medallion . you snatched it away before they reached the finish line for a mere $250,000. place the rest on the driver and gain tens of millions of dollars in the parking then when uber and lyft camein you abandon them to their fate . even if you refuse your moral obligation there are practical reasons why they need to act. this is a broken system. you need to fix it in a way that brings justice to medallion purchasers and respects the health of the industry and livelihood of all its drivers . if you can't or won't do that you should and taxi services, pay off the medallion holders and become the first major city in the world to hand the whole thing over to uber and lyft . >> clerk:thank you mister

gruber, next speaker . >> you have seven questions remaining. >> caller: my name is herbert weiner. now the residents on slow speeds may love slow streets but what about the rest ofthe city ? what about the drivers who then losing convenience and spill over to driving oncongested streets ?have you looked at california's streets, it's very congested and this gets in the way of bus drivers . so slow streets may be great for those who reside on slow streets but you must have the restof the city in consideration . so slow streets does not benefit everybody. now in respect to the taxi battalions, those receipts from taxi drivers by the previous executive director.

basically they deserve to have their medallions ifthey did before the seizure . this is a very unfair thing fo the taxi drivers . so in that sense slow streets is unfair to the city and the program is unfair to the taxi drivers . this is why mta, one of the reasons why mta isa failed agency thank you . >> next speaker please. >> you have six questions remaining. >> thank you chair, my pronouns are she and her. i stressed to you that covid-19 is real it is not a hoax, israel . i am vaccinated by you being vaccinated i can ride on subway

trains andgo on elevators and do all kinds of other things and i also wear a mask . i ask that you support this vaccine mandate because i want to be safe and i am living vaccine work when i qualify for the booster shot i'm going to get it. i'll be first in line for it becauseit works . i asked that the true safety that really comes from an ocular waiting against covid-19 so we have to make sure we adhere to thatvaccine mandate . i did hear some commentary earlier about various autonomous vehicles. i support autonomous vehicles for many reasons and one reason why i like the idea of autonomous vehicles is they don't discriminate .

they don't care if i'm wearing a skirt. they don't care about my social definition or lack of definition. they will pick me up so there's equity in autonomous vehicles because they don't discriminate. so actively support active forms of discrimination because i should never be left behind becauseof who i am . >> we couldn't agree with you more. next speaker please. >> you have five questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> caller: good afternoon, this is very toronto. first and foremost i like to ask you to adjourn the meeting today in memory of the fallen

who lost their lives. every one of her, john penman and very younger yellow cab. and joe tracy. may their memory be a blessing so i hope you will adjourn in theirmemory . >> john, yes. the next is the issue of the closed streets. traffic patterns have changed so the closed streets and the shared spaces do create some challenges that need to be addressed because you're talking about moving transit and if you're not going to do proper enforcement or assess the way they impact service and transit then you are just

closing your eyes to the real problem so i'd appreciate that you look for this situation. regarding outside lands, i know you create stands on fulton street which is great but if you're going to use them just as additional parking for muni vehicles all you're doing is creating problems. also pco's also don't recognize the signage as well. last but not least i: what mark bloomberg said and i'll have othercomments during public comment . i want to make sure you know the jury decision didn't do anything to solve the problem created by lack of enforcement of the dnc when it first came on and turning a blind eye to the impact it had on the cattl industry . i'd appreciate that you work with us instead of just continuing to turn your back on the industry and doingjust

banned eight issues . thank you very much. >> i'm gladyou're well mister toronto . next color please. >> you have 4 questions remaining. >> caller: in response to the director's report and what the directors said and not about the consent calendar . >> clerk: i'msorry. yes . >> caller: it's not the consen calendar . >> clerk: consent calendar is next after general comment. then the consent calendar. are you calling in about an item onthe consent calendar ? >> caller: both but i wanted to knowhow to proceed .

my name is stacy and i live in district 10 . i'm highly concerned that we don't know about it. where, how, what happens. i thought we had a rapid response team. it's tough to believe that vision zero is a concern of ours if this isn't made a priority. and one of the directors had mentioned about how poor we celebrate these workers for shared space and i could not agree more. it's one of the most delightful things. i'm glad they're being made permanent but i'm considering if wehad been without cars , we need safer centers for people and we don't have enough of it. i'd like to tell them this. we are a city of 47 square miles and there are 44 fire stations and i'm unclear

possible to have full response times even if we closehave to streets . so just closing two of our emergent corridors so our businesses can thrive and people have places they can go and not have to worry about cars. i think it's important and i would push for thedirectors to think along these lines .and also, there was mention of the rapid transit. i don't understand why there isn't red all over this town. we should have cities that are as much red and greenas black . that's what's really going to move people quickly throughthis city and safely . so thank you, i wish we would hear more about that. >> clerk: next speaker please. >> you have three questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker.

>> caller: my question is for the employees, those that get denied for their religious beliefs, what happens forthose employees ? >> this is not a question and answer session but generally the religious exemption does notaccept them, they would be sent notices . that's how it works as i understand it. >> so you are you all giving me the opportunity to remodel their get the vaccination? >> unfortunatelythis is not question and answer and i am not the best person to answer this question . perhaps we can have after this comment director tumlin clarify by answering your question

since it was discussed in the report. unfortunately this time i cannot answer it but after we get throughpublic comment i will have director tumlin address your question . >> clerk: you can listen in, just go off the speaking part but listen in and i'll make sure after we get through the other colors rector tumlin addresses your questionsabout the religious exemption . >> caller: thank youso much . >>clerk: next speaker please . >> you have to questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> caller: my name is christopherpeterson . i am dismayed to hear about how vaccine has a density is likely to result in significant service cuts in november. i certainly support the vaccine mandate but i hope that sfmta will talk with the mayor's office and department of public

health and concerns of having some flexibility in terms of gaps. for example if there are operators who havebegun the vaccination process but not yet completed it by november 1 , allowing them to continue to work with testing. it would be tragic for people throughout the city if this deadline results in significant cutbacks in service that might be avoidable if there is a little flexibility but i do certainly support this hearing ultimately to the vaccine mandate. >> next speaker please. >> you have 2 questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker.

>> caller: my name is luke hammer and i am one of the leading organizers of clean sf. we and our thousands of supporters aredelighted to see the findings . [inaudible] we support the increase in peoplewalking and biking and higher level of street safety . also of note is the suggestion of parallel streets, a common but untrue argumentused by opponents .it has also been overwhelmingly popular and these cut through reckless driving on streets in order to make spaces safer for kids and families as well as other vulnerable systems. fortunately low-cost improvements that can be made in the design of those streets to further increase usage ,

improve safety and close street experiences. notably median diaper and block and plazas would make the streets safer and more accessible. these can be implemented quickly using low-costmaterials . as you may already know fire response times faster on those streets and before the streets were slow streets. so street users need to encourage median divers and other measures to eliminate through traffic and ensure that they stop obstructing slow streets for the transportation advisory safety committee. on a separate note for the golden gate park program team and their work on the survey there's over 4300responses . see jfk also known as the car auction is desired by 75+ respondents with the option lobbied for by advisors llc is proposed by more than 75

percent of respondents. the public made it clear which option they support and we need to reject wealthy lobbyist efforts trying to go against the will . thank you and enjoy the rest of your day. >> clerk: next speaker. >> you have 2 questions remaining next speaker please. please mute your television or yourcomputer if you're about to talk . hello. moderator, can youmove to the next one please ? >> you have one question remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> caller: i want to express my extreme dissatisfaction with jeff tumlin's stated opposition

to the private program for free muni proposed by supervisor dean preston that passed through the board of supervisors. unfortunately because of the sfmta is the city governments cash cow and there's a fear that not having money put into the box will really cut into the sfmta's budget, the mayor also got inon it and vetoed it . this was so wrongheaded because now that sfmta is facing a financial crisis, the writers have to bear the burden of it. instead of eliminating the

administrative staff that it takes to police and enforce the paying affairs that this could be eliminated. you would be creating a kind of transit equity that enjoyed by people in over 100 cities worldwide. i would like in the subsequent time remaining of this meeting to have my concerns addressed. q. >> clerk: thank you. moderators, any additional speakers on the line related to the director's comments and the subsequent board of directors comments in the board of directors report. >> you have one question remaining. >> clerk: next speaker please.

>> caller: hello board of directors,i live in richmond district and i have two young kids . we do not own a car. i want to thank you for the work and shannon hinchey for their work on district 1 because we're amazing with the barricades behind the new treatment and we continue to look forward to a new design that's moved forward. slow 23rd meets plc stats and also slowly is a work in progress and that's for the supervisor to take seriously because any protected bikelanes in district 1 have been shelved .a lot of hot air being blown about in district 1. so it's been hinted that all the work will be on slow streets. we have tall signage, we need appropriate traffic and again thanks so much for your work and have a great week.

>> clerk: thank you. moderator,additional colors on the line ? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> clerk: with that we will close out the directors report. director tumlin, can you clarify for those members who filed for religious exemption maybe you can explain what tha process is . >> what i like to do is refer to the city attorney cleveland knolls who can describethe accommodation process . >> thank you chair for, susan clayborn. can you hear me? >> we can. >> i would first encourage any employee that is listening to directly reach out to the human resources department to make sure they have full information on how to apply for religious exemption or a medical exemption and then in direct

response to the colors question there is not a direct appeal process to denial for such a request for an employee can file an eeo complaint if they are denied and feel that complaint is supported. >> clerk: thank you. with that we will close our directors report and move on to our next item. >> that places you item 8, citizens advisory council report . there's no reports expected so item 9, general public comment. >> clerk: this is the opportunity for members of the public who want to comment on item not on the agenda . please dial one, zero at that time when we call those item numbers but now is the chance to talk about anything we cover that hasalready been covered or will the cover . that is anything under the

subject matter jurisdiction of the sfmta. when you press 10 that means you may speak on this item and if you're listening in but don't want to speak he went to press 1, zero. if you have your computer on in the background, computer or tv in the background there is a delay and a lag in an if you could that while you speak it will make things much more seamless. with that moderator are there any colors on the line for public comment ? >> you have 4 questions remaining. >>. >> caller: my name is herbert weiner and i'm speaking to items that are noton the agenda . in respect to the survey that has been proposed to the public about improved transportation, we're offered three choices.

either restore the lines as they were before the pandemic, consolidate the lines to those who are most heavily usedor have a hybrid . basically the public is placed in a passenger dilemma. mta has framed the choices instead of the public advocating for choices. now, in response to that i'd like to propose amanagement solution . that is restore the lines to the saturday schedule that would guarantee accessibility and reliability to muni passengers and to if management can't do this they don't belong working at mta so that's a dilemma i want topresent to management . you have really framed the choices and in a not

responsible to thepublic . this is truly the liberal democracy of mta. >> next speaker please. >> you have four questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. next speaker. moderator, perhaps you could go toanother line . >> you have three questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> thank you. my name is john gates and i was assaulted at a muni bus stop in north beach on wednesdaynumber eight . and the short story is in trying to escape my pursuer, i tried to board the back of the

bus that was at the stop adjacent to the park. and myassailant grabbed my backpack and threw me to the ground and i started yelling for help . two men gathered around and a bus driver got up off the bus and came up and i guess there were too manywitnesses at that point and the assailant ran off into the park . the bus driver or operator said hey you two, knock it off. and the assailant ran off and i said that i just assaulted me the bus operator said i don't know what's going on with you to . but knock it off and i said well, he assaulted me, that's what's going on. the bus driver then we boarded the bus and asked him can i please sit on the bus and he said number i have to start my run, get off the bus. so after the bus left the assault continued and iwon't go into those details . and all i asked is that the bus

operator be disciplined and retrained so i filed an official complaint, 443089 and got no response. i tried to email the board and they don't have individual emails. you only have that group email and i got no response from the group email . i did email director tumlin and to his credit i did respond he did respond. he found that he got the tape to the police so they could better issue an arrest warrant so all i'm asking for now is that i get a response from the mta that this bus operator is disciplined and retrained. i understand it's a personnel matter. and there's privacy concerns, i'm not asking for his name. i'm just asking that action be taken so he doesn't ignore another victim of the crime . thank you for your time. >> clerk: next speaker please.

>> you have 4 questions remaining. >> caller: hello. >> clerk: we can hear you. >> clerk: we can hear you. your phone in the back for your tv or whatever thebackground noises .they're going tobe very confused if you're listening to that . >> caller: maybeit's my ear thing or something . >> clerk: hello. very briefly, i would like to request that there is whenever there is an update that the two questions are answered. what have you done to avoid

climate emergency. encouraging transit first and what has been remedied in terms of vision zero because i don't see the things changing that we need to address all these problems. i only see things escalatingand transportation is one of the most impactful things . in fact it is the most in california.and i'm just concerned that as an organization, sfmta is not addressing these things and i think that would be something that could be put on theagenda . thank you. >> clerk: thank you, next speaker please. >> you have 4 questions remaining. >> clerk: next speaker. >> caller: thank you chair and members.

as i speak in general matters, first of all it's important to continue our work with quicker starts. there is equity in that. and all i have to do is my card but i don't have to face a person who openly discriminates against money. there's a lot ofequity and friendliness in these systems . i just came back from chicago and they have a system called ventress and i have three different ways my driver says i can use my reduced fare venture card. i want to buy certain kinds of emotional passes i can put them on my phone. i can also pay with my contract contactless bankcard. there's one word that i used to describe the chicago l system is polished. it's very polished.

and i want to see more of that in san francisco. they have a very user-friendly polished transportation system and yet we're still, i don't see us as being ready to adopt these methods that we make would make my ability to pay my fair safer and more reliable because yes, i think clippers are absolutely great . these dogeared paper things that people lose and they take the money back if they lose them and we should go to a system that operates entirely on paper which includes neil's meals and payments.i want to a safer system and it comes at my expense when we're carrying bags of money around which mixing unsafe. i ask that you not do things that my expense because i want a safesystem for everyone . >> clerk: thank you, next speaker. >> you have threequestions

remaining . >> this is barrytoronto, hopefully can hear me. i am on mute, sorry about that . i went to address the comment just to say a prior commentor kind of made a blanket statement referring to taxicabs. i will take anybody aslong as they pay me for my services . considering gas prices have gone up and a barrel of oil is at $79. so i want to say that i am now less likely to go into the tenderloin because 50 percent of the time i'm not aboutto get paid . but in commendation not just that, in commendation with the fact that it takes too long to get to the tenderloin due to all the no right turn on red's and their lack of traffic light timing and the fact that there

are red turned arrows and at least a third of theblocks. so i want to let you know the tenderloin has been a lot tougher place to serve . i'd rather serve bayview that the tenderloin considering that it's become more dangerous and a wild west place to serve. sorry but i shout out to my favorite place to pick up in the tenderloin. >> regarding the baseball basketball games. we're having problemsgetting them to keep their stands clear. what do we need to do ? you guys just won this jury trial verdict and yet you can' even keep the caps clear. so i'm begging you , urge your pc owes to keep an eye this because it's just like worse than pulling teeth to get them to keep the stands clear at these major sports venues .

it's going to be very busy startingwednesday so i'm begging you to help us out in this area . and one last thing about the enforcement . get the pc owes to enforce the double parking and illegal parking along missionstreet . help the buses moved faster and they do not have to go into th opposite lane of traffic. thank you very much . >> next speaker please. >> you have 2questions remaining . >> caller: this is joe consular. i don't know if you're going to take public commentafter the affair integration presentation . >> clerk: we will. >> caller: i'll do my best because i got the vaccine appointment at six and i had to reschedule it to 6:15. i do want to keep this moving along but i want to thank the muni staff for directing

someone down to the newest operator. i'm very very excited to ride muni again and i'm even more excited for that than i am today's presentation. i do want to keep this meeting moving along so i will stop at suggesting that maybe muni should plant some roads along their arts garden district. there should be a different garden extension just like you see. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for that moderator, are there additional colors on the line ? >> you have one question remaining. >> clerk: next speaker please. >> caller: can you hear me now? david felt up. please be aware there really is a 45 second delay until the

public sees the video of the meeting so we are live on the phone but the videois delayed 45 seconds . and the sfgov tv audio and video includes the announcement of how many speakers are in the queue which is helpful for the members of the public when they are up next perhaps but that's not available on the phone so i have no ideawhen i'm sitting on the phone if i'm not watching the video how many other people there are . that's important. next, the reference in staff reports to documents being available for review, i tried to make this point last time about thesettlement agreements . there was also a reference to you on the board of directors. i'm assuming you're getting all that material by email. it is not fair and problematic

to expect members of the public to go down to one south end and review actual documents and files. i'm assuming they're in the file. i'm not concerned about that right now. in my view all communications and documents that are sent to the board whether they are letters or emails from members of the public, staff reports and memos,environmental review documents , settlement agreements but not confidential memos. all that material should be posted on the web. it is not okay to expect members of the public to go to one south to review this material. that is highly problematic and i would strongly encourage you to find a way to bridge that problem. and finally these meetings put a good face on the mta but i want to assure you that there is much unhappiness with staff

and the agency and the public and we all have a job to do to build or rebuild trust with thisagency . i will leave it at that right now. i will have more comments on the consent calendarfor a moment . >>clerk: moderator, are there additional comments on the line ? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> clerk: with that we will close public comment. can you talk aboutour public records policy and where documents can be found for the public ? >> all materials for the meeting that are not confidential posted on our website at sfmta.com. we can look into a settlement agreement member phil bell commented on andthose are available . our attorneys can get guidance on that and update you and post accordingly. >> clerk: i guess this is in

terms of thecorrespondence we get for our meetings which we get via email . we're exactly is that posted? >> at this time that is not beingposted . so there are different ways that commission and board secretaries do that for other agencies . i do know you get high-volume of email so to post that would require that we go through every email and a reduction of private information. that processing would have to take place. >> clerk: we will discuss it. we can provide the four members of the public who request it. >> absolutely, yes. if we receive a public records request we would collect the responsive records, do the right actions necessary and share those materials.

