tv Government Access Programming SFGTV September 20, 2018 10:00am-11:01am PDT
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>> president cohen: all right. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. good morning. i want to welcome you to the budget and finance committee. it's thursday, september 20. we've got a fairly light agenda ahead of us. i want to recognize matthew baltazar and michael ignatio with sfgov tv. i also want to thank linda wong, who will be today's
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clerk. madam clerk, do you have any [agenda item read] >> president cohen: all right. can you -- thank you. please call item one. >> clerk: item one, item retroactively approving the item between the city and sf fuels for an initial term of september 1, 2018 through august 1, 2021 with two one year options to extend for a not to exceed amount of 40 million. >> president cohen: also. this is an item to purchase gasoline for the city fleet. pretty straightforward. again, there is no obligation to buy that much gasoline if it's not used, is that correct? >> greyes. >> president cohen: all right. great. take it away.
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good to see you. good morning. >> good morning. so i'm just going to give you guys just a brief -- as background of the current contract and to kind of give you an overview of the vehicles that we have in the -- in stock right now. then, i'll go over very briefly the new contract. we bid out the new contract several years ago, in 2013. it was a $94 million contract. the main difference between the current contract that we are going to be proposing now versus the old one, when you see the difference in value, the existing contract wasn't just for the purchase of gasoline, it was four the purchase of gasoline, the biodiesel, and petroleum diesel which are used in some of our other fleet vehicles across the city. the thing we've seen is just focusing on the gasoline, we have seen that -- and despite the fact that we are moving to
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a more -- as a fleet, that includes and hybrid vehicles, c.n.g. vehicles. we haven't necessarily seen a drop, will you will, a drop in the consumption of gasoline. we have seen in the last three to five years over the life of this contract, because the number of vehicles that we as a city have in stock and the number of equipment requires gasoline has and continues to climb. for example, as we hired new police officers and things like that, that often means that there is more of -- vehicles that we need to provide to the -- in the sworn officers as we buy -- to maintain the various parts and things like that. we also buy more equipment like lawn mowers and generators and things like that. some of those devices or pieces of equipment, they require
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fuel. so on the next slide, you can kind of see -- i apologize. the fonts are a little bit small, but you can see we haven't increased too much in certain areas. for example, in the police vehicle, they haven't seen a large spike in the number of police vehicles. we haven't seen a large spike in the number of vehicles in general, but we're not seeing a drop in use, either. so we are maintaining, if you will, the overall size of our vehicle fleet, and we're just not seeing the decline that we would be hoping for in the gallons of fuel. so this would be fairly consistent year over year in the fuel consumption, which is arranged -- which has averaged about 1.9 million gallons in gasoline each year.
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and for the current contract, we bid that out in april of this year. we were able to receive four bids. we only bid this out only for the gasoline, so this was one thing we did. we made a decision to bid out the different components of the fuel and separately this year with the intent and hoping of driving competition, and i think we were successful as a city in doing that. we did receive four bids on the current contract. and the lowest bidder on this was a firm by the name of western states oil, and now as my office is proposing that we enter into a three year contract with western states
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oil with a not to exceed amount of $40 million. >> president cohen: okay. all right. have you -- are you understand -- have reviewed the budget legislative analyst's recommendations? >> yes. >> president cohen: okay. i'm going to pivot to her, i'm going to listen to her recommendations, and i hope that you'll be in agreement, but if not, we can talk about it. >> okay. >> president cohen: okay. >> good morning, chair cohen, members of the committee. severin campbell. we are estimating expenditures of 32 million, rather than 42 million under the proposed contract. and the reason is the city's policy is to actually reduce the use of fuel based vehicles and equipment and to go towards more fuel efficient or zero
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emission equipment and vehicles. so our estimate is based on expenditure of increased gasoline prices. we're asking you to reduce the not to exceed amount of 32 million instead of 42 million, and other than that, we recommend approval. >> president cohen: thank you for that. so are you in agreement with that? >> well, it's not that i'm not in -- in agreement. i understand and completely the recommendation and we are recommending it from 40 million just as an administrative process. in the event that we -- this will be more in the out years, probably in the fourth and fifth year, if we would exceed 32 million, at that time, if we would exceed that, we would have to come back at that time before the board and ask that contract to be amended up. the difference between the 32 and the 40 is really as a hedge
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that allows us to -- say, if the price increases or the -- the price per-gallon were to go beyond what we think it's going to be, then he what that provides us. but at that time, our service isn't necessarily versed to come back before the board, because as you mentioned before, this is a contract that's only going to be used as a city and consumes fuel. so this doesn't really control the amount of usage in the various department. so i think there's -- the separate vehicles -- i haven't use the word vehicles. there are separate tools that the board has at its hands to control the usage, as the number of vehicles that we procure and things like that. so as our office is open to
