and skills, to h h h h h h h hh . >> secretary celaya, can you please call the roll. >> clerk: certainly. [roll call] >> clerk: you do have a quorum. next item is the announcement of prohibition of sound producing devices during the

meeting. this announcement is usually being made in room 400, abobut since we are not there, we will not make that announcement. next item is approval of minutes of the december 1, 2020 meeting. >> directors, are there any comments? seeing none, open public comment. >> clerk: the number to call is 888-808-6929, and the access code is 9961164. >> secretary celaya, do you know if we're live? >> clerk: i'll get confirmation on that now.

we are live on-line, but i don't think we're being shown on television just yet. >> i just want people to be aware if they're watching on-line or on television. >> clerk: it is my understanding from sfgtv that we are going to be on t.v. at approximately 2:00. there is another meeting that's ahead of us. >> is sfg running something along the t.v. screen so that people would know that. >> clerk: yes, they said they would put something on screen to let viewers know. >> all right. well, with that, we'll see if there's anyone on your line to

comment on the december 1 meeting. >> operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> okay. with that, we will close public comments on the meeting. directors? >> motion to approve. >> second. >> all right. >> clerk: seconds, i'll call roll. [roll call] >> clerk: the item passes. next is communications. i don't have any. >> great. and as always, i get to say my lovely schpiel about covid. there is a covid-19 emergency of which we are all aware, and because of that, we are meeting virtually, the sfmta board of directors to ensure everyone's

safety. i do want to apologize if you're currently watching on-line, we are currently not on t.v. this is one of the hiccups that we would be having even if we were meeting in person. any way, we apologize in advance for the inconvenience that this system actually causes us. i do want to thank people and remind them to write us or leave us a voice mail. you can e-mail us at sfmtaboard@sfgov.org. we apologize if you can't watch us on t.v., but with that, i'll turn it over to the board

secretary eric cle secretary. >> clerk: this meeting will be televised once it's able to be televised. if you are watching on-line, there is a time lag between the actual meeting and what members of the public are seeing. so if you are watching and you wish to make a comment on an item, please call the phone line when the item is called, and that number should be displayed. i'll give it to you now. it is 888 -- and i will repeat it later -- 888-6929. the access code is 9961164. we ask that you make sure that you're in a quiet location, and that you turnoff any t.v.s or radios, radios or, if you're live streaming, that you turn down your computer so that the board can hear you. if you wish to comment on a particular item, you will be prompted to press one, zero. this will add you to the

speaker line. the moderator will say that you are entering a question-and-answer time, but that's public comment time. the system will tell you when it is your turn to speak. when that happens, you will hear us ask you to state your name, and you will have two minutes remaining. when you have 30 seconds remaining, you will hear me say you have 30 seconds remaining. at that point, your comments will end, and you will be put back on mute. i will repeat this in case some people have not heard the information. so item 6, introduction of new or unfinished business by board members. >> board members, do we have any new or unfinished business among you?

yes. cheryl brinkman. >> yes. first, i want to say thank you to staff who i know are just working flat out on projects. they are working a lot of overtime, they have so many competing demands on their time, and in such uncertain times during this time. i just want to remind the public that staff is working so hard to not only keep the system going but to work on all of our emergency transit projects that are going to keep this city moving, so be sure to keep that in mind this time of year. and the other thing i wanted to talk about, we have a lot of new measures enacted during the

emergency, and i would just ask us all to remember our strategic plan goals when it comes time for considering those projects to be made permanent. i know sometimes competing criteria can get caught up with the flood of e-mails and the flood of feedback that we get from our constituents, but let's just remember we have strategic plan goals, and we need to keep those in mind as we talk about making a lot of those projects permanent. thank you. that's all. >> thank you, director brinkman, and thank you for your wonderful comments about honoring our staff. i know that everybody agrees with that. whenever i take the bus -- i was on the bus last weekend, and i permanently thanked the bus drivers before leaving so they knew they were appreciated. thank you for that reminder. director heminger? >> thank you, madam chair. i was going to suggest we get a

briefing in the near future about regional fare integration, which seems to be climbing the tops of the charts. i know, jeff, you've been fairly outspoken about it, and i know the issue can have differential impact among the various transit systems in the region, so i think it would be good for us to get up to speed. >> happy to do so. there's a lot going on now with the regional fare integration task force. >> thank you. >> great. thank you. are there any other comments or unfinished business items have board members? seeing none, we'll move onto our next item. >> clerk: item 7 is the director's report. >> director tumlin? >> thank you, chair borden, and members of the board. i i've got a ton of things. starting, of course, with

mission zero, in the last time period since our previous report, we've had four fatalities, including two solo fatalities. one, a motorist at 16 and potrero. the rapid response team looked at it and has no engineering recommendations. it's a result of the unique nature of that crash. also, on december 13, a solo scooter rider died in a crash on the embarcadero. also no rapid response recommendations, but we had two fatalities on december 1. one, a pedestrian at geary and 38 avenue who was struck and killed while in the crosswalk. the rapid response team took a very close look at that situation and has recommended some additional daylighting as well as refreshing the existing daylighting at that intersection. and then, there was also a power scooter rider who collided with a motorist at the intersection of 16 and bryant

on december 1. the rapid response team is looking to add a leading pedestrian interval for that signal and retiming the signal for a slightly slower walking speed. related to vision zero, you have also, i'm sure, seen reports in the press about recent advances with autonomous vehicle testing here in san francisco. as you probably know, san francisco offers every imaginable driving condition except for snow, and therefore has long been sought after as a site for autonomous vehicle testing. back in september, crews received a permit from the department of motor vehicles and is beginning fully

autonomo autonomous vehicles. we need to make sure we understand the technology, and particularly police, fire, and ambulance know exactly what to do of an autonomous vehicle on our street. also, recently, zooks, who has been testing in san francisco just announced their prototype for a fully driverless vehicle that they are also seeking to test on san francisco streets, and also waymo is looking to do that, as well. staff is committed to collaborating with industry in order to make sure that we get the best possible public good from this new technology and minimize unintended negative consequences. we believe that autonomous

vehicles can help us tremendously in our fight to eliminate fatalities from san francisco streets. that's only going to be true if autonomous vehicles are programmed right from the beginning to always follow the speed limit, to always yield to pedestrians and other vulnerable users, to actually identify people of color or people in wheelchairs as human beings, so we are committed to collaborating with industry in order to use actual data to make sure that as autonomous vehicle use expands, that it meets our safety goals.

big increases in per capita vehicle miles travelled, and resulting traffic congestion, as well as something we had not anticipated, which was a dramatic loss of mobility for people in wheelchairs who had been dependent largely on wheelchair accessible taxis that were decimated by the arrival of ride hail. as i'm sure you know, we in san francisco have very little, if any, authority to regulate autonomous vehicles. that authority rests with the california department of motor vehicles and the california public utilities commission as well as the national highway traffic safety administration in washington. we are engaged closely with all of those government bodies and, in fact, are eager to be --

we're already partnering with the biden transition team to promote safety and equity outcomes on city streets. there's a lot more detail we can go into with our strategy around, you know, promoting innovation and technology development on san francisco streets in order to solve real problems, but doing it in a way that develops solutions to minimize problems. so if you'd like us to come back and make a presentation, we'd be happy to. moving onto the transportation recovery plan, as you all know, the recently new shelter in place program has eliminated outdoor dining for the time being, which is very sad for all of us but necessary to deal with the dramatic covid cases

in the bay area, an increase that is actually having a noticeable impact on our sfmta staff. so farmers markets and other market-like spaces will continue to be open, but for the next three weeks, outdoor dining and shared spaces will be shutdown. we will be continuing to advance the shared spaces community grants program particularly for minority and locally owned businesses, particularly in our city's equity neighborhoods. we're also at muni continuing to remind everyone about the critical importance of complying with all of our safety protocols. we're proud at muni that we have one of the highest mask compliance rates among our passengers in the united states. we've been able to achieve a mask compliance rate of about 95%, and that is holding

steady, you can see all of those results on our covid dashboards that are available on-line. finally, in the recovery plan area, we are following closely the recommendations of the centers for disease control and collaborating with labor to make sure that after vaccines are distributed to critical frontline health care workers, that our frontline be considered in the same line as other frontline workers. anyone out there on the frontline, keeping san francisco in this critical time. we want to make sure their health and safety is treated the same as other frontline workers in different employment categories, and also, making sure that those of us who have the luxury of being able to work from home are vaccinated in the last category, not in the first. finally, a couple of good news

items. we are so proud to, again, participate, although sadly, remotely, in our annual safe driver awards. these are awards for operators who have operated for at least 15 years without a single preventible crash. it is astonishing to me that it is possible to operate a vehicle in san francisco every day without a crash, and we have a significant number of operators who have driven a muni vehicle for 35 years without a crash. sfmta muni have one of the best safety track records of any agency of our time, which is particularly remarkable given the madness of san francisco streets and the squirreliness of our geography. we also are proud that despite the challenges of this year, we have another 28 transit operators who are newly eligible and will receive

special patches and belt buckles as a result of their safety actions here. we are happy to be participating in the muni art program for their sixth consecutive year in partnership with san francisco beautiful and poetry arts of america. works will be displayed inside our muni buses from january through june and also in a gallery on-line. finally, i'd just like to point out that today is safe public transit day, and we are partnering with the transit agencies across the united states to remind congress of the critical importance and the unique role that transit has to play in the economic recovery for cities and the necessity for federal or other outside

help to recover. i'd like to congratulate mayor pete buttigieg who was announced today as the candidate for the united states transportation agency. being a leader in the transportation agency starts with an understanding of cities work. it requires a skill of bringing together many, many if i have factions and making tradeoffs

that are necessary to achieve the larger public good, and of course, it requires an understanding of complex systems and being able to tell complex stories that makes them understandable to lay people. i am excited this particular canned -- about this particular candidate in order to allow transportation investments to serve the public good, both our economic recovery and the social good of the united states. thank you so much. >> thank you, and that's a great way to end our director's report. directors, do you have any questions or comments? it looks like director lai is first out of the gate. >> yes.

[inaudible] >> we wanted to make sure that testing occurred not in communities of concerned, so we do not use low-income or minority communities. we wanted to make sure that the testing were occurred on streets slower than 30 miles per hour and in environments where a.d. testing was likely to succeed. the industry understands the value in collaborating with municipalities in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. >> thank you. that's helpful, and thank you for mentioning the shared

spaces program, and i believe this is -- i believe the grant is for both reimbursement as well as future applications, so any businesses out there, if you have already sent money, i believe you could apply for this grant to get reimbursed or if you are planning on constructing shared spaces, you could also go after this grant. >> great. director heminger? >> thank you, madam chair, and speaking of saving public transit, jeff, i'm hearing at least that it's -- there's maybe cause for optimism about a bill passing in washington. it may be with or without state and -- state aid and liability protection, but the number i have heard for the bay area, assuming all goes well, is around $650 million.

have you or the staff taken a cut at what a reasonable assumption might be about what sfmta might get and what that sort of does to the gruesome picture you showed us at the last meeting. >> yes. the numbers being talked about in the senate are substantially less than the numbers talked about in the house h.e.r.o.s. bill. it's basically a number that stabilizes us, meaning, we could continue struggling along at current service levels, ideally without layoffs, but it is not sufficient funding to really have a recovery. so we will be providing you all with more detail on exactly what that means once the final lo language is provided and we

understand what we're giving up. >> so this gets you through f.y. 21 but not much farther? >> it's one of those situations we'll need to update you on later, which is, when this money arrives, how long do we have to make it last? we have an approximately 30-month financial crisis. the soonest other money might start coming in is in early 2023, assuming we're successful at a 2022 ballot. so that's another one of the key variables we need to look at: how quickly could we spend this money down, or put another way, how long do we need to make the money last? [please stand by]

>> should we take a three minute recess. >> the moderator-she hung up the line that has been muted and is now going to call back in. it shouldn't take too long. however long. that might have been what happened with david.

