors to this incredible new building, not only a very much expanded building, but a very improved building. an improved building for this neighborhood, much more neighborhood friendly. it's a much better piece of building and design for the people of san francisco, and we're very excited about that. so on behalf of san francisco travel, i want to thank all of you for your role in making this happen. it's been a great day, and it's a great opportunity for us to celebrate the future. this has been a team effort, a collaboration between the moscone hotel district formed

by the hotel community and the city and county of san francisco. it's very unique where the city and hotel industry come -- hospitality industry come together for this project. the complicated construction was executed to keep moscone up and running throughout the project. that's never been happened before. we expanded this major building while there's meetings and conventions happening here all the time. the patience of the construction, too, the patience of bon and his team here to make sure this is all working for the -- the delegates, the customers, to make sure it's seamless as possible during construction is unheard of, but it's happening here in san francisco. san francisco welcomes over 24 million visitors each year, and more than 20% of those visitors pass through these doors. they come here to san francisco because of this building and spend millions and millions of dollars in our economy and create thousands of jobs. it is important that san francisco stays competitive with the expanded and upgraded

convention facilities, and this project has achieved just that. when this project is complete, we will have over 500,000 square feet of exhibit space, more than 80 meeting rooms, a visitor information center and many upgraded neighborhood amenities. i am happy to welcome you to this major celebration and a major milestone in this project. i want to congratulation all the parties, the city, skidmore, owens, and yerrell, to make sure to get it done on time and a building that all san franciscans can be proud of. we look forward to gathering here in just ten months from now to celebrate the dedication of the finest building and the finest convention center in the united states. ladies and gentlemen, welcome. it's a great day to celebrate. thank you very much for being here. [applause]. >> so before i bring up public works, i want to just thank

some of the department heads who are here today. tom huey, the director of building inspection. thank you for helping us with the permits. john nogucci, our director of convention facilities. in addition i can-- nadia ducer director of ocii. i have to thank brook novotnez and edgar hernandez, they're construction managers working day-to-day, managing all the contracts, managing all the finances, managing sf travel, making sure -- and working with the hotel industry to make sure that we deliver this -- this beautiful building, and so with that, their fearless leader, mohamed nuru, i'd like to bring

up. >> good morning and thank you, naomi, thank you, mayor farrell. well, it's happening. can you feel it? yeah, right. really. three years ago, when we broke ground on moscone expansion project, we knew we had a long road ahead. and today, we're almost there. today's beam raising celebration for the final phase marks the final sprint. one of the components of the moscone expansion project that i'm most excited about is the improvements to the public realm. when the project is done and the crews pack up, we will see and feel a different neighborhood, one that's safer, one that's more beautiful, and one that's more inviting. the changes are the result of a strong partnership that project team forged with residents, business owners and yerba buena

and south of market neighborhoods. community members stepped up from day one to work with the project team to make sure our focus was just not buildings, but that it's also about making the surrounding area and public spaces better for everyone. long before construction started, we were giving shape to the project. we held dozens of community meetings and met with people in small groups and one-on-one to cement a vision to improve moscone's connection to the neighborhoods. the conversations weren't always easy, and that's for sure. everybody wanted all sorts of stuff, but they were productive and effective, and at the end of the day, this will be a better neighborhood. a pedestrian friendly space will replace the 25,000 square feet of surface parking, exiting ramps that were all out here on our street.

the project will add more than 8,000 square feet of public new open space, including a dynamic new tot lot play area for younger children, as well as a new learning garden and landscaping around the children's creativity museum and the carousel. for anyone who visits the area or lives here, we know the demand for more family play space is high. expansion project also includes a number of urban design streetscape elements to make the surrounding streets and you can swas safer and more pleasing for people who walk and bike around here. third street will have a widened sidewalk, a new space for shops and dining to enliven the street scene. howard street is being redesigned to knit both sides of the street. a new bridge went in over

