gets kicked out of starbucks and he gets so anxious he takes it off and throws it to the freeway. he is being tasked with maintaining his ankle monitor, pay for it, at the same time he has to be outside and no one will let him charge his ankle monitor. that's one manifestation of the massive pressure we are putting under [buzzer] [cut off] >> thank you, next speaker. >> i'm eva delair. i work with people seeking to get jobs and earn a living in order to support themselves and their families. specifically, i work with people to clear old non-serious convictions from their records, which have been stopping them from being hired for jobs for which they are qualified. these convictions, even several years old mean they cannot get a job. i've seen it in san francisco and across the state, the judges will not allow people to clear their records as long as

they have an unpaid fine or fee. this is illogical and cruel. it creates a vicious cycle. people can't get a job so they can't pay their fines and fees, so they can't clear their record, so they can't get a job. the cycle goes around and around. you can't get blood from a stone. i'm asking for the county's compassion and a rational policy choice to support our residents in accessing jobs by ending this vicious cycle [buzzer] [mic cut off] >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, i'm darryl sipreon, i'm formerly incarcerated and on parole, right now i can't vote, can't sit on a jury, i can't access certain public assistance, i can't get public housing and i'm denied occupational licensing. and then you top that off with fines and fees.

so i can personally attest to the distress, the hardships, pressure fines and fees cause for incarcerated families and the men and women. studies show 85% of the men and women that are released from prison come home in debt and then to top that off, to add insult to injury, formerly incarcerated people earn 40% less than everybody and to have your wages garnished makes the hardships worse. i'm asking this panel not to participate in these discriminatory practices and take a step back and ask yourself why you chose to serve [buzzer] [mic cut out] >> thank you, next speaker. >> my name is mr. richards, with community housing partnership. i can tell you right now that the abolishment of administrative fees, as discussed in this meeting would lift up, remove a lot of

barriers to some of our more economically vulnerable residents of the city, getting their lives stabilized and becoming productive members of society. furthermore, i really encourage the people here in power to understand that exploring these ideas that are more socially responsible could make a difference in this economic landscape of disparity, thank you. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, members of the board and thank you for considering the abolition of the fees we are discussing today. i have twice in my life faced those fees and i regret that very much. but the effort to pay those fees lead to, contributed to my eviction to my housing, contributed to my being homeless for almost three years. and that was bad enough. but i think the use of those

fees to help pay for the mechanics of incarceration takes a away the idea of an independent judiciary, because if those fees are used to contribute to people's incarceration, they lose their hope that the justice system could be independent and not dependent on further incarceration of citizens. i think the abolition is good for ideals of democracy as well as keeping people out of poverty. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is javier [inaudible], i represent community partnership, we have been working with debt-free san francisco to get this legislation passed. and i would like to express a letter of support, and 12 other organizations in support of this bill. we are at an important time in history where criminal justice

reform is our only option for a prosperous future. if san francisco passes this bill it will show neighboring cities, states that systems can change and we have the means to do it. that's why i ask the board to support this legislation, thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. and you can turn the letter into here. thank you. >> my name is dwight sears, i represent c.h.p. and core. i believe these fines create a revolving door that leads people into poverty and i believe if you did the time, why should you have to pay the fine? >> thank you. next speaker. >> greetings my name is mark anthony, i'm a proud member and tenant of community housing partnership and have been a leader here for 15 years. i've seen some winning opportunities in the past i'm happy to be a part of. i have also experienced those shackles and let me tell you, it was a tough fight with a short stick and it took me a

long time to get over that and i think it's a well-organized rip-off center and it's time for san francisco to show leadership so other cities can see what we are doing and i would appreciate if you pass this bill. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> thank you, my name is roxel rama, i just really want to thank london breed for supporting this legislation, as well as public defender jeff adachi and jane for hosting the task force. one of the things i've had the privilege the last couple weeks is talking to many people about this ledge islation. every -- legislation. every person was supportive of the meat and bones of the legislation, but super excited that we are tackling this issue and helping eliminate these barriers for low-income san franciscans, so i challenge the board members to continue to eliminate these barriers and knock them down. there's a lot of criminal stuff on the books but not a lot

eliminating those barriers on the books. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you, next speaker. >> my name is ms. dhaliwal, i'm here with [inaudible] l.c.c.r. civil rights. [reading] eliminating fines and fees that disproportionately affect low-income and people of color. it also leads to criminalization of people simply because they are too poor to pay. for people released from the criminal justice system this will remove barriers. l.c.c.r. strongly supports this legislation to work towards a debt-free s.f. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, i'm danica [inaudible], attorney for [inaudible] civil rights. i'm proud to be here to strongly support ending these fees in san francisco.