>> referring to the new and unfinished business as not having public comment. >> yes, i believe that's what he is referring to. >> hello. they are not allowing us to

speak yet-because somebody- >> you are live. we can hear you. >> everyone can talk. >> just be careful what you say because we are live. >> i think the moderator has to go into broad cast mode on her end. only people who press sta one t.

>> did the moderator say how long this will take because we may need to go to recess. >> your line is now muted. >> your line is now unmuted. >> hello? >> moderator? can you call up the next caller. >> hello? >> yes, are you calling in to the sfmta board of directors meeting? >> yes, am i live now?

>> yes. i just want to address, they didn't mention anything as the importance of when he was mentioning all the line people about the taxi cab drivers. we're doing thing that's the buses can't do. i delivered blood to a hospital. i took a disabled person from a small market to her house about a mile away. i was available for people going from grocery store. these are things buses are not available to do at this point. i felt a offended that he didn't include cab drivers working these late night hours. i have to give discounted ride it some para transit users. i want to let you know that i

think we need to be included for important vaccine early onto the importance of the transit system at this point. i can't get a p co to come out late at night for cars parked at a cab stand that is used at night. it's difficult to get any enforcement whatsoever. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> can you hear me? >> you have forty five seconds left. >> i think the ten feature is not working at this point. >> i apologize i accidentally cut you off.

i was try to go minimize interference elsewhere. i'm experiencing tech shame at the moment. >> we can discuss it at another time. there's no agenda item today. you had a brief discussion a few minutes ago. i recognize the anxiety from staff with layoffs is palpable. >> david, are you still there? >> did someone else hit mute again. par r par >> >> i think the mods supposed to be everybody else muted except the one caller. i think she was trying to-okay.

who is on the line? is anyone on the line? there's a great example of the tech challenges that i talk about. especially extra. please everyone, members of the public. please be patience with us. we're trying to resolve this issue. moderator where are we in reconnecting our line? moderator?

>> about that recess that was suggested earlier. maybe just three to five minutes. we do have it helping the moderator to get through this. >> why don't we come back. we'll come back at >> okay. we are on public comment for item seven, the director's report. i believe there are callers on the line that need to speak. we do apologize for the technical difficulty. is there a caller on the line

now? >> yeah. can you hear me? >> yes. >> okay. it's steven miller. a few comens o comments on the s report. first i wanted to give a congratulations to all the safe drivers out there. the second thing is about the 95% mask rate. on every forty foot bus that's full approximately one person is not wearing a mask. that's not very good odds. if you guaranteed a bus was full and one person was not wearing a mask, that's not good numbers. we need to get that to 100%.

i think it's really necessary sm the other thing i wanted to talk about is parking enforcement. it's really hard to get somebody out to many of these safety hazards. 311 tickets are closed straight up lying where it says somebody responded when nobody came out. or the vehicle isn't there when it still is. i mean if you don't have anybody to send out just be honest. we have to walk in. it's really disappointing ch as i kee.as i keep saying, parking enforcement needs to revolution.

that's revenue that's being lost. it's really ridiculous sm that's th.that's the end of my comment. thank you. >> you have five questions remaining. >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes, we can. thank you. >> thank you. good afternoon directors. calling regarding closure representing myself and neighbors in glen brook who is also being impacted by the closure of the road way. i sent several e-mail

communications in the past. others i think called in and i will comment on the disputes that were conducted. demonstrating negative impacts closures have had and traffic and noise. i want to talk specifically will traffic and the traffic traffic. this is an area that has very strict ingres and egress. we're located on the highest streets in the city. only two or three streets for exit and emergencies. there are no winding unfamiliar streets with sometimes confusing traffic signals. particularly at twin peaks where there's a sharp ninety degree turn. they are really the only roads for residents to escape either

for work, school, or emergencies. three of the four options in the survey mentioned by mt mta-historically this traffic impact was addressed by allowing all road ways to be open but buses only from the gate. we emphatically impose all options that would up or down the front side of twin peaks. >> that's the time. i'm sorry unfortunately everyone gets the same amount of time. my apologies.

next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> this is mark, taxi driver board members taxi member membes alliance. i want to back up the point about making the vaccine available to cab drivers as prioritize union drivers. don't forget the taxi drivers. we work in close space. we frequently go to and from hospitals taking patients who may or may not be covid positive. we are part of the city's transportation system. we're essential workers and i hope that we have early access to the vaccine on the same basis and same level as the union

drivers. that's all i have to say. thanks. next speaker, please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> next speaker. >> hello. i wanted to call and ask a question specifically about the feature of the mta and our self driverring car behaviors. i wanted to comment that as we saw scooters come into the city we saw this moment where we may not be able to regulate them. we recognized that we could regulate them and in doing so we regulating them to the point of non existence in our city. i want to resist the urge to say that we have no capability to regulate what's occurring on our streatstreets here. in light of that i wanted to ask and consider although self

driverring vehicles are poised to bring safety improvements. whether that's going to be for thdrivers. whether we can using our voice ask that it be more limited in scope to entities that are more local or not for a period of time. i personally think that the self driving vehicles have the potential to be safer today. i'm disinterested in being a testing participant for this large conglomerates. i'm asking you to make some of these self driving vehicle

illegal as some of the scooters have been. >> it was not actually sent to anyone other than neighbors and myself. i happened to be part of the bicycle coalition. a lot of the options are i think

going to make our neighborhood the center of even more traffic and pollution. the most popular survey result was opening up the west of twin peak ss is going to create incredible amount of traffic. it will start going up, this is going to add a lot of traffic but also put us in danger. people walking, pedestrians as well as cyclists on our streets.

the houses on this side are standing right on the street. i can't imagine having tour busebusparked here on top of exg traffic. >> i just want to remind people this is on the director's report. if you've spoken on twin peaks, you cannot speak about it again under general comment. please limit your comments to the director's report. we will come to general public comment shortly when can you talk about twin peaks. next speaker, please. >> you have two questions

remaining. >> can you hear me now? >> yes. >> the longest two minutes ever. i will check with care line c ae later. when i was last cut off, the ang anxiety among staff for possible layoffs sm the people i speak to are very concerned about that possibility.

>> my pronouns are she and her. i've had some trouble getting through to you today. i hope it's not because i'm calling from a 702 area code. i'm going to talk about autonomous vehicles. i would like to see them in san francisco and everywhere because they could help me. they could certainly help people who use mobility devices such as wheelchairs and scooters. they are not new to me sm i've

i've been in them. including a successful model f. they need to be on the oversight of state level.

what we're fighting for is to make sure people get vaccines who meet scientific criteria having do with risk factors in order to best protect the health and safety of our workforce at you are december meeting they passed the following motions. they recommend relocating bike lines to between the parking lane and the curb wherever possible and recommend the practice of installing

protective bike lanes. two, it recommends prohibiting right turns on red lights through the high injury network not just the tenderloin and banning turn at green lights on the high injury networks that conflict with a walk signal making sure pedestrian crossings and car turns occur at different times. four, work to enhance routine enforcement on the high injury network and five, this motion came from the legislative update and pursue legislate network companies. i've been asked by the members of the administration committee to remind the board of the longstanding request of more

enforcement of sidewalk parking requiring those with disabilities because a car is blocking the street undermines pedestrian safety efforts. in addition to enforcement i personally recommend to expand the street sweep programs which could serve as barriers to sidewalk parking and would increase san francisco's urban cano canopy resulting in greater curb sequestration and looks to find solution to the budget crisis. i'm working to schedule our upcoming meeting so we may recommend actionable considerations before ultimate decision service and personnel are made. these are intended to be realistic and believe they'll be helpful to you all as you consider how to steer the agency during this moment of crisis. i look forward to presenting those when we arrive to them.

with that i thank you all for hearing my report and i wish you all a good afternoon. >> directors do you have questions on the recommendation? seeing now we'll open it for public comment. moderator, please prepare the line. are there commenters? first caller, please. >> caller: david miller. i think the report got it right. in addition to converting bike lines already existing on the high injury corridor, and a buffer could accommodate to

protect bike lanes and it shows the frustration around sidewalk parking there was a motion passed a long time ago encouraging sidewalk parking on sites but that still isn't happening even when it is complaint driven. i think real work needs to be done there and i'm also excited to see what the cac has in terms of suggestions for the budget so i look forward to that. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: i'm interested in the idea of no turn on red. i think it should be more consistent. in new york city to not make a right turn on a red light unless

a sign permits it and it's posted. if i get injured at market street and second or i get injured at tarval and 45th, i've still gotten injured. i think there has to be a city wide consistency here. i think it's something we should look at and also when i read about the tncs, as a sometimes user i've not just used them in the city of san francisco but have used them in an interregional way which means crossing the bay bridge. i'm concerned of any attempts to restrict t.m.c. operations and could cause it to not cross the bridge to san francisco concerns me. we have to keep our regional mind set here because i don't want to find myself in a t.m.c.

and can't cross the bridge to come into san francisco. these are worth looking at but we can't forget san francisco is part of a larger region and need to be consistent. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> caller: this is mark bloomberg again. i just wanted to say a word of support and encouragement for the recommendation for asking the legislasoldier legislature for more authorities than t.n.c.s. the impact of t.n.c.s has been well documented but the impact on safety has received little attention and a cab driver or anyone who drives the streets with regularity or even

pedestrians, bicyclists and so forth kansas understand the vehicles are presenting a significant safety hazard. these are city streets. the fact that the cpuc controls them on a statewide basis should not disqualify the city from protecting its own residents and protecting it's traffic and air from the affects of these vehicles. so i would strongly encourage you to go forward with the latest part of your legislative agenda to give the city more control over t.n.c.s and particularly over the safety aspects of their operations and the numbers of these vehicles we finance. thank you. >> thank you.

moderator, are there any additional callers on line? next speaker, please. >> caller: good afternoon. this is barry. i want to reiterate what my colleagues have said. we support the c.a.c.'s recommendation that state legislature needs to give the authorization to enforce certain regulations the t.n.c.'s mist -- must follow. there's parking laws and driving laws they need to abide by and seem to ignore repeatedly including the whole right turn on red. the tenderloin has at least 85% no right turn on reds.

and you still have the weight of a lot of traffic lights because the light timing on most the streets is horrible. hyde street is the only street you can get light timing for those who are interested to know. all the other streets the light timing is horrible. larken needs to be a better street to go north on but they change the light timing and have to sit at least every other light. a lot of the lights have three cycl cycles that are making it very tough. anyway, please take to heart this resolution regarding the more resolution of t.n.c.s. thank you very much >> thank you. moderator, are there additional callers on the line?