howard street to connect the north and south portions of yerba buena gardens. the enclosed east bridge went in last month and will how's public parks by leo villareal when completed. leo villareal is the artist that did the lights on the bay bridge. the experience crossing howard street at ground level will be much, much more pleasant. the buildings themselves will play with lights and feel less bulky to allow for a more visually appealing and friendly environment. the moscone expansion has given us once in a generation opportunity to make sure that this major convention center which hosts more than 1 million visitors a year enriches the area. that was a vision, and i am confident we will deliver this vision. as mentioned before, this has been a real team effort working

with city, residents, businesses and property owners. this also wouldn't be possible without the support of our friends at sf travel and the moscone expansion district and of course our construction team, webcor. i know you can see their sign real big over there, webcor. there's webcor. what happened to public works and the rest of the team? make sure our sign is up there. i also want to thank the mayor who was a really big part of this when this started, mayor farrell, naomi kelley, all the construction manager and project management teams, led by edgar lopez, brook mobratu, and others worked really hard to make sure this project will be delivered, and yes, mayor farrell, on time, and on

budget. thank you very much. [applause]. >> before i bring up webcor, there's four people out in the audience that i would be remiss and i didn't give a shout out to and thank them for their advice on everything moscone, their advocacy for tourism in san francisco, and that's rick swig, who thank you very much for being here today. he's on moscone expansion, and part of sf travel. ike kwon, rodney fong who was part of this project from the beginning, part of sf travel, and then, i'd also like to thank mark sultis for your work with us in making sure this project was running smoothly. up next, i'd like to introduce

tony ringo -- i think after he finishes speaking he's going to get a public works banner, an sf travel banner, and a moscone banner up on that bridge -- and he'll pay for it. [applause]. >> definitely is a big sign. first of all, thank you very much. i was talking to spencer, one of our project executives on this project, and we were awarded preconstruction back in december 2012, so five years later, we're here today. one thing i've released in construction, it's all about planning and partnerships and relationships, and i can say we all have that on this job. i want to give thanks to lynn, mark, our construct tors. it's been amazing. couple facts about the job. we've all already expended 1.2

man hours to date. right now, we have an average of 170 workers with 22 different subcontractors on the job, so it just tells you the coordination that's been involved. our safety record to date has been very good, and so life safety is the main force of what we do in construction on an every day basis. the team has removed -- this is an amazing fact. the team has removed over 48 million pounds of construction debris through demolition operations. we constructed a below grade bridge that carries the load for howard street. the total project has over 7,000 tons of structural steel. and obviously, we just erected the second bridge. we have two bridges spanning over howard street, and i was asking brook earlier, i can't think of another bridge of this size that spans a thoroughfare in san francisco, so it is he aa really amazing feat. phase one, phase two, and phase

see re, we hit our targets each date, and we're on target to hit our date in december 2018 for the last phase. we did all this with conventions performing on a daily basis. i think we had 26 conventions on a yearly basis over four years. it's over 100 conventions that we built around, so a lot of planning, a lot of foresight, and that's not easy to do. i think what i want to say, back to my original statement, you can't do this without a relationship, you can't do this without planning, you can't do that without trying to get along on a daily basis, so thank you, everybody. appreciate it. >> okay. so as we conclude, joe del asandra gave me a fact that because of this expansion, in 2018 we have more rooms booked

than in the history of san francisco, so i just want to thank you, everyone, for being part of that. [applause]. >> so -- all right. so this is the time where we are going to start our topping out ceremony. the final beam is right there. it'll be hoisted in place after all of us get a chance to sign it, so we'll walk over there and sign, so please join me in signing the beam, and then, we'll walk across the street and watch it being hoisted up above us.

>> welcome to the march 27th meeting. we'll start off with a call to order and then roll call.

>>[ roll call ] we have a quorum today. >> whiff unannouncement, item 9 will not be heard. as their c.e.o. is unable to attend the meeting. item number 3 will be approval of the minutes from march 13th, 2018. do i have a motion? >> second. any public comment? none. all in favor. aye. >> opposed. approved. item number 4 is general public comment. members of the public may address the commission on matters within the commission's jurisdiction and not on today's agenda. so i think we have mr. warner. please come forward. >> my name is dave warner. i am a former san