thank you, katie, and for the presentation and for the advocacy and i'm sure we will have some new in the near future. thank you. so, the next item on the agenda is fiona hinze the new appointed member of san francisco mta board and systems change of independent living resource center in san francisco. welcome. >> thank you and council members and members of the public and mta staff and everybody and mod

staff. it's been a long meeting. and, members of the sfgovtv making this meeting happen and the interest of time, i will be very brief. i was asked to introduce myself. sort of go over my personal priorities along the mta board and then sort of talk about some things that are going to be on the m.t.a. board's sort of horizon going forward. and then, i will close briefly by telling the council how they can be engage with the board and board members. i will be extremely brief. so, for those council members who might not know me, again, my

name is fiona hinze, i'm a newly appointed mta board member. i've been on the board officially for about six weeks. in my day job i serve as the director of citizens change at independent living resource center. i oversee our policy work, klein including transit and i the coalition of agencies serving the elderly. so i do things other than transit. i've also been involved with the vision zero workgroup and i used to serve on the paratransit coordinating council. that's me in a nutshell out of the board. so, i want to point to the mta

board obviously i am on the board to help the agency promote access in the work that they do. also, to help ensure that we are transparent or public and and i'm here to engage and hear your concerns and we really want to make sure that all of the operations made here is public as they can be. from an access standpoint, people will think about access on muni but i want to make sure that our streets and shared spaces and as we think of creating uses for the public

right-of-way, i want to make sure those programs are as accessible as possible and it gets into some of the priorities that are on the mta and most of you snow and agency is for the muni service at the time so really think about when we can assuming, at some point, we can ratchet up our service and increase the number of lines and the board is going to have to think about how we, and the agency in general, has to think about how we prioritize that so

being making sure it's done equitably. a couple of factors that will go into other where we can restore lives is when the number of our vehicles capacity can be increased. number of folks on our vehicles can be increased when when there's social distances and also, whether we get additional funding. so, really, thinking about how and how they can be done equitably. another thing we were going to look at is sort of the future of our outdoor open spaces. so for example, in our next meeting coming up, we have twin

peaks as director vaughn mentioned, at the beginning of the meeting, jfk will be on the horizon too and i don't know when that will probably be more on volunteer as well as the great highway. and i would say the other big thing that will be on the horizon is really looking at sort of what i'll call the fate of some of our pandemic emergency order related programs including the future of shared spaces, which i know council had a briefing on. slow streets, which i believe the council also had a briefing on and emergency transit.

these programs right now, are only for the duration of the covid emergency. so looking at what we're going to do with the future past the emergency. those are kind of some things that are on our board's horizon. they're sort of general and over arching and not very specific as we don't know specific items that will be on our calender. we're very interested in hearing from community members.

we get e-mails and public comments all the time. i'll close by telling you that our meetings are the first and third tuesday's of each month. we meet -- in covid you can launch our meetings on sfgovtv and make a public comment and our public comment system works very similar to how it does here or we encourage the public to e-mail any comments for the board that you have. our e-mail address is mtaboardat sfmta.com. i have gill your clerk my personal contact information for

mta business. i encourage you to use the general mta board e-mail account so that all my colleagues receive your correspondence so it can fact or in all of our decisions. know that i am here for you if you want to reach out about anything and at this point, mr. chair, i'll be happy to entertain your questions. >> thank you so much. i just want to ask a question if we have emotion to extend the meeting after 4:30? do we have a motion to do that?

>> was that extend it to 4:30? until 4:30? >> yes. >> ok. just for everybody's information, the interpreters will stay until then. we've contracted with them to go until then and captioner will be available until 4:30 but then the captioning will stop. that will need to be the hard stop. >> thank you. so, do i have a motion to stay until 4:30? any opposed? ok. we will stay until 4:30. thank you, fiona, for coming today and introducing yourself and letting us know what is the focus of the board of mta.

i just have one question for you, i'm sure you will touch on this but how does disability and being in the board, what would you suggest to advocate and want to see san francisco board of mta board needs to be done when it comes to accessibility? >> well, if i'm understanding your question correctly, it's what does the board need to do for accessibility? i think -- >> i'm asking about, your specific accessibility goals.