because we see how they negatively impact our clients everyday. in addition to the economic justice work we do, we also help people clean up criminal records to reduce barriers to housing and employment. and frequently as ava spoke to recently, people are required to pay off these fees before they could even clean up their criminal record making it harder to be successful after they have had system contact. so these fees are seriously out of alignment with goals of san francisco to be successful, just and safe and we strongly support this legislation. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, i'm brittany from [inaudible], charging people coming home from prison or jail is a lose/lose policy.

it's high pain and low gain. people coming home from jail or prison they are facing a host of different challenges beyond these fees, they have thousands in debt ranging from payments to bail bonds man to the cost of prison phone calls and straddling additional debt on these people is not a good way to increase their ability to get a job and back on their feet, the $1 million collected annually is dwarfed by what's outstanding and unlikely to be collected because people don't have this money. we ask you to pass this ordinance, thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker? >> jay crawford, board member for [inaudible] it's an honor to be able to speak at the rules committee about this important issue. there is strong compelling evidence there's inequity at every level of the criminal justice system, even upon arrest. i believe, someone mentioned

earlier about ferguson and how they rely heavily on court fees for their budget and i just feel this, charging fines in a system still broken, that we are still trying to fix is unfair and i believe that the city could really show leadership for this whole nation around this fees and fines and inequality in the criminal justice system. what san francisco does, the rest of the united states do, so i definitely encourage the rules committee to support this legislation, thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> my name is [inaudible] kadino, not only do i strongly support this legislation but i challenge you all to cut off the barriers that are tacked onto this and the bureaucracy. as the youngest person in the room i understand what

generational poverty looks like and how the cycle attributes to youth. speaking of youth trying to further their educational career, i had to make sure i had to go to certain schools because fines being released from d.j.j. and other fines and fees like university of san francisco, i was admitted but i couldn't get into because of fees and working at u.p.s. only making $10.85, so just think about that. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> one minute huh? that's all we get? david elliott lewis. i'm with the tenderloin people's congress s.r. collaborative, san francisco police department crisis intervention team training program and other organizations. one of my concerns is our displacement and loss of

african american population in the city. when i moved here three decades ago it was 17%, it is 3.5% now. i think issues like these fees which help keep poor people poor are part of the reason it's a structural impediment that maintains poverty and it doesn't help the city that much and it hurts the poorest of the poor. again, i hope you will consider getting rid of it and helping people who are at the bottom wrung economically under threat of homelessness or even homeless stay in the city. thank you for your consideration, supervisors. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. i'm lily robinson from the fillmore area and i'm president of the n.c.l.s. and also i'm speaking for eli crawford.

would like to say these horrible fines are abolished and help them live a life they are supposed to under our constitution. >> supervisor safai: thank you, next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm susan guard with the department of human resources. i didn't come to speak on this topic today but it would be a shame if i didn't stand up and let the room know that the city, as an employer is the biggest employer in san francisco, 30,000 employees and we have led the way with progressive policies with the support of the board of supervisors and working with many of our community advocatesment people with conviction histories, there's no barriers to employment with the city and county of san francisco. 2016 study by stanford university basically said we

had eliminated that barrier so we are proud of our history. 98% of those with convictions who apply to the city are hired. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker? >> i've noticed that alcohol and d.n.a. testing are mentioned in the proposal. i wonder whether or not there are any fees assessed by third party vendors into investigative forces directed by law, for medical services such as abdominal x-rays and if such processes exist might these fees be waived if they have previously been incurred and attached. sorry, i can't read my writing. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment, come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. president breed, did you want to say anything else?