>> clerk: thank you for clarifying.with that we can move on to the consent calenda . >> these items are considered to be seen and will be voted on unless a member pursues an item separately. if you wish to address the board on it and so that you can be added to the queue and when speaking please identify which item numberyou are speaking to . item 10.1 questions funds available or would be available in the following claims against the sfmta. district court 19803998, efr filed on september 29 for $20,000. item 10.2 opposing parking and traffic classification. item 10.3 and 10.4 acting as

the sfmta board of directors and parking authority commission approved amendments by one year the term of each of four large management contracts. sfmta 2011 29 with parking for a total term of 11 years contract amount of $1,536,324, sfmta 2011/ 12 10 with parking for a total term of 11 years of the contract amount of $1,243,152, sfmta 2011 12 11 with last parking california with a term of 11 years contract amount of one million 630,000 $208. fifth and mission garage management for a total term of 11 years and the contract amount of 740,000 $217 and

request the board of supervisors toapprove this amendment . item1045 , contract number 1308 are improvement project sunset boulevard. and mct construction to construct capital improvement along the portal from sunset boulevard. in the amount of $57,264,139 and 903 days of substantial completion and making environmental review findings . 10.6 warning sfmta contract number 1138 four rehabilitation projects to the heirloom system and to award the existing water reclamation system in the amount of 4,866,200 seven dollars and a term of 270 days to completion. item 10.7 appointing gwyneth

borden as an alternate directo . effective october 6, 2021. item 10.8, emergency legislation to allow remote meetings during the covid emergency, continuing remote meetings for the next 30 days and directing the board secretary to authorize a similar resolution at theboard meetingwithin 30 days. that includes the consent calendar . >> clerk: any items anyone would like to pull ? >> i would like to pull item 5 of the calendar. >> clerk: with that we will have a separate discussion of 10.5 so with anyone on the line to specific questions about 10.5, we will have a small presentation from staff on the item so your questions should be held for when we call that item separately but this time we will take public commenton

all the other consent items , 10.1 through eight -10.5. moderator, are there colors on theline ? >> you have 4 questions remaining. >> this is very again. just to point out on 10.2 items f, g and h. as you want to do a tollway lane on that portion, however you probably need to figure out how to have a passenger's own during off hours because you're just ignoring the fact that they love to doublepark where to park at the curb anyway . cutting people off at that residential building. it's a very busy residential building and a lot of people

take alternative transportation unfortunately mycompetition a lot so you've got to do something about that by allowing that zone during certain hours . and by rescinding the telling zones are you going to make it more difficult for the 38 to travel down there? that's just a question and i think you ought to keep an eye on that if you're going to eliminate the tollway zones during the peak hours. i don't know why you want to make bus transit worse. i know they have their own transit wayne but people use the transit lane to make right and left turns and everything and i think it's a mistake to eliminate any tollway zones along the 38.

>> next speaker please. >> you have 3 questions remaining. >> caller: thank you chair. thank you for allowing me to testify as though i've never testified on consent. i want totalk about 10.8 . i emphasized the importance of continuing these meetings in a virtual format. >>. [please stand by]

>> and needs to be passed because these virtual meetings need to be more included. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm calling about 10.3 and 10.4 and they were no longer than nine years and i know there's a pandemic and so things

happen, whatever. it will now be 11 years we've had these parking contracts and what i want to know is why. every single parking space is an invitation to drive. we need less driving. we need fewer cars in our tiny 7 x 7 city. sfmta needs another source of revenue and while we're still dependent on this and figure that out, we need to wean ourselves away from this and you can do this by increasing the rates at garages. constraining the supply of parking by removing street parking spaces and repurposing it for bike lanes and people, shared spaces, flow of streets, etcetera.

when i look at the objectives met in the old transit plan, system performance. to get customers where they want to go when they want to be there. we are a transit-first city. there's nothing about owning and operating parking garages or having a bunch of parking spaces for free on the whole west side of the town and have a transit first policy. i implore you start walking away from this. why are we continuing this and why do we keep having parking and investigation people continue to drive when we want to ride and get away from being in the parking business. thank you. >> thank you.

next speaker, please. >> caller: i do not have comments on 10.1 and 10.2. i have comments on all the other items. you've already pulled 10.5 so what is your preference? do you want to hear my comments on the other matters besides 10.5? >> yes, please. >> caller: i'll try to take no more than a couple minutes on each and try to keep it very brief. on 10.3 and 10.4, i appreciate the passion that stacy brought and that was nice. i don't know if staff wants to respond to the recent channel 7, i-team report on garage security. that was an interesting report and staff may have something to say on that. in my opinion, these extensions are okay but i would ask that staff analyze bringing garage

management in-house with mta staff continuing to contract with the private sector. that might provide additional control over other aspects of the parking garages and maybe something to look at particularly if there's going to be a period of months between now and when an rfp is put together and certainly with an rfp the board still retains the discretion to reject all bids and not award and bring the work in house. those are my comments on 10.3 and 10.4. do you want me to hold on 10.5 and should i move to 10.6? >> yes. >> on 10.6 the woods contract. the financial plan that the last page attached to the overall plan and what is helpful to me

and the public is highlight the construction part of the project. in a case like this i'd like to see a highlighted line item that shows this particular action. the contract award is for 4.8, blah, blah, blah it should be a line 4.8 of the total construction phase which $11.7 million and the rest is contingency staff support for i don't know what but i'm looking for a specific line in these financial plans that highlights the instant action. i have no objection to the contract itself. shall i move on to 10.7? >> yes, you may. >> caller: on 10.7 i have no objection to appointing chair borden and the alternate on the

tgta but prefer they get appointed as the director and alternate on the tgpa board of directors and i read director tomlin is currently the director but my sense is that he's kind of busy so maybe taking that one assignment from director tomlin and giving it to one of you on the board with another of you on the board serving as the alternate would free up more of his time to run the agency. it's useful to have policy board members serving as point -- appointees on alternates. shall i move to 10.8? >> you may. >> caller: the findings it's

just too technical edits on the resolution page 2. it should read such meetings of insert the mta board of members and committees and go to approve by teleconferencing etcetera and that got emitted and the board of directs and committees and blah, blah, blah and on the final resolve at the top of the third page the words got jump palled in the city attorney's draft and should say if they don't meet within 30 days the secretary can place it on the agenda on the next board of

directors meeting. i will hold my comments on 10.5 until you hold that item. thank you for listening. >> thank you. next speaker, please on the items on consent with the exception of 10.5. with that with a little close public comment. the matters before you is there a motion on 10.5? secretary silva, please call the roll. >> on the motion to consent agenda vote with the exception of 10.5. [roll call] .

the consent calendar is approved. now back on item 10.5. >> commissioner: staff can give a brief overview of what 10.5 is. >> my project manager will give a brief presentation. take it away. >> chair, directors. i'm the project manager for the project and i'm with ntk and seeking your approval to award the con tract for to ntk for their amount of 57,264 and it

connects the south side and downtown san francisco and it carries 33,000 daily riders every day. the purpose of the project is to reduce reliabuce reliabilityfra daily riders every day. the purpose of the project is touce reliabilityand it carries riders every day. the purpose of the project is touce reliability this is a joint venture and we work collaboratively and the project is bringing together sfmta and public works to upgrade the vital system to other communities. i would like to speak about the scope of this project. the project scope includes installation of new transit islands and upgrade the existing

track, overhead wires and sewer and water infrastructure. with that i will take any questions that you may have. >> great. we'll lead off with director lai and follow-up with director yekutiel and anybody else who wants to discuss get in the queue. >> thank you for the overview. i have two buckets of questions. one is i just wanted some further clarification around the cost. thank you for reiterating that the contract is $57 million would go over any additional soft costs for segment b of the project and if you could go over our sources of funding for the segment b part of the project that'd be great. >> sure.

the cost is basically the cost to construct the project. that's what we call it. soft cost is we have identified 11 soft cost items part is project management and will oversee the design and construction. if there's any issues related to construction, we help further the project. engineering support may be related to the design it could be water, sewer, muni related work. we help answer the question through whatever the question the contract we have and construction project oversight. we have a team of construction management team including our resident engineer along with the construction field inspector and

office engineer that support the construction. making sure the job is done on time and on budget. that's our goal. that's our ultimate goal. our team who helps us put the project together also they help us out during the change order related to extra work that could be unforeseen work and help us review the language whenever we have a cost that may not be a part of the project scope. quality issuance and quality control. we have a team we have a sewer water work and we also make sure the contractor constructs the project in accordance with our plan and design. in one of the construction assurances to make sure sewer and water waste were completed

and make sure they compact the trench so we have 95% compaction with the material and meets our safety standards and materials are what we specify. our team makes sure the contractor is using to the product we specify also we have transit support and substitution costs during the trade and look at the costs and this is a busy corridor so we have allocated funding for the parking or even in case sometimes it goes out

for many reasons. and one of the items is public outreach. we have a very dynamic team. we have a team of professionals who are helping us with public outreach and we reach out to businesses and make sure that we are helping the businesses and also the director report being mentioned in the program and we have the outdoor dining and we're trying to help them out with the business folks along the corridor. and then service connections. so this project we have new street lighting and we also have upgrades or installing a new traffic signal and along with the public safety and we have

putting in a lot of street lights along the corridor. part is we completed the last piece we get the power from pg&e. and part of that involves payment to pg&e so we have to pay for that as part of the soft costs. also, we are installing the curb ramp and when we finish paving we have traffic signal increase the safety and there are stripping on the crosswalk and the last item is the agency

support service. other agency. and some done by the programs and they help us with the environmental construction and puc requires how do we minimize the noise and minimize the control and how to mitigate all the environmental safety and traffic congestion and what not. that's pretty much the soft costs that we identify and the project helps pay for all the costs. >> for the description.

i'm going to try to ask the question a little differently. my question is actually on what is the estimated total of soft costs because the item in front of us is just purely contracting for the $57 million of the hard costs with the g.c. which covers operational costs and landscaping and all that but it sounds like there's still additional soft costs to pay out. it's a two-part question. first, how much are we estimating or budgeting for additional soft costs for segment b of the project. secondly, how are we funding both the hard and soft costs. what are the sources of the funding for the remainder of the project?

>> first we'll talk about the soft fundings and how we'll pay for that. we have prop aa. and we have revenue and prop k sales tax and we have developed fees and we have general fund. the total is $56 million we have and that's nor construction phase. and any additional soft costs, right? >> any other ancillary cost. anything outside the current contract we are hearing.

>> some costs we may not know so if there's a project between puc and the sfmta public works hopefully we try our best to minimize the risk and from lessons learned we try to build the design to build the project envision. and we can the project designed for so many days and if we encounter a project to allow increase the soft costs because the engineer will have to work longer to reach 930 days. >> i completely understand there are unforeseen situations the

project cost would escalate but there would be a project cost and review before we grant or redesign the project but what is the current staff estimate of the soft cost related to the project? what i'm trying to understand i think i heard you say we have $66 million budgeted and $57 million goes towards the g.c. and we have $9 million is that the soft cost? >> if $57 million is for sfmta construction cost and $7 million combined with puc costs. so the and so to pay for hard

cost and soft cost. >> $56 million is to pay for mta's portion of the hard and soft cost? >> our cost is about $33 million. and money is to pay the bill. >> you mean we're anticipating 50% of the project costs going towards non-hard cost items? >> that's the funding we got approved. >> and thanks for listing out the funding sources. are those sources of funds already secured and in our account the full $56 million

including the developer fees? >> we already booked $29 million and in the quarter of the fiscal year we are supposed to receive an additional $10 million and after that moving on based on the coordination. >> so we have $29 million of the $56 million and we're expecting $10 million so there's $37 million left that is t.b.d. allocation? >> correct. we have approved budget for $66 million so $29 million we have allocated right now and are supposed to receive $10 billion

more around match. >> we're expecting the remaining $29 million and how do we know we'll have that money? >> that's already been approved. so then we have to and -- >> the construction cost is only $33 million and we would have enough money to pay for the hard costs. the soft costs would also come with the cash flow. once the project moves forward we get the rest of the money. >> thank you. my second question is to make sure we have learned from past experiences in particular comparing with our project

management and the b.r.t. and some coordination challenges we experience with other agencies. looking for feedback from staff what have we done in this project structure to ensure we are first of all i think there's too many things for me. one is how are we streamlining design changes and confirming design scope and confirming the base of the design before we open up the project site so that we don't fall into a pattern that we fell into which is like designing a project while it's open which is costly and the changes requested from our partner agencies out of our control and did cascade into financial costs for the agency and trying to understand how we're trying to mitigate some of

that for the project. >> thank you very much. >> one thing is we had 10 blocks of the previous project. this is segment b is two or three times larger than segment a. we have lessons learned from segment a. we have on top of that because we've been proactive and working with pg&e constantly. we don't want to repeat the same mistake. we've been proactively holding even today as we speak we have pg&e crews out there right now

trying to relocate the potential conflict, the stuff that may be in the way they're moving out of the away ahead of time as we speak. the second thing was allowing at at&t and pg&e to get ahead of the game. and we identify these ahead of time. and we have a franchise agreement with pg&e and we have an agreement and one thing we

change on segment b is we create items so we don't have the issue going back and forth with utility and that's a big plus nor project as well as for the city, i guess, as a whole and trying to minimize the change order because the difference is by not having the item you would have to have argument going back and forth with the utility company. in this case, we already identified the utility. say we are putting it into our water. they already make the water or sewer line so they have to bid

knowing they have to work with a utility facility. that's a big plus and whatever we find doing in the space ahead of us and move out of the way. that's what we've been doing and -- >> hold on. taking one step back to present context everything he's saying is consistent with the idea we've worked in segment a and we'll take that learning and apply it to segment b as a big reduction. and the other difference of the

pothole investigation is more than we anticipate and the utilities are vastly less complex. it's a state highway and we found and it's a very important neighborhood street but doesn't have the intensity and utility. the learning from segment a there's a less context and that's best practice investigation to minimize risk. all that hopefully, director lai, addresses the concerns of finding something underground and have to change orders mid construction. >> commissioner: i do recall when design requests unrelated to underground utilities came

about from other agencies later on. that did change our signal location and our island design. i'm just trying to look for assurance that we're not going to get into that situation and say another agency decides to redesign part of the project for us late in the game that we're held financially accountable for their late decision making. >> are you talk at the corner of the street? one thing is we have an underground service alert. when we identify it from line to

line from the front of the building including the whole street and to property line. anything that we find we identified. for segment a when we were planting the trees, the area that we wanted to plant a tree we found some gas line. we have be creative and worked with the architect and i know what you're talking about. it could be there could be times and we have a busy corridor. and you don't get too aligned on the sidewalk but in segment a we found a sewer line in a sidewalk which is unusual. we have a lesson learned and the directors that we are taking that lesson learned and moving on to segment b and trying to

make it better. i'm not saying we won't find issues or problems. i've worked on a project that has no issue at all and is impossible. we're trying to minimize that. and in addition to that -- >> again at a more planning level the work on taraval we'll make pedestrian safety improvements but those your referring to had to do with agencies coming to grips with the pouring of concrete and new ideas how a.d.a. should be treated and none of that is present in taraval. it's a less complicated context and that risk gets minimized. >> commissioner: that's good to know because i saw in the scope we're rebuilding islands and

things like that and on a.d.a. we're hopefully front loading the issues and not having the surprises later. and the last question is are we for this project as the lead agency on it and it's clear we're the executing agency. it is a three agency project including p.u.c. and d.p.w., and risk where other agencies effectively tell us we can't use certain subcontractors and have to go out and rebid and that

significantly increased costs and delayed the project. i hope we're writing in clear understanding between the city family agencies to have a more streamline management. >> the way we tried to manage van ness we're the contracting authority. and it's up to us who work on the project. >> i know they had a clarifying question but maybe they weren't.

director yekutiel. >> thank you director lai for your questions. i know we're on phase 1 but are you worried they must be cutting corners to get to an estimate. >> a similar pattern with segment a. the same vendor bid on the first segment. they were in that case 30% under estimate and in this case 36% under estimate. >> commissioner: how are they

coming in 30% below our estimate. what are they seeing we don't? >> they're familiar with the job. they learned the traffic. it helped with the bid. >> it's not about the bid price but the engineer's estimate because it seems we overestimated the cost of the project.

>> i've said this before, i think our bidding process needs revision. we shouldn't be going with the lowest bidder but the one we have the most confidence in and concerned we had a bid so far below it makes me worried. do we have an issue with our estimations or are they artificially bidding super low in order to get the bid? it does concern me they're so far below what we estimated. >> we project the escalation cost and the commodity and

materials are skyrocketing so we figure 6% over one year because we project and we have contingencies fill in. so because of covid we had to do more safety cautious work, ie, they have to make sure to wear the masks and the cleaning materials so if you do compare it's not that much.