being on the board. >> oh, ok. i think my specific -- i don't know if i have a specific goal, but my, i guess, goal is to, i think, the mta can do better in -- the mta does great work on accessibility of like their spaces and like muni but like really thinking about how every aspect of the mta can be made more accessible so like, thinking about how their communications can be more accessible. thinking about their signage and beg more accessible. so things that the general

public might not think of when they think about the accessibility of the mta but think that -- the mta has a lot under its purview, so to speak. so making sure that those aspects of the mta that are more hidden are also accessible. >> thank you. thank you so much. i'm going to ask debra to move. >> thank you, alex. >> she is coming. >> there we go. sorry, i just, um, i just want to congratulate fiona and let

her know how much we appreciate the work she's doing and she's going to do and maybe not to the nta for trying to expand representation but mostly the credit goes to you. thank you for coming here today. let's us know if there's anything we can work on together or help out with. >> i will. >> you know how to get a hold of me. denise. >> hi, this is denise i just wanted to congratulate fiona and we looking forward to working with her. >> that's all i wanted to comment on. >> tiffany yu. >> i'm just joining in on the praise to congratulate fiona.

i also want to recognize all of the other work that fiona has done in terms of the dignity funds so this isn't coming out of the blue. you know fiona has been in you are community for a long time so i'm really looking forward to having her also partner, i think, with some of the other presenters we had earlier today to really ensure that everything that the mta is doing and advocating for is disability centered. thank you, fiona. >> thank you. >> she may have had to leave. >> i'll add my congratulations to the mix as well, fiona, i'm looking forward to working together, especially with the

jfk project and hoping that issue gets resolved very soon. thank you so much and congratulations. >> we're going to need everybody's input on jfk. >> ok. >> helen. >> hi, fiona. again, big congratulations and we're so glad you are on the sfmta board. much needed. >> all right. >> we look forward to working with you. >> all right. >> are there any comments or questions from staff? >> i will note that this is debbie kaplan. i will note that nicole had to leave for a 4:00 meeting with

public-health. and i think on behalf of all of the m.o.d. staff, you know, we're just really thrilled that fiona is on the m.t.a. board and is going to compliment the good work. mta accessible group is already a really start partner with m.o.d. on a lot of different issues, some of which you heard today. and we also know there's a lot that remains to be done and we are continuously working not just for accessibility but for helping all the different offices in the city understand the impact of all of the different initiatives that they have potential leon people withh

disabilities. because we usually are effected in ways that are not necessarily anticipated. so, as someone who has lots of direct experience, fiona, this really goes a long way as well as all of the experiences and skills you bring to the table. we're really happy. that is comments from the staff. >> thank you, debbie. do we have any comments? >> i believe we have two people in queue. >> go ahead, caller. >> caller: hi, it's great to have you here fiona, any public

office is always a great thing and i appreciate you taking the time to comment and from the public. as you may already know, and many times to this office and this council and efforts and denial to serve to get on a bus in my while chair and disability access meeting and every year and file a complaint for years. i'm hoping to get and i would love to discuss this and anyone and on how to address this problem and how to get there and it's crowded and therefore they don't sound and i'll say the

buses on time and fixed you routes and they use their and required to be and grievance process with sfada and grievance process and it's a joke and it's not allowed to be a public record and most importantly, which makes them hate us more because i don't feel like it's their fault most of the time, they're on fixed routes that totally destroyed their ability to pick us up. sfmta has fought tooth and nail for any kind of progress that can be made that supports drivers and the union and has demonized and blocked my efforts to improve access on buses. so i'm hoping with you on the

board we can make some steps forward or wheels forward. i'm excited for that opportunity and i also. i support the union and driver education. the union is working on driver education measures and increased training, specifically including people with disabilities and seniors in the training of drivers and having a quiz at the end to make sure they absorbed the information from the training so they know what it's like for us. i look forward to hear from you and i would love your e-mail contact. can you find me at first initial and last name at gmail.com. thank you for your time and congratulations on your appointment. >> thank you for your comments, caller. the next caller.