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recommendations, and for 32 million, it would be our advice to go 40 mil just so we wouldn't have to come back. >> president cohen: well, we want you to come back. we love you, and we like to see you before us. i have a couple of questions. we as a city, aren't we pivoting from goss, fossil fuels cars into something more electric and better utilizing technology? i don't know if that falls under your shop, but i -- i'm under the impression that we are trying to get away from gasoline cars and going into more electric or, you know, alternative fuel sources. is that still -- are we moving in that direction? >> yes, and that's the case. under the guidance of this board and supervisor tang, we do have an electric vehicle policy where we're buying about 200 or so of those vehicles
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each year, and we are working with d.p.w. and others to install charging stations across the city. and we are doing those measures and they are being incorporated in the vehicles that are being procured by the shops team and other departments across the city. but the thing that we're not seeing is unfortunately, even though we're buying more and more of those vehicles, that's not offsetting and the fuel consumption and the price of fuel overall, so we're not seeing the -- in the -- the drop, if you will. >> president cohen: okay. i see. thank you very much. colleagues, let's go to public comment on this item. this is item one. it's open. any member of the public can come in and speak on item -- on any item. >> first of all, you need checks and balances on company automobiles, okay? you've got management and city
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employees using these automobiles for their personal use. when i used to work for the city, you had a manager that would drive a company car to a personal location which was outside the city, back and forth, around the city, and drive that personal car around on the weekends. i'd watch her pump gas from the woods station while i was working at the bus barn and fill up and come back and fill up the tank on the following monday. you need to do inventory and keep close track on where these automobiles are being driven to, and by the time response, when they come back, and total the mileage so you can keep track of gasoline not being used for their personal use. and as far as the electronic vehicles that's being used, and you're buying these electric automobiles and installing charging station, it's the significance of process control where you can keep the costs at
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a minimum and production at a maximum, instead of building all those charging stations, you need to use solar panelled locations where you can charge these electronic cars from solar up solar panel sun light and not pay the expenses of pg&e paying those high rates. you talk about moving away from gasoline, that's a technique that you should be using. is that clear? all right. >> president cohen: any other speakers that would like to speak to item one. seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, i would like to make a motion that we accept the b.l.a.'s recommendation. i don't know if you have any feelings or questions. can we take that without objection? all right. we'll take that without objection, without objection. [ gavel ]. >> president cohen: we send that to the -- with a positive recommendation to the full board. item number two. >> clerk: item number two,
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action retroactively authorizing the department of environment to accept and expend a grant in the amount of approximately 200,000 for the california energy commission alternate tiff and renewable fuel and vehicle technology program to develop an electric ready vehicle blueprint to accelerate regional vehicle electrification from july 1, 2018 to june 30, 2019. >> president cohen: okay. the sponsor is supervisor tang, and we've got a speaker. >> good morning, supervisors. peter galatta, department of environments and to your comments just before, it is part of our department ease strategy to switch away from gasoline vehicles to zero emission and electric vehicles. today i'm here to talk about how we're going to do that for private sector transportation
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in the city. supervisors before you is an accept and expend from the california energy commission in the amount of $199,398. these grant funds will be used by the department of environment to develop a blueprint for accelerating greater electric vehicle adoption throughout san francisco. in alignment with our climate action strategy, our city's transit first strategy and our commitment to transitioning to renewable energy. san francisco has been a long-standing leader in electric vehicles and we're recognized as one of the 20 e.v. capitals in the world, but despite that electric vehicles currently only makeup around 1% of vehicle registrations in san francisco. and so the department of environment, we've been working with public and private sector partners to really better understand the challenges and opportunities for promoting greater market transformation
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for electric vehicles. private sector remains the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in san francisco and private cars and trucks represent over 90% of these emissions. so we know that in order to reach our climate action goals, we will need to shift folks out of cars and into sustainable modes of transportation like biking, walking, and transit, but we will need to shift the primary focus on our roads to be electric and zero he mission. this will reduce tail pipe emissions and improve air fault in areas across the city -- air quality in areas across the city. this grant before you today will help us identify the actions we need to take to move forward. this trap significance to -- transition to cleaner vehicles
