proposed rates are. the industry has suggested a new three-year phase-in starting in 2021. and ramping up to 2023. and eventually arriving to 3% for retail and 1.5% for everything outside of retail which is also identified as upstream. as you know our limits to ballot initiatives require a continuance. and i appreciate the industry engaging on this issue but given the two-month public process that we have been working through i believe that it's a little bit too late. as a reminder these are just interim rates that will appear on the ballot and the board can revise the intro rates down at any time after passage before this goes into effect. i want to make sure that we consider the options. however, if any of my colleagues believe that this is inappropriate to do so, please, let me know. the amendments today would require that we have a special

meeting on tuesday morning, july 31st. and with that i open up the discussion to colleagues. supervisor fewer. >> supervisor fewer: yes, so after review of what we have received today and actually i am of the belief that the board has the ability to amend this by ordering it to later on. and that it isn't imperative that we conclude this today. i ask the city attorney for his professional opinion on that and whether the legislation proposed allows the board to have the ability to actually make these changes later on. >> deputy city attorney john gibner. as i understand the roposa proco lower the rates for retail and non-retail and scale them up over the course of three years. between 2021 and 2023.

>> chair cohen: that's correct. >> if this ordinance is not amended and you place it on the ballot and it passes the board of supervisors can legislatively lower the rates by adopting an ordinance in the future without going back to the voters. so effectively you can accomplish what this amendment would do after the measure passes by adopting an ordinance at the board. >> chair cohen: okay, thank you very much. that's helpful. supervisor stefani, you have any thoughts? no. okay. all right, seeing that there are no thoughts -- >> i would like to say that i also believe that because it's actually more prudent to actually do it after this has gone on the ballot because then the board would have more data to choose from and to review and

to actually make a sound judgment on this. and, actually, the legislation allows for that as we heard from our city attorney. >> chair cohen: okay, appreciate that. thank you. so we can go ahead and open up to public comment. i see that we have mr. lazarus here who would like to speak on items 15 and 16? >> i am a licensed cannibas distributor in san francisco. and i want to make sure that everyone is clear on what the impact would be on a gross receipt tax. as a distributor i have three responsibilities -- transport, test and tax. i pick it up from the grower. the lab tests it to make sure that it's safe for consumption and i deliver it to the retailer and i collect excise and i collect cultivation and i give it to the state. my business operates on low

margins. anywhere from 3% to 10%. a 10% tax on gross receipts, if i buy something for $900 and i sell it for $1,000, a gross receipts tax means that i make zero dollars. i have two options -- i can charge more or i can go out of business. or i can work somewhere else. i'm just part of the value chain. every other business that i sell or buy from has to do the same thing. gross receipts tax is bad tax policy and it's a depression era policy. there are other ways to gain tax revenue. i'm very grateful for my permit and i'm hiring through the s.f. jobs portal. i know that it will be a very impactful business.

please reconsider how you tax with gross receipts. >> chair cohen: thank you. colleagues, i want to acknowledge that the distribution is exempt from the tax and that we are not discussing or considering a tax at 10%. >> jim lazarus, san francisco chamber and i appreciate your work on this and certainly supervisor cohen. we urge you to proceed with the amendment, proceed with the special meeting next tuesday and to put a measure on that will have the support of the industry and the broader business community. we believe that a tax rate that is excessive comparing the legal cannibas industry to the underground illegal industry will do nothing to move forward the type of changes that we want in this industry and to bring being it out of the shadow -- bringing it out of the shadows and taxing it and regulating it and having it available to the public in the following way.

following state of california and following other communities' misguided tax policies is not what we should be doing here today. this industry pays taxes today, and the city's gross receipts and payroll taxes apply to this industry today. but the rates that you add to that -- and, remember, these are additive, may hurt the legalization of this industry and i know that is not the intention of the board or the industry. so the chamber urges you to take seriously that proposal put forward for a further year delay for a phase-in during the start-up years of this infant legal industry. allowing the board in the future -- we don't want to appear to lower them -- hopefully this is successful enough that under your provisions you will be able in the future to raise these taxes on an healthy industry. that's what we ask you to do. there's time to do it and we request that.