do we have another one. >> caller: this is bob plant again. so, this is a question for fiona, that i think it's helpful if council members think about fiona, this is regarding the changes to taxi usage capacity for market street that the mta board recently passed on januarr positive vote. we were told that cabs can't be in the center lane because it would slow down muni buses. i've twice asked in e-mails to two separate staff a, how many buses now are there operating on market, b, when the subway opens, how many will there be? i've not gotten any answers despite, as i say, multiple requests to two people. i'm wondering, have you board of directors, been told or have any of you asked, how many buses now and how many in the future? because that allows us to better

understand why mta is saying you can't put cabs in the center lane. otherwise, it's just like we're accepting staff's word with no statistics, no information, no data. all the different statements that we march from city government for years, data driven, data driven, when there ain't no data given out and we asked for it, it raises doubts about whether staff really a, has researched this, b is honest and open with it it's transparent and b, you know, trying to move for some other reason than just saying it would interfere with buses. fiona, have you asked how many buses now? how many in the future will be used in the center lane? thank you. >> thank you for your comment.

thank you for coming and congratulations for your new appointment and we will be excited to work with you in the near future. again, thank you. >> thank you, mr. chair. have a good one. >> have a good rest of your meeting. >> thank you. with that, i'm going to proceed to item number 9 which is general public comment. that is not in today's agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. are there any comments? >> we have one person in queue in public comment. >> go ahead, caller.

>> caller: hi, my name is zack. i just want to respond to the general public comment so i can talk about other items not on the agenda. i mentioned a number of times accessibility issues with these meetings. they're a lot less accessible during covid even though it's a phone line which is bizarre. it used to be you could call in and talk to a live person and they would help you. you could easily work with the department of technology to have a phone line that can patch through to someone to the secretary. and the excuse is zoom bombing to not give us the ability to have a chat function to ask for help is ridiculous. i hope that accessibility can be improved. i hope that i can do other things with my life than having to write e-mail after e-mail after e-mail to this department. mayor's office on disability, trying to fix accessibility in a

city after a year of covid, accessibility is broken. it's all public meetings and it's really bad. i would really like it if mob can work on it. here in a housing crisis. disable didn't have housing before covid. social security disability pays around $968 a month. there's no housing in the city for disabled people living on that kind of an income. the so-called affordable housing is 20% of ami. which is usually over $20,000 a year in rent. which is more than a disabled person on social security and severity disabled person can make. if you are severely disabled in san francisco you are homeless unless you have a special circumstance with a family member that can take you in. you are going to be homeless. the mayor's office on disability needs to talk about this at

every meeting. it's a crisis in our city. according to the eviction defense collaborative the majority of eviction this is 2016 were disability. we are facing the brunt of the covid pandemic and i'm yet to hear nicole or anyone at this office address the medical triage that is happening with disabled people and covid vaccines, especially disabled people of color. they neglect the is the issue of race and ethnicity and how it effects people dis purport atly, especially during covid and their access to life saving medical treatment, i would love nick coal to give a presentation actually addressing that raise is a com phone attribute of vaccine distribution and medical care. additionally, i would love it if that office would be more fourth coming with information and transparency about what you are doing about the covid pandemic saying that you are working on

getting vaccines to people in their homes and that you have no other update to give other than that is not good enough. we can do better. we need better. we need a website with transparent documents, information, and up-to-date day by day week by week of what is actually happening to protect the lives of the disabled people. >> thank you for your call. are there anymore general comments? >> that was our last public comment. >> thank you. so, right now we're going to correspondence. do we have any? >> there's not been any correspondence directed to the mdc. >> thank you, debbie. are there any comments or announcements at this time?

>> i just want to say thank you very much for this mdc staff. thank you to the staff for services thank you to the captioning and interpreters. thank you for helping us today. so with that, if there's no comments or announcements, and if there's no objections, i'm

going to call this meeting adjourned. >> so moved. >> so we are adjourned at 4:17. the next meeting is going to be on march 19th at 1:00. thank you.

>> when i first started painting it was difficult to get my foot in the door and contractors and mostly men would have a bad attitude towards me or not want to answer my questions or not include me and after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. ♪♪♪ my name is nita riccardi, i'm a painter for the city of san francisco and i have my own business as a painting contractor since 1994 called winning colors. my mother was kind of resistant.