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and work to facilitate the adoption citywide through existing staff positions over the one-year life of the grant. and i just want to take a moment to just thank supervisor katey tang for sponsoring this item and for all of her leadership and partnership with us to promote zero emission vehicles. and with that, we are here to ask for your support and answer any questions. >> president cohen: thank you. and again this is to help the city build a strategic plan to address the electric vehicle adoption? >> that's correct. >> however, it comes after item one. >> yes. >> president cohen: okay. i don't know, colleagues, did you have any questions? we don't have a b.l.a. report on this, and i think this is pretty straightforward. let's go to public comment. public comment on item 2 is open. >> this demonstration just furthers my demonstration how you're switching to electricity
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to be the source of all these fleets of electric automobiles. the location lot where all these automobiles are kept, overhead roof, instead of being exposed to the sun light, should be a grid as a housing roof of nothing but solar panels located at each parking stall of the electronic vehicles to recharge them. whereas if you keep doing like you're doing them, and recharging them from electricity from pg&e, you're wasting money. pg&e is scandalous. even though the fires are not taking place here, you'll be feeling the blunt of it. you're looking at a multibillion-dollar expense account, and you could cut that if not in half, to a quarter of
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all public expenses. >> president cohen: all right. seeing no further if you believe comment, public comment is closed. i'll make a motion to send that to the full board with a positive recommendation, and it looks like i can do that together. madam clerk call items three, four, and five. >> item three, authorizing the office of the district attorney to expend an increase of 560,000 from the california governor's office of emergency services for the grant period of july 1, 2016 through december 31, 2019. item number four, resolution retroactively authorizing the office of the district attorney to accept and expend an inkind gift estimate of 50,000 from urban institute for data analytic and research support from january 1, 2017 through june 15, 2018. item number five, resolution retroactively authorizing the office of the district attorney to accept an inkind gift
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estimate of 150,000 to pilot a new program for criminal record expungement for eligible convictions under proposition 64. >> president cohen: thank you very much. so these three items are acceptances of grants from the district attorney's office. we've got tara anderson from the d.a.'s office here to present. >> thank you so much, president cohen and supervisors, and in addition supervisor brown who sponsored all three of these items. this grant is for local and regional mass casualty response. it includes planning coordination in response to a mass casualty event. we've been asked to convene leaders from around the state to replicate this work throughout california. item four, is technical
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assistance that was provided to the district attorney's office under the san francisco commission. a fellow was contracted by the urban institute to support the recidivism work group and ultimately develop a dashboard prototype. item five it the as a result of an announcement made in january 2018 to proactively provide conviction relief to thousands of individuals with san francisco marijuana convictions those dating back as far back as the 1970's. we took the step to level the playing field for those convicted before marijuana legislation by reducing barriers to housing and employment. through a pilot project with the district attorney's office code for america is creating technology that automatically clears eligible prop 64 convictions, providing people with a real second chance. our office is the first jurisdiction to partn the
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sentencing guidelines per se? >> it's key department heads, decision makers around criminal justice system to understand what policy trot gees both from prevention to intervention are going to be most -- strategies both from prevention to intervention wi intervention are going to be most effective. -- [inaudible] >> -- to see their subsequent contact with the criminal justice system. >> president cohen: okay. question about code for america. has their pilot program been completed? >> it's still currently in process. >> president cohen: so has it been successful? is there any updates or what have you learned about it? >> we've learned quite a bit and some of it is advocacy that needs to take place at the state level. california department of justice needs additional resources to ensure, especially
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if we want other jurisdictions to replicate the great work we're doing here, e rap sheet review which is a key feature of what code for america's is applied onto that work. >> president cohen: so what's the process to -- what is the process for record expungement in san francisco currently, and based on the recommendations from the pilot with code for america, how -- what recommendations or preliminary data do you have that would change how we -- how we deal with expungement. >> with this technology tool, it automates the process quite significantly. currently someone who wants to feel relief needs to go through getting legal counsel, calendaring and going through quite a process. this proactive action taken by the district attorney eliminates that step, and this technology solution enhances
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the ability to do that, expedites it. >> president cohen: all right. i don't know, colleagues, do you have any other questions? no? okay. that's it for me. we'll go to public comment on these three items. thank you. thanks for your presentation. any member of the public, come on up, public comment is open. >> yeah, you talked about grants and funds and running analysis whi analysis. while you're using that technique, i move you run that technique on that executive director, barbara garcia who was embezzling state grants and funds of $100,000 a year for seven years. that's $700,000 that was taken out of benefits that was not claimed and pocketed by her between her and her married female companion. is that clear? that's called embezzlement,