>> item 9 is for members of the public for those wanting to speak on an item not on the agenda and a want to repeat the number, 888-808-6929, access code is 9961164 and you will need to press 1, 0 to get in the queue to speak.

>> moderators are there any callers. >> caller: a lot of operators are getting sickest while working especially around yards around third street and metro east, wood and the creek due to the implementation of r.p.p. at meter zones around there. i know you just launched a pilot but now they have to pay with their license plate. it's very confusing and hard to understand and also in general we should not be ticketing the people who are providing sustainable transportation to the city while at work. these people have to come in from far away and you guys know it. they should be able to purchase r.p.t. passes or just receive a

pass from the agency itself to not receive parking tickets for meter and r.p.p. the other thing i wanted to talk about is the lack of service that still continues in many areas of the city such as lake merced and some areas of the sun set and park side and diamond heights. meanwhile we're adding duplicate service along third street so we'll have a bus and light rail both coming at decent frequencies while some areas still have no service. that's not equity at the end of the day. i understand there are resource constraints may be we can look to resuming at least some mobile cleaning so the busses aren't spending so many time pulling in and out of the yard to be cleaned. at the end of the day, these people even with the 122 with lake merced is still not enough service for these people to get where they're going and they're miles from any muni service within the city of san francisco

and that's not okay. >> does that conclude your comment? >> caller: yes. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> mark glmberg again and the market street plan is disliked. much of the purpose has been lost and though it's been significant significantly pared down it will cost a ton the city can't afford. the bus lane construction buffers between lanes and speed tables and when you approved the original plan taxis were excluded from and on the premise hours would be out of the curb lane and in their own lane on

the sidewalk level. now instead bicycle tossed in with taxis and paratransit and any vehicle with a plate not just delivery vehicles. you can save money and maybe some lives if you put this plan on hold and wait for better times and you can go ahead with the original plan, put taxis back in the red lane and make the kind of street pothole repairs that are necessary but you can save a ton of money by not going ahead with the rest of this plan and working out a plan that is going to serve the purposes that you originally intended and most people would actually like. thank you. >> thank you, mr. gruber. are there additional callers on the line? next speaker, please.

>> caller: hi, good afternoon. this is barry toronto again. i want to reiterate the better market street plan as it is now is not going to work for taxi drivers. they had to make changes. first i want to give a shout-out to an employee who has done fantastic work in doing outreach. can't say they're not doing a lot of outreach on this plan and their colleague over at the department of public works. they're working to get a lot of outreach out there. however, the way the plan is and not allowing us to use the central lane is ridiculous because we shouldn't be mixing with the bicycles and scooters and the skateboarders. i'd appreciate that you take a look at this again.

especially having items brought up from the january 5 meeting. i appreciate you take a look at that. also, regarding foreclosures, there's been more foreclosures. taxi medallions. we can't afford to have more of these occur. it's ridiculous. why aren't you work the board of supervisors to come up with debt relief so the credit union doesn't have to continue with the foreclosures? the thing is we need to be able to look again as to whether this ban at the airport -- i was banned from the airport last weekend and had to sit around for hours waiting for fares in the city. it's not always that busy there and in having to fight with people parking in the cab stands is ridiculous. i would appreciate that you take a look at whether this new policy is really working for

anybody. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: thank you. for those in the room who may not know as of friday 11, december barts is now operating on flipper only. and this is a huge milestone. and i think muni needs to follow suit in being able to have a system that runs only on clipper and muni mobile and hopefully soon open payment because these options offer safe and registered possibilities and eliminate weak links in the system. we just need more credit union

and less coffee can. make way for people to pay for their transit fare in their communities including taking cash to the places they go to in their community opposed to having it in our network. we have an example to follow. they're almost done with the omnifare payment system in new york city. almost all 472 of their subway stations are finished and they'll move on to busses and rail including grand central terminal, the world's largest railroad station. we have to be part of this region. i don't want our agency to lose site of being part of this larger region that is the bay area. i leave you with this. san francisco is not an island. you must remember the city and county of san francisco, the city i truly love, is part of the state of california and

therefore part of this great nation that is the united states of america. thank you. >> moderator, are there additional callers on the line? next speaker, please. >> i understand members of the community are filing a grievance about this. i think a better system would be to extend the 29 bus there's a lot of businesses in the

presidio that were covered by the run and this could be a good extension the district has a good point but a better solution would be to extend the $29 run and simply have the 30 terminate at jefferson street as before. and i think the taxi medallion system is a disaster and should have never been instituted and should go back to the old system where the driver had custody of their own medallion. this is simply outrageous. thank you. >> thank you, mr. warner. moderator, are there any additional callers on the line?

we will close public comment. the next item is item 10 and all are considered to be routine and acted upon by a single vote. there'll be no separate discussion of an item unless a member requests and there's only one item here, 10.1 is approving parking modifications, a throughi. i won't read all of them. >> are there comments or reasons that people would like to consider these items separately? okay. moderator, please open the lines for public comment? with that it's back before the board

board of directors. >> move for approval. >> is there a second? >> second. >> great. >> i'll call the roll. chair borden. >> aye. >> director brinkman. the item passes. >> i'd like to call item 11 and 12 together. >> item 11 adopting the sfmta action plan and item 12 adoption of a resolution declaring

anti-black racism a human rights plan. >> i'm bad at names and i apologize in advance. >> i'd like to introduce this item since it's true to my heart before he speaks. we brought to you our draft racial equity action plan. i'm pleased to bring it forward today for adoption. i'm joined by a resolution on anti-black racism. we can go into detail on this but before they do i want to

talk a moment personally for my expectations for equity work at the sfmta. first, i understand this work is ongoing. it has to involve each and every one of us in every movement every day and iterative in that we're not going to get it right the first time. we have to learn from our mistakes and seek continual improvement as we try to do the hard work. it requires us to reflect on our personal actions. we've got to be candid particularly for the way those in power are complicit in perpetuating anyone -- inequities and work on that and the work is pervasive and cuts across everything we do as an agency and invites us to a space

of creativity. we these to be continually using our imagination to find ways to bust through the past inequitable patterns. i recognize the work begins specifically with me. for me and my executive team we need to be support our new equity officer who's hiring is imminent i'm told within the next couple weeks. we heard from our staff and racial equity affinity groups about the need to fully staff our race equity and inclusion office. as i've told you before, and you know all too well, our current financial limitations are not going to allow us to fully staff that office from the get go. [no audio]

as it not like we built thes racial equity action plan. we wilt it through volunteer time -- we built it through volunteer time through staff members who did the work because they believed it was important and dit on top of their regular jobs it needs to be more like running our center during covid where we re-allocated and form a team that cuts across the hierarchies of the organization and division of the organization in order to get this work done. that's one of the immediate steps that we will need to take as soon as we hire our new race equity and inclusion officer and figuring out a team and make sure they have the time allocated to do this work and

not do it in their 60th hour of week. we need to show progress and

accountable to the work. particularly me. i focussed in the past three months to make sure the plan is the structure by which we do our work, allocate our limited resources and hold ourselves accountable to the outcomes that we're committed to. so with that, i would like to turn things over to shumaka and present what is typical of their amazing months of work. >> thank you so much, jeff. thank you staff and community members. i hope today's treated you kindly so far. i'm currently the acting deputy chief of staff at the agency. the last time we came in november we had a conversation about some of the action plans. so for this conversation i wanted to contextualize what

happened. we unpacked what racial equity means at mta and we had a candid conversation on where we stand as an agency now and the progress we need to make moving forward. we shared details about the steps the agency needs to take on the path forward to become more equitable agency. and we also saw really effective staff organizing. many of my colleagues navigate the tension of being strong contributors to our equity efforts while recognizing they needed to communicate to you and our leaders and community at large we expect more from our agency when it comes to this work. and since mid november we've been preparing to reflect back to our staff about the outcomes of the feedback they shared with respect to this work to feed

bafeedback and hoping to reflect back later this week. we god feedback on what it means to got effectively lead the commitments. and this will help move the needle and i'll document the needs outstanding. we recognize there's only so much capacity in this moment particularly with the resources we currently have at the agency and it's a constrained environment and staff has been forthcoming with documents and once we follow through on the initial commitments the plan represents what are the needs that go further and are outstanding and must be addressed in the future. we also worked to mike the

affinity groups role in the accountability more explicit per the feedback shared in the last meeting and have been actively preparing documentation for our city's office of racial equity about how the places where mta's commitment diverge from their framework and city wide template to be representative to the unique needs and challenges we have as an agency. we have a unique department in the context of the city family. and so i think lastly, we started delivering on a lot of these commitments. kudos to our h.r. division and the folks responsible for the work because they recognize the work cannot and should not wait for a final submission to the office of racial equity for final adoption. we got moving on the work already and i'm happy to report that. so we are back at the board today to ask you to adopt and

formalize the living racial commitments and continue advance this work and to continue reflecting on adapting the commitments moving forward. secondly, to align with the office of racial equity's guidance and supplement the action plan by joining our human rights commission at the city level, health commission and several other departments in making a clear statement about where the agency stands with respect to anti-black racism specifically and want to transition to my cleg -- cleg to ex -- to my colleague to explain more. >> thank you. good afternoon, chair and all those tuning in. i'm heath tanner a senior transportation planner at sfmta. we've joined the two items together for the presentation by

design and the item declaring a representation declaring anti-black racism as a human rights and public health crisis around there's been the office of racial equity encouraged sfmta to adopt a resolution of this name as one of the first racial actions the agency could enact. it's building open -- upon resolutions of the same name and followed by other city departments as referenced from the public health commission to the public utilities commission. in that original resolution, the

human rights commission called on every city agency to assert, quote, anti-black racism is a human rights and public health crisis affecting our entire community. just as those agencies have followed suit, along with the board of supervisors, adopting the resolution of this name so too have staff at sfmta developed and assemble with the action planning team the resolution before you today. so this resolution references much of that important research data and findings we've seen from other departments resolutions. and those are linking incarceration, economic insecurity and displacement to the public health disparities experienced by black san franciscans today from heart disease to lower life expectancy to the death rate of covid-19.

and so to bridge those resolutions and their existing work with the context of our agency and the transportation sector, we added and wove in specific clauses that were germane to the work we do as referenced. our work as a transportation agency is unique in our city family. this calls attention to the dis-peter we've seen in our -- disparity we've seen in the transportation system and the impact transportation has had on san franciscans. railroad companies have historically discriminated against black riders and infrastructure has been deliberately placed in black communities create a legacy of environmental health stressors. our resolution before you today is taking the history and context and it is laying out a

pathway to address these harms. so the resolution of calling for our agency to hold all employees accountable for anti-black bias and racial harm and calling for an examination of our agency's hiring and promotion practices and for us to disaggregate all data by race and all action are consistent with the action proposed by the racial equity action plan you've seen previously. in fact, this resolution calls for the support of the racial equity action plan and its team and action plan implementation moving forward. to conclude by asking for you to consider both this resolution declaring anti-black racism a public health and human rights crisis and the racial equity access plan. thank you.

i want >> i want to thank you all for the work and we'll ab proving the action plan and it's symbolic and historic for our board. and we're hearing from others on their own feelings thank you for giving voice to and taking the time and input to design the best program for us. i'll first it to public comment out of respect for employees and others who may be on the line before we take it up for the board. moderator, please open the line.