none of my brothers were painter. i went to college to be a chiropractor and i couldn't imagine being in an office all day. i dropped out of college to become a painter. >> we have been friends for about 15-20 years. we both decided that maybe i could work for her and so she hired me as a painter. she was always very kind. i wasn't actually a painter when she hired me and that was pretty cool but gave me an opportunity to learn the trade with her company. i went on to different job opportunities but we stayed friends. the division that i work for with san francisco was looking for a painter and so i suggested to my supervisor maybe we can give nita a shot. >> the painting i do for the city is primarily maintenance painting and i take care of anything from pipes on the roof to maintaining the walls and

beautifying the bathrooms and graffiti removal. the work i do for myself is different because i'm not actually a painter. i'm a painting contractor which is a little different. during the construction boom in the late 80s i started doing new construction and then when i moved to san francisco, i went to san francisco state and became fascinated with the architecture and got my contractor's licence and started painting victorians and kind of gravitated towards them. my first project that i did was a 92 room here in the mission. it was the first sro. i'm proud of that and it was challenging because it was occupied and i got interior and exterior and i thought it would take about six weeks to do it and it took me a whole year. >> nita makes the city more beautiful and one of the things

that makes her such a great contractor, she has a magical touch around looking at a project and bringing it to its fullest fruition. sometimes her ideas to me might seem a little whacky. i might be like that is a little crazy. but if you just let her do her thing, she is going to do something incredible, something amazing and that will have a lot of pop in it. and she's really talented at that. >> ultimately it depends on what the customer wants. sometimes they just want to be understated or blend in and other times they let me decide and then all the doors are open and they want me to create. they hire me to do something beautiful and i do. and that's when work is really fun. i get to be creative and express what i want. paint a really happy house or

something elegant or dignified. >> it's really cool to watch what she does. not only that, coming up as a woman, you know what i mean, and we're going back to the 80s with it. where the world wasn't so liberal. it was tough, especially being lgbtq, right, she had a lot of friction amongst trades and a lot of people weren't nice to her, a lot of people didn't give her her due respect. and one of the things amazing about nita, she would never quit. >> after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. i'd like to be a mentor to other women also. i have always wanted to do that. they may not want to go to school but there's other options. there's trades. i encourage women to apply for my company, i'd be willing to

train and happy to do that. there's a shortage of other women painters. for any women who want to get into a trade or painting career, just start with an apprenticeship or if you want to do your own business, you have to get involved and find a mentor and surround yourself with other people that are going to encourage you to move forward and inspire you and support you and you can't give up. >> we've had a lot of history, nita and i. we've been friends and we have been enemies and we've had conflicts and we always gravitate towards each other with a sense of loyalty that maybe family would have. we just care about each other. >> many of the street corners in all the districts in san francisco, there will be a painting job i have completed and it will be a beautiful paint job. it will be smooth and gold leaf and just wow. and you can't put it down.

when i first started, it was hard to get employees to listen to me and go along -- but now, i have a lot of respect. >> candlestick park known also as the stick was an outdoor stadium for sports and entertainment. built between 1958 to 1960, it was located in the bayview hunters point where it was home to the san francisco giants and 49ers. the last event held was a concert in late 2014. it was demolished in 2015. mlb team the san francisco giants played at candlestick from 1960-1999. fans came to see players such a willie mays and barry bonds, over 38 seasons in the open ballpark. an upper deck expansion was

added in the 1970s. there are two world series played at the stick in 1962 and in 198 9. during the 1989 world series against the oakland as they were shook by an earthquake. candlestick's enclosure had minor damages from the quake but its design saved thousands of lives. nfl team the san francisco 49ers played at candlestick from feign 71-2013. it was home to five-time super bowl champion teams and hall of fame players by joe montana, jerry rice and steve jones. in 1982, the game-winning touchdown pass from joe montana to dwight clark was known as "the catch." leading the niners to their first super bowl. the 49ers hosted eight n.f.c. championship games including the 2001 season that ended with a loss to the new york giants.

in 201, the last event held at candlestick park was a concert by paul mccartney who played with the beatles in 1966, the stadium's first concert. demolition of the stick began in late 2014 and it was completed in september 2015. the giants had moved to pacific rail park in 2000 while the 49ers moved to santa clara in 2014. with structural claims and numerous name changes, many have passed through and will remember candlestick park as home to the legendary athletes and entertainment. these memorable moments will live on in a place called the stick. (♪♪♪)

>> the meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. president darrell honda will be the officer presiding tonight. also present is the deputy city attorney he will provide the board with any needed legal advice this evening. the legal clerk his here and i the executive director. we will also be joined by representatives from the city department that will be present -- presenting before the board this evening. the board meeting guidelines are as follows. we request you turn off or silence all phones and other