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okay? i object to her being retired with city benefits and she'd be prosecuted by your district attorney's office instead of being commended as somebody that did an outstanding job and provided services here. that's an insult on everybody's intelligence with the amount of economically disadvantaged people that need help in these mental and physical disabilities programs, and people out in wheelchairs. and you give her millions of dollars worth of benefits when she's supposed to be prosecuted to the full operating procedure of the law. if any of you embezzled and filled out forms once a year, when you got that question on form 700, to report your income, and you know it's $100,000, and you fail to do it, do you think would not be get prosecuted or do you think you would get away with it like barbara garcia? it's disgusting. so while you've got the district attorney here, talking
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about the electronic way and tracking these violations of the law and keeping track of people, use it to pinpoint how much money approximately she got away with, and claw back that money back to the city funds and give it to the people that's economically disadvantaged. >> president cohen: any other member of the public? seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> president cohen: thank you. all right, colleagues, i'll make a motion to send items three, four, and five to the full board with a positive recommendation, and we'll do that without objection. thank you. [ gavel ]. >> president cohen: item six. [agenda item read] >> president cohen: all right. we've got supervisor stefani as a sponsor of this. would you like to make a few remarks? >> supervisor stefani: sure. thank you, president cohen.
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this is the extension of the film rebait program. it started quite sometime ago when i was a legislative aide to supervisor alioto peer. we are here today to set the sunset date in 2028 and increase the program account not to exceed $14 million. we continue to bring this program back and which is good because it shows that this program is actually effective and it works, it's vital to keeping san francisco competitive in the film and television industry and retaining good union paying jobs. it's an incredible program. susana robins is here to speak to this, and i urge you to continue it. >> president cohen: thank you. we've got susana robins. i think this is the third time we've been a part of this. i heard an interesting interview that you did on the
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success of the program. so i'm proud of this program, and look forward to seeing it continue to grow. is there anything else you would like to present on today? >> well, i was going to give you a lot of statistics about it. should i -- i have something i'd like to -- >> president cohen: i think we're pretty all on this committee knowledgeable about the statistics. we don't need any convincing. >> can i read you one wonderful quote? >> president cohen: please do. >> we had a user of the program. it's called "the last black man in san francisco," a small indy film. the producer asked to write a comment in support of the program, and what she said was the rebait program is a vital cornerstone of the local film community. it creates jobs in the city and it actively keeps productions in san francisco which otherwise would move to vancouver or l.a.
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as a resident of san francisco, i see a widening gap between the haves and have nots, which is larger than any city i've lived in. supporting the rebait program means supporting the middle class. people don't realize that film is mostly a blue collar industry, requiring no degree and no pedigree, just on the job training at work. this program supports every job. it's increasingly important in a city that fewer and fewer can afford. so i just thought that was a really perfect quote that sums up how important this program is to local jobs and keep people actively employed here and local spending here. >> president cohen: all right. i appreciate that. we will take public comment -- or actually, excuse me, we're
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going to go to the budget legislative analyst, and then, we will go to public comment. >> yes. this proposed ordinance would actually -- the film rebait program is currently for a pow year program ending in june of 2019. the cap is $4 million. the legislation would extend it over the next nine years to 2028. our understanding is the request is for $1 million a year, so it was our understanding that the cap being requested was 13 million, not 14 million, so our recommendation is to set the cap at 13 million, otherwise, we recommend approval. >> president cohen: so i'm seeing the director, she's agreeing. so she's in agreement with the budget legislative analyst. supervisor stefani, are you in agreement with that? we'll go to public comment, any member of the public like to comment on these items, come on down. claudine chang? >> thank you, supervisors.
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i'm a member of the film commission but i'd like to talk as a member of the city. thank you so much for the grant. obviously i as a tax paying resident of the city, i feel it is really a good return on investment, and i think that's a lot what budgeting is about. you all know the statistics very well, so that's fantastic. i just want to point out in 2018, many counties within the state of california has this type of program, so it's very important that we remain competitive in this business, and thank you for your support. >> president cohen: all right. people come on up if you're speaking, quickly. come on up. cue up. >> so -- just pull the microphone to your mouth. >> good morning. my name is kathrin howell, and i am an actor.