i know some members of the committee want to say a few things. did you want to say anything else? >> i will say thank you to all the members of the public for your comments and feedback on this issue. i think that it is really something that i'm really proud to be the sponsor of. since i've been on the board of supervisors, issued around criminal justice reform have been at the top of my agenda, and i've got to say many of the departments have worked hand in hand with this board on addressing many of those issues. our public defender jeff adachi may have recalled in the beginning, around 2013 when i first got on the board, we made some adjustments to the contracts for inmates to reduce the commissary fees, to reduce the phone call fees. we at the board of supervisors banned the box in terms of barriers to employment and housing opportunities in the city and i think about just really a lot of the folks that i grew up with, a lot of the people in some instances have

served time for things they didn't even do and the frustration with the way this system is set up to continue to put people in situations where these barriers, like fines and fees get in the way of true success. especially for a lot of the young folks at one point or another work for me at the african american art and culture complex and still feeling the frustration of just the wage garnishment and all of the things seeing it firsthand, it means a lot that as we continue to make adjustments to criminal justice-related expenses that not only cripple the people who sadly are the ones who have been incarcerated but it also impacts the families because often times it's the families trying to help their family members pay these fees or assist their family members in various ways and this is far too familiar with me and my own personal family and i just want us to do

better. do better as a city and country. we know this affects disproportionately families, so this hopefully is a step forward in changing that. i ask my colleagues to support this legislation and look forward to sending it to the board with positive recommendation. >> supervisor safai: any other comments? i have some comments but want to see if anyone else does. okay. first i want to say thank you to president breed for her leadership on this issue. i think this is an extremely, extremely important issue that is often over looked in our city. and i think the impact of something at this level will have a tremendous, tremendous

impact for our city. i want to appreciate the work that jeff adachi and his team had put on this along with the treasurer's office. someone could approach this from a numbers perspective purely in terms of money. but i think what i have heard loud and clear here today and president breed and i met yesterday and talked a lot about this in depth, this is really about people and people's lives and people's future. and when people are incarcerated and whatever the issue might be, sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly, the point is you want to give them a pathway to turn their lives around and the thing that jumped out on me when i was first briefed on this, i was absolutely shocked by was that adult probation charges people

up front three years of cost right off the bat. so the vast majority of people are immediately burdened with almost a $2,000 debt, it says with all the data and research collected and put into this that these are people that are trying to turn their lives around. these are people that are unemployed. usually have unstable housing. have no steady source of income and almost 80% are indigent. so right off the bat to be burdened with thousands of dollars in debt and then say it's your job to turn your life around, that is an injustice. it is a complete injustice. and in the larger context of the diminishing numbers of african americans in our city, when you look at 1980 and they numbered almost 20% and today around 5%, there are

contributing factors, institutional factors in our city that contribute to that diminishing number. and it's not just housing. it is the cost to be in this city, it's a cost to survive in this city. one of the things that our public defender said when he was giving his remarks was when they are freed from this debt and i heard words like slavery. but i want to read the definition of indentured servitude. because i think that really goes to the heart of what this is. indentured servitude is defined by merriam webster, if it will come up, i will get back to that. someone burdened with a financial burden in exchange for the work and time and effort and maintenance of that. so right off the bat, to come up with $1800 here, $200 there,

to be charged for this, to charge for that and in a city that has tremendous resources, i want to say right off the bat, i want the adult probation department, i want the sheriff's department, i want all the departments that have been collecting these fees to do better with the money they have. i don't necessarily feel like, and we could have that conversation at the budget committee but i don't necessarily feel this small amount of money that has not even been allocated and in the past collected is really necessary in terms of really operating this system. i want to say that and we will have this conversation in the budget department. but when you think of the flight you think of those numbers, you think in a city like san francisco, the wealth we have for african americans to be incarcerated at a higher rate than they graduate high school, higher infant mortality

rate than any other segment of our population, to have the highest unemployment rate, to have the highest achievement gap, and what i learned yesterday from one of the members that will come up and speak later on our first five council only 300 african american children are born annually in this city but they disproportionately make up vast numbers of the people that are incarcerated in this city. all of that is to say this is the right time for this. i appreciate your leadership president breed for doing what you are doing. it is the values we have in this city and it's the right step to make for san francisco today, so i'm in full support of this legislation, thank you. i guess we will entertain a motion, unless there's anything else left to be said. >> i just want to thank president breed for her leadership on this and your remarks, supervisor safai were just brilliant.

i won't even attempt to say anything because it would pale in comparison to what you just said, but i concur with everything you just said. if we want people to get out of a life of crime and poverty we have to find a way to lift them up and straddling them with debt is not the way to do it, i am happy to move this forward to the full board. with positive recommendation. >> mr. chair, this has to go -- >> supervisor safai: we will send it to budget and finance. >> happy to move this to the budget and finance. >> supervisor safai: can we say we positively support it? >> yes, i could add that to the motion. >> supervisor safai: i want to make sure i didn't over look our treasurer, jose cisneros as well as jeff adachi and his team. thank you, thank you president breed, please add me as a co-sponsor and we will move this forward to the budget committee, please call the next item. thank you. and thank you for everyone who came out today.