>> caller: hello. i wanted to say great job to you chiamaka for taking ownership of the plan and pushing it through to the finish line and heath, great job with the development and finishing the anti-black racism resolution. i'm thankful the plan has been moved through this process and the agency is adopting it. i want to implore the leadership and you to empower the black and brown staff that work for the agency to implement the to have decision making authority in terms of resolving the issue

that exists at the agency. it was hard for me when i was there though i was at the executive level, my feedback and the framework wasn't implemented. it's not just to staff of color you agree with but the ones who don't agree with you who have a different perspective how to solve the issues in a non-traditional, non-contemporary way and through non-contemporary methods. i implored you to use your authority to not only empower leaders of color but fully back them even as a cis presenting, white male don't understand what you are asked to do and you have

trust and deliver what you demonstrate to other leaders predominantly white and other leaders to hear what i'm sharing in this moment to you director mcgood -- mcgwire and it's the only way meaningful change will take place. i believe it can happen. but people are going to need to be accountable and take responsibility for the issue. if not just the contents of what's in the plan but the ownership and the implement that will make the difference. thank you very much.

>> i now you may have frustrations but you moved the ball and our agency is better for your tenure. >> caller: thank you. >> we'll close public comment directors. are there comments? one thing we talk about was making sure we have a cohesive feedback loop work the various diversity groups and looks like that has been incorporated but maybe talk a little bit about how we see the moving forward. >> we have a commitment to reeth -- meeting with the racial

affinity groups and scheduling them to make sure not only is there a way we can have regular feedback but to report on progress. another thing we're working on right now is to take all the active steps as well as all the recommendations and turn it into a reporting tool so we can track progress with staff along with this obstacles we're running into or the success we've had or the ways in which we're failing to be open with that but also see the progress being made. we want to be able to share that openly to all staff and discuss that regularly with our affinity

groups. >> a few questions. i was interested to hear about the other anti-black racism resolutions and is this something we're seeing around the country with other cities. is that a trend that we're joining? and the second question director tomlin you spoke about this is incumbent on every individual day it day small actions and large and if you can speak to to the accountability and how it will support colleagues and through the small day it day actions. >> you may know more about the work our national peers are doing. we've been following closely the guidance distributed city wide

by the director. do you see how it meshes with [indiscernible]. >> i've been following the work of our city peers and or the we're part of a larger network of transportation agencies and city families across the nation, i'm not similar to other resolutions of this kind that have come up. i know this is in response. >> we've been following other

jurisdictions efforts on their racial equity action plans. i think the resolution around anti-blackness may be specifically tailored to san francisco and to our human rights commission. as far as accountability, the action plan itself lays out many different steps that work in sooerc sync to provide agency accountability around outcomes and to support individual accountability that starts in the human resources section with training. we do intend to fight our resource limitations to continue to invest significantly in training to help everyone understand the roots of anti-blackism and racism and all the work daunte king established

at the sfmta. we need to continue that and translate that into what actions we need to take as individual staff members throughout the agency we're also making sure we are training around issues like discipline where we know we have issues around outcomes. we want to connect with that in a deep way and we've had significant progress in terms of the detailed strategy for dealing with employee discipline even beyond what is written now in the racial equity action plan. another factor that we experimented with was in the reviews and we evaluated each other and were evaluated around

perceptio perceptions particularly for women and people of color and we're all trapped in our own s and the action plan is around a broader and deeper understanding of data. another thing we'll be working on is parsing the outcome data and are some people treating

other people ditch by race and gives tools to managers and teams and let us understand what are the division routine's that have been most successful at creating outcomes and what can we learn from their success and understand how to apply that to other agencies around the agency. we know anecdotally some teams are doing a better job and we want to be able to promote that kind of leadership and advance it and spread it throughout the agency. i hope that gives you a partial answer to what's a complex question. >> are there any comments? i'd be happy to approve both items. >> i will second. >> questions or comments on closing this wonderful meeting work our team brought before us. i know we had an extensive

meeting last time on the topic. i wanted to say there's no lack of comments because we don't have an have presentations for various affinity groups and update on the plan to make sure we're making meaningful change to the organization in my dream and many of our dreams the future is we'll be the most sought after agency in san francisco to work for and the place where people feel like they get to be friends with and work with people from all walks of life equally, successful and supportive and feel great about their work. that's our hope. if there are no other questions or comments from our board of directors, i think we can move to a vote on both items. >> there's two separate resolutions but i think i will

call for item 11. [roll call] >> for item 12. [ro is there a motion? has that been done? >> i moved both items. >> great. [roll call] the item passes. next on your agenda is item sp, approving the sfmta's 2021 legislation program.1sp,

approving the sfmta's 2021 legislation program.13sp, appro1 legislation program.13, approving the sfmta's 2021 legislation program. we'll have kate. >> good afternoon, chair borden and i'm kate greene the director of government affairs today to present for your consideration our annual local state and federal legislative program and i've been before you before with the framing of this and guides our work at all levels of government. i do want to point out following that presentation you just had and the discussion we were intentional in adding language into this program that is consistent with the agency's commitment to advance racial equity and this program will also serve to support the racial equity action plan and bring a racial equity lens aimed at

advocating for anti-racist policy at all levels of government. i think the challenge for us in the policy world is to figure out how we operationalize that and bring different voices in and we at the state level we've had the opportunity to direct organizations like the california transit association to create a race, equity and inclusion task force. we're working with our city partners bringing the dots in conversation and looking for tools to use on an ongoing basis to assess the impact of the policies that we're supporting or advancing unadvancing racial justice. -- in advancing racial justice. i wasn't intending with this to say all of that but given the

previous item we're including that in our policy work and i'll introduce a former colleague of yours a local government affairs manager and he will give you a presentation on our local government affairs priority and then a senior analyst of state and federal affairs will present to you our state and federal priorities. both incredible team members. we're not before you very often. just want it give them a shout out and turn over the mic. thank you. >> good afternoon, directors. local government affairs manager having the privilege of serving on the board of directors for seven years before coming in to serve under the director kate greene and here to talk to you a little bit about what are the local government affairs agenda

is going to be based on this year and last year. so if you can get to the next slide. thank you. so just to remind you of some of the things, the types of things we'll be doing here based on what we did last year, when we are not entertaining legislation coming from the board of supervisors [please stand by] .

. -- finally the emerging mobility and innovation programs and that we have. these are all things that have required legislation of some sort that the government affairs

team ended up working on and shepherding through while at the same time again working tandemly with legislation that comes our way from city hall. i would love to point out i found this slide, director brinkman will remember being at the ground breaking of this, seeing red paints for the van ness b.r.t. project. so, this year, or this coming 2021, we will be focussing on these priorities here again enumerated but by no means listing any kind of particular order of preference. they are all very important but just to give you some back story here, and to get a little detail on what you are seeing here, of course the san francisco county transportation authority always is our key partner in lots of

different things as we are working with them to, whether it's congestion fee analysis or doing what we can to get funding, any time there is any kind of legislation or legislative approval that's needed we'll be working with them on a regular basis, and i would encourage you if you ever have the time, i know that you have literally dedicated thousands of hours in volunteer time, which i deeply am appreciative of and i'm sure everyone in the agency appreciative of, if you could squeeze out a little more, i would encourage you to watch those sfmta meetings that happen every other tuesday when you are not meeting mostly and lots -- you'll learn lots of interesting things about what's going on from the board of -- board of supervisors and the t.a. perspective. next, of course, there are lots of priority projects that

require legislative approval, whether it's around things like the brt or any other kind of major projects that we have going on. sometimes there is a shift that we need to do in the way that we are governing or regulating our streets. these are things that often require again shepherding it through getting legislative approval and different ways. policies that might -- that again are working with city hall to get passed. so, we'll be working on those things for priority projects. there is then lots of new interesting activity as a result of the pandemic and the need to take protective measures and the shared spaces and slowed streets have been one of those things that have required sometimes legislative authority or will require legislative authority, especially if we are going to be

making any of them permanent. so, if we do, you can bet on some kind of a proposal going through this board and/or potentially getting cooperation or partnership with the board of supervisors. potrero yard initiative, trying our best to get our system modernnized and able to serve for another 100 years. this particular project was heard at the t.a. as early as this morning. we are continuing to work at the board of supervisors and the t.a. on getting the legislative approval we will need for this project. that is modernnizing the word, 100 years old and in need -- and prioritize affordable housing,

certainly some housing on that project if at all possible. but not at the expense of the bus yard. we of course have lots of work to do with vision 0. whether it's regulating speed in one way or another by lowering speeds in the neighborhoods on our local streets or whether it's automated speed enforcement, this is likely to generate some need for legislative approval in one way or another. emerging mobility innovation. this is another thing that we frequently need to get through this board and sometimes through getting good partnership with our -- with your peers at the t.a., making sure that we are able to regulate whether it's autonomous vehicles or scooters or bike share, whatever it might be. there was a settlement that i'm sure that you read about and heard about that happened about

the board of supervisors just last week. so there is lots of work to do there. and finally, probably the heavy lifting from this body will go to the various ballot initiatives that are looming before us, something that we are deeply interested in in the way of a general obligation bond. re-authorizing a new bond that goes beyond the 500 million that we had originally and are getting ready to spend out if we haven't already, and then prop k is the sales tax that would likely go back to the ballot again, it's not going to expire, this is one of these sales taxes that we need to continuously monitor the expenditure plan for and build new plans around them and get the public's ok with it through one way or another,

ideally through the ballot is the way we would do that. and then finally we would put together a work -- thinking about some way, one of the ways we are thinking about generating more revenue for the agency is through the establishment of a community facility district, and as you all might know, a way where the agency has the authority to effectively create a mechanism where the residents of san francisco can vote to tax themselves in a way that's different from the region or the city but expressly to invest in transportation infrastructure and transit infrastructure. so that's another thing that this office would likely work on. so that's it. i could go on and on all day as you -- as director borden and brinkman know, but out of respect for your time and respect for my colleagues that have to come before you, i'm going to stop here. i'm happy to take questions at

the end of this presentation. i'm going to turn it back over to director to introduce the legislative priorities. thank you. >> ok. fantastic. hello, thank you so much. and we are going to move now to an update and presentation on our state legislative program, and i'm going turn it over. >> hi, good afternoon, directors, chair borden, focussed on state and local priorities. i'll talk as well as a little background, a look behind on 2020 and at the state and federal levels, it's really important setting the context for going forward in 2021. so at the state level in 2020, you know, because of the pandemic, we were really, a lot

of the initiatives we thought might move forward were put on hold and we focussed on covid-19 relief. the state did not provide any direct assistance for transit funding, we were provided some flexibility in state funding sources in terms of, you know, changes to regulatory programs, more flexibility that we need in funding in order to use the resources that we -- in the best way that we can, you know, because we know that better than others, especially responding during this time. in addition, we were grateful that the senator was able to pass sb288 last year, provide us with some statutory extensions for critical from the transportation recovery plan, for new temporary transit only lanes and new bike and pedestrian infrastructure, we know will help us in our recovery plan. federal level we were lucky