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>> president cohen: so am i -- just kidding. see? i was convincing. >> well, it's my life's work. it's what i majored in in college, it's what i have a degree in, and it's what i've been pursuing for decades, ever since, including higher learning. as a matter of fact, the way i came to be a san franciscan is in 1974, i got a full scholarship to study at american conservatory theater, fell in love with the city and never left. i am also president of the san francisco-northern california local of screen actors guild, so i am here to speak for our almost 3,000 members, also dedicated professionals who choose to live and work here. and of course, the san francisco film incentive is vital to us because we need productions filming here,
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whether it be film or television or commercials or industrials or educational films. it gives us the opportunity to work and earn a living and qualify for health insurance and earn our pension credits. so with 5,000 voices, i thank you in advance for your continued support of the film incentive. >> president cohen: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning. i'm mickey tolliver. i'm a principal actor, and i'm a proud member of s.a.g. the rebait program is crucial to the amount of jobs it can provide our union members as well as to the goods and services it provides our city. we at s.a.g. encourage the extension of the rebait program until 2028 which will provide
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the insurance and stability to producers, which of course will help focus on the -- us focus on the work at hand, so i appreciate the courtesy and appreciate the extensions. thank you. >> president cohen: thank you. thank you for your public comment. next speaker, please. come on down. >> hi. frank simeon, currently doing contracts between producers and the screen actors' guild, when producers learn about the program, that's very attract tiff to them. they speak to our film commission. once they do that, they realize that getting permits, parking, housing, everything isn't as challenging as they may have heard outside of the city. and we do have wonderful crews, we have great actors, and one thing i have learned working at screen actors guild is that the employment of actors, and they all work as freelancers is very
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important. this employment is very important to their welfare to keep them in the bay area. in the last 12 months, we've employed 7,251 local actors in production of film and television, and i'd like to see that continued. thank you. >> president cohen: thank you. is there any other members of the public that would like to comment? all right. seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> president cohen: colleagues, i'd like to make a motion to accept the budget legislative analyst's amendments. i'd like to also approve and send to the full board with a positive recommendation. looks like we can take that without objection. [ gavel ]. >> president cohen: all right. without objection. congratulations. madam clerk, call item number seven. >> clerk: item seven, authorizing the lease amendment to extend leasable able to new conservatory theater center for a monthly base rent of approximately 8,000 for the period of october 1, 2018
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through september 30, 2023. >> president cohen: all right. we've got the department of real estate. good morning, this resolution approves lease amendments between the city as a landlord and the new conservatory theater center for theater and office space, and this is located at 25 vanness. why don't you tell us a little bit more about it. >> good morning, chair cohen, supervisors fewer and stefani. before you is an option to extend the term of the existing lease that came before the board in 2008 for the new conservatory theater center or nctc located in the basement at 25 vanness. the extension is for five years. usually i'm pretty quick on the lease terms and don't say anything about the program, but here, i'd like to say a little bit about the program. nctc has been in the location since approximately 1984-1985. it was actually in the building when we purchased it. its mission is to "champion
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innovative high quality production and educational experiences for youth, and the queer-allied community. its vision is that theater is a community event and a way to build community." there are six primary programs at the officer. the main stage, youth conservatory. youth aware, emerging artists, family matinees, and new play development lab. the existing lease of five years commenced in 2008 with two five-year options. unfortunately there have been water intrusion issues since before the city purchased the building. just prior and after the lease was approved in 2008, there was substantial water intrusion events in the basement due to groundwater or stormwater seeping through the building's
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foundation or walls. several rounds of repairs and preventative measures were taken. the new lease in 2008 capped the city's liabilities and financial obligations at $1,000 a year which included coating on the sidewalks and the building. nctc is also obligated to pay for certain measures in the premises themselvesed. the rent started in 2008 at $7,036 a month, and i apologize to the b.l.a. they asked me if the rent had been increased during that time period, and i did say yes, but somehow in the -- in the report, it says that it didn't. it did. the rent started at 7,036 a month, and it's now currently 7,826 a month. the rent back then and now is reflecting a devalued condition of the space, given the water intrusion events and that it was a basement. in addition, we indicated that there was no comparable rent
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because we don't lease basement spaces for offices for a theater, so i can nothing to -- had nothing to go to for comparables. thinking about it some more, the only thing i could come up with would be storage space, which you couldn't even use part of the basement due to the water intrusion possibility could happen if there was a large storm or the base water -- the creep water rises. around the time of the first option period in 2013, there was another substantial water intrusion event. nctc was unable to use a substantial portion of their premises for months. we requested a short extension of time in which to exercise its notice extension date with the hope that the city could