thank you very much. >> chair cohen: thank you, next speaker. speaker.sfgov, can i have the overhead, please. president cohen and supervisor stefani and supervisor fewer, thank you for hearing my comments. i would like to congratulate jim lazarus and myself for being 3-3 and batting a thousand at the budget and finance sub-committee. i am pleased to hear that you are considering additional amendments. i worked with the california growers association and the chamber of commerce to create rates that this industry could get behind and support. the rates as proposed when you look at the rest of california are, in fact, reasonable for a cannibas tax. but not reasonable from a tax of any other industry. so the rates that we propose up here on the overhead, have no tax for 2019-2020 and then phase-in for retail and

non-retail. i point out that retail will pay double the tax of non-retail in our proposal here. because on retail they have a lot more hurdles than us. so consider the amendments that we've requested, consider the special committee hearing, and thank you to everyone for their very hard work on this very important matter. and if anybody is interested in learning more about the retailer alliance, alliance our website. >> chair cohen: thank you. next speaker. >> hello, my name is brandon brown, the treasurer of the sfcra, and i appreciate the board allowing us to speak on this issue. i don't want to sound like a broken record but i want to just remind the board that the reason that we tax cigarettes and

alcohol and other drugs is because they kill people and cannibas hasn't killed anybody, it's actually curing people. and so i'm not going to say that the tax isn't justified but i would love to know more about why we're getting taxes on top when no other industry has a social equity program. thank you, president cohen, for kind of spearheading that. and so compassion programs and the other industries have that. we already have pretty high tax, state tax. there's already a gross receipts tax for businesses. and so i think we're really just asking to be treated like every other business in san francisco. i guess that also the main difference between cannibas and other businesses is that we cure people, we cure ptsd, and we cure cancer and we cure child leukemia and other various basic

pain allmentpain ailments that e quality of life for a number of our elderly and the military coming back from war with a lot of issues. and pharmaceutical companies as we all know are not a big help in that respect. and so i would like to just bring some of those more emotional facts to the table when we talk about who's going to really be affected by this. it's going to be the consumer, like the distributor here pointed out, it's raising the price and they'll go out of business. so the cost will be handed off. >> chair cohen: thank you. and also i want to say, mr. brown, medicinal is not going to be taxed and recreational is what is taxed. thank you, next speaker. >> hi, i am jolene enns and i'm here as a worker in the industry. for the last 12 years i have

been supplementing my income or completely supporting myself in the cannibas industry as a worker, as a trimmer, just doing labor. and for a long time that was enough. those jobs that you used to pay $25 an hour or the equivalent are now gone. i'm fortunate that i got a job with a small cannibas company in the city. we occupy 4500-square-foot facility in soma and we have a 25,000-square-foot cultivation facility that had to be moved to oakland because we just couldn't afford to do business in the city here. i'm here today because i am worried about my job and the jobs of others like me that are going to be squeezed with more taxes on our industry. it was pretty clear before the regulations came into effect that when prices were low for

wholesale product and rents were high, the only way for producers to make up that difference was to lower the rates that they paid for their workers. so i can toitle totally see that happening in this industry too. there's no margin right now and we're really scrambling to get products on the shelf that are compliant with all of the regulations that are, you know, still shifting. so i'm here to speak for the workers that are trying to make a living in this new industry. thank you. >> chair cohen: thank you. next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is dr. chris emerson, the c.e.o. of the manufacturing company here in san francisco. we operate at a severe disadvantage already against the illicit market and so we can have runway and the state will start enforcing that, the high tax rates are destroying the

companies that are trying to be compliant within this. so not only 15% excise tax but lease taxes that we have to account for. and so upstream and downstream we have a heavy tax burden. there's also 280-even so as a business in san francisco or federally i pay roughly 30% more for taxes because we're not able to take a lot of writeoffoffs tt other businesses are. and we understand as an industry that we'll pay higher tax rates but the tax rates proposed at 1.5% with the ability it go up to 7% over time is untenable for companies to really survive or that want to remain in san francisco. and i would like to draw also to your attention supervisor cohen that there's a very significant possibility that the medicinal market in california is going to be gone in a few years. the state of california doesn't want a two-tiered system and most retailers and operators in this space, almost everything is going to quote/unquote, a recreational market. and it's just that there's too