enough to receive $373 million in federal funding from the cares act. and as you've heard from director tumlin's remarks earlier today, this helped us bridge the gap and be ok for a little while as we continue to advocate for new funding down the road. so, in addition to that federal funding, we also received flexibility in some of the other funding sources that we received which also just provides us with more opportunity to use the money where we need it the most right now. and as we look forward, i'll get into this a little more, continuing to advocate for $32 billion in funding for the next emergency relief package and also discussed briefly, earlier today, we know that there is a bipartisan proposal on the table that will hopefully provide us with new funding to help us bridge the gap until some more significant relief comes through in the next administration. sacramento. looking ahead at 2021, of course

we'll be focussed again on covid-19 relief. we are going to continue to advocate for additional emergency funding and statutory changes and we are doing this especially in close partnership with the transit association. in addition, we'll be working with m.t.c. on the blue ribbon transit recovery task force. that's a venue where a lot of the agencies and stakeholders are coming together to think about how we can respond in a coordinated manner to the pandemic and make things better, you know, when we look into a recovery mode. in addition to covid-19 funding we'll be looking for general new funding, you know, for all of our agencies operation. so this will include supporting local and regional efforts to identify any new transportation funding and helping to support our state grant applications and listing our state delegation as needed to try to get every dollar we can from the state to

help backfill the budget gaps. mission 0 is, you know, a huge priority in sacramento this year, and we are really excited that just this week it was announced an assembly member laura freedman from the los angeles area will be the new chair of the transportation committee and she has been a real advocate for vision 0 and a lot of progresstive transportation policies that are exactly in line with what we are trying to do in sacramento. and she was also the author of the legislation that created the 0 traffic fatalities task force last year that has now come out with a report of findings that she is helping to advance in legislative proposals. the first one is actually exactly in line with our transformative policy agenda, help provide local jurisdictions with more control over speed limit setting and moving away from the 86th percentile. and already introduced a spot bill on this, ab43, for which

signals to everyone else a high priority for her next year. so we are super excited about that and working with her staff to draft the legislative language that it works for us and on the ground in san francisco. also exploratory conversations on speed safety cameras or automated speed enforcement. just to really make sure that all the stakeholders are involved and think about how we can overcome the hurdles last time and the new direction moving forward on this. no legislation introduced to date, or the date when they could introduce a bill, but we'll, of course, continue to work closely on this moving forward. other items, focus on the camera program and supporting any and all bike and pedestrian safety efforts that come up in the legislature. the next policy bucket is

emerging mobility and innovation, and this includes micromobility, urban lift, shuttles, emerging tool we can use. but the conversation in sacramento on this topic over the past couple years has really focussed on the kind of struggle between state and local authority over the new modes and we have spent a lot of efforts by industry in sacramento to try to free up some local regulation that is we have in place in san francisco. for example, scooter share program and our bike share program. so we'll advocate for local authority over those programs to make sure that we can continue our permit programs, focus on safety and accessibility and equity to make sure that they work on our streets. as was discussed in the c.a.c. report today, always been a lot of interest in what can we do

about t.n.c.s and we are, you know, always thinking about ideas and having conversations about what it could look like to, you know, explore something in that area. so we will continue to do that, you know, everything would, of course, be focussed on safety, safe operations and congestion management. and i want to acknowledge also in addition to legislation that comes up in these realms, also a lot of work going on in the regulatory space at state agencies, such as the d.m.v., and the air resources board, different facets of emerging mobility and so we are working really closely on all of those efforts, whether they are legislative or regulatory or rule making proceedings. we are really engaged in all that. and just lastly, congestion pricing, of course, you all know the t.a. is currently doing a study right now that's really looking at all the alternatives and all the ways that we can make a program work in san

francisco and closely partnering with them on that and following their lead on any type of implementation and at what point that would require state legislative authority. next i want to talk a little about regional transit integration. as i mentioned before, at m.t.c. blue ribbon transit recovery task force, looking ahead, to make travel in the region more integrated and more customer-focussed, and really make some progress in that realm. and so we are working closely with a lot of other transit agencies and general managers as well as the stakeholders on that task force to develop some concepts for how to move forward with this that will likely result in state legislation that assembly member chu is interested in moving forward next year. parking is always something that we are following closely because it's so critical to our operations. in sacramento, a lot of the conversation on parking lately focussed on the fines and fees and particularly how we can

create programs that allow us to enforce parking but without creating undue burden on low income population. so we'll continue to work on any legislation that comes up in that to really make sure we can help balance those priorities. we'll of course do everything to help our curb management policies move forward in a way that works for us with any changes we want to make, and also follow any conversations on accessible parking policy since that is a topic in the past, although we have not heard much about it lately. sustainability is a large priority for the newsom administration, legislators this year will do, will follow legislation and focus on g.h.g. mission reduction and especially anything we can do to help support our bus electrification and supporting any infrastructure to support that conversion that we need going forward.

and so the further list of priorities, all on one slide because we spend a lot of our time on the state and a little less on the federal so i want to lump it together. know what's important, the first one, emergency relief funding and we know congress is our best bet for significant i funding to help us through this time, and so we are spending a lot of time and energy working with our lobbyis lobbyists and our mayor's office to advocate for additional funding to support operations throughout the pandemic. with the biden administration, looking for any opportunities for initiative or stimulus package that comes through and see how we can benefit from that. policy level, the surface transportation long-term bill, the fast act up for reauthorization this year, likely this fall and an

opportunity to influence federal policy priorities we want to see for the long-term. so we have already started to work with our federal delegation on making sure things like vision 0 and safety and concerns about merging mobility integrated going forward. several pushes to pass sweeping ab legislation for framework and the rollout on the streets, and the team has been engaged in that work and will continue to do so as that moves forward. and of course, anything else in the emerging mobility realm that comes up we will monitor closely and in terms of sustainability, you know, anything that we can do to, you know, makes sure people see the connection with the transit and the streets to combat climate change, reduce

g.h.g. emissions and carry that message board with that in d.c. and with that, thank you, and happy to answer any questions. >> thanks. i want to say one thing, which is this, we are super small team and i want to say the breadth of content that's out there that we work on, we could not do alone without the incredible support of our colleagues across all divisions. we are matrix people, we rely on their subject matter expertise. i feel we have an incredible array of staff and so i just want to send a shout out and acknowledgment to all of our divisions who work to support all of us in this policy arena. thank you for that, thanks j.d. as well. >> and thank you. on behalf of the board of directors, it's an extensive list of priorities to manage and a lot of things going on at different times and we are certainly not the only transit agency out there demanding and

needing things at the various levels. and so, and it's a difficult time, quite frankly. so, we want to thank you for your hard work and advocacy, all levels of government and the way that you represent us to make sure that we have a seat at the table. thank you, with that i'll move into questions from our board. director eaken. >> thank you so much, madam chair, and thank you legislative team for the update. a couple questions about our advocacy goals. so, i think we have all seen the 32 billion number, the roll-up of what many transit agencies and the country are asking for, have to also imagine at some point the number becomes out of date and actually a different target number so i wanted to check in and understand sort of, and also i think it's around 15 billion maybe the hoped for amount coming by the end of this week. i wanted to just check in on that roll-up and then maybe along those lines, it seems the

slow streets kind of shared spaces movement has been a bright spot in the pandemic, and just wondering if we are part of these different national coalitions, have we similarly done a look at what it would take to build out safe biking and walking infrastructure networks around cities so that when we are in those conversations in d.c. and pushing for specific numbers we get, like the corollary to the 32 billion for transit, do we have that number on hand thinking about building out safe bike networks across our cities? >> well, that is a super interesting question. our focus has been on you are right, it was 32 billion the target and the current word is for the, of the 15 billion, of the portion that we would be receiving, it's about 13.78 billion. that is the rest of it is the

differences to rural areas and other portions of the federal programs. those dollars, director eaken would flow back, and around that table with a commitment based on the cares act distribution, that funds would be trude up and distributed in the region. i think that as director tumlin said that would really be just the begin of what we need. it is, i wouldn't even call it a down payment. i think it's intended and acknowledged to be a bridge to a much greater need through fy2022. fingers crossed, hopefully this time, we were hopeful two weeks ago we thought there was going to be a final relief bill. feels a little more real this time but you just can't wait until, our bet until it's over. with regard to your second question, i think that's something we have to look into immediately. i have not seen figures around

that, that would be a corollary to your point about what an investment in safe biking networks would look like, but it would seem to be an appropriate conversation and initiative in the context of both an infrastructure/stimulus bill as well as reauthorization. and within reauthorization there is a distinct opportunity for us to really look at what are federal programs funding, and what are we building with those dollars. director heminger knows better than anybody we don't figure out a way to pay for all the programs we are not going to have anything to build anyway. and they have not cracked that nut as to what a future sustainable funding source would be for a federal program. so, that's my initial response, director eaken, to your question. >> and through the national association of city transportation offeringses we are trying to work with congress to change the 80/20 rule. biggest source for capital money

through the federal highway administration by statute distributes the money, 80% to highway, 20% to transit, and so cities like san francisco who are no longer demolitioning neighborhoods in order to widen highways are not eligible for the 80% portion of federal capital distribution to local jurisdictions. so congresswoman presley and others have pointed out the inequity and trapped in the 1950s, and whether it moves forward depends on what happens january 5th. >> great. curious as part of our federal platform, or our federal advocacy goals, is there any talk of just thinking about the idea of more of that federal

money flowing directly to cities in transit agencies who as you mentioned just tend to be in the business of building sustainbly friendly transit agencies than states? something happening at all? >> it's one of the direct aid to cities for those reasons. this region is a little bit different in that federal dollars do flow through the regional planning agency and p.c. and so while we do get some direct grants for projects, formula dollars, flexible federal dollars such as the surface transportation program which can be used for transit investments do flow through the regional agencies. so we are in that conversation but i think we want to navigate how it works for our situation here in the bay area. >> ok. and then finally, was it j.d. --

i thought it was really interesting that you mentioned that some of the relief, some of the way the relief is manifesting was more flexibility in the existing programs and getting to your point, director tumlin, about the 80/20, and some of the historical legacy guidelines that kind of keep us moving in one direction as opposed to a direction focussed on climate and equity, it's interesting the idea of flexibility and wondering if it's part of our, again, what we are pushing for at the state level or pushing for at the federal level if there an opening during this time of emergency to reconsider the antiquated guidelines beyond what's been done already. >> not only -- i'm sorry, good ahead and answer. >> we have -- that's how it's come down so far and it has worked for us and we'll do anything we can to show how that is so important and how it can

help us achieve different goals as we advocate moving forward. >> in addition to flexibility, we are also collaborating nationally on ways of reducing the ways in which the national environmental policy act is unintentional significant obstacle against transit projects or bike projects or other ways of better using the public right-of-way. and it's interesting that the republicans in congress are interested in reform that would closely match 288 here in california that would grant statutory relief for projects that improve transit or bikeability in the existing public right-of-way by giving them the relief, so we are also collaborating through nacto lending our staff expertise to lead some of the secret reform work here in california as you

know very well director eaken. >> thank you. director lai. >> all right, thank you. first of all, i have to say i felt like the list was very comprehensive. anything i would have thought of i felt like was included. i'm really glad to hear the focus around the locally, at least, the, interest around the shared spaces and how we should be legislating it moving forward. there are quite a few applicants that are interested in the permanence of that.