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find a possible final and permanent repair or maintenance to this issue. the former director of property agreed and an extension was given. this was due mainly to -- and i can only recall this from notes in the file -- so that the theater wouldn't have to miss its option date and so that it would not have to relocate due to an uncertain future. basically, the director tolled the agreement during the time of the flooding, repairs, and investigation of the cause and possible solutions. with the assistance of the department's real estate commenced investigations, tests, inspections and obtained proposals for a permanent solution to stop the water intrusion problem. this took a substantial period of time. the possible solutions ranged in cost of yearly preventative mint unanimous which is what we're doing now to permanent
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solutions from about 3 million to $12 million. those solutions were not beneficial to nctc in that it would require years for them to relocate out of the space and/or cost prohibit tiff to the city because it would require excavation on the outside of the building. that took a substantial period of time to come to those consultants, getting the proposals. during that time, ncpc mitigated waterproof damage and attempted to waterproof the basement. every time they would come to preventing one area from being -- water coming in, it would go to another area because the creek just wanders around, trying to find a space to come into. the city continues to water
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sealant. nctc continued to ask for notice of its period. also, a developer purchased the oak 1 property for development, and i am informed by our engineers that if development occurs near 25 vanness, and they go down into the ground, underground, which this particular developer wanted to put a parking lot underground, and it wanted to go into oak street, then that just basically pushes the water over to older buildings that don't have great basements like we do, so that was a very big consideration for nctc and real estate, and so discussions started with that developer as to what were they going to do and how were they going to prevent water intrusion coming in even more into our building. that developer is ultimately not going to be developing at this time, so those discussions
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ceased, and nctc and real estate then started to negotiate further as to try to get this extension moving forward. ultimately, it's decided that either it was cost prohibitive or too disruptive to move forward with any of the proposals at this time and so we basically continue to do yearly preventative maintenance. although the first option would have commenced in 2013, due to the investigation and request by nctc, the former director of property agreed to toll it. with the amendment, we want to start that new extension period at september 30, 2018, instead of september 30, 2013, and that would run until september 30, 2023. we are asking for the second and last option under the original lease to then commence in 2023, extending it out to 2028. so accordingly, we respectfully disagree with the b.l.a.'s
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recommendations number two and three. we do not agree that the language should be deleted that allows lease one more five-year extension, and we do not agree with the lease extension through 2023 be the final extension under the lease. hence, the amendments. we do agree that the premise consists of 14,229 square feet, and we agree with the b.l.a.'s recommendation regarding same. in addition the lease does increase rent by 2% from the existing 7826 permonth to 7,983. again, this reflected a devalued rent figure. rent would be adjusted annually from two to 4%, which is a decrease from the original lease, 8%. 2% is what we normally require in our leases for the last several years. the founder and artistic director of nctc are here to answer any questions you may have regarding the theater, and i can answer any questions you
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have about the lease. >> president cohen: thank you. i do have one quick question. i'm not sure to whom to direct it, but i'll just pose it. what would a standardized policy for nonprofit tenants look like? >> real estate has been asked this, i believe, over the years. we don't have a standard policy -- the city doesn't have a standard policy. i also mentioned that to the b.l.a., and we do not want to displace any -- nonprofit tenants in any existing buildings if they are actually giving a public service which we truly believe that this particular tenant is giving. >> president cohen: so is there any desire from your department to create a standardized policy? you admit it yourself that many people have been asking for me. >> we believe, and i believe this would be more of a director question. i believe that if we were to do
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a policy, it would be, of course, through the discussions and what the board desired. we have several leases with nonprofits. they've either come to us because of -- of a particular department, a resident, supervisor, mayor's office, city administrator's office to ask us to work with them. we very rarely have solicited request for bids from nonprofits. those usually extend to daycare centers on city property or the cafes or kiosks, i'm say, within city buildings. i'll say that we don't get very many responses to most of those when we did send them out, like we did for the library and i don't believe there was any response at all because it's not a real high profit generating business usually,
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and for commercial like daycares or the cafes, and it costs a substantial amount to the tenant -- prospective tenant to run a business and therefore, we haven't had a lot of responses to most of those requests for bids. and those are the few that i know that we've done in the last few years. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. colleagues, are there any other questions? all right. we'll go to the b.l.a. >> good morning. yes, as miss gorham said, we probably do have a difference of opinion in terms of our recommendation. this lease when originally approved by the board of supervisors in 2008, extended to 2023. in 2012, there was a letter in the file that increased the square footage of the lease, so our recommendation is to amend the proposed resolution to increase the square footage to 14,229.