>> how much time saving cost is this supposed to have for the 33,000 people once it's all said and done? >> this project is going in and doing the permanent capital work to improve the safety investments and travel time investments we already made on taraval so many of the things that help with travel time have already been implemented. i think it's another reason why we also have confidence there's not going to be a high number of change orders. with point we've already put in the boarding locations, the

right staff spacing and the dedicated lane. what we haven't gone in is do the infrastructure upgrade and the more permanent accessibility upgrade and stop investment. we're happy to follow-up with the project team to see if the permanent capital changes will give us an incremental travel time savings above and beyond what we've already gotten but much of what the board has legislated to improve travel times were implemented as a quick build project and then what we're doing now is going in and investing in the urpan space and the customer experience and the accessibility and the pedestrian safety on the corridor. >> i have to ask this question then and i've always been pretty transparent in question, given

everything your side of the agency has to deal with and the question for all three of you, why don't we pause the project a couple years and use that towards something else? is there a higher priority ticket item you'd want to use that money for? >> i would strongly discourage us from putting the project on hold. not only is our infrastructure past the state of good repair which creates maintenance costs and risk to the corridor, but the partner agency utilities are beyond their useful life. i think this is a project that has been in the works for over a decade and i personally don't believe as a city we can afford

to put it on hold nor do i believe it will be cost effective given what we talked about in terms of having a strong contractor and a competitive bid before you today. >> commissioner: thank you. my last question is it's already been asked but do we feel d.p.. and p.u.c. are paying they're share and it will also benefit their agencies do you feel they're paying what they should be paying to get this project completed? >> we're paying for the track way and the transportation infrastructure

>> it's a pretty straightforward division of costs. >> director hinze has a question. >> the contract before us is $57 million and told us he hard costs are $57 million so are there soft costs in the contractor what's the difference between the $33 million and $57 million? what's the balance going to be used for?

>> i think the question has to do with the bigger picture, so any savings on this gets reprogrammed into other urgent state of repair needs and we'll be bringing you a capital budget and you'll see the fixed guideway program is over sub ed not by tens of millions of dollars but by hundreds of millions of dollars so it's truly a gift it came in lower than expected. it is an anomaly, not the norm. it will immediately go to other urgent needs we have in the subway and throughout our rail system to bring the capital infrastructure to a state of good repair which is critical not only for maintenance

efficiency but for safety. >> we're hoping that's the difference between? that makes sense. thank you. >> thank you. >> i'll make a motion to move item 10.5. >> second. >> great. now it's time for public comment. i'm going to open 10.5 up for members of the public. if you are on the line and wondering what item we're on, we're on consent calendar 10.5 and it was removed from the others and they were voted on and this is not time to address those but if you have a question or comment specific to 10.5 the taraval project you can president 1-0 so add your name to the queue.

are there callers on the line? >> >> caller: thank you, alina due prefor the record she and her. i used to use the taraval line quite a lot of and i feel something forgotten has been forgotten in the renovation is building more a.d.a. compatible transit stops. i see the line is about 102 years old and impressed because it's a gut renovation we should have more a.d.a. transit stops

and i am concerned given my basic reading of this resolution and contract there's not a provision for more transit stops but i maintain the line is on an incline that has quite a substantial elevation gain from 46 avenue up to the apec at the top of taraval. i hope i'm concerned about leaving people with disabilities out because, as far as i can tell, adding more transit stops and it concerns me the question is not even asked. i ask you not forget about people who need transit stops. i'm fortunate i can walk but many can't. within way we can get more people riding the taraval line

is by adding more a.d.a. accessible transit stops. thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: this is stacy brandecker. i just want to say i'm thankful for direct lai who has deep construction knowledge and is able to poke around at the difference between the hard and soft costs and so gently asked about lessons learned and what i would ask before approval of this is there would be a chart produced that is here are the projects that were embarked. here is when we initially said they'd be done and here is how much money we said we would spend and what is the track record spend over the past 10 to

15 to 20 years of this agency in terms of delivering projects on time and on budget because i am very concerned about our inability to do this and i heard the gentleman say about lessons learned and things that were unexpected but this is all construction and it just seems this agency continues to take it on the chin from i don't know what is driving it but we don't have this money. the planet is burning and yes we want our things to be in good repair but with $57 million, you could buy a top-notch e-bike for every sdsf student k-12. we have these big dollar amounts that get passed around and everything just rubber stamps them and we keep going our own way and it seems like caltrans

version of building more highways and stuff. we should be calling into question what are we spending our money on? are we doing it wisely? can it be delivered in the time that is needed and how many people will benefit from this? i want better transit but i'm just aghast as the price tags. choose wisely and accountability and what our track record has been. >> caller: david philpan again. someone may want to make notes. there's been staff on the project over the years i count at least five project managers and two or three communication

staff. this project seems to lack stability perhaps importance within the agency. i would going ask what lessons were learned from the van ness avenue situation that have been applied to this project and contract specifically. staff addressed much of that earlier. this board should insist it operate through service in the subway following construction it would be more than -- it would be a crime of some sort if we force the riders to transfer at west portal in the future. that would be unconscionable. i can't come up with a good word. during the construction it should continue from the zoo to downtown like in phase 1 with no forced transfer at west portal, absolutely. the stakeholder engagement

section of the staff report does not even the include the project web page. not all the ceqa documents are available on the planning department website specifically 2017016132. please mail copies of all the relevant ceqa documents to me. it is impossible to find specific transit specific ceqa documents on the planning department website and there's more than 100 and buried. it's impossible to navigate and find them and staff knows that and should have those as attachments to the staff report to calendar items like this. again, the financial plan is overall and should highlight the construction phase of the project not clear despite the discussion where the cost savings from being under the

engineer's estimate might get redirected. i'm most concerned about coordination with other projects in this vare. p.u.c. has a separate water and power project just starting and will be in construction almost the same time as taraval will will result in a lot of traffic on yeloa and want to know what is done to coordination traffic with other projects in the area including caltrans work and anything rec/park may be doing at 19th and vincente. i encourage you to follow-up with questions. >> are there additional callers?

>> next speaker, please. i'm going step away. >> this is barry toronto. i didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth because it includes taxi use of the transit only lane. and thank you for the important questions about the projects. and i want to point out that they're not doing any work at night. i hope you're getting a savings of them not working at night on the project. what are doing to monitor the work of the contractor and make sure they're not sloughing off or extending beyond 930 days.

that's a long time almost three years. i don't know if you need three years for a project like this. you need to ask important questions now rather than later when you become the subject of a grand jury report. thank you very much. >> great, next speaker, please. that concludes public comment and you can go ahead and call the roll. >> on the motion to approve item 10.5, vice chair eaken. >> aye. >> director hinze. >> clerk: aye. director lai. looks like you may have some technical difficulties. to dr. yekutiel.

>> i'll wait until dr. lai votes, if that's okay. >> we'll see if she can unmute. >> i vote aye. >> director yekutiel. >> aye. >> chair borden. >> aye. >> the item is approved. thank you. >> that puts us on item 11. 11. presentation and discussion of the regional fare coordination/integration study.

>> the study was conducted by the operators and transportation commission to identify areas of the policies as a way to grow ridership and the study was with a team of staff and the majority of agencies with deliverables and a task force consisting of general managers and directors of bay area transit agencies and executive level leadership. i'd like to introduce mike eisman from bart and the co-managers to provide an update on the recommendations and the next steps. >> my name is bill with the staff of the metropolitan transportation commission and one of the project managers and

i'm joined by my fellow project manager from bart mike eisman. i'll share the screen to share the slides for the presentation. and the board is not being asked to take action. it's seeking the board's feedback and policy direction we'll discuss with you as well as take your questions. as we mentioned we're going to present the key finding recommendations and possible near term actions based on the work it date of the fair coordination study.

i'll provide brief background and important framing before we get into the more detailed discussion of the recommendations. the presentation will delve into the metrics by which our study conducted analysis and i want to call your attention to an extensive appendix available for download via the link at the bottom of the slide and creates details on a more technical level than we can share in the presentation. over the next two slides we'll walk through key questions and approach we used to frame our analysis and recommendations over the course of the project. the project is owned and overseen by a fair integration task forces consisting of general managers and directors of the agencies whose logo is on the right and managed by bart and ntc and supported by a work group of planning, finance and

public affairs staff from transit operators around the region. an agency staff working on managing the project are support a consultive team and i'll note over the course of the last year and a half there's been various forums for stakeholder engagement. we did earlier this spring hosted a webinar focussed on transit agency board members and board members from around region were invited to participate in the webinar and we had an ongoing public stakeholder meeting which is housed under the advisory council. the sub-commitee on fair coordination and integration. that body meets every other month and consists of stakeholders from equity, disability and public transit rider and advocates and stake holders and representative of

the business community around the bay area and representatives of city departments of transportation that are not transit agencies like sfmta and other representatives from a variety of constituents and they've helped the project team shape our work. and i'll note the task force of which operators and ntc have been engaged with are interested in the scope of work of the project and received updates on the project. you can see the scale of adult cash fare single fares a customer would pay using a clipper car on the bus and light

rail operators. there's eight different price with the lowest generally found in the north bay and higher prices in san francisco and santa clara county. on the lower portion in addition to more than a dozen operators who generally charge a flat fare, eight use their own base or distanced based fare system and while some offer some type of a day willyy -- daily or weekly or monthly pass there's some that don't offer any type of those products for users. thinking about the project.

last year they had a variety of factors limiting to ridership leading up to the pandemic. and one factor of many was the policy. because the policies are principally by government models that incentivized fares there's a study identifying key issues. the first being customer value or how they can lead to a disconnect. the second issue we this payment experience or how current their products may not be as legible or how the current fare policies may introduce barriers that limit the full potential of our

planned capital and operational investments and finally equity underlying all the work and focuses on how current policies may not fully meet the needs of equity priority communities. as the board considers policy recommendations we'd like the board to think about them through the lens of the four integration tiers which are foundational to how the study analysis is structured. the first tier on the left, number 1, focuses on overlays to the existing fare structure that do not require changes to how individual transit agencies price or manager their fare policy. instead policies that fit under tier 1 include offerings like passes or accumulators that are overlaid on top of the fare structures but change how users

experience travel in the bay area. the second tier, number 2 changes policy at the point where riders connect to different transit agencies. this tier doesn't require changes to how transit agencies have travel within their own agency. and instead focuses on eliminating or reducing the cost to users of the transfer between local bus and light rail services and offer a meaningful discount between local transit and regional services like ferry, express services and rail services like bart in the north bay. the first tier, number 3 has more regional transit services. rail and, ferry and express bus but not local. and bring it into a common

distance and tier 3 unlike the first two tiers would require how it's managed for the regional and tier 3 would not affect the structure or management or fares for local bus and fourth, build upon the changes in tier 3 and bring all the transit services into a common zone-based structure for local and regional services. tier 4 would require the most significant change to how fare policy is managed and priced and experienced by agencies. they're not recommendations but how to athink of approaching integration and we'll talk about

our recommendations a little bit later. in the interest of time i'm going to skip through this slide. we'll talk more about the business case later. how did we conduct our analysis? on the right side you can see the four dimensions and strategic dimension, benefit cost and delivery and operation dimension and financial dimension. and between the four tiers of integration we discussed these on an earlier slide.

there's two key levers we test. the first were structural changes and they focussed on what fare structure would look like and whether local and regional structures would be modified and things would be applied in a given scenario and how it impacts user experience. and adjust the revenue impact or subsidy required for each scenario that we modelled. and because fare structure change can increase or decrease revenue generated, we wanted to develop a common set of investment levels that would allow us to compare policy changes and forecasted impacts to each other. mike will talk more about this in his portion of the presentation but i wanted to highlight the two key levers in our modelling analysis we changed to better understand

potential impacts to things like vehicle miles traveled, transit ridership and revenue impact and emissions, etcetera, given fare policy change might be able to produce. i think you have asked us through the project are there fare integration option offer a cost-effective equitable way to promote transit? based on the analysis of the project team we believe the answer is yes especially coordinated with broader strategies that make transit work better for all users. i'll try to go this quickly in the interest of time. first, and there's the to

increase ridership based on pre-pandemic levels despite what tier we're to advance in the bay area. second, the possible ridership gains and fare policy changes are cost effective relative to other transit system investments. with the investment cost for each new trip generated through fare coordination and integration policy in the ballpark of $2 to $3 relative to most the major capital transit projects in the area. third, our analysis suggests fare integration can help their meaningful reductions in vehicles miles travel with travel time and air pollution and safety on local streets and roads. the recommendations we're putting forward in this

presentation are also compatible with the equity goals and values and our analysis shows the recommendations would provide significant and proportionate to equity communities. i want to note there is an inherent level of uncertainty in our work as the ongoing impacts of the pandemic on individuals and the bay area economy make it impossible to fully foresee the impact of policy change and how it would manifest in the future where the covid pandemic is better managed and its impacted reduced. before i turn it over to mike who will walk us through the detailed recommendations i wanted to address one other key question over the course of the project is create standard regional transit fare policy that applies to every agency in

line with simplicity and eligibility would it do a lot with ridership and despite an investment in user research and working with transit riders and listening to their needs and experiences, our findings are somewhat inconclusive whether a simple system would do much to increase ridership. we can talk about this in the presentation when we talk about tier 4 while standardizing fare policy across operators might improve eligibility for some users to the bay area, it might also create a lot of costs for existing users in terms of their ability to understand how their fares might change and it showed

user skeptical of changes involving local services. we'll talk about that more and how our recommendation turned out. i'll turn it over to mike for the remainder of the presentation. >> mike eisman financial planner for bart and co-project manager. i'll give an every view of our project team's recommendations. i want to cover basics on how we think the recommendations relate

to the sfmta board's authority and accountability. first our recommendations do not contemplate transfer of locally sourced funds between agencies. second, in making the recommendations we assume funds will be sought to offset revenue impacts and finally there's no changes to the board and the recommendations are steps of implementation. we recommend piloting an all-agency institutional and employer transit path. the next phase would begin in fall of 2023 with clipper 2 recommending free or redived costs interaction transfers and

for the second phase we recommend continuing to explore option for path products or a clipper cap and what we think is most promising but we think they should look to the findings of institutional pilot before committing to a specific path and in green is our regional services and we should continue to develop the option as part of the broader assessment of post-pandemic ridership and strategy for the services and muni's rail and rapid bus are considered local services in our study and would not be affected by the recommendation.

we have free and reduced cost interagency transfers and they pay one fare. the cost of the most expensive segment of their tour. customers making regional to regional connection such as bart caltrain would receive a fixed income equal to the price of a local bus fare or minimum rail fare to allow regional services to work better as functions of change and there's about 25,000 daily trips and reduce revenue by an estimated $2 million and the it's the best cost efficient of our alternatives we test. we found the benefits of the discounts balanced across income

levels and found this option readily deliverable in the clipper 2 system. next i'll back up in the time line and discuss the proposed institutional and employer past pilot which could begin in calendar year 2022. like existing signal agency institutional products such as caltrans go pass and this would be an all you can ride pass sold to institutions in bulk for consists but cover travel on any agency. we're modelling on the puget sound model and we expect the pricing would be based on the employer's location so the cost would be compense -- commensurate with the region and

engage the institutions and the community with the recovery. from a san francisco standpoint we hope such partnerships could help drive recovery for downtown san francisco and pricing that achieve parity with the sub system and would need to backstop potential revenue impact during the pilot. we're recommending the region continue to look at cap product for deployment in clipper it. outside institutional passes, broad applications of either passes off fare capping did not rate among the most cost-effective strategy and here is a design for a path we think scores better than most caps and passes on efficiency but not as strong as our core transfer discount proposal.

the user could select a monthly pass multiplied by a factor like if the rider's typical fare is $3 for the month all dollars up to $3 would be covered and this is a puget sound model and this is a reduction of $4.25 per trip and costs would require a structure and we believe this is the individual offering that looks most promising at this time but we recommend additional consideration and design based on findings of the institutional

pilot. we think the learnability and ledgeability would benefit from a structure for regional services and combined with broader user focussed strategies strategies and we support a shared structure but to continue to evaluate it as part of a broader assessment of ridership patterns and funding strategy for the regional services. in our models the high investment would drive a 4.7% ridership increase and reduce revenue of $70 million per year but has the strongest benefit of anything tested and our regional

agencies would need new multi party agreements and network models to implement a fare share structure and finally, we do not have a recommendation for tier 4 rand the options en our analysis had higher investment required and lower cost efficiency then the more targeted strategies. and they have higher deliverability requirements as well as well as a greater change in management requirement for customers. we have two tables of data that summarize for your reference the business case findings we wouldn't cover those today but happy to answer questions about

the broader analysis. here we'll finish up with our recommendationed near term action to implement the strategies. so we have been working closely with our staff working group, clipper team and staff from a number of agencies getting input from outside stakeholders and business groups and trying to put in place the mechanics for a potential pilot of an institutional path should we decide to go in that direction. the objective of the pilot to evaluate a barrier-free all agency pass and assess impact on travel behavior and collect data that can be used as a basis for a revenue model for permanent program and to complete title 6 analysis. we propose a pilot with two

phases. one would focus on colleges and universities and leverage existing institutional pass relationships and proi pose a small scale demonstration project with affordable housing a second phase is to include employers and residents and we would hope to partner with business organizations and property managers to expand beyond past institutional customers. we want to acknowledge significant challenges for delivering a pilot including administrative investment that would be required. while the goal is to establish price structure with no added subsidy for a permanent program we believe funding will be required for the pilot for administrative expenses as well as to backstop potential agency revenue impacts and could be a good use of regional recovery fund set aside for the brtf

action plan. for that back to bill for our final slide. >> thank you, mike. finally, we'd like to briefly discuss a few next steps the project is going through now. over the coming weeks they have board meetings in response to requests from transit agency staff. at the next meeting of the task force the governing body made of the general managers on october 18 the task force may consider acting on a resolution establishing a policy direction for which to continue with the work of the project. a formal final project report won't be considered for adoption by the task force and i want to note at the end of the month october 27 and 28 the commission will be meeting an workshop format and will hear a presentation about the study along with other updates of our

retired focussed transit investments coming out of the pandemic. those were all included as part of the blue ribbon recovery task force action plan. the mtc commission will use the project updates to help inform the use of a portion of the rescue plan funds that were used to set aside of the action plan items. that would include perhaps providing financial force and preparing for implementation of the recommendations for the project. and i'd like to thank staff who have been in the integral from the scope of our work and select consultant team through today so thank you to all the executive leadership and all engaged with

the project in the last year and a half. thank you for inviting us to participate this afternoon. >> the one question i have, when you calculated the reduction in fare revenue how did you do that based on overall ridership and where they're concentrated and the fares? how did you come up with that number? for the larger agencies you pointed out the discrepancy in the pricing and not to mention some have the distant based fares and wondering how you did the analysis? >> our primary analysis tool for most the alternatives was the regional travel model 1.5. the same model used for the bay area. all the fare structures are coded in.