many barriers for the medicinal market to actually survive. it's something to keep in mind. so as mr. lazarus suggested we urge you to consider this procedural needs to have one more special session so that amendments we propose could be considered, thank you. >> chair cohen: thank you, next speaker. >> my name is elaine brown and i'm here to really talk about something else. we have been trying to reach you, supervisor cohen, for some time and i have gotten emails from my office putting me off and saying you're in budget hearings and i'm here with a number of delegations from your district in hunter's point who are suffering from cancer and so forth because of the radiated land. you chose to not only expand the reach in hunter's point shipyard but said this is a dream to come true to build on that and then put the big scanners out there. i'm here to ask you can we meet with you to tell you what we want to talk about since you won't come to hunter's point and talk to the people there, that

the people had to come here. i can't believe that you called all those police to come here. i watched you text them, two minutes later they're showing up like we're enemies of the people. you have shown yourself to be an enemy if you don't have a meeting with us and give us a date for a meeting. i would like to introduce you to someone that you know well, danielle carpenter, whose husband lost his life because of that radiated land. that's my time. >> two years ago on march 22n 22nd, you and i spoke and we talked about -- you said that you would reopen the case because another whistleblower had come forth. i have not heard anything and now this is going on. we would like to schedule an appointment with you to sit down and figure out what's going on. plain and simple. >> (indiscernible). >> good morning, my name is william dolan and i'm here to speak on behalf of two

applicants right now. i represent and work with two applicants that have applicants in the office of cannibas for retail licenses and i would like to first say that we support the proposal put forward by the san francisco chapter of the california growers association, the san francisco cannibas retailers alliance, to adjust the rate schedule as proposed earlier by the gentleman that put up the schedule on the screen. and we would also like to speak in support of a cap on the tax at 4% instead of 7%. and specifically i'd like to address the issue of how this is going to impact the equity on businesses and after a two-year extremely challenging process of getting license and trying to open up their doors and dealing with the costs associated with that, securing real estate and renovating the real estate and then opening to a very challenge being competitive environment. so i'd like the board to

consider the impacts that this will have on equity owners trying to operate in this small business environment and if there's a potential for an additional grace period that asupplies to equity owned cannibas businesses. something to exceed two to three years. that would make their tax plan kick in around 2023 or 2024. and any type of additional grace period would be greatly be appreciated and extremely helpful for equity applicants trying to open up a business in san francisco. >> chair cohen: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors, my name is ryan ingo-warren and i work in the cannibas industry and a san francisco native. i thank you for your consideration on this issue and as i came in i heard about possible continuations to continue the amendments and i support that. and i apologize in advance if i repeat myself at all.

i want to just offer some context. in october 2016, oregon's issues came in effect and the supply chain backlog was so severe that it brought their cannibas industry to its knees and resulted in temporary layoffs of 70% of their workforce. and it's not that bad here yet, but there are some similarities that are alarming. and that sort is the broader context of the big part of that problem was poorly written statements that were requiring testing accuracies that the labs themselves were not yet certified to meet. unfortunately, that is identical, that particular factor, is identical to what is happening in california. so given that most of that is beyond your control i hope that you will take action where you're able to by reducing the impact of these new regulations on local san francisco businesses, by mitigating the gross receipts tax.

as may have been mentioned earlier the proposed taxes are 5% to 50% higher than those leveled against other businesses and we're just proposing a little consideration there. also we have seen higher taxes force patients and consumers back into the unregulated market which may raise public safety concerns with untested product and reduces your overall tax revenue. so i close by echoing the recommendations of pie colleagues and i'll leave information for your reference. reducing the cap to 4%. and encouraging the state to lower both the excise and the cultivation tax. and doing something about the unregulated operations. >> chair cohen: thank you. next speaker. yes. next speaker. >> hi. i am a resident of bayviewpoint. and i'm here with...