>> item 3 is [reading] >> i will give you background, i started out in san francisco, i came from an advocacy world, walk san francisco, livable city, on the board of directors of livable city for a while, very involved in walk san francisco. organizers of sunday streets

approaching 10-year anniversary of a very successful program that's helped bring a lot of people out in our streets to have fun and meet their neighbors and enjoy recreation. through that work i got to know people in mayor newsom's office in san francisco city hall and was nominated by the mayor and confirmed by that board of supervisors. i was renominated and reappointed by mayor lee and this will be my, if this nomination goes forward, this will be my third and final term on the sf board of directors, we are limited to three terms. we have an amazing board right now. you have made a lot of people very happy. well done. i could hear the noise out there, they are celebrating. we have a wonderful board right now. everyone on the board is incredibly dedicated. it is a labor of love, we are pretty much volunteers. we are paid $200 to sit on the board of directors of

s.f.m.t.a. and we all take our jobs seriously. i'm very pleased with our board. i'm pleased with the work staff is doing. what we do on the board, we are a policy board, we set policy for the s.f.m.t.a. we set goals and expect staff to bring us projects that get us closer to those goals. our most important goal all the time is safety. we were the first board in the city to adopt vision zero as a goal and i'm pleased to say we have made good strides on that. there's a lot of work left to be done to keep our streets safe and we have new challenges rising up almost every week, it seems. the most recent one being the electric scooters, we have all heard a lot about. i look forward to continuing to do that work. i pride myself on taking a lot of time to really learn about the issues coming before us, to really understand the background of all the projects

and the plans that are brought to us. to take the time to go out in the community and meet with people. to hear from our detractors, to hear from our supporters, and to be a good voice for the people of san francisco, no matter what mode of transportation they use. so i'm happy to make myself available for questions here and i just want to thank you for this opportunity and i hope you will forward my nomination on so i can continue my public service on the m.t.a. board. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. supervisor yee, do you have a question? okay. supervise stefani. >> supervisor stefani: thank you. i have a question, i'm wondering do you have a policy or any thought around noticing the public for projects the s.f.m.t.a. wants it do throughout the neighborhoods in san francisco? like what do you think that should be? >> yes, what we do now and i

can't speak to every piece but there are notices that go on the street and go out via email lists. the supervisor for the district is always made aware and hopefully it goes out through a supervisor's email chain. it's a difficult task. we have done mailings. we do door-to-door work when it's a project, knocking on doors. it seems no matter how much outreach we do, it's never enough and we are aware that outreach needs to get better and better. every new method that comes along we need to take advantage. it's something the board pushes staff on. when we have a project come to us and have neighbors say we don't know about this until the parking spaces went away or lane went away or the bike share or pod went in, it continues to be a challenge. as i'm sure you know, reaching out to everybody in this city, it's a laudable goal, it's one we will continue to work

towards but we aren't perfect yet but we are getting there. >> supervisor stefani: i would like to, it's something, like i said that comes up a lot and sometimes i feel the district supervisors aren't notified in a way that's helpful, sometimes we find out about it from our constituents and that puts us in a place, we are all opposite corners because things are being done without us knowing, we don't get a chance to weigh in and then we are undoing things and sometimes it makes it difficult to work with the m.t.a. when we want to work with the m.t.a. and be collaborative and bring the community in. i just want going forward to make sure that, i would like to work with the m.t.a. on better noticing and wonder if you would be willing to work on that as a board or work with that on me going forward. >> absolutely. i would be happy to do that and i apologize for any lack of notification or lack of communication. as you know there's nothing

anybody can do by themselves in this agency, it makes sense for us to work together, so absolutely, i will commit to doing that. >> supervisor safai: just a follow-up on that. because i think that's probably one of the largest sources of frustration for us. you and i talked about this a little bit. can you describe just for the public what your public notification process is, so for instance, the planning department, if there is a project, as you probably know, if you are within a certain radius, you are required to not only notice in the paper but required to mail to all the surrounding. i got a call this morning from a small business owner and he said i found out that m.t.a. wants to put a bus stop in front of my business and i said that's news to me. i just met with the whole team, they went overall the plans, i didn't see anything about that. they did mention his name in the meeting to me but it had nothing to do with the bus