it attempts to assign trip making and choice based on a combination of travel time and cost and other factors. certainly models are imperfect but for a regional scale it was the best tool to us and ground our findings in actual data including clipper and survey data and we feel reasonably confident to the degree models are valuable tools that need to be taken with a grain of salt. >> you mentioned the funding for the pilot. i was confused. you said you'd use some of the cares act fund? was there funding dedicated to that we got? >> the m.t.c. when i began to

distribute american rescue funds set aside a portion of the funds to deliver blew blue ribbon recovery task force for key priority initiatives. one was fare policy changes so what the commission will be considering is using some funds to help support a pilot or other actions that were discussed today. no decisions have been made and no actions taken this month by the mtc commission but it will be on the agenda at the end of the month for the commission to start talking about how they might want to use that american rescue plan set aside for the investments. >> didn't you say something like 2% to 5% increase in ridership for those project versus i

imagine you would have a larger increase in ridership with potentially other things we could do so it would seem to me if we're talking about american rescue funds i'd see a metric larger in terms of increasing ridership to 2% to 5% is my feedback but i'll get to directors' questions. director hinze. >> this is a clarifying question. [indiscernible] the

recommendation is based on the location. >> and more people would have transit passes in their pocket and we might be able to generate extra ridership that way. that's in our region and elsewhere have been able to achieve that with a program like this. >> in theory we would not

necessarily [indiscernible] >> a version is the successful go pass. they worked their way towards parity before the pandemic. it works by trial and error. that's why we think some revenue backstop would be needed during the pilot fades. -- phase. >> that concludes my question. >> director eaken, do you have a question? no? okay. >> thank you.

i would love to start with a question around slide 24 where you talk about the significant administrative cost and staffing requirements as well as the challenges with the start-up so it's either the two body of cost. one is potentially the loss in revenue which again very grateful to see your early commitment to backstop that revenue. but could you talk about that significant cost and administrative start-up? what is the ballpark of costs of staffing you're thinking about there. >> thank you, director eaken, there's two different elements of what we mean by staffing

cost. costs associated wedge a pilot would be contained and focussed on trying to stand up a pilot and likely done with existing staff resources across agenies this would be a multiple pilot crass the region and to add context and there's existing plans like this and smart and there's a lot of institutional product and staff who support those products right now. there's no commitment until you can do the pilot but if we were to get to that stage there'd have to be discussion amongst the transit operators on what the right approach would be for staffing for the pilot in materials of resources from the staffing end point and whatever financial support we had whether

that be from american rescue plan funds or somewhere else. second bigger issue is we want a pilot to be successful and translate into a permanent program we can offer to institutions, employers and again it's important to highlight employers of all kinds and sizes. usually they targeted large employers or employers more office based. it's important in the way we think about the program is that it would be available to employers who are maybe less office focussed. retailers and people who work on the restaurant or hospitality industry and a broad range of employees and employers to benefit but to build the infrastructure for a successful program you need a staff of people building the partnerships and creating those opportunities. so in the longer term, if we were to have a permanent program

it's likely a cross-transit operator is housed in some place in the bay area we'd want to have a team of people focussed on the institutional partnerships and helping to sell and craft a product that work for employers and riders. these models this concept is after what the puget sound region and they have less than a staff of 10 to manage the program and the program before the pandemic generated more than half of their fare bucks revenue just from this program. that allowed the whole system to expand significantly in the years leading up to the pandemic. seattle had been one of the most successful cities in the united states in terms of growing bus ridership and that's where the more significant costs factor in

in a permanent structure down the line. >> you must know, if you've been to any transit agency hearing around the bay area what a difficult situation it is and if you've attended recently you heard the public asking to restore service to pre-pandemic levels and the challenging thought process whether we do that and take a risk we run out of funding or take a more conservative approach. you must know it's an incredibly difficult time to be speaking to transit agencies about any potential revenue loss of any kind given what we're trying so hard to bring back and even get back to where we were. so i'm curious as we think about this as one potential investment whatever revenue stream you'll be using to backstop that $22

million or so revenue loss, have you looked at other ways to chair borden's point, have you looked at other ways the $20 million could be deployed towards your goal of transit service. earlier in the meeting we were talking about a network of transit only lanes to speed up service with our rapid lines and we do see ridership increase on those lines. i appreciate your goal and the thoughtful analysis and to compare this business case for spending it that way opposed to any other regional transit investment that might achieve your goals and comes out on top of terms of the most prudent use of the rescue dollars to this point. >> i'll say yes, absolutely, we

know how hard and my day job as a financial planner is every day. in terms of the competition for very scarce resources, we did not perform our full business case analysis we did a basic cost per new rider calculation compared to a group of proposals in the area as well as comparison with subsidy levels in capital and the existing transit system, the whole thing. we found those relatively favorable return on investment calculation. they compare favorably with the most cost sufficient strategy in the bay area. so it's a model and as bill

acknowledged a lot of uncertainty and certainty in the projections. i don't thing we want to make a statement on the most prudent use on funds for the region but it's a strategy we think should be considered alongside other important priorities. in terms of looking to the future, thinking from the bart perspective, we're not $22.5 million short of a sustainable operating plan. we're hundreds of millions short as a region from where we need to be and when we look at a subsidy we will need a bridge. >> and i want to ask a last

question and glad to hear you acknowledge the challenging situation we all face. given all that, just curious, why now. why is now the right time to talk about this as agencies are all facing so many challenges. why not let us get through this challenging time and have the conversation? >> i think it's important to acknowledge the project began before the pandemic started and all transit operators are still in a state of crisis and trying to survive the pandemic and trying to mitigate the impacts and the goal and problem statement was trying to grow trans ridership and that

challenge has become more acute during the pandemic in terms of trying to serve riders who need to use service today and ensuring the system is sustainable in the future to all bay residents have them at their disposal. i think as mike was trying to allude to a little bit, before the pandemic, transit ridership in the bay area was stagnant or declining with many operators. one of the goals general managers put before us when we began the work was to focus on how can fare policy change be a cost-effective way of growing ridership. now that it's decreased our revenues have decreased it's all the more important we find ways to bring people back to the system and our target has been

outside of the business as usual approach to what the area has done for the last half century. so all of our actions require investment and everything we're trying to do collectively as transit operators in the region is risky right now. and this is is one piece of the puzzle is a step towards trying to encourage people to use the system and showing the agencies are nimble and thinking differently. >> i think sfmta would find similar inclusions and the pass pilot is good for the moment we're in. the markets are in big trouble right now so we do think it's a

way of partnering with business and institutions and we hope is a revenue neutral strategy long term. >> thank you. director yekutiel. >> i'd like to hear what the manager thinks about this and the whole plan and process and with the different scenarios and options here i want it hear your thoughts, if you don't mind. >> having spent much of my

career working and visiting many places in asia and europe, i appreciate the intention of the effort. our fair structure here in the san francisco is one of the most complex in the world. and straightening it out and making it easier for people to figure out and reducing the penalty faced by longer distance travellers all have good value. that said, my thinking i think is in alignment with much of director eaken's thinking which is what so the business case for doing this particular investment now? i've become concerned when the region is taking away funds set aside for transit system recovery and instead investing in subsidizing passengership and

less concerned if the looked at all the investment and how cost effective they are in meeting the region goals and if we can take funds from highway expansion and take it to fare integration and transit recovery, i'll all in favor so long as you're threatening the recovery of local transit service in order to integrate fares, i am concerned about this and also concerned the region has not yet shown the leadership we hoped it would in responding directly to covid in creative ways. can we actually advance ideas like transit-only lanes from the day bridge and on the east bay approaches to the bay bridge? can we work more quickly on projects like san pablo avenue

and funding locally though the projects are on regional and state facilities like presidio and lombard street like we discussed. in general, i'm all in favor of the integration but i want to make sure we are funding it in the right way and considering the business case. >> i feel the same way. i think we have way too many agencies and systems and overlapping and duplicative and they all require their own set of staffing and personnel and h.r. department and scanners and photo copiers and the like and all that adds 30% to all these costs. i'm glad year -- we're doing it hit but the devil's in the

details and i don't know if this is unique to the bay area but we have overlaying agencies which also have staff. i know they're working on long-range planning and distributing funds that come in but i wonder if as we think about not just fare integration but all the agencies if we're also looking at the long-term utility organizations like c.t.a. and m.t.c. if everything's integrated do we need overlaying organizations to figure out how to spend the money? i know that's not a question you're trying to answer now but someone's got to ask it. every time we get money in the

bay area a chunk gets taken from other organizations to think about how to spend the money and want us to think holistically about this stuff and thanks for doing it and i think we should be bold but it's a tough time right now. >> director lai. >> that was a lot. first wanted to appreciate director eaken's questions those were on point from my perspective. there's been over the years questions about this but more of a regional approach and appreciating the background of

this and the technical question about the presentation is i'm trying to understand the numbers presented to us including the ridership numbers and per trip numbers are average for the various agencies. so my maybe wrongly so assumption in that we probably subsidized higher than other agencies just trying to get a reference point -- no? help me understand, one is relative to the numbers presented in the regional average where do we stand per trip of subsidy and the anticipated ridership increase, what are we anticipating if this

happens for our local ridership increase because there's a higher rate for transfer. >> the director will know the facts so please step in if you're available but the average subsidy per trip is usually significantly less than other jurisdictions particularly for the larger rail systems. julie, do you have statistics off the top of your head on cost subsidy per trip? >> i wish i did but i'd have to follow-up to speak accurately on the topic. >> and i recall a last figure is

that we're subsidiing $6 a trip so i'd appreciate maybe subsequently what the subsidy is and going to the transfer rate and the subsidy if this happens and do we have a concept of what that means for our local system in this area. >> certainly there would have to be a lot of detailed work to establish the revenue and i will

say of the transfers that do occur in the region they are a lot of them are on like the bart uni and it represents half of all regional transfers. and of those transfers, maybe half of them are people with homes in the west bank and those the bulk of the transferring so i think you would expect much of the revenue impact and ridership benefits to occur between for people making both types of trips. >> great, thank you. that is positive. maybe the ridership increase for muni will be higher than the 2% to 55% mentioned in the presentation and i think at the local level we do have to assess

what the real impact may be for us before we can consider where we land on the policy level. i personal think it's for policy decisions without having financial information like concrete financial information so especially during the period of time where we're struggling so much and we're about to hit into the fiscal cliff for mta and then maybe on that point i think in the presentation you mentioned that your expecting there will be some sort of regional funding for this to backstop the program. what are they currently thinking? is there a regional measure or timing you're anticipating for this if you're rolling this out

by 2024 or are you targeting a 2022 ballot measure? >> there's a long list of issues

that would need to be tackled and that's consistent with what the study is trying to do is what is the policy direction the bay area may want to go to over time we can achieve that policy vision when funding becomes available. so if there's a significant new funding measure that is considered in the future, that there's a policy that could be associated with that when it comes to the fare policy. >> let's say the policy moves forward but the funding isn't there, the mtc would not roll it out and leave us to our own devices to come up with the money? >> mtc doesn't set policy so we

don't are control on what fare policies are. the answer to the question no, mtc can't require agencies to have a fare be what it is. >> i'm sorry, i understand you don't control our fare policies but are you implying if there was a regional measure you'd expect us locally to make up for the funding by increasing our fares because i think that would be not what our current direction is? >> let's talk with the interagency transfer proposal. that's one if the agency boar

a a -- agrees to make it happen it could happen by fall 2023. we have not identified a funding source for that particular strategy or for a great part of the transit system that needs to be operated after 20 24 but there's policy decisions raised around that already but there's a number of strategies potential uses of that funding and so that funding could be used to offset agency revenue impact for some amount of time but not permanently. >> great, thank you for that answer. >> i have one last question about the increase in ridership and the demographic you're expecting to serve. who do you think in the

community in the bay area community, who are the new riders of the system once we do the fare integration and i'm looking for the equity portion and are we subsidizing and integrating fare to people who basically can afford it already? i'm hoping not. i'm hoping we're reaching new people part of the community

[technical difficulties] >> thank you, chair.

>> i believe director hinze has a question. >> i have a question. >> i can't hear. >> we can hear you chair borden. >> i'll go to director hinze now. ite -- i'll put it in the chat. >> i associate myself with a lot of director eaken and director tomlin's thoughts on this but i think you have gotten us fairly universal thoughts from the board. i did have a couple areas of

concern. i have a concern about the lack of user appeal for phase 4 of fare integration but we don't necessarily need to get into that today but it does lead me back to this task idea and how you how you tested and determine the popularity of such a pass would be. so if you would go into a little bit more detail how you tested and modelled for that, that would be interesting to know. >> sure. so we did some ridership and financial analysis on a number of different type of pass and

products both sort of general fare capping on the trip basis and on a fare basis as well as up front pass offerings where a person purchase as a pass from the beginning and the financial analysis and ridership analysis was outside of the travel model. we built a model dedicated for this purpose using clipper data. and we did ask riders about the research about the appeal of various products and generally people like discount fares of any kind when you ask them. i will say on the pilot program, our really our understanding of whether the customer friendliness of that has to do with the success in the real

world. we don't have ahold -- a model how that would work except in our region. >> and folks with disabilities or older adults, if they the loge locality would be buying the pass in would be by location if the locality offers a discounted fare i'm assuming it would be a discount to purchase the pass? >> to the nature of the pass would be purchased by employers or universities. you would only have access to

that particular product through those institutions. we have thrown out an idea for individual offering but we think that needs findings from the pilot before we finalize the proposal. >> right. >> we would need all agencies to jump for the product. for our proposal for interaction

transfers, that is still to be implemented in the clipper 2 system and we have all options on the table. if all agencies participated they could participate and they could sign on to a single memorandum of understanding governing transfers and proceed together but it's not something that would necessarily have to be unanimous. >> thank you, for that and vice chair. >> anything else from the queue to speak next? we're all good? great. we'll open it to public comment for members of the public listening to our hearing and would like to comment on item 11 which is the presentation of the regional fare coordination integration study. now's the time to press 1-0. are there any calls on the line? >> you have 10 questions remaining. >> first speaker.

>> caller: this is joe c-o-n-s-i-l-e-r-i. this is why they should keep pushing for integration forward. as someone who supplies in the bay area i find taking transit difficult with 27 different transit agencieses when planning trips on an excel spread sheet and those who land and can choose to rent a car normally do. at least easier transfers are coming with your support and i thank you. i support the recommendations but please consider adding tourists -- excuse me, somebody needs to mute. i'm hearing car noise. that's better. please consider having tourist

and business travellers steer towards an all agency or most agency institutional day pass 2023 and disembarking amtrak for reducing the penalty for long distance travellers not subsidy. riders get subsidy for equity and reduced vehicle miles traveled and for congestion and reducing traffic on the roads and this rewards those who use transit. i ask the board and staff to engage in the process constructively. we need to understand negativity means less public support and trust which correlates into a heavier lift and increasing

opportunity and at the ballot box and meaning we accept we want better transit. thank you for accepting these ground truths with grace as you steer towards a ballot and any future transit measures. i yield the floor. thank you again for all your hard work. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you. this is very important i ask you indulge me i think i'm qualified to speak on this and ask you not have them compete with me. i appreciate the work of bill and mike and i have been to a number of these meetings and they have taken an issue that is

becoming clearer. i have used some of these examples such as washington metro and puget sound and portland, oregon and chicago of fare integrations and i ask you not look at this in a vacuum because there are changes. more people will choose public transit because personal automobiles are very expensive especially with the volatile price of oil. as more people get payment cards, these are things we can do where you don't have to have -- you can have a payment card and it will use the payment card numbers and identifier and everybody can have a very predictable sense of how much transit will cost whether it be a day pass or weekend or monthly pass with accumulators. i have more transit apps than i

can count and have seven or eight different transit cards around the country and use a number of these systems. i'm not speaking just academically, i actually do this. therefore i think i'm qualified to speak on this matter. i ask you embrace the idea of fare integration because i believe it will bring more people to transit and more money to transit and eliminate a lot of efficiencies and help to make a safer more welcoming system. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, thank you. my name is cliff barger. i live in potero hill and normally a caltrain computer and i'm lucky my employer provides a pass so i want to speak to the importance of the proposal here for the regional equivalent of a

go pass. i'm excited to see it's being studied and i want to thank the presenters for their work and thank the board for their great questions but in my own experience i work in a medical device company where we have a range of employees from engineers like myself to assembly technicians and the people who are not able to take advantage of the go pass are the people doing the hourly work who through the last year have had to show up five days a week to build medical devices so patients can keep getting surgery and many of those can't afford to live where caltrain is. so for my own colleagues, it would be hugely beneficial to have a similar pass that my impression is my employer would want to opt-in to to allow a broader range of my colleagues to benefit from taking public transportation and not having to

drive to work and then there's also the benefits that people like myself would be able to more easily take other forms of transit. i know i have plenty of colleagues that don't live as close to cal trans as i do and many would drive and being able to have the connections to muni and other transit would encourage more ridership of other agencies beyond just caltrain using my colleagues as an example and thank you for considering this and hope to see this moving forward. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi i'm with san francisco transit riders. the regional working group has been engaging at funding

discussions including calling on mtc to ensure funds go to the commission. we were disappointed. fare integration needs to be considered carefully in the context of funding and governance to ensure it doesn't come at affordability or needed improvements to require more equity for all and ensuring muni riders are well represented or on regional fare integration. that said, today's proposal recommendations for transfer discounts and a pilot pass clearly improve the retired experience for existing riders and cost effective when it comes to increasing ridership. as a result we support proceedings with the integration for the study.

director tomlin's guidance provides one such potentially great pathway forward. in short, easy transfer allows riders to use all services available and today's recommendations are the first step towards advancing such a system. thank you. [please stand by] .