(indiscernible) i really want appreciate if you give us a time to meet with you. i have been at hunter's point for a very long time and i now have a clot in my left atrium and i have had a heart transplant and i'm waiting on a kidney. and i do believe that it all came from living up there for 50 years. that's all i wanted to say, thank you. >> chair cohen: thank you. all right, public comment is closed. thank you. so, coa colleagues, i'd like to table item 15 and approve item 16 and move that with a positive recommendation and send this to committee and cent i send it asa committee report. supervisor stefani? indicated yes for the record.

and if you have any clarification on anything let us know so that we can get to the information that you need as well as a timeline and answer whatever questions that may persist about the proposed tax measure. and we will take that without objection. thank you. all right. madam clerk, any other business before us. >> clerk: no other business. >> chair cohen: okay. thank you, we're adjourned.

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>> good morning. good morning! all right.

i am mohammed nuru. i serve as a city's director of public works. and the chairman of the transbay joint powers authority board of directors. on behalf of our board, i want to welcome you to the salesforce transit centre and the salesforce park. i will also be introducing you today to our masters of ceremony. the former mayor, willie brown, in a few moments to begin the program. before that, i want to start by personally thanking all of you for coming. you have been waiting for this day for a long time. you all received a commemorative pin and that is our official opening date. august 11th, 2018. that is eight years to the date of the actual groundbreaking for the center. four years ago, i had the honor of being appointed to the tjpa

board by mayor ed lee. i have watched this project, weather at challenging times and come together and exceed our expectations. the salesforce transit centre is the true regional partnership designed to help bay area commuters get to and from their destinations. it also will become a destination all over town with beautiful gardens, and out court -- outdoor amphitheater, public arts, and the children's play area. in the future, there will be cafés, and great places to shop. the center mean so much to our city. a mean so much to our economy. the south of market neighborho neighborhood, and the future of transit. at this time, i would like to take a moment to introduce and welcome my fellow board members. jeff key is that by -- vice

chair, james davis, greg hopper, supervisor jane kim, boris linkedin, ed risk in, nadia's essay, bruce r. instead, lisa ortiz, to me chan chan and former board member from transit. [applause] >> also i would like to give a shout out to the project team which was guided by the tjpa and ron alameda from public works as well as all the staff from all the various agencies who worked on this project. let's give them a round of applause. [cheers and applause] >> this project, as many of you no kak has serious financial and schedule challenges that required a deep design or construction experience-based

leadership approach. the creation of the salesforce transit centre provided san franciscans with thousands of new permanent jobs and tens of thousands of union jobs. in fact, between workers and materials, nearly every single state in the united states contributed to this project in some way. more than 5 million -- [applause] >> more than 5 million work hours where we logged for this center and we exceeded our city's a local hiring requirement. how about another applause for that. [applause] >> we have a great program at hedge. before we get started, i would like to take a moment to acknowledge the late mayor, ed lee. mayor ed lee was instrumental in making sure that we would be sitting here today.

he made sure that the transit centre was delivered in a physically responsible way and that it would be topped with a beautiful public park. he always shied away from taking credit because he just wanted to get the job done. but today, let us say thank you to mayor ed lee. [applause] >> now it is my great pleasure to introduce our mc, former san francisco mayor, willie brown. [applause] >> mayor -- mayer brown supported the demolition of the old seismically unsafe transbay terminal to make way for where we are standing today. he saw a promise of a new neighborhood, he saw the promise of affordable housing, and economic opportunities for projects like this would create

or our city and our region. quite simply, without him, the transit centre would not have been possible. let us welcome our mc, former mayor, willie brown. [applause] >> thank you very much for the very kind introduction. you will be introduced and presented to a whole lot of folks who are here who have something to do with the center. but none more probably than the two people in the halls of the legislature. one, a member of the assembly and one of the senate to, at the time, that was needed to get the state on the right plan page for the center. i am speaking of course, of john l burton. where are you?