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and then of course where we have a difference there was supposed to be an exercise of the first option in 2013. that exercise -- that option wasn't exercised. the information provided today was not -- was new information to us about why it wasn't exercised. so we recommended considering this to be the final lease extension through 2023, otherwise, we do recommend approval. >> president cohen: okay. i was wondering if you have anymore -- miss campbell, i was wondering if you had anymore insight into, i think, the second recommendation that there's disagreement on? >> the second and third, they go together. >> president cohen: okay. the second and the third, can you add a little more context around there, the reasons why you're making the recommendations? >> i mean, our recommendation is we read the lease and all the information was available to us. there was an option to be exercised in 2013 that was never exercised. our understanding was simply that interest had been discussions, but that they --
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there had been discussioned, but they hadn't extended it. we thought with the lease extensions, there was reason to extend the lease originally approved. i think the other question is i think we had some different information on writing this report on history of the rent. i believe new information was prevented today on the history of the -- presented today on the history of the rent, although we had no information on the rent itself, but the new information has been presented, so i believe it's up to the committee to decide how they want to proceed. >> president cohen: so you have no -- given the new information that the deputy director presented, you have no additional recommend addition -- >> i would say we have no compelling recommendation one way or the other. >> president cohen: what you said -- what was said is not enough to sway you from your original recommendation. >> i think a five-year
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extension could be sufficient. i think the board can consider what to do in 2023, but at this point, i believe it's up to the committee based on the recommendation. >> president cohen: yes? >> i will say it's all my fault. i did not have the negotiations with the tenant, nctc, the former director did. i'm also limited to what's in the file and this was completely my misinformation or lack of giving them information, and i need today have conversations with others that i wasn't having at the time that we were actually doing and answering their questions. i answered them to the best of my ability and actually found out here at time was going on. nctc made a decision just during this time period of the last few years, while this tolling was taking place and investigations were taking place and then 1 oak did not decide to build to do some
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upgrades and to upgrade their lobby and features. during this tolling period, they just couldn't take it upon themselves to say okay, we want to do these. if, you know, if the water intrusion's going to keep getting worse, if the building's going to be belt next door, and there could be water intrusion that's even worse than it is now. so the reason for the tolling and the reason let's extend this back out to the ten years, is because of that -- of budget and of their time commitment and their longevity at the site. they're a nonprofit that's basically a legacy business, and they've been there, and they -- the neighborhood knows them, the city knows them, and i think that -- i guess it's hard to convey in a written answer. and i didn't understand the entire effect of everything until i actually spoke with nctc and others, including our
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building manager, so i apologize to the b.l.a. for that. >> president cohen: okay. we know that wasn't intentional, and the real estate department has got through a lot of transition this year. supervisor fewer? >> supervisor fewer: so it's your request that we extend it to 2028. >> correct. the first extension would be now, and then, the next extension in 2023. >> supervisor fewer: so i -- okay. thank you. you know, colleagues, i think that nctc has been a good tenant. i think that it's really important to support our arts organizations, and since the b.l.a. doesn't have a strong opinion about it, knowing this new information, i actually think that a ten-year lease is actually reasonable for this organization. >> president cohen: all right. all right. thank you very much. let's go ahead and take public comment on this before we take action on item seven, and then we'll hear from the deputy city attorney. public comment is open. welcome. >> good morning, supervisors.
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i'm ed decker. i am the founder and artistic director at new conservatory theater center. i had a lot of sort of philosophical visionary are remarks to share -- visionary remarks to share with you about the theater, but i'd rather speak to the information presented by claudia and the real estate department. for -- we moved into the 25 vanness location christmas 1984. as you can imagine, we have enjoyed a long, productive relationship, not only with our community, but with our various partners that have been the landlords of the building, including the language-term relationship with the real estate department of san francisco. as you can imagine, that during this last period from 2008 -- well, till now, it's
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