>> -- and a multiple agency transit pass would give people opportunities for mobility beyond what people would have today in a way that would help with equity and economic mobility and social, as well, so i do encourage you to support the near term recommendations for this while working on pursuing funding for the future step home study. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> operator: you have six questions remaining. >> next speaker. >> hi. my name is armando [indiscernible]. i'm currently in the pacific heights neighborhood. i want to thank sfmta for taking this important study to indicate that fair increases in service lead to increased ridership. i've spent all my time when i was a kid trying to address this issue [indiscernible] to the south bay for college, using v.t.a., and having fair integration would have helped in my life up to now. i really appreciate the [indiscernible] i think that is

so important to, like, help people easily and affordably navigate the bay area increasing ridership. while i understand that resources are scarce, this is also one of those cost effective strategies to increase ridership. they were discussing earlier that they didn't think that this would increase that that much, but i think this is an affordable way to increase ridership. i strongly urge you to support the recommendations of the study and i want to thank you all for your incredible hard work and how it's been a really difficult year, and you're doing really important work, and i hope you continue to move us forward. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> operator: you have five questions remaining. >> next speaker. >> hello. hi, board members, thank you for taking on this important issue. my name is kyle [indiscernible] and i'm calling in support of the fair integration's recommendations. i grew up in seattle and used the transit agency there where they have a multiagency pass and no fees. it makes it incredibly comfortable for people who can't afford to live closer to the city. it is frankly not a very good based -- if our goal is to

increase transit ridership throughout the region over the next 20 years to meet our climate goals, we can not do that without the base of common agency goals because at the end of the day, we are not a [indiscernible] county region, we are one county, and we need to act like it. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> operator: thank you. you have four questions remaining. >> next speaker. >> good evening. my name is alex [indiscernible] and i live in san francisco. i've been taking muni since middle school, but i have always ran into challenges trying to transfer to another county, it has almost felt like it has meant to be boxed in.

ensuring a regional transit system that works together is essential to living in the bay area. as you all know, the cost of multiple transfers and time in between them can lead riders to using lyft or uber. it's more convenient, it's more affordable, and frankly, it gets me in less trouble, so i would strongly support the initial recommendation for fare study, such as pilot for go anywhere. but i also wanted to recognize that seamless and i both support funding needed for these major changes. so seamless supports funding for the sfmta and the regional bond measure, and seamless has organized phone banks and other measures to prioritize passing rr. i want to thank sfmta for prioritizing routes to the hospital during the pandemic.

thanks to that, my colleagues and i were able to get to work during that time, so thanks very much and take care. >> operator: you have three questions remaining. >> hello. my name is raul maldonado. currently live in san francisco district 7 in between district 11. i am calling in support for the -- this go anywhere study with the multiagency consideration of a seamless affordable opportunity for people to travel. i feel that myself have personally been hindered by, like, trying to become more transit friendly, that i've been hindered with oh, like, how am i going to get to a certain location outside of san francisco? does my card work and things like that, and does this

automatically make my stop using transit and start using my car again? that's specifically what happened when i took it in for servicing and i wanted to go where else in the meantime. well, i could have been using somewhere else and using transit, i was, like, wait, does my clipper® card work in the natoma area? it drives me to not rely on transit in many ways. i feel like this would be in tandem of other considerations, as well, like, director eaken's consideration of oh, we have to consider other forms of transportation, as well. so i think this will lead to other considerations, as well. yeah, you're doing good work, and have a good day.

bye. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> operator: you have three questions remaining. >> next speaker. >> hello. my name is christopher peterson, and i am calling in support of the city recommendations regarding institutional passes and free or reduced cost transfers. i lived in berkeley and oakland for about ten years before i moved to san francisco, and for almost 20 years, i worked in an office in downtown san francisco where most of my fellow employees would stay. in my experience, many people who live in the east way are reluctant to venture onto muni. there are a variety of reasons for that, but certainly, one of the reasons is the additional

cost. it's already expensive to across the bay area transit and incur any additional expense on top of that, so whether it's from an equity perspective, climate change perspective, you know, revitalizing the san francisco economy perspective, i think that providing for free and reduced cost transfers have significant benefits. i do have to say that i do agree with director tumlin's concerns about the direct source of the funding for this, so i do support finding different sources of funding besides cannibalizing significant sources of funding. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> operator: you have two questions remaining. >> hi. my name is [indiscernible]. san jose state currently offers a pass for students, but it's someone that would [indiscernible] as of right now, i always end up driving a car to campus, instead. an all agency pass would be a game changer for me and my classmates. i strongly believe that better regional integration is a good idea for long-term transit ridership growth. it also suggests that institutional passes are an effective way to boost ridership, especially for students like me who have a high consideration of pricing demand. [indiscernible] thank you.

>> thank you. next speaker, please. >> operator: you have one question remaining. >> next speaker. >> yes. this is barry toronto. now that we have the m.t.c. person in this meeting, how about you take the reins and ask them about the multiple transit programs and ask how they can integrate into using the clipper® card to pay for taxi fares. thank you very much. >> thank you. moderator, are there any additional callers on the line? >> operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> so we will close public

comment. are there any final comments on this item or are we able to close it out and move on? seeing none, we will close it out and move onto the next. >> clerk: director, that places you on item 12, discussion and vote pursuant to administrative code section 67.10-d as to whether to invoke the attorney-client privilege and conduct a closed session conference with legal counsel. >> great, and i'll just open it up to see if there's any public comment on this issue. >> operator: you have zero questions remaining. >> close public comment. do i have a motion? >> motion to move into closed session. >> second. >> can i have a roll call vote, please. >> clerk: sure. [roll call]

>> clerk: the motion passes. the board will now go into closed session. board members, if you could please click and director lai. [roll call] the motion passes. >> president: with that. we are in adjournment and in the future, we will adjourn in the name of the taxi drivers. we are adjourning in the memory of mary goldman. >> thank you, chair gordon. >> thank you.

>> van ness avenue runs from market street to bay street in san francisco. south vanness runs from south of market to cesar chavez street. originally residential after the 1906 earthquake it was used as a fire break. many car dealerships and businesses exist on vanness today with expansion of bus lanes. originally marlet street was named after james vanness, seventh mayor of san francisco

from 1855 to 1856. vanness heavy are streets in santa cruz, los angeles and fresno in his honor. in 1915 streetcars started the opening of the expo. in 1950s it was removed and replaced by a tree-lined median. it was part of the central freeway from bayshore to hayes valley. it is part of uses 101. it was damaged during the 1989 earthquake. in 1992 the elevator part of the roadway was removed. it was developed into a surface boulevard. today the vanness bus rapid transit project is to have designated bus lanes service from mission. it will display the history of

the city. van ness avenue.

valencia has been a constantly evolving roadway. the first bike lanes were striped in 1999, and today is the major north and south bike route from the mission neighborhood extending from market to mission street. >> it is difficult to navigate lindsay on a daily basis, and more specifically, during the morning and evening commute hours. >> from 2012 to 2016, there were 260 collisions on valencia and 46 of those were between vehicles and bikes. the mayor shows great leadership and she knew of the long history of collisions and the real necessity for safety improvements on the streets, so she actually directed m.t.a. to put a pilot of protected bike lanes from market to 15th on valencia street within four

months time. [♪♪♪] >> valencia is one of the most used north south bike routes in san francisco. it has over 2100 cyclists on an average weekday. we promote bicycles for everyday transportation of the coalition. valencia is our mission -- fits our mission perfectly. our members fall 20 years ago to get the first bike lane stripes. whether you are going there for restaurants, nightlife, you know , people are commuting up and down every single day. >> i have been biking down the valencia street corridor for about a decade. during that time, i have seen the emergence of ridesharing companies. >> we have people on bikes, we have people on bike share, scooters, we have people delivering food and we have uber

taking folks to concerts at night. one of the main goals of the project was to improve the overall safety of the corridor, will also looking for opportunities to upgrade the bikeway. >> the most common collision that happens on valencia is actually due to double parking in the bike lane, specifically during, which is where a driver opens the door unexpectedly. >> we kept all the passengers -- the passenger levels out, which is the white crib that we see, we double the amount of commercial curbs that you see out here. >> most people aren't actually perking on valencia, they just need to get dropped off or pick something up. >> half of the commercial loading zones are actually after 6:00 p.m., so could be used for five-minute loading later into the evening to provide more opportunities or passenger and commercial loading. >> the five minute loading zone may help in this situation, but they are not along the corridor where we need them to be.

>> one of the most unique aspects of the valencia pilot is on the block between 14th street. >> we worked with a pretty big mix of people on valencia. >> on this lot, there are a few schools. all these different groups had concerns about the safety of students crossing the protected bikeway whether they are being dropped off or picked up in the morning or afternoon. to address those concerns, we installed concrete loading islands with railings -- railings that channel -- channeled a designated crossing plane. >> we had a lot of conversations around how do you load and unload kids in the mornings and the afternoons? >> i do like the visibility of some of the design, the safety aspects of the boarding pilot for the school. >> we have painted continental crosswalks, as well as a yield piece which indicates a cyclist to give the right-of-way so they can cross the roadway. this is probably one of the most unique features.

>> during the planning phase, the m.t.a. came out with three alternatives for the long term project. one is parking protected, which we see with the pilot, they also imagined a valencia street where we have two bike lanes next to one another against one side of the street. a two-way bikeway. the third option is a center running two-way bikeway, c. would have the two bike lanes running down the center with protection on either side. >> earlier, there weren't any enter lane designs in san francisco, but i think it will be a great opportunity for san francisco to take the lead on that do so the innovative and different, something that doesn't exist already. >> with all three concepts for valencia's long-term improvement , there's a number of trade-offs ranging from parking, or what needs to be done at the intersection for signal

infrastructure. when he think about extending this pilot or this still -- this design, there's a lot of different design challenges, as well as challenges when it comes to doing outreach and making sure that you are reaching out to everyone in the community. >> the pilot is great. it is a no-brainer. it is also a teaser for us. once a pilot ends, we have thrown back into the chaos of valencia street. >> what we're trying to do is incremental improvement along the corridor door. the pilot project is one of our first major improvements. we will do an initial valuation in the spring just to get a glimpse of what is happening out here on the roadway, and to make any adjustments to the pilot as needed. this fall, we will do a more robust evaluation. by spring of 2020, we will have recommendations about long-term improvements. >> i appreciate the pilot and how quickly it went in and was built, especially with the community workshops associated with it, i really appreciated that opportunity to give input. >> we want to see valencia become a really welcoming and comfortable neighborhood street for everyone, all ages and

abilities. there's a lot of benefits to protected bike lanes on valencia , it is not just for cyclists. we will see way more people biking, more people walking, we are just going to create a really friendly neighborhood street. [♪♪♪] >> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses, and challenges residents to do their shopping within the 49 square miles of san francisco. by supporting local services in our neighborhood, we help san francisco remain unique,

successful, and vibrant. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> i am the owner of this restaurant. we have been here in north beach over 100 years. [speaking foreign language] [♪♪♪] [speaking foreign language] [♪♪♪] [speaking foreign language]

[speaking foreign language] [♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪] >> supervisor melgar: good afternoon. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the san francisco land use and transportation committee meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. the clerk today is erica major, and i would also like to acknowledge and thank the sfgovtv for staffing this meeting and bringing it to your homes. madam clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes, madam chair. the minutes will reflect that the committee members

participated in this remote meeting through video conference to the same extent as though they were physically present. public comment will be available in the following methods. sfgovtv, cable channel 26 and 78 are carrying the meeting, and opportunities to offer public comment are available by calling the number streaming across your stream. that's 415-655-0001. the meeting i.d. is 2499-311-1928. again, that number is 2499-311-1928, then press pound and pound again.

when connected, you will hear the meeting discussion, but you will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, press star, three to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak slowly and clearly, and turn down your television or radio. alternatively, you can submit public comment in either of the following ways: you can e-mail the land use and transportation clerk, erica major. that's erica.major@sfgov.gov or san francisco city hall, 1 carlton b. goodlett place, room

204, san francisco, california, 94102. items acted upon today will be heard at the october 15, 2021 board of supervisors meeting. >> supervisor melgar: specifically, we must find that

it has -- that we have found the circumstances of the state of emergency, and two, that the state of emergency continues to directly impact the ability -- our ability to meet safely in person, and three, that state and local officials continue to impose and recommend measures to promote social distancing. so tomorrow, the full board will allow a findings motion to allow the board to meet as a whole and continue the state of emergency for the next 30 days, but because we're acting the day before, we need to move on these findings ourselves so that we can proceed with this meeting by teleconference. so i therefore would like to move that we adopt these findings as stated, and before we can vote on that, we have to

open this up for public comment. supervisor preston, go ahead. >> supervisor preston: thank you, chair melgar. i just wanted to check, and perhaps you know or with the deputy city attorney -- or check with the deputy city attorney. are we able to discuss and vote on this without it being agendized? yeah. deputy city attorney. >> supervisor melgar: yeah. city attorney pearson, are you there? >> this is deputy city jensen, and i understand that deputy city attorney pearson had worked it out in advance and it is on the agenda although it's not involved. i know it does show up on the agenda now, that it might be heard today, but my understanding is that you are, in fact, allowed to hear it

today. >> supervisor preston: no, and i saw the communication discussing that, but i wasn't sure if we could formally adopt findings without that motion, but since it is in the agenda, we can do that. >> that's correct. and it's my understanding that the board will be acting in a way tomorrow that will allow it to be enacted for the next 30 days without enacting city legislation. >> supervisor peskin: we met on the rules committee earlier today and adopted the same motion after some scintillating

public comment. >> supervisor melgar: okay. if you don't have anything else after that, supervisor preston, let's go to public comment. >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. d.t. is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. for those already in the queue, please wait until the system says you are unmuted. kalina is helping us today with public comment. we have nine listeners and one in queue. if you could unmute the caller, please. >> [indiscernible]. >> supervisor melgar: ma'am, i'm so sorry. i'm sorry to interrupt you. this is not the right item. we are voting on something else, but the item that you want to provide comment on is coming up, so stay in the

queue, please. >> clerk: madam chair, d.t. has confirmed that there are no more callers in the queue. >> supervisor melgar: thank you very much, madam clerk. so i have made a role that we adopt these findings. can we take roll on those findings, madam clerk. >> clerk: yes. on the motion as made by chair melgar -- [roll call] >> clerk: you have three ayes. >> chair melgar: thank you, madam clerk. the motion passes. please call item number 1. >> clerk: item number 1 is an ordinance amending the health code, planning code, and police code to extend the sunset date for provisions governing medical khanna dismukes

pencearys from december 31, 2021 to december 31, 2022, to extend the sunset date for allowing the conversion of medical cannabis dispensaries with planning commission approval to [inaudible] meg [inaudible].

>> chair melgar: thank you very much. we have tom temprano, legislative aid to supervisor mandelman. >> this ordinance will extend cannabis business permits and temporary business permits through december 31, 2022, to convert to medical cannabis use without being subjected to additional use requirements through 2022. i will run through some brief additional information on each of these items. so firstly, this ordinance will allow the health code to allow existing businesses operating under medical cannabis existing

permits to continue operating through december 31, 2022. this is necessary to successfully transition or dispensaries to medical and adult use businesses. for these medical cannabis dispensaries, this ordinance will also extend the date by which these businesses can convert to a cannabis retail use without being subject to an additional cannabis operating license or restrictions to january 31, 2023. the businesses operating under these temporary cannabis business permits are part of the amnesty program that san francisco initiated to allow

existing, illegal, nonretail cannabis business operators to come forward, make themselves and their activities known to the city, and to come into compliance with our laws. i will note that this is the second time that supervisor mandelman has introduced legislation to extend these medical cannabis dispensary and temporary cannabis business permits, and we hope that this is the last time that we have to extend these licenses. the second time this does is extend the cannabis event permit pilot program through december 31, 2023 to allow legal cannabis sales and consumption at temporary events. this allows the office of cannabis to permit for

regulated events while ensuring businesses were supplying safe products and were not allowing consumption by underage youth. the ordinance created a pilot phase for the program to allow the city to ramp up cannabis permits slowly and thoughtfully. due to the covid-19 pandemic, only one permit was issued, and that was for the 2020 grasslands event. so supervisors, thank you again for your consideration of this ordinance. i'm happy to answer any questions, and i am also joined by john pierce and ray law from the office of cannabis who can answer any questions, as well. >> chair melgar: thank you so

much, mr. temprano. i did have a couple of questions. i don't see my colleagues on the roster, so i have a couple of questions for mr. law. are you there, mr. law? there you are. welcome to the meeting. have you had any feedback to update cannabis offices to retail? is there anything that your office is doing to support this? and then, my second question -- and i'll just get it out of the way -- is that requirement of complying with the equity program, and i'm wondering what specific things the -- you know, the businesses are doing as they shift into a new

business mode to also comply with the equity program? >> sure. thank you for all the questions. those are good questions, with your first questions about the m.c.d. pipelines, converting them from dispensaries to article 16 operators, right? so i think it kind of pauses to confer with this group. we had a huge backlog since 2019, with 160 equity applications coming into your pipeline, and that was way beyond most of our

expectations, and we created that backlog in late last year, and we start processing existing operator applications in may of last year. so this pause is a very significant step for our existing operators to confer into the article 16 bill, and we are making some progress, but we just don't see that we are [indiscernible] to convert all of them by the end of this year, which is why we worked with supervisor mandelman to come forward to ask for another year of extension, to ask for this work and continue the

momentum and work all of them from the temporary status to permanent status. >> chair melgar: so i'm sorry. if i can just recap it, mr. law, there's been no challenges on the operational side, it's more the regulatory infrastructure that has led to this being slowed down in terms of the rollout, is that what you're saying? >> that's right. >> chair melgar: okay. >> and those operators have been patiently waiting. and in april of this year, when we knew we were about to process this group of applicants, we host a kind of meeting to kind of walk them through the process, so when the applications are being picked up, they can hit the ground running and go through all the steps associated with this process.