and nancy skinner. [applause] >> john is somewhere. i thought he was, anyway. of course, there would be be no possibility without the consistency in the mayor's office provided by none other than the man who is going to be governor and will be called upon to finish financing. [laughter] >> every aspect of what is not yet paid for. [laughter] >> of course, i am talking about gavin newsom. [applause] >> the next lieutenant governor. there will be some other people who we will run into as time rolls on. let me tell you, in the process, some of them will be making remarks. as they make the remarks, i will

occasionally drop by. i want to get all of the business parts here. in my new role in life now, i do not offend anybody. [laughter] >> under any circumstances. it is better that way, for me and for them and for my clients. [laughter] >> so we will proceed in the proper order. i didn't go through the briefing. they had a flow of program briefing. and i was kept so busy visiting that i want to apologize to the people who plan to this event because i am winging it all the way. and in the process of winging it, i know exactly how this program should start. this program should start with none other than the 45th mayor of san francisco, the second woman ever to be the mayor of the city, and the second african-american to be mayor of

the city. but none of those things qualify her as much as her interest in every aspect of the quality of life for everybody in this city, regardless of their station in life and early on, she helped orchestrate the process by which resources were made available so that, in fact, as this fabulous centre would be a real reality. ladies and gentlemen, the mayor of the city and county of san francisco, my friend, london read. [cheers and applause] -- london breed. >> mayor breed: good morning everyone. welcome to the salesforce transit centre. at this place is absolutely beautiful. as a youngster, i used to come to the old place and i don't know if any of you are old enough to remember what it looked like, but it was a dark

and dreary place. one that we try to avoid, or at least we went running to meet to get the greyhound bus faster than we would have liked to. this is an incredible accomplishment. not just for san francisco, but for the entire region. the entire state of california. this represents san francisco at our best. it reflects our commitment to innovation, to transportation, environmental sustainability, adds community development. it also shows what we can accomplish when we work collaboratively, together. this project could have not happened without our regional state and federal partners, many of them who are here with us today. the salesforce center will make transit a seamless, easy, convenient and a very pleasant experience. i just walked across a beautiful bridge, that starting sunday, will bring people directly from

the bay bridge into the heart of san francisco. it is critical that we build our infrastructure, our transportation infrastructure, not just for what we are going to do today, but for how we are going to grow in the future. our city is growing with jobs and people, adds we need to do a better job of moving everyone around through this region. this transit centre will do just that. the transit center goes far beyond a transportation hub. it is a thriving place of economic activity. it helps with critical housing needs and it creates new open space while also protecting the environment. this project as a catalyst for providing much needed affordable housing. over 3,000 homes, and 41% of those homes will be affordable. i am confident that this

spectacular centre will quickly become a worldwide destination with its beautiful public art, beautiful rooftop parks, with free events, activities, shopping and dining, i do not blame us if you missed your bus. because you are so distracted by everything that is going on around you. i want to take this opportunity to thank so many incredible people who made this possible. of course, our extraordinary leader, nancy pelosi who is fighting the good fight. [applause] >> mayor breed: in washington d.c.. she has not only been a fierce advocate for this project, but she continues to fight for all the needs of our city and our region. i want to thank the transbay joint powers authority under the leadership of mohammed nuru. our assembly members david hsu and phil tang, are state senat

senator, and also members of the board of supervisors who are here today. you will be hearing later from supervisor jane at kim who represents this district, as well as my, well, i was gorgeous a colleague, but new supervisors, vallie brown and raphael madeleine, as well is our city attorney who is here today and our sheriff. thank you all so much to the numerous departments. all the workers. all of the people that made this project possible. what an extraordinary and beautiful place and what an amazing representation of san francisco at its best. i am looking forward to seeing this place packed with people, with kids, with activity and vibrancy. make sure that you don't miss your bus. thank you. [applause]

>> at each stage of the decision-making process involved in this project, legal representation was more than important. it was totally and completely necessary in the decisions that had to be made quickly. no one provided better skill and guidance in that regard then our own city attorney who is here in the front row. [cheers and applause] >> on many of those calls, they ended up being received in washington by none other than the congressional representative from this particular part of our city. from day one, my administration, she always told her colleagues, anywhere there is dirt to be turned, we ought to finance it if it means something for the benefit of the people.