stop, it had to do with putting in the go forward bikes. i think that's probably one of the areas that m.t.a. could do a better job of working with us. we will have, myself and supervisor peskin are bringing legislation to bring authority and oversight back to board of supervisors already embedded in the charter, we will have that hearing at land use on monday. and part of what we will ask director reskin is there is a team notifying and working more directly with our offices. so we will get that presentation on monday. i just want to hear from your perspective. because you are a transit advocate, a pedestrian advocate. you have done a really good job in your position. this is something that's important to everyone and i think that's what we hear the

most about. we didn't know the m.t.a. was going to do this until it was actually done. >> i can understand your frustration. that must have been awful for the business owner and for you to have that come up as a shortfall of ours like that. when projects come to us, we do spend a good amount of time talking about what has the outreach been for these projects. what community groups have been contacted. what public meetings have been held. we don't get down on the board to the granular level of when did paper notices go up in the project area. did mailings, we do get notification when the mailings go out. >> supervisor safai: so you do do mailings? >> sometimes. i can't say there's a mailing

for every single project i'm sure some don't rise to the cost the mailing would occur. >> supervisor safai: it's a little uneven. >> yes, i don't even want to speak to the fact it's uneven. i think the amount of outreach rises as the scope of the project rises. and i'm surprised with a bus stop going in in front of a business. >> supervisor safai: i'm just using that as an example. i'm not sure if it's true. i'm bringing it up because those are the types of complaints we get. when we hear from a person a go forward bike in front of their business, putting in daylighting, i had a business person grab me and say stand there on the corner during a press conference we did and said why are all those spots painted red. people have a hard time getting into my business. that's a main spot in front of banks and businesses.

why was that parking taken away. it was near a crosswalk. i said i'm sure the m.t.a. wanted to daylight, pedestrian safety. we are promoting vision zero. he said what about that one, that doesn't have anything to do with the crosswalk across the street. those are the kind of complaints we get. and when it does happen, you know, it's often we are hearing. so i think that's the attempt of what we are trying to do with our legislation monday is to get a little bit more authority and over soigt back to the board of supervisors that was approved by the voters in 2008, we would never exercise that. we want to work more closely with your board and your agency on getting a more even outreach and notification process when it comes to anything, small or big. because that's what we get the most, we bear the brunt of that frustration. >> i understand that and that's a goal we absolutely share.

our goal is to outreach and educate because you are right, we need to educate the neighbors and your constituents and your riders why we do these projects and why they are important, so that's absolutely a laudable goal. >> supervisor safai: i understand, you all do thousands of projects all over the city all the time. this is something really important we wanted to emphasize. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: just one more question, this came up yesterday, introduced a hearing regarding public safety on muni and public transportation. i hear a lot of complaints people don't feel safe riding the bus late at night, especially the women. i want to get your sense how you think we could improve and how you would propose the board of supervisors working with the m.t.a. on that. >> that is a good question. that is something we have struggled with.

i think as a woman riding muni late at night you need to have the confidence that should something happen you are going to be able to alert the driver, the driver is going to be able to either assist you, or alert the police quickly. i think we could help each other be safe on muni. and i know that it's hard sometimes for people to think their best help might be the other people on the bus and maybe other people don't want to get involved. that's something we continue to work on. i have a mixed feeling about surveillance cameras in our society in general about data privacy, about personal privacy, but i believe the cameras on the busses, in particular on the new busses, have helped us with our safety goals. knowing that those cameras are

on the bus and knowing that what's going on that bus is being recorded and pulled only in the event of an incident happening i think has helped improve safety on the busses and improve people's confidence that there is someone watching even if it's only the camera and even if that only means we access that if an incident occurs. but it's something we need to continue to work on. i think people need to feel safe riding the bus, riding all the busses, underground, it's something we continue to work on. >> supervisor safai: okay, great. thank you. we probably should have called up your fellow commissioner because i think a couple of these questions could have been directed at both. get ready gwyneth. any members of the public wish to comment on this item? please come forward. >> hi, bob [inaudible], i ask