>> chair melgar: mr. law, is it your sense that it has affected this in any way or they have just been able to roll out what they needed to when processing the applications? >> sure. i would say largely this won't impact their ability to do business in san francisco because we do have a temporary authorization for them to sell cannabis at the same time, but that's actually a perfect segue to move to your second question. within 30 days, they're required to submit their report to support the city's equity goal. some of them would [indiscernible] kind of section

to demonstrate to equity applicants how to run a business, how to apply for business permit [indiscernible] manufacture or cultivated by equity applicants across jurisdictions. >> chair melgar: great. thank you so much, mr. law. colleagues, do we have any questions for these folks? okay. so with that, madam clerk, let's take public comment on this item. >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. d.t. is checking to see if we have any callers on hold. if you have not already done so, press star, three to enter the queue. if you have already done so, please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. and it looks like we don't have

any callers in the queue. >> chair melgar: okay. with that, public comment is closed. colleagues, can we have a motion to send this out of committee with a positive recommendation? >> supervisor peskin: so moved. >> chair melgar: thank you, supervisor peskin. let's take roll, madam clerk. >> clerk: on the motion to approve item 1 made by supervisor peskin -- [roll call] blal. >> clerk: you have three ayes. >> chair melgar: thank you. the motion passes. madam clerk, please call item 2. >> clerk: item 2 is a motion declaring the board of supervisors to -- [indiscernible]. >> clerk: madam clerk, this is

john carroll, back up clerk. item 2 is resolution declaring the intention of the board of supervisors to real estate name the stairwell at sonora lane between o'farrell street and terra anza avenue, which runs parallel to anza vista and st. joseph's avenues to vicha ratanpakdee way. >> chair melgar: thank you, mr. carroll. joining us is supervisor stefani. supervisor stefani, the floor is yours.

>> supervisor stefani: thank you. vicha was well known in his community for his hour long walks every morning, who kept him healthy and moving this year. earlier this year, he was violently shoved to the ground, causing him to hit his head. the video went viral and was very shocking and hard to see. the crime was just one of many committed against the asian and pacific islander community.

when i introduced this back in july at our last meeting, the resolution actually says 7,000 on page 1, on-line 20, so perhaps we can amendment that at committee, that it's actually 9,000 hate incidents. and just over 13% of these reported incidents involve a physical assault. since his passing, his daughter has worked tirelessly to amplify the voices of those not only in the thai community but those in the pacific islander community and asians to ensure what happened to her father will not happen to anyone else. it's so tragic when we put this type of advocacy on victims, who continue to suffer and mourn the loss of loved ones,

and yet, they bear this enormous burden. i was so honored to meet [indiscernible] over the pandemic to discuss what happened -- honored and very sad. it's one of those situations where you don't know what to say, and the fact that she entrusted me to work on her request, to name the public stairwell after her father is a great honor and feels like i can at least do something. naming the stairwell to vicha ratanapakdee way would show a measure of solidarity with the asian and pacific islander community. i want to thank you again, and for all the work that you are doing and have done to support our aapi neighbors in san francisco. i just want to say one last

thing, too. i've obviously been following this. my heart goes out to his daughter and the entire family and her children. and i listen to the new york times, the daily podcast, and on sunday, i think, september 26, they had one, and it was titled, why was vicha ratanapakdee killed, and when i saw that, i immediately listened to it. to [indiscernible], the strength that you showed that i found out about on that podcast, it's just unfathomable to me what you've had to deal with after your father's death. as someone who's very close to your father, i cannot tell you

how it feels when you don't know what to say and don't know what to do, and i hope that this gesture shows that we are with you and with the aapi community, and this is something that we will continue to work onto stop aapi hate, so thank you for entrusting me to carry forward this resolution and i'm hoping my colleagues will support it, as well. thank you. >> chair melgar: thank you very much, supervisor stefani, and thank you for the support that you have provided for the family. if there are no comments or questions, colleagues, please, let's take public comment on this item. i know that there are a number

of callers that are waiting to provide public comment. madam clerk? >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. d.t. is checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. if you have not done so already, please press star, three to be added to the queue. for those that have already done so, please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. we have 12 listeners and five in queue. kalina, if you could unmute the first listener. >> hi, can you guys hear me? >> clerk: yes, please begin. >> okay. i just want to say that i am in

support of renaming the stairwell at sonora lane to vicha ratanapakdee way. there's no question that vicha was targeted because of the color of his skin, and he was murdered because of the color of his skin. >> clerk: thank you so much. next caller, please.

we have 11 listeners with seven in the queue. >> hi. hello, can you hear me? >> clerk: yes, please begin. >> okay. hi. my name is vinita lui, and i want to say hello to chair melgar and supervisors stefani, preston, and peskin. vicha ratanapakdee way is not a street, it's a set of stairs that's a shortcut into our neighborhood. we're not considering naming an alley or a whole street. it's a set of stairs, and i live in this neighborhood, and i still can't believe what happened to this grandpa.

so i am in favor of naming sonora lane, a set of stairs, and our neighborhood is only about five blocks circumference to commemorate his name and for his grand kids to hear his name and to talk about and tell his story. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. next speaker, please. hello, caller. you're on the line. >> hello. this is [indiscernible] and i am calling in support of changing sonora way to

vicha ratanapakdee, and i need some sort of story for my future and children's future. i think this is a good move and one that needs to be in full support of. thank you. i'm done. >> clerk: thank you. next caller, please. >> yes, i'm here. can you hear me? >> clerk: yes, go ahead.

>> hello? yeah, yeah. my name is baird fong. i'm a native san francisco, and born and raised and raised my three kids as well as with my wife. i want to support the renaming of this stairs in honor of mr. vicha, and the reason being is not only do i salute, and we should salute the stop of the hate again asian and aapi elders as well as individuals, i think that this could be an honorable step in the right direction to build alliances and coalitions with all of our neighbors -- black, latino, everyone -- to make a better san francisco. so hope all of you on our board of supervisors can use this as a marker to build a brotherhood and sisterhood in san francisco

that we all can be proud of and have been in the past. thank you very much. >> clerk: thank you. next speaker? we have five in queue. >> hi. my name is forest. i'd like to thank chair melgar, supervisor peskin, supervisor preston, for hearing me out today, and i'd like to especially thank supervisor stefani for hearing this today. earlier this year, i was just a regular joe, and the death of vicha inspired me to leave my career and become an activist in the fight against hate against the asian and pacific islander community. he made me want to do what i do every day, which is to forward

our issues. it would mean so much to the organization that i represent, community safety chinatown, and the community, if we could change the name to vicha ratanapakdee way. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. we have nine listeners and five in queue. >> hi. i'm [indiscernible] and i'm calling in expressing support for the renaming of this stairwell in honor of vicha's memory, as well. i'm calling because i'm the child of immigrants, and the story of immigrants is the story of struggle. my own family faced racism

growing up in the community, but i see a glimmer of hope in the movement that's galvanized a call for justice, and i believe the best way to call for justice is to rename the stairway in honor of vicha. thank you so much, and i yield my time. >> clerk: thank you. we have nine listeners and three in the queue. >> hello? >> clerk: hello. go ahead. >> hi. my name is will, and i'm a s.f. native, and i support the renaming of the sonora lane to the vicha ratanapakdee. i echo a lot of what the previous callers have said, that grandpa vicha has been a

catalyst for the community and the stop asian hate movement, and i am in support of this. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. next caller. >> hi. i'm [indiscernible] i am also an anza vista resident, and i think that we as a community can heal from all of the aapi hate that's plagued our country. it's been so scary, knowing that that's what's going on. this happened across the street from my house, so please, i support this wholeheartedly. thank you very much.

bye. >> clerk: thank you. madam chair, d.t. has confirmed that was the last caller in queue. >> chair melgar: thanks very much, madam clerk. thank you, supervisor stefani, for bringing this to the committee. i hope that if this goes up with a positive recommendation, that there can be a small step of healing for the family of vicha ratanapakdee and remembering. colleagues, can we have -- >> supervisor stefani: chair melgar, can i say one more thing? >> chair melgar: yes. >> supervisor stefani: i just want to thank commissioner lui and everybody who called in. this street is called sonora

lane, but it is a stairwell, so so -- you can pull it up, and it's there. if you could amend the paperwork to reflect 9,000 instead of 7,000, and again, thank you to everyone who called in, and i look forward to your support. >> chair melgar: thank you, supervisor stefani. i saw supervisor peskin raise his hand. are you making a motion to amend? yes, thank you. madam clerk, let's take the motion to amend ad stated onto the record by supervisor stefani and made by supervisor peskin. >> clerk: on the motion as stated on page 1, line 20, updating 7,000 to 9,000 -- [roll call]

>> clerk: chair melgar, you have three ayes. >> chair melgar: thank you. supervisor peskin, did you also move as amended? >> supervisor peskin: i will make a motion to send the item as amended with positive recommendation. >> supervisor melgar: thank you. madam clerk? >> clerk: on the motion as stated -- [roll call] >> clerk: you have three ayes. >> supervisor melgar: thank you so much, madam clerk. the motion passes. will you please call the next item? >> clerk: yes. item 3 is an ordinance amending the planning code to allow neighborhood serving social service and philanthropic facility uses in chinatown mixed use districts with conditional use authorization, change the provision for abandonment of a use that

exceeds a use size maximum in chinatown mixed use districts, change the use size limit and use size maximum in the chinatown community business district, exempt institutional community uses and legacy basis restaurants in chinatown mixed use districts from use size limits, and making the appropriate findings. for those of you listening who would like to make public comment, dial 415-655-0001 and enter meeting i.d. 2499-311-1928. press pound and pound again, and then star, three to enter the queue. >> chair melgar: thank you. we continued this from last

year to allow time for substantive amendments. supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: thank you, chair melgar, for continuing this not once, not twice, but three times, and hopefully, we can send this to the full board with recommendation after public comment. >> supervisor melgar: thank you, supervisor peskin. with that, madam clerk, let's take public comment if there are any. >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. for those in the queue, please wait until the system indicated you have been unmuted, and for those who have not already done so, press star, three to enter the queue. and it looks like there are no callers in the queue. >> chair melgar: thank you so

much. so colleagues, do we have a motion to send this out of committee with a positive recommendation? >> supervisor peskin: so moved. >> chair melgar: madam clerk, can we have a roll call on the item, please. >> clerk: on the motion as stated -- [roll call] >> clerk: you have three ayes. >> chair melgar: thank you. that motion passes. madam clerk, will you please call the next item. >> clerk: yes. item 4 -- actually, there's no item 4. that completes the business for today. >> chair melgar: thank you. as a friendly reminder, the land use and transportation committee will not be meeting next monday, october 11, 2021, in honor of indigenous peoples day. have a good week, everyone, and we will return to our regular

meeting on october 18. >> for the first time in nearly two decades fishers have been granted the legal right to sell fish directly to the package right off their boat -- to the public right off their boats in san francisco. it's not only helping local fishers to stay afloat but it's evoking the spirit of the wharf by resurfacing the traditional

methods of selling fish. but how is it regulated? and what does it take for a boat to be transported into a floating fish market? find out as we hop on board on this episode of "what's next sf." (♪♪♪) we're here with the owner and the captain of the vessel pioneer. it's no coincidence that your boat is called the pioneer because it's doing just that. it's the first boat in san francisco to sell fish directly from the boat. how did you establish your boat into such a floating fish market? >> well, you know, i always thought that it would be nice to be able to provide fresh fish to the locals because most of the fish markets, you would have to do a large amount of volume in order to bring in enough fish to cover the overhead. when you start selling to the public that volume is much less so it makes it hard to make enough money. so being able to do this is really -- it's a big positive

thing i think for the entire community. >> a very positive thing. as a third-generation fisherman joe as his friends call him has been trawling the california waters for sustainably caught seafood since an early age. since obtaining a permit to sell fish directly to the public he is able to serve fish at an affordable price. >> right now we're just selling what a lot of the markets like, flat fish and rock fish and what the public likes. so we have been working for many, many years and putting cameras in them. there's the ability to short fish and we have panels that we open and close so we target the different species of fish by adjusting the net. and then not only that but then the net sort out the sizes which is really important. >> joe brings in a lot of fish, around 20,000 pounds per fishing trip to be exact. >> we had one day one time that we sold almost 18,000 pounds. >> it's incredible. >> i know, it's hard to imagine. >> but this wasn't always the

case for joe. >> the markets that we have left in california, they're few and far between, and they really are restrictive. they'll let you fish for a couple months and shut you down. a lot of times it's rough weather and if you can't make your delivery you will lose your rotation. that's why there's hardly any boats left in california because of the market challenges. my boat was often sitting over here at the dock for years and i couldn't do anything with it because we had no market. the ability to go catch fish is fine, i had the permits, but you couldn't take them off your boat. >> that was until the port commission of san francisco rallied behind them and voted unanimously to approve a pilot program to allow the fish to be sold directly to consumers right off their boats. >> the purpose of the program is to allow commercial fishers to sell their fish directly from their boats to the end consumer in a safe and orderly manner for the benefit of the overall fishing community at the port of san francisco.

we have limited the program to certain types of fish such as salmon, halibut, tuna and rock fish. crab is restricted from this program because we did not want to interfere with the existing crab sales on taylor street and jefferson street. so this is not meant to favor one aspect of the fishing industry more than another. it's to basically to lift up the whole industry together. >> and if joe the program has been doing just that. >> it was almost breathtaking whenever i woke up one morning and i got my federal receiver, my first receivers license in the mail. and that gave me permission to actually take fish off my boat. once we started to be able to sell, it opened things up a bit. because now that we have that federal permit and i was able to petition the city council and getting permission from san francisco to actually use the dock and to sell fish here, it was a big turning point. because we really didn't think or know that we'd get such a

positive response from the public. and so we're getting thousands of people coming down here buying fish every week and so that's pretty cool. they like the fish so much that they take pictures of it when they cook it and they send us all of these pictures and then they ask us, you know, constantly for certain types of fish now. and when they come down here the one thing that they say is that they're so amazed that the fish is so fresh they could eat a little bit during the week and it's still fresh all week in the refrigerator. so that's really cool. >> the fish is very fresh and the price is super. i don't think that you can get it anywhere in the bay area. i can see it, and i can stir fry it, wow, you can do anything you want. i just can say this is a good place to shop and you have a good experience. >> this program supports the

strategic plan in terms of engagement, people being connected to the waterfront, and also economic vitality. because it's helping the fishermen to make ends meet. they have no guarantees in their businesses, not like some people, and we want to do everything that we can to help them to have a good and thriving business. >> how does it feel to be able to sell your fish locally kind of in the traditional way, like your grandfather probably did? >> when i was a kid and i used to work in my dad's fish market, a lot of the markets that we sell to now are second and third and fourth generation markets. so i remember as a kid putting their tags on the boxes of fish that we shipped out of monterey and ship down to l.a. so it's kind of cool that we're still dealing with the same families. and this is probably about the only way that anyone can really survive in california is to sell your own fish. >> one of the advantages of this program is the department people

that pull in the fish, they can find out where they caught it and find out more about the fisherman and that adds to their experience. the feedback from the fishers has been very good and the feedback from the customers have very good. and there's a lot of people coming to the wharf now that might not have done so. in fact, there's people that go through the neighboring restaurants that are going to eat fish inside but before they go in they see the action on the dock and they want to kind of look at what's happening on the boat before they go in and they have a meal. so it's generated some conversation down at the wharf and that's a good thing. >> as you can see by the line forming behind me getting ready to buy fish, the pilot program has been a huge success. for more information visit sfsport.com. (♪♪♪) (♪♪♪)

>> hello everyone. welcome to the bayview bistro. >> it is just time to bring the community together by deliciousness. i am excited to be here today because nothing brings the community together like food. having amazing food options for and by the people of this community is critical to the success, the long-term success and stability of the bayview-hunters point community.