that reflected itself at each stage. i don't think there is been any single project in san francisco affecting this region that didn't always have federal assistance provided by and directed by and engineered by none other than the next speaker of the house. nancy pelosi. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, willie brown. and he said that about any project where there is dirt to be turned is true. i would say to him if the community is together and there is consensus on a project, i can sell it in washington by saying, there is agreement. if we provide the money for san francisco, dirt will fly. [laughter]

>> thank you, willie brown. it is an honor to be here with you and to see that this venue had to replace something that was even dangerous to the public good. thank you for your leadership in so many ways. it is visionary, for our city, both as our mayor and the speaker for so many years. i join you in recognizing assemblywoman skinner and john. john where is john? john burton for their leadership in getting us to this place and mayor breed. congratulations on the work you did as a supervisor and president of the board. but what you will be doing as mayor of san francisco, because we have more to do. especially with this project. it is wonderful to be here with so many members of the official family of san francisco in terms of the mayor, members of the board, the city attorney, they have been acknowledged as well as our members from the state

legislature. david hsu, phil tang and as well as supervisor jane kim who is with us here. this is a representation of what can happen when people work together. public, private, nonprofit. community. the word community has the word unity and it. if there is anything that demonstrates the unity of our community, the work of our skilled building trade workers to make this possible, let us applaud our union members who made all of this possible. [applause] >> when you see and when you tour, you will see the beauty that our artists at their architects made here. so typical of san francisco. san francisco is the city that knows how. mohammed, thank you for your ongoing leadership. we have come together again and

again the first to break ground, and then to pour cement, and then to unveil the penrose awning. i understand sir penrose is here with us. that beauty up at all. and today, to cut the ribbon. for something so spectacular, we will say to the rest of the country that these initiatives in our community are of national significance and modelled for the country. of all the things that mayor breed said about housing and economic development and jobs and success. i want to just say something about president barack obama. because this took resources over $400 million and even more of that from the american recovery investment act. [applause] >> one day after his inauguration, we passed the

american recovery and reinvestment act. for our region, that meant a billion dollars for the central subway. studio parkway over $300 million, the caltrain electrification, almost a billion dollars, over $400 million for this. closer to 700 if you add some of the appropriations. that bill was very very important to us. but the fact is, our community met the standards that our community would make. [applause] >> again, a model for the nation of national significance. i just want to say something, i am so glad that mohammed reference our dear mayor lee. he was so operational having being the chief administrative officer. he got things done. we certainly miss him but will

always remember him and acknowledge him. that he saw, and so many of you gathered here, sought that this is a truly revolutionary initiative, appropriate for this trail of innovation that we live in. the center does not only curb congestion and cut down commute, it transforms how we work and how we travel and how we live. and anything that has to do with infrastructure is about time. it is about time. the time we take people out of their cars pick the time the buses are not on the streets. it is about improving quality of life and improving quality of air. it is about the good health of our children. it is about the time we save and that all the big buses will be taken off the streets. some of you no kak you created it. it is a remarkable thing. i want to associate it with

something going on in california at this moment. at this moment, we are suffering some terrible, terrible wildfires lack of intensity and density exacerbated by climate crisis. and what we are doing here is to alleviate some of that. by removing our dependence on elements that would heat up the air. all that we are doing with mass transit and high-speed rail and all of those subjects are about making the planet a more wholesome place. lowering the temperature. lowering the heat. so we are all connected when we engage in infrastructure that is truly green. and this infrastructure, the sales floor transit center is truly green. for these and so many other reasons, i want to join in acknowledging everyone who played a role in this. i want to acknowledge maria, she was here for all of those

things. the groundbreaking's and pouring of cement. now here today for the ribbon-cutting. mark from the tjpa, the executive director, thank you. where is mark? thank you for your leadership. and yes, we are very proud to play a big role. we saw that it was very helpful with that and it helps to have a president who appreciates what we were trying to do here to help us to be on the appropriations committee and it helps to be speaker of the house to get the money. but it doesn't work unless there is all this matching initiative. whether it is the public paying their fair share in the bonding and the state and local commitments to its. this, today, is about community. let us thank everyone in our community for the role they played in making this initiative of such natural significance. people visit here want to do it where they live and also see