you to reject this nomination. my remarks will apply to the nominee in item 4 and in fact, if all seven were here today to be considered i would say reject them all. you hear comments of policy work they have done. you have heard them at press conferences. one of the requirements they are supposed to do is also supposed to be riding muni, they are inattentive for however long they may ride muni. there are blatant examples. how could you ride muni and fail to see in embarcadero there's an osha issue. i got a letter from staff in november it's overdue for cleaning and still hasn't happened. if you are riding through embarcadero, the workers are

riding masks, homemade handkerchief masks. that's how they feel. for decades i have been harping on muni about putting blue and white yield seat signs. we have a lot of tourists from outside this country who may not read or speak english, separate from some of our residents who don't read or speak english, you could point to the graphics. they aren't there, so the disabled and seniors have a hard time doing this. in hilly areas there's still no changes trying to take away curb side parking at a bus stop. again, before the turn of the century, the muni access committee was told muni was working on getting those spaces out of bus stops. how could you ride muni and not notice there are bus stops with people with disabilities may have their vision obscured by a car or truck parked illegally in a bus zone. they aren't paying attention.

[buzzer] [mic cut off] >> supervisor safai: thank you, sir. appreciate it. next speaker, please. >> [off mic] take into consideration the commuter bus detriment to the neighborhoods, with over 40 busses. there were no limits placed on the number and bus quantity has increased. let's say illegally shared muni bus stops violated vehicle code 500 sub session i, causing muni patrons to board in the street. violations continue with over 2100 citizen complaints. 5,164 issued citations totaling 708,862. and administrative penalties totaling over $1,158,000.

busses continue to idle, stage, blocking the bicycle lane, the traffic lanes and disrupting general activity of our neighborhoods. and this is a program that was approved and continues to operate with no consideration of the impact we are having to endure in this city and it's really getting a lot of people upset this board approved this program. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors, mary lizi speaking for the many public that are not here that are upset with this particular department and i respectfully request, we respectfully request that you deny this renomination. i'm not going to belabor the point.

i sent out a couple letters already and just the fact that we have an ordinance pending and we have a possible charter amendment coming forward that is coming about because the public is so upset with the department the way it operates, lead to the realization the problem begins at the top and we need new top leadership in the department. this is one place you could start to make a difference and maybe other people in the department, or board will get the message. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> david pilpao again. i join with those who have written and spoken in opposition to this nominee. having attended literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of meetings of boards and

commissions in this city, i find this individual particularly plays favourites and favors those individuals, organizations and view points she agrees with and disfavors others. she very much advocates for the positions, vision zero she supports. next speaker. it's difficult to get up and oppose a nominee on a board, i do it with difficulty because i believe in this. i think you have options here, you could certainly forward the nomination for approval. i wouldn't do that. you could reject both of these nominations and wait until the next mayor decides who he or she wants to put on the m.t.a. board and leaving two vacancies for a couple months wouldn't be the end of the world.

the easiest thing i think you could do is if you decide to forward this nomination out today to do it without recommendation and allow more time in the next few days to talk to advocates on all sides and see where the conversation goes monday at land use about the future of the m.t.a. [buzzer] we believe if you have concerns about the m.t.a., as well you should, it starts at the top, it starts with the mayor and the m.t.a. board. i urge you to reject the nomination. thanks. >> supervisor safai: thank you, sir. next speaker. >> david elliott lewis. as part of work with s.r.o. collaborative, an agency that tries to make life better in the tenderloin s.r.o. residents, we have had an occasion to work with the board

and cheryl herself, attempts to get streets converted from one-way to two-way. i could wait if you guys need time to talk. i could wait. okay. these were also multi-agency projects that required s.f.m.t.a. to work with other agencies, it's not a simple thing to convert a street from one way to two-way but it helps revitalize a neighborhood and make it safer and i found cheryl's help helpful getting the work done with the tenderloin. i share some of the frustrations but i'm here to support the nomination. i think she has done well in a really difficult job. and i i'm here to support it. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on this item? please come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. i will just say since i was the author of both the charter

amendment and legislation, i want to be clear that my intent was not an attack on the commission. it was very clearly laid out that the commission would continue to be appointed by the mayor and we have had that conversation over a number of years in san francisco. so i was not trying to rehash that. i have had a number of conversations with both of these current commissioners. i've expressed my desires and what direction we want and some of the changes we would like to see and we started to see some of those changes. we will have more of that conversation at the land use committee on monday but i feel confident they are prepared to continue to work with us. i appreciate the public comment that was given. we also did receive a number of letters of support as well. and i would just say there are a lot of competing interests in the s.f.m.t.a. there is the idea of just pure

public transportation. there's the issue of the taxi industry, the issue of pedestrian safety in vision zero and then once you get out of the core you are getting also into how the transportation system in our city interacts with our small businesses, our overall planning decisions that are made. there is no question about, that this is a very important committee and board and department and it is a source of a lot of frustration, in years we have seen a lot of progress that's been made. anyway, i just wanted to add onto that. commissioner yee? supervisor, sorry. [chuckles] >> supervisor yee: i respond to any name, so. let me back up a little bit.