>> i am nima romney. this is a mobile cafe. we do soul food with a latin twist. i wanted to open a truck to son nor the soul food, my african heritage as well as mylas as my latindescent. >> i have been at this for 15 years. i have been cooking all my life pretty much, you know. i like cooking ribs, chicken, links. my favorite is oysters on the

grill. >> i am the owner. it all started with banana pudding, the mother of them all. now what i do is take on traditional desserts and pair them with pudding so that is my ultimate goal of the business. >> our goal with the bayview bristow is to bring in businesses so they can really use this as a launching off point to grow as a single business. we want to use this as the opportunity to support business owners of color and those who have contributed a lot to the community and are looking for opportunities to grow their business. >> these are the things that the san francisco public utilities commission is doing. they are doing it because they feel they have a responsibility to san franciscans and to people in this community. >> i had a grandmother who lived

in bayview. she never moved, never wavered. it was a house of security answer entity where we went for holidays. i was a part of bayview most of my life. i can't remember not being a part of bayview. >> i have been here for several years. this space used to be unoccupied. it was used as a dump. to repurpose it for something like this with the bistro to give an opportunity for the local vendors and food people to come out and showcase their work. that is a great way to give back to the community. >> this is a great example of a public-private community partnership. they have been supporting this including the san francisco public utilities commission and mayor's office of workforce department.

>> working with the joint venture partners we got resources for the space, that the businesses were able to thrive because of all of the opportunities on the way to this community. >> bayview has changed. it is growing. a lot of things is different from when i was a kid. you have the t train. you have a lot of new business. i am looking forward to being a business owner in my neighborhood. >> i love my city. you know, i went to city college and fourth and mission in san francisco under the chefs ria, marlene and betsy. they are proud of me. i don't want to leave them out of the journey. everyone works hard. they are very supportive and passionate about what they do, and they all have one goal in mind for the bayview to survive.

>> all right. it is time to eat, people. shop and dine on the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of san francisco by supporting local services within neighborhood. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and vibrant. where will you shop and dine in the 49? san francisco owes the charm to the unique character of the neighborhood comer hall district. each corridor has its own personality. our neighborhoods are the engine of the city.

>> you are putting money and support back to the community you live in and you are helping small businesses grow. >> it is more environmentally friendly. >> shopping local is very important. i have had relationships with my local growers for 30 years. by shopping here and supporting us locally, you are also supporting the growers of the flowers, they are fresh and they have a price point that is not imported. it is really good for everybody. >> shopping locally is crucial. without that support, small business can't survive, and if we lose small business, that diversity goes away, and, you know, it would be a shame to see

that become a thing of the past. >> it is important to dine and shop locally. it allows us to maintain traditions. it makes the neighborhood. >> i think san francisco should shop local as much as they can. the retail marketplace is changes. we are trying to have people on the floor who can talk to you and help you with products you are interested in buying, and help you with exploration to try things you have never had before. >> the fish business, you think it is a piece of fish and fisherman. there are a lot of people working in the fish business, between wholesalers and fishermen and bait and tackle. at the retail end, we about a

lot of people and it is good for everybody. >> shopping and dining locally is so important to the community because it brings a tighter fabric to the community and allows the business owners to thrive in the community. we see more small businesses going away. we need to shop locally to keep the small business alive in san francisco. >> shop and dine in the 49 is a cool initiative. you can see the banners in the streets around town. it is great. anything that can showcase and legitimize small businesses is a wonderful thing.

>> clerk: -- held on october 4, 2021. the meeting is being called to order at 4:35 p.m. members of the public who will be calling in, the number is 415-655-0001. the access code is 2480-980-2106. press pound and then pound again to be added to the line. when you're connected, you'll hear the meeting discussions, but you'll be muted and in listening mode only. when your item comes up, dial star, three to be added to the

speaker line. if you dial star, three before public comment is called, you'll be added to the queue. wait for your turn to speak, and your line will be unmuted when it is your time to do so. public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker unless established by the chair. speakers asked but not required to state their names. >> and if the office of small business will put the slide up -- >> clerk: i believe we don't have access to it tonight. >> okay. with that, we begin with the

statement that the small business commission is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters, particularly at this time, you can find us on-line or via phone, and always, our services are free of charge. please note, the office of small business and personal hours have changed to tuesday through thursday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. we will be updating the slide to reflect these changes. office staff are still available by phone and e-mail five days a week. before this meeting is called, i'd like to thank sfgovtv and maria pena for assisting with

the public comment line today, and with that said, please call item 1. >> clerk: item 1, call to order and roll call. [roll call] >> clerk: vice president, you have a quorum. >> thank you. i will now read the ramaytush ohlone land acknowledgement. the san francisco small business commission and office of small business staff acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula.

as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their tradition, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibility as the caretakers of this land. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by establishing their sovereign rights as first people. please call item 2. >> clerk: item 2, board of supervisors ordinance, file 21808, planning code, requirements for laundromats and on-site laundry services. this is a discussion and potential action item. the commission will discuss and

may vote on possible recommendations regarding ordinance file 210808 [indiscernible] and to prohibit accessory dwelling units that reduce on-site laundry services unless replaced, affirming the planning department's determination under ceqa, and making findings of consistency with the general plan, and the eight priority policies of planning code section 101.1 and findings of public necessarily, convenience, and welfare under planning code section 302. and today, we have lee hefner from supervisor peskin. >> and you have the floor. >> thank you so much, commission, and commissioner zouzounis for taking up this legislation today. this legislation, on its surface, i think is a fairly straightforward tool designed to prevent the loss of

laundromats in san francisco, and i just, by way of background, how we got to this point, our office, supervisor peskin's office, has been looking into the issue of laundromat closures for a couple of years now, and this was just based on the information that we were getting periodically that this or that laundromat or dry cleaner was closing down. it was our intention to look at certain use types under the planning code that are really community serving businesses, kind of backbones of the communities that they serve. interestingly, when an incident came up last october, at the address 998 filbert, an owner had proposed to displace a

laundromat called tons of bubbles on russian hill. commissioner deland chan says laundromats are vital to the community, and i think there are a lot of things that are overlooked in the conversation, but things like your hand ware stores, like your grocery store, like your laundromat, like your locksmith, that are vital for everyday life serve a very valuable purpose in district three and across san francisco, as well. but we were looking at these businesses, and in the course of doing so, and certainly, when our research was intensified during the tons of bubbles incident last year, we started researching what they

track, and interestingly, our planning department doesn't track the number of uses over time. d.b.i. doesn't track this, either. we're in conversation to come up with new tools so we can better track the numbes and different use types in our community. we actually got that information from sfpuc, and what we found in san francisco, in the past seven years, the number has decreased from nearly 300 -- 288 -- laundromats to just 200, and i think that that caused us to reinforce and understand what's going on here. the legislation before you

seeks to introduce this as an ordinance issue. probably to no one's surprise, they tend to concentrate in higher density neighborhoods. they tend to be higher concentrations of lower income people. we found that laundromats disproportionately serve census tracts with more diverse racial and ethnic populations, so everything, everything that we were learning about laundromats is this is a use that we should step in to save, and again, that doing so is going to help benefit lower income communities, more racially diverse communities, and certainly, the senior communities. when it was about tons of bubbles, we were inundated with dozens and dozens and dozens of e-mails, probably over 100 people said even if tons of

bubbles closes, the next laundromat is a block over, but i'm not going to be able to do that because it's up a streep hill. in this instance, i think the c.u. was designed to be a disincentive, and to the extent that real estate speculation is driving some of these laundromats to closure, that we are apprehending that speculation before the laundromat closes because then the property owner is going -- and landlord is going to know that they will need to make it through another public hearing before replacing that use. so it's -- and we have also put a three-year timeline on it.

thank you, commission secretary birnbach, for noting in your tool that these were passed for night time entertainment use, so we're kind of appropriating that tool for use here. i actually believe the a.d.u. component of this was just addressed in legislation put forward by supervisor mandelman, who is noting this problem from a different point of view, so this might be redundant at this point. but as authors of san francisco's a.d.u. ordinance in 2016, i think we need to make sure that we take note of some of the counter placements that

displace laundromats or not. so that's my short recital, probably not that short. we're invested in this project. we intend to use the next month or so to get the word out. we're working on a public media campaign to bolster the public awareness for community necessity small businesses. looking forward to bringing this to the planning commission and thereafter to the board of supervisors. with that, i will turn it back over to you, and thank you for the opportunity to bring this legislation. >> thank you, lee, and thank you so much to the supervisor's office for working on this. i will start with commissioner adams, if you would like to start the discussion, go ahead.

>> yeah. first off, mr. hepner, thank you. this is something that's been in my mind for a while, and i am just so grateful that supervisor peskin is doing this. i'm all for a.d.u. units, but i live in the castro up on lower twin peaks. we've lost -- not only have we lost our laundromats up here, we've lost our dry cleaners, where you can actually do the wash and fold. there was three of them within walking distance. they're all gone. and i do know, like, the big one that we recently lost about 1.5 years ago, which was on noe and 22, you know, this may be

the lower twin peaks, half of my neighborhood, half of the people on this street do not have washers and dryers in their unit. we used to be able to go right down at market and hattie, and it's been gone. it's been gone for a few years. and the one at 18 and hollywood, it's gone. so people in this neighborhood, we have to go to sanchez, and if that closes, we may have to go over to kolb alley. so i support this, and when i read this, i thought to myself, someone got it, so thank you, thank you, thank you. >> thank you. commissioner hui?

>> yeah, thank you very much for bringing this to my attention, and yeah, definitely, this is something that i -- you know, in our communities, we recognize these are really important pieces of what, like, makes living in a walkable city walkable and liveable. so i had a couple of questions. one is what are some of the reasons, i guess maybe, like, the top, you know, reasons for the closures of the laundromats besides the real estate speculation? >> honestly, it's a great question, commissioner hui, and it's one that we hope to understand. i think part of the provocation of this legislation and part of the three-year timeline, too, is to, you know, urge the planning department to dive

deep into that. there is a question whether the c.u. is the best way to preserve that and is there other measures to do so. we don't fully understand why so many laundromats are closing down. are they profitable businesses? i talked to several businesses. tons of bubbles has several laundromats across the city. their owner has been enthusiastic about this, and everyone time we have to raise money -- there's a lot of questions that i think we have to about why laundromats are closing down, and that's where the speculation piece comes in.

i do know that sfgov and the p.u.c. has a voucher based program for coin-op laundries which allows -- i think it's designed to allow people to have. >> -- but i think your question is -- is really one that we're also trying to ask. why are we seeing this crisis level of closure of laundromats.

so i hope to be able to report back to you in a couple of years with a little more insight. >> yeah. i think that's -- you know, this is a question that we can ask about a lot of our community serving small businesses, right? like, what is causing closure. and i think what you said and specifically to -- might not be as possible as competing businesses, right? it's, like, really key to some of this is, like, to function in an everyday capacity is just, like, not that -- you know, it's -- it doesn't generate the revenues that are [indiscernible] doing business [indiscernible] and are costing us. and one of the things that i think about is if we are trying to preserve these businesses, which it sounds like i love how

much time you've put in to this presentation, but, like, is there a way that we can roll that into our -- almost, like, our vocational training programs because the city already offers many vocational and small business training programs? you -- this is a realistic plan so people can learn -- teaching them how to grow a very specific business. that seems almost easier than

teaching someone to grow a business in general. we could really help people build businesses here in san francisco with the city's help which would really turn that narrative of a small business, like, having the toughest time -- like, you know we have this reputation of building all these barriers. wouldn't it be great if we actually were able to, like, grow businesses here, so yeah. i think there are tons of

possibilities with this, and i really appreciate it. and also, i'm happy to talk more about it afterwards or, you know, think through things, too, so i'm here. thank you so much, lee. >> i love that idea. thank you, commissioner. >> so i don't see any other commissioner questions -- >> i'll just say -- sorry. >> i think we've got commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> can you hear me? >> yeah, go ahead. >> yeah, i just wanted to add, thank you, lee, for the presentation, and it's funny that you're bringing up this because some of the c.b.o.s in the mission, we're actually coming up with ways to incorporate laundromats into our mixed use buildings because from a decade ago, 180, there's only 80 left in the city.

so mission housing, meta, we're trying to incorporate laundromats into these new buildings and old buildings that we acquire because it's definitely a service that our community needs. >> thank you, commissioner. actually, meta, i talked to some folks over there, and they were really instrumental in supporting us on this. >> commissioner adams, did you have something else to add? >> i'm okay. i just do know for a fact that coin laundromats are cash cows. you have maintenance, and i have seen the people who own these places and run them do very, very well, and to answer

commissioner hui's issue, i know two of them that closed down in this area because the landlord just didn't renew their leases, and that was an issue. and one of the places is sitting empty still, so, you know, that -- and that's part of the problem right now. they're speculating, but the business is actually a very good business. >> thank you. >> i'll just say that i agree with everything that's been said. i think our commission and particularly our racial equity committee is really looking to focus on businesses that serve low-income communities and kind of refocus.

the pandemic made us just reaction to whoever was the loudest. and now, we're seeing as the dust settles, a lot of the equity and minority serving businesses were left out. so please let us know how we can support any amplification of community serving businesses and their needs. that's something we want to focus on. laundromats are a prime example of that, and i think we're all in full support. a couple questions that i had. one is i think we've seen a couple of attempts at a mixed-use model of the laundromat and another business? is there anything in the code that maybe, you know, is preventing that from being more

of a common common business model that might increase the solvency of this business type in the city or is it already addressed from your research and the planning code? that was one question i had, and then, a second question i had on the legislation, and i think in section 202. -- well, basically, when it says guidance for the commission, is it referencing, like, the planning commission might have discretion on whether they make it that a c.u. would have to come after it because i saw it, like, the questions. is the business community serving? is it an amended type of laundry model, so my question is, does that mean that there's

a pathway for if a business comes in, that it may not have to deal with a c.u. after a closure? >> so i can try to take those in order. as to your first question, i'm familiar with those, as well. i mean, i think the one that everybody loves is brain wash which was a laundromat and cafe. but even the one, commissioner adams, down the block from you, i think was wash and spin, but it's got the cafe or the florist in front. >> sit and spin. >> and i think there was one maybe to have a bar concept at one point. but i think that that is -- inasmuch as a laundromat is a principally permitted use,

adding another principally permitted use, whether that's a cafe or something else, i think that the code does allow for that, probably within certain boundaries. like, the boundaries that you're not going to have an adult use accessory use to a laundromat, though maybe somebody should think outside the box there, too. but i think that should be allowed, and the code does allow that flexibility that that is allowed, and that makes the case. as to your second question -- oh, the discretion that the commission has. so your proposal, if a laundromat goes out of business, any subsequent business that is not a laundromat would be routed through the community business processing program, which means that the business operator would be entitled to a hearing within 90 days of their application, and as far as i have been able to tell, the

city has been really good at adhering to that 90 daytime line. and part of the process -- part of the project there is to -- let's not eliminate the process, but let's eliminate the longer process at the same time. what i envision is that if a laundromat closes down, the commission has the right to ask questions why it closed down and was there a diligent search for a replacement operator for that community serving business, and for the community to have an opportunity to be able to come out, too, and say, that was my laundromat.

i don't know what to do. i don't have in-building laundry, and to really make the case that hey, maybe the building owner needs to find a proprietor that will keep it as a laundromat and it can continue serving the community, and look at the next business in terms of how it's going to serve the community in that capacity. >> okay. thank you. in our ability to put landlords of existing laundromats on notice about this legislation, and being a disincentive for eviction or whatnot, are we able to send, like, targeted letters? like, how does that work? >> you know, part of the project that i'm hoping our interns can pull together in

the next few weeks involves printing out fliers that we can go and walk around and deliver to laundromats, so hand delivering notices to those businesses. i think in the same breath offering opportunities for patrons of these businesses to learn more about the legislation and to add their voices of support to the legislation, but certainly, there is a notice component of that. and i think it is only appropriate that some people have a press push out here or go the extra mile and alert, you know, commercial realtors to this, though they tend to be pretty hawkish when it comes to legislation moving through the process. i think our best bet at this stage of the legislative process is to do the direct

leaflet delivery to the laundromats, and that's what we'd like to see. >> i love it. >> yeah. >> there's not any c.u.s currently related to a relocation of a laundromat, right? >> no. >> uh-huh. okay. so i'm just trying to think -- you know, our commission, one of our concerns, which you heard, is if a laund row mad needs -- if a laundromat needs to relocate or move through no fault of its own, is there a way to make sure that a new laund row mass doesn't have to come in and deal with an intended purpose like a c.u. >> if there's a laundromat

replacing a laundromat or dry cleaner, there's no c.u. i think your question is what if the laund row mad relocated consensually or if there's a parting of ways? i think when you cast any net for tuna, you're going to get a dolphin in there, and that's an unfortunate elegant way of how we legislate around anything. we'd like to allow for some of that vetting to be heard, but i think more often, what we're going to find, given the precipitous decline of laundromats, this is the canary in the coal mine. every once in a while, i'm sure we're going to find an owner of a laundromat who doesn't want

to operate anymore. there's a woman in my neighborhood who wants me to operate her laundromat because she knows i love them so much. >> from the case studies of lost laundromats that you've seen thus far, there's no new small businesses going in there; it's more like an entire unit, you know, new use, and usually, a developer or something, right? so this is the trend that you've identified and closures that you've studied? >> right. and i hate to say it, but one of my favorite bars is in a place that was a former laundromat. so that's what we're seeing,

and addressing that is going to be complicated, but this scratches the surface and allows us the time we need to learn a lot more. >> okay. i guess i'm just trying to understand if this is based on data or a trend or if this is going to help us get data because it seems that we're putting in a request for prior trends, and we want to get the data. >> about one in 11 laundromats have closed in the last seven years. there is nothing in this legislation itself that requires departments to study why this is happening. that is going to have to be someone's torch to carry, and we will have put in a

three-year stopgap measure where every once in a while, one of these is going to come to the commission and we're going to be able to use this for understanding what goes on holistically, and i hope this is catalyzing some attention paid to the problem and a deeper study why this is happening in the first place. >> okay. i think that helps me understand the problem a little bit better. director dick-endrizzi, did you have anything you wanted to say? >> i believe commissioner adams was before me -- oh, he already spoke. so a couple of things to maybe give some consideration to so maybe help gather some of that data? home s.f. is the home equity

density bonus program, and when they're demolishing or doing extensive development on a property, that they notify oewd if they're going to be displacing a small business. so a thought is that for property owners who are choosing not to renew a lease, that there's a requirement to notify planning and oewd? and then -- and then, in reference to some of your comments, commissioner hui, is -- and also commissioner adams, if -- if, you know, these -- if laundromats [indiscernible] i think, you know -- this isn't -- this

isn't something is necessarily put into the legislation, but you might want to give consideration to add as additional comments when carry moves forward, your recommendation that what may be challenging is the start-up costs to open or relocate if a property owner is not going to renew a lease, then to relocate a laundromat, so the cost of equipment, you know, perhaps in parallel at least from an equity perspective, these are very important businesses to retain? in parallel, supervisor peskin is introducing a land use solution, but in parallel, there needs to be some economic solutions, as well.

and maybe the three years this program is in place, you may want to recommend that a complimentary sort of program -- like, commissioner hui, you identified that let's take a look at these businesses, but we may want to partner support for having these businesses get open, right, or relocate. so those are just some thoughts. >> i mean, the coin shortage is the one that's kind of open in the room, too. i don't know what the banks are giving the laundromats, so i don't know if that seems a

little -- like, i don't know how much the city can solve for that economic barrier, but that sounds like one of them. if there's not any other comments, i'll call for public comment, and if you want to hangout, lee, that would be great. sfgov, can you see if there are any callers on the line? >> we have no public callers on the line. >> seeing no callers on the line, public comment is closed. commissioners, do we have any action? >> i would definitely make a motion to support this piece of legislation. like lee was saying, there's kind of an urgency with this because you're seeing lots of them close. there's a couple of them i know

in this area that are going to be closing probably in the next six months, so this is something i really would like to see get approved, so i would motion to approve this. >> we have a motion. is there a second? >> i'll second. >> clerk: okay. seconded by commissioner hui, so motion to support. i will read the roll. [roll call] >> i know this is probably not right, but if we wanted to make the recommendation that director dick-endrizzi made?