that we have more to come. thank you very much. these. [applause] >> as indicated by nancy pelosi, seldom, if ever it is a project of this size and this magnitude gets completed within the time period that any of us holds the public office. this project, is in particular, the beneficiary of a group of people who have handed it off from one time period to another, as they have managed to get themselves collected public office. the city embraced and scent david to to the board of supervisors. his colleagues made him the president of that board and in his capacity of the board, he cast the deciding vote to replace newsom with ed lee as

the mayor of the city. and then he promptly took over and became a member of the california state assembly and in the process, literally became one of the god angels of what happens with this transit centre. all the time, he had been part of the team, moving the project. ladies and gentlemen, a man who is a housing expert, as perceived by his colleagues in the legislatures, sustainable transportation, options, advocate, assembly member, david to -- chu. >> the son is signing to shining on the transit centre. grand central west is open for business. the sceptic said that we

wouldn't make the tough decisions. we wouldn't choose the tough decisions to make it happen. what we chose differently, we chose to address the congestion on our freeways and our airpor airports. we chose to tackle the environmental issues to reduce greenhouse gases. we chose to bring together the myriads of interest in our bay area. bringing together eight bay area counties to the center. bringing together 11 transit agencies to this centre. by the way, we have 60 more transit agencies to go. we have come so far. we have only been able to do it because it takes a village to create the transit village. and all of you have been those village leaders. i have the honor of helping to recognize a couple of the state partners who are responsible for this -- responsible for the vision, the design, helping to fund debt and helping to build it. thank you to stay partners.

i know caltrain is represented today. they are represented here today. the california transportation committee. i have a number of california state legislative colleagues here. representing berkeley, senator skinner. representing san jose, assembly member kara and representing oakland, assembly member rob popped up your act together with my colleagues and with all of you, the voters passed regional measure three in june. [applause] >> as he assembly leads, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that will go to help support this very project. there are to watch what hopes i want to mention as we move forward. last week, i had a meeting with fellow legislators from the states of washington and oregon. they do not want us to have the

only grand central west on the west coast. they have a vision that we should be able to travel by train from san diego to l.a., to san francisco, to portland, to seattle, and to vancouver. a west coast a vision for how we live. [applause] >> i have one additional hope and that is the hope for my 2-year-old son. i mentioned that word, high-speed rail. [applause] >> it is my hope that someday, my son gets on a train here that is like our experience of getting on b.r.t. and caltrain and he visits his friends in l.a. in the time it takes for me to visit my friend in san jose. some day that will happen. someday we will celebrate that.

until that happens, we party on today here in california, here in san francisco. congratulations. [applause] >> as i stated, it is one relay process after another for the resources that are needed to. san francisco has always been blessed in the halls of the legislature, even though we have very few members, so to speak, in terms of members. our members always seem to project themselves and present themselves and their colleagues embrace them and give them great assignments. the man that i am about to present to you is exactly in that category. you want to be nice to him because he is the budget chair. that means if and when there is a need for some immediate financing, he has the authority

to leverage on behalf of san francisco in this region, on behalf of this project and we will hold him exactly to that. he did not have to leave the assessor's office and go to sacramento but he chose to do that. now he has the responsibility and the obligation of making good on that. ladies and gentlemen, phil tang. chair of the budget committee. [applause] >> thank you mr speaker and mr mayor. yourself, leader pelosi, have always set the example for what responsible legislating is. for not just san francisco, before the bay area. i think we see our responsibility in ourselves, all of us to make sure that san francisco and the entire region gets the resources it needs to continue to be the economic

powerhouse that it is. we have seen what happens today when we do not have enough housing at enough transit. we've done a phenomenal job creating jobs. our economy is doing incredibly well and we have a chance at a challenge to move people around. that is what this transit hub is. this transit hub signals not just to san franciscans, but really people all over the bay area and people all over northern california that we are a region. unless we think regionally, but it can move people regionally and house people regionally. we will not be successful. they used to be a time when the city could go it alone and do it by itself. but that time has long gone. week are a complete region. sent this sculptor san francisco post's future is tied to oakland, berkeley, as it is to silicon vallie and san jose. our region has