a few years ago i actually sponsored legislation to go to the voters to have a split commission which didn't pass and partially, how do we get more responsiveness, we are on the back end of things. we are hearing from constituents as my fellow colleagues here have mentioned. what is the system that could improve, at the time it didn't have anything to do with individual commissioners. more like how do we structure so there will be more leverage on the board of supervisors in terms of asking the commissioners to demand of

staff. this issue, you have notification and, in which was asked earlier and i think it's appropriate for the commission, maybe cheryl brinkman, where did she go? okay. i think it's appropriate for, especially the president, a policy to ask the staff to say how could you improve the system and get it back to us in a report so we could start having a dialogue, i'm hoping

you can commit to things like this, some issues, not that difficult for you as chair or president to say we need a report, we need some recommendations to approve this. can you commit to those type of things? >> absolutely supervisor. i will commit to that, i will go back and immediately ask staff if we could take an in-depth look how we communicate to the supervisors and projects in each of your districts and make sure we make ourselves available to you, not just ourselves, the commissioner but staff available and make sure staff keeps you up-to-date on what's going on in your district. better communication works for all of us. the number one goal we have for our streets is safety and we can't do that if we aren't all working together, so i will commit to doing that and asking for a detailed report how we

communicate with supervisors and their districts. >> supervisor yee: earlier before this meeting i had discussion i just want to make this public. it's my desire we really look more into the future to solve our transportation issues in san francisco. it's not going to improve, as i said, putting band-aids on the same system, and i'm talking about the underground muni system where everything is a bottleneck off market street and we need to look at bolder solutions like creating another parallel system, not everything stops just because one of the cars is damaged.

i've been pushing m.t.a. and i hope you could help at the commission level with undergrounding the m-line on 19th avenue from all the way from westportal tunnel, as i mentioned to you, we are going to put 20,000 more people out there at the end of the line and yet we aren't building any capacity for that and the only way you will do that is putting underground where right now the existing system has two cars you could hook up and if you underground it, you could actually have four cars so without having an extra driver, without having cars in between, you double the capacity. those are the kinds of things i would love to see you provide some leadership on. >> thank you. and i know capacity is a huge issue for all of us, we look at how the city is continuing to grow and we know we have to work really hard to make our systems really efficient and carry more people so that's

something we are going to continue to look at and continue to work on. [please stand by...]

>> we need improvement but we have to have other systems in place in order to get people around. congestion is hurting the core industries and small businesses that need people to visit them. i hope people continue to

support my appointment because i continue to represent the interest of riders and pedestrian safety and bicycle safety and even people who care about parking. it's a delicate balance in curb space and we know in the future curb space will be less of a thing. i know people don't like commuter shuttles but the transportation is high. workers can't afford to take shut als and restaurants can't provide them but they get people to jobs and the congestion on the streets would be worse. would it be great to have a hub system? of course. but looking at the ride share proliferation people are about convenience and that's where people make the decisions and we have a large stock of cars on our streets. all of these are partially because of things we didn't anticipate and partially because of our taxi infrastructure at times didn't meet the needs of constituents but we're learning

from lessons and trying to make a plan to make a better infrastructure for the future. i hope you will support my re-appointment and understand my door's always open to speak with members of your staff and i'm working with the issues internally you have identified we need to work on. i'm always willing to talk to anyone in the public about the issue. we may not always agree but i will listen and i've been the type of person that can work win anybody. thank you for the chance to speak before the committee and with you today. >> thank you, commissioner. >> thank you, commissioner borden. i've enjoyed working with you and you brought something up when you said taxi it reminded me, and feel free to answer the question on late nights, on the taxi issue, we have every tuesday a public comment -- and i'm sure they come to the board of directors too, and it's heart wrenching. what is the answer?