>> i wish that i was in control of those lever levers. i'm acting in guidance from the executive team and would really

take direction from what the executive team would like to advocate for. i'm confident that hes has lots of ideas spinning in his head. maybe you might want to speak a little about the dif different mechanisms. what ideas do we have in working with the board of supervisors for measures to get back into sosolvencies. i know you're a part of that committee. it might be good for them to hear what you've been talking about there. >> we're of course working closely with the controllers

office and nearly all of the other department city on how do we distribute san francisco increasingly limited rea sourc r for the good. you've probably seen the general fund pain that they are experiencing. while the larger city governments have greater reserves and have not been hit quite as hard as we have, they have been hit hard. they are trying to figure out how to distribute that pain. we're very much engaged in those conversations. >> thank you. i'm sure we'll be talking about this in our budget workshops. at the state an federal level. one of my questions was ls alrey asked for state and federal split between highway versus transit is really important for

cities to emphasize the equity issue there. glad to hear there's already conversations around that. i think i did hear that we're expecting to push along those lines meaning a larger portion of state level funding towards transit and moving it away from highways. did i hear that also? >> i don't know that we can declaratively say that we're going to move entire programs that are funning sm the source of transit funning is pretty clearly defined in state law. we would look for flexibility to move dollars. that would happen on the transportation commission or funding programs. that would be my initial answer to your question.

>> okay. so if i heard you correctly, it sounds like you're suggesting changing the state law is not really within our annual agenda here but adflexibilit add flexid the use of funding. >> yes. >> the regional transit impact are we thinking about doing anything along those lines this year. what i'm really getting at is quite often when there are jobs housing pattern changes in other municipalities regionally there would be impacts for cities like san francisco. wondering how that is fitting into your annual vision here. >> those larg larger land use ie

from the mayor's office than the board of supervisors. what we do play a strong role in is getting to understand the transportation implication of land use decision making. particularly the consequences of under supplying housing in the bay area. how that quickly becomes a dire transportation problem. we tend to take a backseat and provide a more informational role around topics like land use or economic strategy. we're in a leadership position in transportation and transportation agency related. >> that's a request reminder from the request about an update on the fair immigration tax

board as well as the transit recovery tax force. that is the table around where the conversation is going to play out between now and june when that tax force is going to be done. on the natural take into account where people are moving in the region. that is a live forum where these conversations are going to be happening. >> great. thank you. i appreciate that remine reminet the roles and responsibilities. what i observe is when major decisions get made transportation is reactive towards that. as much as possible when we do have a seat at the table, i would like to take a more proactive approach in regional transit. thanks. >> thank you, director.

>> thank you, madam chair. kate, i don't have a point for your platform but i do have a suggestion. that is as soon as he is confirmed, we invite mayoral pete out tinvite mayor peteout . one of the challenges is a lot of the key committee chairman are from nowhere. their sensitivity to urban issues ranges from ignoring them to out right hostility. i think we're going to need to take advantage of our leverage are the administration to ensure cities get a fair shake in the next authorizing bill at least. >> i'm not shy in asserting our position with the team and look forward to working with our new

secretary of transportation who i think will be a remarkably strong leader for the department of transportation despite his lack of transportation experience directly. he understands how cities work. one of those funmental economically just

thank you. with that i think we can-did we take public comment. i think we did not. let's see if the members of the public have any comments on our legislative agenda. moderators can you open up the lines. >> you have two questions remaining. >> yes, i didn't expect to be the first caller. i just hit ten right now. i need to give a shout out

christina, she is married to one of your top officials. it was a great presentation. i wanted to say that we need to ask more specifically what we want and how we regulate and have more control over access to san francisco streets. i think this is more important to be more specific. maybe her staff can out reach to taxi drivers and how we can make suggestions to that. the next thing is about the scooters on the streets. i-either don't allow the traffic laws to apply to them or make it tighter and clearer on the laws how they do apply to them. i rarely see a scooter stop at a

stop sign or a traffic light. urge that they look at the issue of requiring helmets while riding these scooters on the streets. i think it's ridiculous if you are over eighteen you don't have to wear one. i appreciate you looking at that issue. i think it's important to also ask the city to allow the c tu c regarding the robe oh taxis. they should be required to have a medal yan.

>> next speaker. >> couple of quick points on this. i heard part of the presentation, but not all. lot of things going on. in the staff report i believe it indicates that the c a c supported-page four. the mta c a c approved a motion to support, i believe that motion failed actually. there was a divided vote. i think they did not support the program but the hold outs wanted more detail in the staff report. in the future it would be good to have the staff report go to the c a c. i believe they did supportests tsupports togain regulatory ove.

i believe you'll find that reflected on page two that's back at item eight. i will contact kate to follow-up on transportation development act tda development reform. something i'm interested in and kate has been involved with for years. i think it would be good to include a regional element in future programs. this is pretty focused on local state and federal but i think what you could call legislative efforts like a bag and mt c that aren't specifically grant relates where we might have a specific advocacy agenda. it would be useful to cod fie

that. >> thank you. next speaker. >> you have one question remaining. >> next speaker, please. >> my name is bill. i live in the bay view. i was surprised that we are not applying for highway funds. we have freeways in san francisco that need addressing. there should be a committee set up to look at our freeway system. geneva avenue overpass to connect to the bay view is a freeway project. highway 80 to hospital curve to

fourth street is a big traffic jam that should be stu studied o see how that could be impro imp. you have two off ramps or onramps where cars are stopped on the freeway. we should be looking into those situations and applying for some of the highway fund that's are there to correct those situations. thank you very much. >> thank you. are there any additional callers on the line. >> with that we'll close public comment. i guess that opens up a comment. do we get any dollars from the federal highway administration from any of our related work. >> we don't get a lot. dpw is really-san francisco isn't on the big receiving list

for formula federal highway dollars. if there are projects that cal trans works on. those are funned with federal highway dollars. as an agency, not so much. >> okay. good to know. directors are there any other questions or comments before we move on and go onto our next item? >> i just have one thing. the caller who talked about the highway funds. it might be worth mentioning just for that callerred edfiction i believe they looking to- >> the partnership with mta we're in the process with working on a component of that

called streets and highways and looking at some changes and modifications largely to look at bus service and pricing to cut dowp odown on congestion. we're no longer demolishing neighborhoods in san francisco in order to do that s. the state of the repair work, those are not uses that are typically eligible for our rooted in 1958 highway funding formulas. >> thank you. i understand. >> great. do we have a motion to approve this agenda. this very dynamic.

>> i'll second. >> we'll have the roll call now of the vote. >> all right. >> (roll call) the item passes. moving onto your next item 14. thorsing thauthorizing the taxae bonds to refinance all or a portion of the series 2012a2012b and lower debt service cost to finance the cost of certain transportation projects not to exceed three hundred millions for such obligations and pay the

cost of issuances. >> good afternoon. senior budge budget manager. i'm going to give you a briefing we'll run through the recommendations specifically for today. just to remind the board and public at our last board meeting we had a conversation about our current budget deficit and revenue losses we were expecting in fiscal year 22. as feedback we received from the board and employees and the public was to work toward reducing that deficit and minimizing any layoffs. we're working on that right now and have some information for you in february. we've received over fifty ideas from our employees to date. we're evaluating all of them. we're looking at numerous

different options to close that in the first fiscal year. one of the things the board asked us to look at. we'll do a similar update with the board at your next board meeting at the status of the capital improvement program. we are expecting loss n losses t area. to reduce the operating deficit that we expect in the next two years. with that one of the tools we do have available is to take advantage of the current market and refinance the existing fmt revenue bonds we do have in place sm we'r. we're hopeful we can get this action completed they'll realize savings that will go towards the year's deficit. if you refinance your home we're

hoping to realize some savings. based on the savings look at our cip and see what flexible dollars we have to move to operating costs which is not a huge part of our cip. a lot of our capital dollars are restricted in their use. we do have sources where we are able to ship those over to operating budget if need be. based on that direction from you, we are looking to potentially take advantage of the marketplace and issue another revenue bond and new dollars. we do not impact our repair or priority projects that we have currently happening on the streets of san francisco. we made no definite decision yet but we do need to begin the steps to be able to issue another revenue bond in the next

few months if you want take advantage of that opportunity of shifting capital funds over to the operating budget. we want to back fill the project or capital project needs the agency might have for the next two to three years. that's the introduction. with that mark will go into the technical elements. we'll run through the rest. >> can you hear me? okay. my name is mark blake. just to clarify what i'm going to do is give you a brief overview framing of your federal securities law related to any bond issues that are proposed and samuel will actually walk you through the staff report on the two bond issues.

first, my task is to give you a brief thirty thousand foot overview of the securities laws as they apply to the board with respect to these issues. the first thing to know, i'm going to give you the legal context and give you basically some direction on how you can discharge your legal obligations. the first context is that municipal issuers are not regulated by the security and exchange commission in accessing the capital markets. we are subject to the commissions of the federal securities law. the 33 act and the 34 exchange act. when we access the capital markets we do so through a

perspective. we prepare a statement and those of you on the board you've probably seen the perspective. it's a statement of the financial affairs as of the date of ts its publication. when we publish that document. that cannot contain any material miss statements or omissions. what that means is that the term material is the driver. material means basically critical facts, information that would change a person's decision about whether to invest in the sfmta's bonds. what we will do is we will prepare a perspective, in fact we've initiated the preparation of that document now to give a fair snap shot of the mta financial position and that

document will ultimately come to you along with other financing documents for your approval. what the securities and exchange commission has done through its pronouncements and board actions has used board of directors such as yourselves as gate keepers sm the direction they have given is you cannot approve a offering document if you have reason to know that it has material miss statements or omissions. what does that mean for you? you have to take some steps to assure yourselves that the document doesn't obtain material miss statements or omissions. what we will do prior to the bond issue is we will provide you with an overview of the bond issue, questions and answers and

then what you are obligated to do under the securities laws is to ask yourselves some basic questions. this all arises out of the orange county bankruptcy where they approved their offering document on the consent calendar. they completel completely relief to review the document or ask question about the document unaware of the purposes for which their issuing bonds. in effect the fcc regulates the board members to ask those basic questions. what's the purpose, what are the proceeds going to be used for. what's the source of repayment. are there any unique risks associated with the bond issue? that would impact the ability to repay bond holders.

and then finally the big question is is there any information you have in your possession as a member of the sfmta board that staff might not be aware of that you should apprise staff of prior to approving that document. and so it basically obligates the board to ask questions. the direction i give to board member sz ts is to the extent tt you have your list of five significant issues facing the sfmta, ask staff when this matter comes to you where is that discussed and have staff point you to that or examine the document for yourself. and determine whether or not the description of that comports with your understanding of the issue. the punch line to this to a

certain degree is the fcc is concerned not that investors not invest in a particular issue or bond but be compensated for the risk they are taking. to the extent that we provide disclosure and somebody decides to invest, we can't be held at fault if there's a hiccough down the road. we've told investors here we are. they determined to invest. presumably they've been compensated for that decision. that's really our task. i'll prepare a cheat sheet kind of slide deck that will accompany the offering document along with the question and answer. that will put you in a position to initiate your inquiry. with that that's kind of my presentation for the day. if you have any questions i'm here to answer them.