>> yes. you can make the legislation and then come back and say we want to add these supporting comments to the letter that we send forward to the board of supervisors, so there's two ways that you can address it. but commissioner adams, if you do want to include in your motion kind of the -- you know, the -- >> yeah, i appreciate your comments. i didn't know if we could do that, since we are in the middle of taking votes, we can do that. >> you can rescind your motion -- >> well, nobody else has voted, so i will rescind my motion and reintroduce my motion with the director's comments on the

relocation, and if you want to help me with that. >> that the motion would be to support the legislation? >> yes. >> recommend the board of supervisors approve the legislation, and that these are important equity -- these are important businesses to preserve from an equity perspective and therefore need -- the city should look at an economic development program to support relocation and/or the -- supporting the establishment of new laundromats. >> thank you. you said that perfectly, so that. >> clerk: okay. there's a motion. is there a second? >> yes, i second that. >> seconded by commissioner hui. and i will read the roll call. [roll call]

>> clerk: yes. motion passes 4-0, with three commissioners absent. >> thank you, commissioners. >> thank you so much, lee. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, lee. >> great. next item, please. >> clerk: item 3, board of supervisors ordinance, file number 211010, appropriation and deappropriatetion, office of economic and workforce development, legacy business, $400,000, fiscal year 2021-2022. this is a discussion item and action item. the commission will discuss and vote on possible recommendations regarding

ordinance file 211010. an ordinance deappropriating $400,000 previously appropriated to the office of economic and workforce development for the office of small business' legacy business historic preservation fund and reappropriating $400,000 to e.c.n. to provide a new grant program for legacy businesses in fiscal year 2021-2022. we have director dick-endrizzi and richard kurylo, office of small business. >> so i mentioned this at the last meeting in regards to -- that this funding is a result of supervisor chan, peskin, and

ronen doing an add-back and because of where the funding ended up, we are -- where the funding ended up in our line-item budget, we are requesting that the item be removed. we're doing this specifically because of the need of -- beginning to change any business assistant grant type of funding that comes to the legacy business program. so rick is going to review with you, give you an overview and provide you with some information on that, so i'm now going to turn it over to him. so rick, take it away with your powerpoint presentation.

>> [indiscernible] and reappropriating that $400,000 to a different fund to provide a new grant program for legacy businesses in fiscal year 21-22. the office of small business received a $400,000 ad-back for the legacy -- add-back for the legacy business program in the 2021-22 budget. the board of supervisors specifically recorded the add-back at $400,000 for the replenishment of the legacy

business preservation fund to be used for direct grants to qualify small businesses. so the legacy business historic preservation fund to which they were referring was added to the administrative code to proposition j in november 2015. it can only be changed by going back to the voters. the fund consists of two grant programs. the business assistance grant, for grants to legacy businesses, and rent stabilization grant, for lands that provide stabilization to tenants. the $400,000 would be needed to use for the legacy business grant because that is the only grant to the legacy businesses

within the historic preservation fund, however, there are major problems with the business assistance fund. it pays grantees for full time equivalent employees, f.t.e.s, and would only pay about $75 per f.t.e., considering $400,000 divided by about 280 applicants. number two, the grant would be too small for microand small businesses, which often need the most assistance. businesses that struggled during the pandemic are struggling with f.t.e.s. the range of grants would too large, ranging from about $75 to about $7500. it's difficult for applicants to calculate their f.t.e.s, and many applicants calculated

f.t.e.s inappropriately in the past. the solution is the development of a new grant we're calling a legacy business grant, featuring a new grant that has a simpler application and has an easier review process. under the new grant, there would be four types, prioritizing renters over property owners. the city attorney vises that the city cannot create a new grant program within the legacy business historic preservation fund, but it could create a new grant outside of that fund. the only way to make an amendment to the only appropriation ordinance after

the controller certifies the availability of fund is to reappropriate the funds. there are six sample grants demonstrating the difference between the legacy business grant and the proposed legacy business grant. rows a, c, and e in the green are all for-profit businesses renting spaces. all three would have received less than $320 through the business assistance grant, would receive over $1600 through the legacy business grant. row b in yellow is a large

for-profit property owner in district ten. they would receive 5600 through the business grant but 1200 through the legacy business grant, and rows d and f in orange are large nonprofit renters in district 3 and district 9 which would receive about $7,000 and 5700 through the business assistance grant but 823 through the legacy business grant, so it kind of gives you an idea that the legacy business grant is much more equal through all the appointees. this concludes my presentation, and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, richard, and commissioners, if you have any questions, you can put them in the chat.

i want to say thank you, director dick-endrizzi for knowing our business so well to be able to make these kind of material and concrete recommendations. i mean, the board, i hope they know what an asset we are because we've been able to really tell them what the best use of their money is, what the best use of their money can go towards, and how you're in the lead of this program, and you've identified how to make it more equitable, and thank you for this, and i'll let commissioner adams -- >> no, i just want to say. i want to echo what you just

said. you said it beautifully, vice president zouzounis. and everything that miriam just said, i want to say, so that was beautiful, commissioner. i'm sorry. >> so i guess can we ask how this is being received from oewd, and the supervisors who [indiscernible]? >> yes. so one, you know, the appropriation ordinance says oewd, just because our budget is under the larger oewd -- >> okay. so they're not giving us problems. >> no, no, no. so this is just how the ordinance needs to be written, and once the funds are

deappropriated out of the legacy business preservation fund, it will be reappropriated into another line item in o.s.b.s budget, so just to make sure that everyone's clear on that. i mean, so far, when we -- we did some -- when we determined -- when we found out that the funding was put into the legacy business historic preservation fund, then, we went to the city attorney and said can we create an additional program under the historic preservation fund line item, and it was determined that we could not. so then, we had to reach back out to the supervisor chan as the primary legislative sponsor for the add-back, so we reached back out, and they weren't really grasping why we needed to make the change? and so rick did a really

excellent job in doing -- i forwarded you the cover letter and the document that he -- we sent over, and they got it, right, and they understood it. so we have -- supervisor chan is actually the sponsor in this ordinance, so we have the three sponsors in the add-back supporting this change, and we met with supervisor haney's aide today, and she doesn't anticipate it being an issue. and one of the other issues is the budget and legislative analyst is recommending approval. so -- so i think we'll get the support from the supervisors. i don't think it's going to be an issue. >> great. >> and so just to be clear, your support for the recommendation is not really

supporting -- your support would be to -- is basically deappropriating the funding out of the, you know, historic preservation fund and reappropriating it into a new line item under our budget, and it's not so much a recommendation in relationship to the program, but what we're identifying is how we will be expending those funds? so it does demonstrate the benefit of taking those funds out of the historic preservation funds and putting them into a new line item, if that makes sense. >> yes, it does. so we can take action on this without any other further explanatory recommendation. got it. >> mm-hmm. >> okay.

>> with that, do we have any other commissioner comments before we take an action? >> clerk: don't forget public comment. >> oh, yeah, okay. i'll call for public comment. are there any -- sfgovtv, are there any callers on the line? >> clerk: there are no callers in the queue. . >> public comment is closed, seeing no callers on the line. commissioners, this is an action item, correct? >> yes. >> so do we have a motion? >> i motion to approve the -- the -- i don't know what this is. ordinance? >> yeah, you can just say the -- yeah, the ordinance or b.o.s. file 211010.

>> that's exactly what i'd make a motion for. >> i'll second it. >> clerk: seconded by commissioner adams. i will now read the roll. [roll call] . >> clerk: motion passes 4-0 with three members absent. >> great. item 4. >> clerk: item 4, residence aleutian making findings to allow teleconferenced meetings

under california government code section 54953-e. the commission will discuss and vote on a resolution that it has considered or reconsidered the circumstances of the state of emergency and either 2-a, that the state of emergency continues to directly impact the ability of members to meet safely in person, or 2-b, that state or local officials continue to impose or recommend measures to promote distancing. i'll be reviewing this with you. basically, based on california government code section 54953-e, that there was a state of emergency declared because of covid-19, that it prevents us from meeting in person safely, and that local

officials do continue to recommend measures to promote social distancing. and the resolution in front of you today confirms these findings, and moving forward, we'll need to reconfirm them every 30 days to continue our meeting remotely. i can put the resolution up on my screen if that would be helpful. >> i understand that, and i think it's procedural. >> yeah. >> clerk: yeah. >> so are we going to have this, like, on our agenda every month? >> clerk: yeah. every 30 days, you'll have to renew that which basically says you'll have to keep finding

these findings. >> but i have a question. is there any time when we'll be able to go back to city hall? >> yeah. not an affirmative date? there's still discussion around, you know, november being the time that the city employees return, so there is the possibility that commission meetings may return in november, but there's still no confirm date yet. >> okay. >> so if we don't have any questions, we should call for public comment. >> clerk: okay. sfgovtv, is anybody on the public, public comment? >> operator: there is no public comment.

>> seeing no public comment, item -- public comment is closed. commissioners, do we have a motion on item 4? >> i make a motion that we approve item 4, the resolution making findings to allow teleconference meetings under the california government code section 54953-e, and a motion to approve it. >> clerk: commissioner adams made the motion. is there a second? >> i second it. >> clerk: seconded by commissioner hui. i'll call the roll. [roll call] >> clerk: motion passes 4-0, with three members absent. >> great.

next item, please. >> clerk: item 5, approval of draft meeting minutes. this is an action item. >> does anyone have any comments on the minutes before i ask for public comment? okay. great. are there any commenters on the line for item 5? >> clerk: there is no public comment. >> oh, there's not. okay. public comment is closed. do we have a motion? >> i'll motion to approve the draft meeting minutes. >> okay. i'll second. >> clerk: okay. motion to approve by commissioner adams, seconded by vice president zouzounis. i'll now read the roll. [roll call]

>> clerk: motion passes, 4-0, with three commissioners absent. >> next item, please. >> clerk: item 6, general public comment. this is a discussion item which allows members of the public to comment on matters that are within the small business commission's jurisdiction but not on today's calendar and suggest new agenda items for this commission's future consideration. >> are there any public callers on the line for item 6? >> clerk: there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you. item 6, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> clerk: item 7, director's report. this is an updated report on the office of small business and the small business

assistance center, department programs, policy, and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor, and announcements regarding small business activities. this is a discussion item. >> good evening, commissioners. there are a couple items i want to just bring to your attention. commissioner dickerson had noted at our last commission meeting she's going to be part of the city administrator carmen chu's two-day summit to help inform, educate, and encourage san francisco small businesses and helping l.b.e.s with the city, and that is taking place october -- tomorrow and wednesday, and we did have that in the announcement that went out in the osbe newsletter. in addition, oewd and s.f.

made, as part of the manufacturing week, are hosting a hiring fair on october 6. and then next week will be the -- just bay area disability entrepreneurship week. so those are some business activities that are taking place that would be of interest to the basis community. i also want to inform you, in case you did not know, that the commission voted to send a letter to the m.t.a. regarding business loading zones and cost. what has resulted from the letter and feedback from many businesses and business organizations is sfmta has cut the application fee from $775

to $387.50, so cut the application fee in half. businesses are eligible for this reduced application fee if they apply by december 31, 2021, so that's roughly three months. and i do want to make a special note that sfmta is encouraging businesses to first consider getting an assessment as to space that they're looking to do -- that they might apply for a general loading zone would be permissible. so sfmta is offering to do an assessment so businesses don't -- if it's not going to work out, that they do not submit a nonrefundable application fee.

so that is noted under the general loading zone so that's there for businesses, as well. and then, i attended the upper haight merchant meeting last thursday. 18 businesses have been sued. of note is some of the businesses, what their lawsuits are for is not necessarily the entryway but things like counters being too high, the height of the dining room tables. so i think what that says is there really needs an effort made around educating our businesses. we're dealing with the entryway with the a.b.e. ordinance, and with the upper haight, you know, with the upper haight

just went through two years of doing improvements. they're working with the property owners to, where it is doable, to kind of grade the sidewalk in a way from the entryway to create a level landing. this was done on castro street when castro street had its sidewalk improvements, so that's one step that the city is really taking to help, you know, help create more accessible entryways. so what we do have, particularly in the upper haight as in the castro, we now have more accessible entryways as a result of the work that public works is doing with property owners when we're

doing sidewalk improvements. so we're definitely going to look to expand and strengthen our education program for businesses, one, that they should be getting a [indiscernible] inspection and ensure an interior [indiscernible] inspection, and just ensure that businesses really understand that even if they have an accessible entryway, that there still may be other barriers that they need to remediate. and then, also think about employee training? just like, i mean, i try -- for restaurants, i liken it to you're training your employees on all the things that they need to comply, the health code and the environment, well, we need to add that to make sure we're maintaining an accessible environment, as well.

so we're going to be looking to work to try to develop more of a training program and work with the merchants associations on that. in addition, we are now seeing also an increase -- we now have -- or not seeing an increase. we're now starting to see businesses that are being sued for nonaccessible website, and this is particularly with their e-commerce section? so it is a little frustrating because a lot of businesses purchase what i call off-the-shelf products for e-commerce, and these product developers aren't ensuring that their product are -- meets accessibility guidelines or informs the business, if they're making any modifications -- like, giving them a tool to test, that any

modifications, they're meeting -- they're maintaining compliance for an accessible website. so i think this is sort of a new policy area that's going to need to be looked at, and so we're looking -- we're also looking internally with staff to see what we can do and create a space on our website to make sure what tools that you can use to make sure that your website is accessible and then work with our organizations, to make sure that this is something they should be asking the product that they're purchasing as to whether they are a.d.a.

accessible, and if they are, can they prove it? so -- and i -- and commissioner adams, i know that you have just recently gone through some efforts yourself, so please feel free, if you want to take a moment to share that. >> no, and i appreciate that because i'm still going runs through that on a number of our properties. we're in the process now of registering with the state, and you can put your inspections up on the state architecture site. people are looking -- but i found out that people are not even driving by in these lawsuits. they're looking at google maps and stuff, and doing it that way, so just -- we all want to do the right thing, and, you know, we're making our changes.

we had our cass inspections done. i had three more in the process that we're undergoing right now and are making those changes. there is support out there, at least from the state, from where i'm at, so i appreciate that. >> right, and thank you, commissioner adams, for reminding me, is that the state architect now, if you do have a cass inspection -- so let's say you've just recently had your cass inspection. you haven't been able to remediate your barriers. you can have your cass -- you can have your business and address identified under this one section called 120-day stay. so it does inform if -- it does inform those that are paying attention to this section of the state architect site that

you just recently had your cass inspection and therefore are going through the process. so one of the benefits of having that cass is a 120-day stay. and also, there's another section -- there's two sections -- >> yeah. there's a 120-day stay, and then, you can register it with your cass inspection number, property address, all of that. >> so i'm bringing that to your attention just so -- so there's definitely -- i think moving forward, we just -- you know, it's part of this office's effort, you know, regardless to whether i'm here or not here, how we can continue to help really encourage businesses to get their cast inspection, understand, you know, precovid -- i know that there is one coffee shop on valencia street, had anes