>> maybe we'll just pause here because this is significant for our fiduciary responsibility of the board. i think that we obviously-we've been prebriefed about this topic. i want to make sure everybody is clear about what our responsibilities are here in this process. everyone's clear? great. we'll proceed to the next portion of the presentation. >> all right. thank you board, thank you directors and mark and jonathan. to be clear what you're looking at and approving today is not the offering dock m.

document. but the preliminary package that allows us to move forward with the transaction. i'll cover our time line later on in the presentation. we'll be coming back to you after this to seek approval over which mark highlighted for responsibilities. with that said, i'll start with the presentation. i do want to point out that the basis of our revenue bonds and enterprise revenues that are constituted in large part by fair parking fees and fine revenues. we do have additional sources such as rent, advertising, concessions, and a few other minor sources that constitute revenues. that's our bonds as well. revenue bonds should be distinguished from general

obligation bonds which are issued by the city backing up property taxes as opposed to enterprise revenues. >> with that the opportunity today that we're bringing forth is based on what we've heard from the board and also based on our presentation on 12. one which we presented fy21 scenarios. we're currently projecting there will be a 200 million-dollar deficit over the course of the cip. this is one tool to help us manage that. this is specifically the new money bond as distinguished from the refunding bond. we're having refunding that we're proposing and also

proposing new money. we'll have two separate pieces of the presentation here that will cover each of those components. to distinguish those our refunding is a refinancing of our existing debt. our new money bonds are new debt that require new debt service to be paid by the agency. the reason we're proposing both of these refundings right now is because that has one of the best credit ratings in the transit industry. especially since the onset of covid we've done very well compared to our peer nz terms is of handling our financial situation. with our good rating and hiss to havicly good rates, the agency has the chance to offer our bon it investors for historically

low price. to sum it up, rates are probably not go down. at this point the agency can issue debt at historically low cost. we're looking at $21 million in net present value savings. in addition to up to forty three million dollars that would be released over the next three fiscal years provide immediate and year term budget relief. i'll go into a bit more detail shortly into the details of that. this should all be caveated with the note that we may decide not to move forward with refunding at anytime if our financial situation changes or if the market changes to such an extent that it's not beneficial for the mta to move forward.

this next slide highlights highr current outstanding debt is. what we're proposing as a part of this refunning is to refinance years 2012 to 2014 in working with financial advisors to run the numbers. we found refunding would not result in any savings from the agency. this next slide provides a comparison of refunding scenarios at high level. here we present the base case which is always a good way to present refundings or new money because there are different ways you can structure a bond for different outcomes which i'll go

into here. basically the base case provides level debt service over the life of the bond. in in case it provides level savings for refunding through 2024. that results in 20 point nine million in net savings in today's dollars. that's the base case ch which we enhance of near term cash flow for slightly less savings which you can see is twenty point four. the year flow is forty three million. basically when looking at scenario one versus scenario two we're trading five hundred thousand dollars for long term savings for ten million dollars

in immediate cash flow over the next three years. that's the trade off and our staff report is recommending moving forward with the up front scenario as it will help mitigate the impacts and stem the losses in our operating budget. it will provide that near term budget relief that we'll need right now. this is a detailed look at those scenarios. one thing you'll notice here is that both refundings include a 14 million release that the srf which is our tax service reserves. we did not include a debt service reserve but in all others we did.

it's a target that we'll look at before we go to market to make the decision of whether or not to go through with the

transaction. it should be noted as you'll see here in the sensitivity analysis what we did is we tested our theory of that benchmark of three percent to see how if the market changed, how would that influence the savings that would come to the agency. you'll see that even with the point 5% rise in interest rates we're still at eight point one percent to refund at par. additionally if we have a one hundred point base we'll still be meeting our benchmark of three percent. we should note here each scenario were run in november ssments th.these numbers still n our assumptions. based on our conclusions we have

a descent amount of float. we have a 10% buffer there. the thing to note here even if we did see a change in market or financial position for the mtb savings went down to three percent we would be able to reclaim those other savings in terms of the near term relief for the agency. i should note as well the federal reserve has indicated they will keep rates low for the foreseeable future. it's roughly two months out. we expect that market will stay stable. of course, markets are hard to predict. that concludes the refunding portion of the presentation and brings us to the new money

option. as you'll remember back on september first my colleagues joel and jared came to the state of good repair. we have a three point two billion dollar state of good repair. one of the things that's on our mind as we seek out must money is that three point two million backlog of continuing losses in our cip. what that means if we do not back fill those loss that's are due to covid 19 we'll fall farther and farther behind in our streets and transit and state of good repair. that's what we don't want. we want to invest in san francisco and our transit system. when we see a recovery post covid 19 we're able to support

in the social and economic life of the city. as director tomlin stated we're a critical piece in the state of san francisco. you may be asking yourself why 300 million. that's paced o based on our curt estimates of losses and would allow us to back fill any funs that were switched from capital to the operating budget. we believe that's an amount that would support our capital budget while also giving us flexibility to make a decision moving ahead on what the amount should be. it should be stated as well that the three hundred million is a not to exceed amount. we're not committing ourself moving forward to issue that

300 million. when we come back towards the end of january we'll have a solid number to bring to you along with our preliminary number statements. here we have funding scenarios, we have three as opposed to two. we have base case. level debt service assuming down grade in our credit score. we have level aggregates in the amount of debts that we owe in the life of the bond when we net it out with the current debt service would be a steady amount which would allow us to budget through 2015 and provide some certainty as we move ahead. that amount that we owe is not

fluctuating year to year. as some of the base case. we have level debt service over the life of the bonds. that would be 19 million per year of new money. it provides us less flexibility in the short term but less cost in the long term. if you look at the down grade in our credit which is scenario two, we assume that down grade will result in approximately twenty five phases, it should be increased in the rate in which we receive on the bottom. you'll see here the estimated impacts of that. it's roughly eleven point eight million dollars. i'll get into the credit rating impact down grade of what happened last month as possibilities moving forward a few slides from here. moving onto scenario three.

that is what debt service with level aggregate savings. new money that we're paying our debt service on a delayed schedule and pushing it out through the debt service. opens up and operating funds for other things as we recover from covid 19. you may be asking yourself here, what about the deficit. why would we add debt now when we already have existing structural deficit for the long term agency. that service would need to be paid out of the operating budget. the thing is here that we need to consider is we have had to make difficult choices in our budget and we're continuing to have to do that. as stated, we do not want to fall behind further on our three

point two billion state of good repair backlog. when the recovery comes we're able to bring reliable service to san francisco yans. if we don't fill in that gap, that would be paying modally for the agency and for the city of san francisco. we spread that gap, that deficit that we're seeing immediately over the course of many years throughout 2050. we're spreading out the risk that's associated in the immediate term. this is an important point it allows us more time as we seek out new revenue sources many of

which were stated earlier which is goe bond money.

spread that cost over many years. what we're looking at here is the estimated cost of issuance of one point four million dollars per bond pac basis. when you compare that to the national afnlg cos average costs

closer to 373, we have a relatively good price in cost additions here. amortizations we will not need to repay the principle until 2025. the main take away from this slide is we've reer structure rw money options while structuring the debt further down the road in terms of debt service repayments. that brings us to our credit rating considerations. as a part of this transaction we will need to request new ratings from smp. we were recently down graded from aa to aa minus.

that was largely relate today covid and parking revenues. they did however post a number of positive items which i'll get into shortly. we would also expect to down grade since they have not rated us since the beginning of the pandemic. it's important to state here that both of those ratings, the aa minus and the potential a down grad are still high quality investment grade. some of the strength that's were

highlighted is our risk profile and significant report from safe and local tax revenues. prior to the pan denli pandemics actually a strength which actually plays to mta because we have such diverse mix of revenues we're supported by many different sources. prior to the pandemic it was approximately 24 to 26 percent. you compare that to an agency like bart where it's approximately 70 percent that puts us in a much better position. additionally note we're a critical service provider in one of the hiss t toof the historict

economies. strong policy that's have to do with debt management and fiscal responsibilities. we currently have a team of under writer that's we selected for this. we issued a mini rfp to a controllers office preapproved pool that was created and took the top rated proposals as part of this collection. we believe this team will provide broad market coverage if needed to secure a good price for the agency on our bonds. that brings us to today's approval which is authorizing

the director of transportation to move forward with the transaction dependent on approval from the board of supervisors. i'll go into detail on our time line. we are planning on go to go the board assuming approval today next month. we will be taking it to the budget finance committee as well as the full board. what's included in the package today are draft legal documents and our dead indenture. all of these are in draft format because the information that's required to complete those is dependent on a transaction moving forward. what we'll be bringing you in january are the official statements which mark talked about prior to the presentation that will detail all of the different elements an investor

should be aware of if they were going to invest in the mta. that brings us to next steps. currently it should be noted that this schedule that you see here is for the refunding trans transactions only. we decided that after splitting this item moving ahead would ensure funding goes through prior to march first. we're taking the refunding first and as jonathan mentioned we're planning to move ahead assuming approval with new money with a new schedule. that ensures we move ahead with the new transaction that will save the agency money in the long term. we'll be going to the board with

the refunding early january and other agencies during that time as well. we'll be returning to you all on or about the 26th. after that time we'll also be evaluating where the market is at and whether or not to move forward with the transaction. that's where we are. thank you for your time today. i would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> thank you so much for that presentation. >> thank you. i've got a couple. i'm still unclear about exactly what you're asking us to do today. are we taking any action today on the new money bonds? >> thank you for the question. yes, are you taking action today on the new money bonds.

this is a combined item that included refunding and the authorization to move ahead with the new money bonds. again in both instances we'll be coming back to prior to transaction for both issuances. >> we're not making any final decisions today on either the refunding or the new money. >> correct. what this item does today is allows us to move ahead and post the capital planning committee on the new money bonds and the board of supervisors on the refunding and new money bonds. >> your basic strategy is to recushion the covid impact on the operating budget. >> exactly.

this will allow us to do that over the next three fiscal years. >> the new money p bonds those could be used for either purpose as well as a straight up take a capital backlog. >> yes. both of those are options. the main thing in our work with the under writers and with our fa's is that investors will be looking for to us use these funds on specific project that's provide value to the agency. in either of the scenario that's you referred to which is back fill of covid lawsuits or movement to the operating budget we would be tiebl do tha able th these funds. >> would you be coming to the board that you would be fund withing the bond proceedings. >> yes, certainly.

that's one of the things we're coming up with right now for the new money specifically. we'll be principling that to the capital planning committee prior to going to the board of supervisors and when we come back to the mta board we'll have a more detailed list of how those proceedings will be used. >> last question is, i think one of the extra slides that i reviewed preparing for the meeting, i think it's slide 18 if you could put it up. >> sure. give a moment here. >> the big gross numbers over decades really doesn't resonate with me. these arele annualized debt service costs of various scenarios. >> yes.

the table on the left here provides the three scenarios that we covered. for more detail because it would result in the highest debt serve hservice over time we broke out option three. it shows you the back loaded debt service which is the same as here but pair this with our existing debt service to show what the total debt service would be to the agency with this whole three hundred million. >> our existing debt service is a little over 20 million. if we were to sell all these bonds up to three hundred, we'd be basically doubling it. >> roughly. that's correct. >> and we have a limit, don't we, on how much debt we're supposed to have outstanding in

terms of debt service cost. wouldn't this push us up against that limit. >> thank you for that question. assuming our current projections and recoffee of th recovery of t three percent per year what we get is a percentage of the debt service as the operating budget around three point three percent. that is assuming that recovery from the top through 2022. in no case do we get higher than the 5%. that's the sfmta's policy as a percentage of debt budget. that's number is 5% which is the limit. we would not be going higher than roughly three point three to three point 5% assuming our

current projections. >> and right now we're well below it, presumably. >> that's correct. i believe we're below 2% currently. >> just in terms of comment. i do think this is a smart strategy. i think fact is, we've got to deal with the operating budget first and foremost. stealing capital money to deal with your operating problem is never a good long term strategy. i think this softens the blow of having to do that if we have to do it. it also gives us a way of taking advantage of a market that is honestly so good that you should borrow money even if you don't need it. and we need it. i would like to thank the staff for coming up with this idea.

they've really flushed it out well. i'll be supporting the action today. thank you. >> thank you. i tend to agree with you. >> thank you. i agree with director, you guys worked really quickly on this at a time when we desperately interim cash flow. i think just to start i'm fully supportive of this. it's a very normal way for the public sector to look for some additional money and i do feel like this is a sound approach. just a couple of questions. this is mostly looking for confirmation and clarity. i heard staff mention that the new money bond is really the one that is less time sensitive,

right? that's the refinancing that is the eight and a half million because we have that march deadline. but the new money although less time sensitive is still time sensitive to us because it does back fill some of our state of good repair project funding gaps and also as staff already stated takes advantage of the current interest rate. maybe i'll pause there. either confirm or correct what i've understood and disstilled here. >> thank you for the question. what i would say there is that yes, we are working on more of a delayed time line for the new money compared to the refunding. we would not want to wait too long in moving ahead. that's for a few reasons. i would say right now our credit rating is good.

we may get down graded as a part of this transaction but as you saw with the recent down dwraidd in november. the credit agencies are going to rate us and our debt regardless if we move forward with this or any other transactions. that is a consideration. even though the federal reserve indicated they will not raise interest rate ns in the immediae term, we still don't know what could happen in potential markets.

>> does it have an impact on the two transactions for us. >> we are working closely with our financial advisor. throughout this process, i spoke with them yesterday on this specific topic. it would not substantially incrows ouincreasing our financ. this is splitting up a transaction like this into new money is pretty common practice and for some of the same reasons we're doing it which is logistically it can be easier and many times as easier to present refunding which is resulting in savings and

separately the new money which is resulting in additional debt service and deal with those things discretely. it would not- >> have you seen of other new money occurring since the pandemic. how we're stacking up on that? >> i can speak to rating down grades as well. i can touch on that first. the sfmta has done really well compared to our peers when it comes to the financial impacts of covid.

prudent financial decisions have put us in a position where we have descent amount of contirng contingency reserves. that's a better position when it comes to our credit rating. in terms of down grades that have happened there have been others-four i believe that were highlighted by others. mta, those were the largest issuers. everybody's been rated thus far. we're not unique in that way. in terms of this refunning refug transaction. the san francisco airport recently did a refunding and this was in the june/july

timeframe. they did refund their debt. they are similar to us in certain ways that they've been significantly impacted by covid and in the transportation sector. they've locked in savings on their debt. the chicago transportation agencies have refunded bonds. i don't recall if it's new money bonds as well. there are many issues for the states to lock in those cost savings for short and long term. >> great. thank you. >> thanks. any other directors at this point before we open it up to public comment. seeing none, we'll open it up to public comment. >> you have zero questions

remaining. >> okay. with that we will close public comment. the matter is back before us. what say you? >> i'll move the item. >> second. >> secretary, can you please call the roll. >> (roll call) the item passes and the next item on the agenda is item 15 approving contract modification third street light rail systems to resolve contractor claims for a

additional work performed under change order in the amount of 29 million eight hundred forty eight thousand seven hundred thirty six dollars and fifty six cents for a modified contract amount. >> good afternoon, directors. sorry about the feedback there. i'm going to introduce this item. i'll be joined by two other speakers. i believe they'll be available to provide some more details. edgar is a consultant of the mta

and served for many years in our public works department. he is continuing to work with us as our lead negotiator and strategist when we continue to deal to bring on commercial and legal issues. try to settle our liabilities to they can get the project done this spring. i'm going to put the presentation up on my screen now. >> us directors can go off camera too to help with the- >> okay. the presentation you see on your screen, we're going to walk through the matter perfect us

right now which is a proposal asking for your approval to modify the contract with the federal subway. it's technically known as modification. changes that have been made i'm going to walk you through what some of those changes are. we're asking to approve. mostly i'm going to introduce edgar who is going to go into detail how he has been negotiating those items. we'll give you a cross summary. what tutor initially asked for and what we negotiated down to. we'll finish with a conclusion and recommendation and talk about how this modification fits

within the broader sense of the finances. >> i'll start with the history here. i think we've explained before, the project requires us to from time to time modify the contact because the contract refines different site conditions especially when tunneling underground. sometimes there are systems or design dee details that look gon the drawing. there are also many instances where we the mta have asked to do something different than what we originally designed back in owe 2013. changing the materials being used on escalators to changing

some of the fire codes. with the fire codes changing and us being required to change the existence of the sub way. always going to be a bit of a living being. the change orders are evidence of that. the numbers here show you in 2019 you may remember we started talking to you about this. in 2020, this board issued a unilateral contract modification to begin to pay some not all liability that is accrued here. that was issued unilaterally. our analysis showed that we clearly owed this money. we told you that we thought it was in the agency's interest to pay this liability nowl rather thanow.we now we had more of the

change orders left to go. if you're on the phone. can you see some of of the examples that we're asking the board to help us settle for today. this project is really

complicated. weecwe've been trying to wrestlo the ground what the-back in

2019. they also have some technical experts working alongside them. cost estimating subspecialist contractor as well as internal project staff from the mta who sat down with some of their colleagues from two to three. at this point i'd like to ask

edgar to join us and walk us through the cost summary. and the process he went through to come to these negotiations. >> good afternoon director. board members. my name is-can you hear me all right? am i getting audio feedback? >> we can hear you. >> i apologize. i'm a consultant to the mta. i'm helping the agency to deal with change orders and claims negotiations on the central sub way project. by way of background as tom mentioned prior to my arrival in may of 2020, the mta already reached out to the federal transit administration to validate their approach to group six hundred seventy one exchange

orders into a single modification. the mta concurred with the approach and urged staff to move quickly with the multitude of changes. i worked very close with daniel a consulta consult sult ant to . the engineers may have estimated

that work for forty thousand dollars. the actual expenditures of labor cost of materials and reconciles of order to make sure that we arrive to a reasonable and fair price. this is the first step we took to review hundreds of change orders whether we looked at tee tails or change orders the slide in front of you is a cost summary that shows how we have applied to the total sediment-to

give you an idea of the change orders 497 change orders were negativorders werenegotiated atd thousand dollars or less. they needed to be reconciled based on estimates an estimatess that the contractor provided.

i'll move on and see if you have any questions or we can move to the last slide where we have a set of recommendations and conclusions. >> anybody have any questions. i have a question of how their estimate was 20 million off from where the final estimate. what accounted for that difference. >> that's a good question. at the time the change order dollars for issued. the full scope wasn't known. they were only able to price a portion of that work. more information became available and they were able to price the rest of the change orders. >> directors any of you have any questionsalitquestions at this ?

>> as a conclusion c mod134 that were issued from december to september. it will allow to pay for change orders in work that is being completed to date. we thought it would be worth mentioning to

omnibus. we don't know for sure how many there will be. >> and then-okay. thanks. >> this is the last slide. i'll be happy to answer any questions or have tom help provide additional input for you. >> i guess the only other question i would have-you mentioned in one slide that a bunch of the change orders were

less than fifty thousand dollars. are we looking at the remainder of the change orders to be in those magnitude or be larger probably. >> there's a mix of change orders, director. when we come back with omnibus two we can go over segregation of cost. >> hi. thank you for preparing this presentation. clarilclearlystaff hasstaff hasg very diligently. i would like to maybe just state again the frustration how prolific the change orders are. this is not how business should

be operating. i think for folks out there who are not particularly regularly dealing with contracts, from my perspective this is very unusual. this approach by the g c to overwhelm with hundreds and hundreds of change orders is-i think at a minimum not an efficient way to do business. the concern is that by doing this approach by back filling. it erodes the city's ability to essentially make different financial choices had we known the costs associated with it up front. what i mean by this is that if the contractor came to us first before doing the work and told

us, hey, we have a problem in order to address this problem it will cost you another hundred thousand dollars. we may have said hold on let us think about it. maybe we would have changed it to reduce it or eliminate t. because they've gone ahead to do the work we're forced to do work that they actually did. it just eliminated our process and ability to make financial decisions in a responsible way. i have a fundamental issue with how these contracts and change orders happen. i understand that i'm just maybe sharing frustration that is something that occurred in the past. i feel this my opportunity to state that position. i want to make it clear this is not a practice that we should

continue to have moving forward. we have lots of capital projects. i know that staff is aware of this. i just want to state that in the record. i think-i've also asked the question of staff in the past, for me it's a little difficult to only look at the financial request that is being presented in this particular agenda item. i don't want to take things out of order because i understand staff is preparing omnibus two and three to us. as we think about contracts and funding and our overall financial situation, i do feel that we need to talk about it in entirety at least to have some context of what we're really looking at. i think without putting staff on

the spot too much here, are you in a position where you can share a bit more about what the overall project's budget is looking like. are you prepared to speak to that today? >> yes, thank you. i would-can i give some general feedback i hope will provide some context of what we're looking at here. it's pretty clear that this project is overbudget. we have been bringing change orders to you as you said on a pretty regular basis in terms of the overall cost on the project, i don't think we talked about that. i'd like to come back with more details and back those numbers up. i'm prepared to say i think we're tracking this project to be approximately 15% over

budget. depending on your point of view is-anything over budget is not acceptable in these financial times right now. i don't want to minimize that at all. that said, in transit, mega projects do have a history of being far more than that over budget s. the 15% over budget that means going up to buy more items to pay contract items an close the project out to get this thing ready for the right of public in 2022. right now we're looking for over one hundred million dollars to fill that. money we don't already have budgeted to the project. that could go as high as one

hundred thirty million dollars. >> thank you. when you say 15% over budget that is over the budget including the continge efnsy thacontingency.>> that does ince contingency, that's right. as we begin. this project had a four percent contingency. for a billion and a half project, if we were doing it again, that's something i would definitely do differently next time. had we built in a fifteen or 20% contingency for jobs of this size, we'd be talk being this project being slightly under budget at this time.

par pash >> yo>> you mentioned e want to have these discussions in a fashion-the reason the consultant dollars wers were woh edgar, we want tutor to prove to us that we owe them money. we want to take a hard look at the billings and time sheets and all the document dollars. we knodocuments.we know we're